Usually, it’s as simple as:
• The opportunity to create or contribute something
• Acknowledgment
• Accomplishment
Why do they ultimately do what they do?
This is a deeper level, which we’ll explore later in Chapter #13: Pyramid Of Perspective, but if you already know this answer for someone, here’s where you employ it practically, tapping their Big Why with what you’re presenting/asking.
Calling out what’s been silently working against you de-powers it, like turning on bright lights in a dark, creepy room. It’s still there, but now you can see what you’re dealing with clearly. In a group, calling out voices like this is liberating for everyone involved—often you can hear an audible sigh of relief as everyone relaxes a little.
2. Make your ask/case/request from their perspective, answering one of the questions from #1 in it.
Seriously, in that request or directive that you just gave them, what was in it for them? What’s really juicy for them in the agenda you’re about to present? What opportunity is really there for them in the new project that you’re considering? Compelling people open with your WIIFM, and have you hooked from the beginning. They speak to your needs first.
Some tools to open with their WIIFM:
• Think about what you know bugs them the most and make this the solution to it.
• Consider what their role or contribution in it can really cause, make easier, or solve.
• Open with the part they care about most.
• Start with them and their important part in the whole, not the whole first with them as a detail in it or a “therefore you need to…” at the end.
3. Start with a question you know will get a “Yes” or an “I’m in.”
I did it with you at the beginning of this chapter, and you chose to read on. Decent online writers do it in the first line of a post so you click further. I teach teachers to do it at the beginning of everything they teach, and their students engage in learning immediately.
Try:
• What if you could…
Fill in with something from the list above—what they care about, what they might want: “What if you could be the one who brought sense and structure to this whole thing that the team’s been challenged with?”
• Would you be interested in…
Fill in with something you know they’d like to be a part of: “Would you be interested in being a part of something that will make all the difference in the way this project goes?” or “Would you be interested in some feedback that could take your presentation to a whole other level of awesome?”
• Have you ever…
(The plural form=How many of you…) “Have you ever wished we had a way to approach these projects that could save us time, hassle and redundant meetings?”
Tip: I always have a series of three HMOY (how many of you) questions ready, so I’m ensured of a “Yes” or some kind of engagement from everyone in the room.
The first is serious: “HMOY would like to conquer the little voice?”
The second is funny, loosening up those who didn’t raise their hands the first time: “HMOY would like to conquer someone else’s little voice?” The third is absurd, delivered with a chuckle, and the group holdouts finally engage because they get that I’m not going away: “HMOY can hear my voice right now?”
As you mess with this approach, remember that everyone’s WIIFM is there all the time, most people are easier than you think to engage most of the time, and very few people’s WIIFM get direct answers very often. It’s a distinction that separates truly great leaders we want to follow from managers who leave us uninspired. The truly great leaders help us understand what’s in it for us to follow them. They recognize the value of our work, our efforts, our time and our attention, and give us a reason to jump in from the beginning. They help us understand the outcomes and how those are connected to our own greatness. So now, that leader will be you.
Go try it!
Notes:
“…it changes the game completely for them, and feels like slamming on the brakes when they were in cruise mode.”
(and theirs, too, so let’s get this)
Have you…
• Ever gotten into an argument with someone and couldn’t think of your best comebacks until hours later?
• Ever been impatient the last time someone just wasn’t getting it as fast as you needed them to?
• Ever wondered how a great athlete like Wayne Gretzky could be such a massive failure as a coach?
• Noticed yourself thinking about WIIFM now—sort of newly awkward self-awareness trying it or “Doh!” moments of hindsight realizing where you could’ve addressed it?
Could these four scenarios be related? Absolutely.
Every one of them is a normal and telltale indicator of a particular point in a learning process1 you and your people are experiencing all the time. As a coach, I’ve helped so many leaders who were innocently missing or misreading the details of this process as everyone got really frustrated and performance tanked. By the end of this chapter, you’ll understand exactly why these things occur, know what they mean, and have best next steps ready when you spot them again so you can accelerate your team forward.
First, we need a good visual of what’s going on.
Let’s take a drive…Imagine yourself driving on the highway. As you do, you peer over at the car and driver to your right, and another to your left. The driver to the left is laid back, listening to his stereo, chatting on his phone, sipping his coffee, relaxed and at ease. The driver to your right looks nervous, gripping the wheel with both hands, intently looking at the road, your car, his console and then the road again. His radio is off, there are no passengers in the car and he’s clearly concentrating hard on driving. Veteran driver vs. Newbie driver, right? You’ve been in both positions, and so have I. It seems like forever ago when you were a newbie driver with that kind of intensity, right? What happened between then and now was the gaining of competence and confidence, a formulaic process playing itself out right now in different contexts for everyone on your team with varying skill and talent areas. To decipher what’s really going on in their competence, we’ll stay with this driving example…
1. Cluelessness, UI Unconscious Incompetent
When you were five, you probably had no idea that there was even a distinction between standard shift and automatic shift, right? You just got in the car and someone took you to where you needed to be. So, regarding the skill of stick-shift driving, you were Unconscious Incompetent; you didn’t even know (unconscious) that you didn’t know how to do it (incompetent). And that was fine.
Ignorance is bliss, right?
2. (possibly Rude) Awakening, CI Conscious Incompetent
Then you got to be driving age. You decided you wanted to learn how to drive, maybe even a stick shift…