Does successful influence depend on reading and adapting to the audience, or can it be achieved through direct, clear statement of facts?

Jackie Reses · Mar 31, 2023

Listening is an underrated source of leadership power — Jack Dorsey's ability to absorb a meeting and then synthesize it simply is his most distinctive strength

She watched him sit through meetings, listen, and then distill what he heard or his own view in a simple and powerful way

52:55 Listening and synthesis is an underrated source of leadership power

David Meyer · Nov 1, 2023

To get engineers to buy in, you must walk them through the same logic that led you to your conclusion so they discover it within their own framework, rather than asserting it

You reached your view by disproving the alternatives; taking the engineer through that same disproof — e.g. showing how much ecosystem work a proprietary API would require versus adopting a standard — makes them arrive at it themselves

19:42 Walk people through your own reasoning so they discover the conclusion themselves

Chandra Narayanan · Mar 13, 2024

Influence is an art rather than a science, and it fails for four reasons: an unreceptive audience, poor execution by the influencer, lacking the data to convince even when right, and pre-existing biases about what people want to see

Influence depends on both the what and the how, and on the receptiveness of the person you're talking to — data-informed people are easy to influence, others are not

38:29 Influence fails due to audience receptiveness poor execution lack of data or pre existing bias making it an art not a science

Chandra Narayanan · Mar 13, 2024

Influence is pattern recognition: you must diagnose what type of person you're addressing and calibrate on the fly how much is raw data versus storytelling

Repeated practice over many years builds a cast of characters and you learn what ticks with each — some people want only the data with no story, others want the story rather than data thrown at them, and both can be equally well-meaning

39:59 Influence requires pattern recognition of audience type and calibrating data versus storytelling

Chandra Narayanan · Mar 13, 2024

Influence is measured by whether you actually change direction, not by whether you stated the facts, so bluntly delivering a take-it-or-leave-it message is a failure to influence

The purpose is impact — making the change happen — which requires understanding people and psychology rather than just saying things however you like

42:10 Influence is measured by behavior change not by stating facts bluntly

Harry Stebbings · Mar 13, 2024

Being direct and clear in communication isn't sufficient — what matters is not what you say but how it is heard

Endorses the separation between the what and the how that Chandra drew

43:15 How a message is heard matters more than what is said

Dave Kellogg · Jan 31, 2024

Understanding the power structure of a corporation matters more than being right, because the best argument does not always win

He is an idealist who assumed the best argument always wins, and blatant disregard for power structures repeatedly got him into trouble, including board conflicts where he arguably should have been fired

4:10 Organizational power structure awareness matters more than argument merit