Session-3 It’s all about Credibility

The third session was an example of Doing-And-Learning. SKG sir started with reading some phrases and asking us to repeat them in the same tone. While we were still puzzled about what it meant, sir told us that he would be dictate a passage and we needed to write it. Sir would stop if we would interrupt using the phrases he made us repeat.

The task looked simple until he started the dictation. We stopped him three-four times and ended up writing the way we understood (I thought I wrote it correctly). He then asked one of the participants to read out what he had written but he could not complete. He then played a clip which was about the similar dictation and the writer had asked the speaker to stop numerous times in a variety of ways. Next we were divided in the pairs to learn it ourselves. It took us a great effort to write it correctly and still we made various mistakes.

Well, the intention of the exercise was simple: Show us that we do not ask questions even if we do not understand. Is it not ironical that we aspire for top career in a sector very vital to the Indian Economic development? When we do not have knack of going in-depth of an issue, we just cannot analyze and solve the problems we face. It was indeed and eye-opener for me. In fact I have learnt two important lessons for personal development. First is about challenging the frame and second is about clearing the doubts.

We were shown a video of an insurance seminar where a speaker was motivating the Agents. The intention was not about following or copying the speaker. We needed to observe the pattern in which he speaks. I had made some of the observations for the speaker which I am noting down.

1.       The speaker was introduced with a long list of achievements which established his Initial Credibility.

2.       The speaker (Mr. Santosh Nair) then took his time to adjust and deliberately delayed speaking by having a glass of water and adjusting the mike. This was meant to increase the anticipation in the audience.

3.       He started very energetically with walking the whole podium several times. He then engaged the crowd by making them shout “Good Morning”.

4.       He narrated his own experience of salesmanship describing the hardships he had faced. Whereby, he builds his own credibility and at the same time he gained sympathy.

5.       He kept enhance his credibility by giving example of successful persons he has been tracking, books he reads & so on.

6.       He then went on to raise an Emotional Appeal by reminding about their dreams and desires.

As SKG sir rightly said that it may not be necessary for us to agree with his content but his method of speaking and presentation of content was indeed commendable.

In the theory part my group presented the Presentation on Process of Persuasion. We showed videos from Movies like Men of Honour, Flight of the Pheonix and JFK. We also played a sound clip of an excerpt from a famous speech “I have a dream!” by Martin Luther King.

Note: All the Views, Interpretations, Descriptions and Depictions in the blog are entirely from Author's View-point. Differences in terms of Actuality, Accuracy and Point of View may exist depending upon the person-to-person.

Session 2: Persuasion within the team, challenging the Frame & Elements of Persuasion

The session two was also a bag full of surprises! First of all, SKG sir asked all of us to remove the chairs from the centre & asked us to assemble in the centre. The class was only half of what was in the first session thanks to Diwali & Drop-outs. We were than divided in two teams. The task was to de-activate forty mines (Numbers) in a certain manner (by stamping with both feet). But we also needed to follow the order meaning it should be in sequence from 1 to 40. Each team had to bid for the time they were going to take & the lowest bidder would get the opportunity.

We were 9 members in the team. We first thought of strategy that we will get eight persons to search mines & one person monitoring the order. Each person was given numbers to search in the gap of eight (1, 9, 17...). The logic was simple: Considering that each number will take 2 seconds for the search, the time-gap between two numbers for a person was 16 seconds which was sufficient. We thought that we should keep 20 seconds buffer, then thought the other team must be thinking the same. So we kept only 10 seconds as buffer plus the 80 seconds for the mines, which came to 90 seconds. And lo, we won the bid by 10 seconds. What happened next can be termed in a single word: CHAOS!

Some of my team members did not follow the order & kept on running from one place to another. We finished in 78 seconds but made 7 mistakes which took our time to 183 seconds. The team-B had a case-study of mistakes ready. They applied a different tactic, allocating the area of the room to the members. They had seen the result of panicking & worked calmly with Joy & Suyog monitoring the process smoothly. They finished in 93 seconds. We tried to challenge with much better accuracy but reached to 130 seconds. In all, the few things were clear. Many of us did not work according to the plan. They broke the sequences, panicked too much and stamped in a wrong way. I still think we could manage in 90 seconds. Anyways, what are the take-away? It’s the following:

1. Aggressive bidding may not be a good strategy always.

Well, I had to put this first as it was my instant reaction. We panicked, made mistakes because we were under-pressure. Pressure exerted by ourselves by bidding too aggressively.

