On this episode of the Radical Candor Podcast the team explains that once a decision is made, you’ve got to get people on board, which brings us to step 5 of the Get Sh*t Done Wheel — Persuade. While getting others to accept your idea might feel like a foregone conclusion, persuasion isn’t easy, and it’s important to get it right.
What’s more, persuasion at this stage of the GSD Wheel can feel unnecessary and make the decider resentful of people on the team who aren’t fully in agreement. Kim, Jason and Amy discuss why expecting others to implement a decision without being persuaded that it’s the right thing to do is a recipe for terrible results and why it's vital to persuade people (like your friend's Uncle Scrammy) that you've done your homework.
Radical Candor Podcast Episode At a Glance
The decider has painstakingly gone through the listen, clarify, and debate steps and made a decision. Why doesn’t everyone else get why it’s obvious we should do this — or at least be willing to fall in line?
This step of the Get Shit Done Wheel — Persuade — is based on Aristotle’s framework and the team outline 4 steps for the persuader to follow to get everyone’s buy-in.
- Credibility: Demonstrate expertise and humility when persuading.
- Logic: Show your work when persuading your team.
- Emotion: The listener’s emotions, not the speaker’s when trying to persuade.
- All-hands Meetings: Bring others along.
Radical Candor Podcast Checklist
- Remember, when persuading others to adopt your decision it’s important to focus on the listener’s emotions, not the speaker’s. While you might have a strong emotional connection to a decision, if you fail to take into account your listener’s emotions, too, you won’t be persuasive.
- To be perceived as credible you’re going to have authentically demonstrate both expertise and humility. And in order to truly demonstrate humility, you need to be flexible, curious and acknowledge the contributions of others.
- Show your work! Make sure you demonstrate — in a tangible way — how you came to your decision by showing your work.
- Hold an all-hands meeting to bring others along. Make sure your meetings include both a presentation and a Q&A.
Radical Candor Podcast Resources
- Radical Candor Podcast Season 4, Episode 2: Use the GSD Wheel So No One Feels Sad, Bad or Left Out
- How to Persuade Others You’ve Made the Right Decisions
- Overcoming the Shadow of Expertise: How Humility and Learning Goal Orientation Help Knowledge Leaders Become More Flexible
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Aristotle Logic, Science, and Dialectic
- You can learn more about the decision-making process discussed on this episode in chapters 4 & 8 of Radical Candor