Mission Impossible: Persuade the Steve Jobses

Lots of us may be under the impression that Steve Jobs is a genius who came up with creative ideas all time and tend to stick to his vision of products. However, it might not be the case all the time. Through interviews with people who worked with him as suppliers or employees of his, it is clear that even the unpersuadable person like Steve Jobs might have taken other people’s idea if the right approaches are being used.

Who are these people that successfully persuaded Steve Jobs and what were the tricks? The Study of persuasion has shown that the personal traits may not always be consistent throughout the decision making process. The article used an interesting metaphor for human minds. The author compares human minds to coding Language of a string of if.... then commends that made a point of the human minds can be predictable. In other word, even the toughest person may be changed given different “if” in their lives. The trick is to identify the types of personalities and what’s the better approach to influence people with certain personalities.

Know-IT-All

People with know-it-all type of traits tend to be overconfident and then become arrogant when encountering other people’s proposed ideas. To tackle this type, one can ask the know-it-all to articulate how things work. Once the know-it-all realize the knowledge gap, they will be more willing to listen to the counterparties’ ideas.

The Stubborn Person

Although the stubborn people’s mind seems to be set in stone, there is still trick to overcome it. Many of the stubborn people tend to value consistency and certainty. They are not big lover of changes or new ideas that they don‘t see values. Using the example of the experiment as well as Hollywood screenwriter’s ways of pitching new ideas, the author demonstrated that instead of pitching the whole idea, playing catch with your leadership may be more effective in having them adapt to your approach in the future. Essentially, get to know your audience, understand whether they prefer to have control over things, and then pitching ideas little by little, asking questions like “could we” or “what if” to plant a seed, playing catch ball over time, and allow the leadership to join the discussion of enhancing the idea and expanding the plan. Before the leadership realize it, they have fully approved to your pitch and fully support you with resources.

Praise the Narcissist

Unlike the traditional idea of narcissists have low self-esteem. The author came up with the opposite idea of the narcissists are with high but unstable self-esteem. The secret is the acclaim someone before raising the criticism. In addition, the areas need improvements should be different from the areas that are being considered as their strength.

Disagreeable

Many times, the disagreeables hold their convictions and are expecting someone to challenge them with alternative arguments. They almost like the competitiveness during the argument and questions raised during the meetings. It is said that when selecting the board members, the stakeholders are not looking for yes-men or yes-women. It is appreciated when there are strong minded people who can be up to defend their standing with new ideas. The original idea of building iphones was not originally from Jobs. Instead, the idea was raised by the Apply engineers such as Tony Fadel. Even though Jobs initially rejected the idea, Fadel still worked on creating prototypes to present to Jobs of the possibility of creating something so competitive that can beat other cell phone manufacturers and even Microsoft, the giant IT firm at that time. Apparently, Jobs was moved by the vision and idea.

There is no doubt that the world need leadership minds like Jobs. However, the success of Apple is not only attributed to Jobs alone. Suppliers, employees and other stakeholders were brave enough to express their counteract with the leadership makes it possible to polish the existing ideas and products. Further, persuasion is an art of being flexible, know your audience‘s trait and use the strategies to pivot the conversation and make them on your side.

Reference: https://hbr.org/2021/03/persuading-the-unpersuadable