2. Building consensus was easy, but ensuring that people have convinced is also a part of persuasion.

This may not have been discussed in the class but I feel it’s relevant as it came as an after-thought. People who did not stick to the plan may not have been convinced but they were oppressed by the majority. So, at the time of execution they could not perform. Had they cleared all their doubts, there would have been a different story.

3. Simpler the plan, easier the execution.

I think explaining this is an insult of the statement!

Next was an exercise where a sheet full of instructions was given and we had to work on it individually in 3 minutes. In essence, we had to read the instructions first & then work on it. But I started working on it from the start & when I reached the last one, I came to know it wasn’t required! This gave me two useful insights:

· Challenging the Frame- Asking the Questions.

· Patience

After that the theory session was conducted by Suyog, Shobhit, Shashank & Joydeep. It started with three videos epitomising Ethos, Pathos & Logos (We could connect at the end). The significant discussions were done on the order of importance of the three elements of the persuasion. I would list the insights drawn by me:

1. The order of importance for the elements depends on two things: The target audience & the skill matched by the persuader.

2. Credibility has taken over the leadership from Logic mainly due to the ease of information available.

3. Un-ethical means of persuasion (bribing) & Carrot-stick techniques are not the part of persuasion.

All in all it was another action packed session with a lot of interaction. Next session is the presentation by my group so stay tuned. Fellows, do post comments.

Note: All the Views, Interpretations, Descriptions and Depictions in the blog are entirely from Author's View-point. Differences in terms of Actuality, Accuracy and Point of View may exist depending upon the person-to-person.

Session-1: Persuasive Communications & Negotiations

The first session of PCN started with a surprise with SKG sir bringing out Playing Cards and announcing that we will be playing a game with it. Indeed, we were expecting something fun coupled with some key take-away from the course, but cards were a bit of surprise. The game was somewhat like this: we were divided into six groups of five members each. Each of us were handed a deck. We needed to form Five Hands after taking 25 cards randomly from the deck. We could take help of two other groups located on the same side by exchanging the cards. Let's see how it turned out to be.

Group of Suyog & Joydeep finished first after they had distributed the work evenly and went to Shobhit's group and Arjit's group for a card. Shobhit's group handed them the required card and they ended up making the required formations. Finishing next was our group. We had Jatin who was very fast with cards and Vinay who could think fast. We made as many hands as possible with available cards (resources!). Then we thought that we needed two cards from other groups and in return we could give two of them. We went to the group next to us (Shubham's) and asked what they had in extra for the swap. But they were still not sure about it. Then we moved on to the next group (Vikram & Mukesh). What happened here can be interpreted in many ways; I would put it in the way we had intended (or saw) it should happen!

We told Gauraw & Vikram about the cards we needed and what we could give them in return. They also needed one of the cards we were offering. In fact Mukesh took us the card he needed. They were ready to give one of the cards to us but not the other. Vinay told him that either we would exchange both of the cards or not a single one. I also asked them to return our card if they cannot give us both of the cards. Several things happened together; someone from the group behind us started interfering which distracted their attention. Secondly, they were not ready as yet to strike a deal or to put it simply, they were not sure if the other card we were offering was entirely Useless. This gave us advantage in Negotiation and we demanded our card back. Mukesh at the other hand was completely confused and he ended up giving the two cards we needed and we made the hands.

What all we learnt from this? I would summarise in the following points:

1. When entering the Negotiation you should know your vulnerabilities and requirements.
   

   This happened to us. We knew which card we needed & we were vulnerable if we got only one of them. However, Vikarm & Co were not exactly sure if they could make it with or without a particular card. They finished last.
   

2. There is a "First-Mover's Advantage" in the Negotiation.
   

   Like we saw, both my group & Suyog's group went first for the Negotiation and ended up striking the deals. In fact we had an upper hand just because we went to them.
   

3. You have to Optimise between using your own resources to the end and Outsourcing.
   

   This one is a bit out of the way but it is my analysis. I think that we all could make all our hands entirely from our cards. But we crashed the activity to the point we could do fast. Then, we went to the other groups (Outsourcing). Arjit's group, on the other hand, had made it entirely from their cards and they finished third. Had they done it our way i.e. making as many hands possible and then going to other teams, they could have won.
   

All in all, it was a fun-filled session. I hope for more learning coupled with fun in next sessions.

Note: All the Views, Interpretations, Descriptions and Depictions in the blog are entirely from Author's View-point. Differences in terms of Actuality, Accuracy and Point of View may exist depending upon the person-to-person.