Master Manipulator in the Making

After the uproar caused due to my last post on training, I really should think twice before posting ANOTHER training-related post, but what is BPC if not one to make things a little more exciting?

So here goes ...

I think I pleased someone with authority highly by my revelation in the last training post on how refreshing it is to be in training without having to simultaneously perform routine work-related tasks as well ..

.. and here I am, having completed Day Two of a Three Day Training Program with my laptop having gone kaput and me not even having checked my work email for more than 48 hours. A first!

It was nice for the first day, but by start of Day Two, BPC is in panic mode, fielding phonecalls from people who demand to know the status of tasks scheduled for completion.

About the training itself: loosely structured to introduce us to the core concepts of a) personality types and persuasion skills in light of that, b) Key Performance Indicators: how to collect, interpret, analyze and use them to c) strategise the maximisation (is that even a word?!) and alignment of those KPIs to align the departmental objectives and processes with the organisational ones and finally (whew) d) presentation/persuasion skills to combine all of the above.

As I said, whew.

So it's been a very interesting two days so far and what's more interesting is how the company pays so much money to send people into training and how so many of them can be so non-receptive and negative. I have heard ENOUGH comments from people being too defensive and/or critical about the content or the training, or the possible real-work application.

All the time, I sat there thinking "My God! How on Earth can you not see this to be of use?"

I mean, my head was reeling with ideas and I can't wait to get back to work and WHOOPAH my team and boss into shape ;) LOL

The training introduced us to Shape-type personalities (whereby people are either squares, circles, traiangles or squiggles). No prizes for guessing what I am.

LOL ... yours truly is a very Squiggly BPC with some Circle tendancies.

What's more interesting than analyzing these personality types was looking back at our past experiences of having dealt with them and being able to see what we were doing wrong!

I picked my subject (who turned out to be a very distinct Square) and found out that I was dealing with him in a very Squiggly manner ... so NOT the thing to do! Enter calculated manipulation ... err... I mean Personality-based Persuasion and I now have a very good idea of the approach I need to take the next time I present to this Square Person.

The persuasion aspect of the training itself was very enlightening. The handouts and reading material (25 pages of some VERY HEAVY reading from the Harvard Business Review) had a box on 'Four Things NOT To Do When Persuading Effectively' and turns out that those are the fours things I (and apparently anyone not familiar with the art and science of persuasion) would do. These are things we do instinctively thinking they are the right things to do, but are essentially the most effective way to kill any persuasion efforts with anyone who is not already sold on you or your idea.

Persuasion as a concept itself was something I hadn't given much thought to before this training.

In my current job role, one of my biggest challenges is that I am responsible for strategic input while being in a position not authoritative enough to have my input not be overlooked when a) it challenges the status quo, or b) when a person of higher authority (ie, almost ALL the people I am required to give this input to) has conflicting viewpoints, or c) (surprisingly the biggest challenge of all!) my peers are not on the same page (often due to their own lack of a strategic shot of the Big Picture, but also - as this training revealed - as often enough due to my own inability to convey the merits of an idea in words and ways that will make sense to them).

Hopefully, this training has equipped me with skills to:
a) challenge the status quo without appearing to undermine the current processes
b) persuade the Big Bosses effectively
c) get team buy-in

What I loved about this training was the Business Simulation aspect where we got the chance to apply the day's learning in a real-work type scenario: two very hard-assed HigherUps from the company agreed to donate some time to act as BigBosses and we had to present to them effectively on ideas that they were put in place to tear up. Very very scary. But I must say, kodus to the hard-assed duo ... I now have more confidence in how deal with situations such as these.

I am extremely keen to see what Day Three brings in, and even more keen to go back to work because I am now not only Spokesperson Extrordinairre, but also Master Manipultor ... err ... I mean, Prettygood Persuader!