Anne had no access to the man who was about to ruin her life, and then the impossible happened.
Anne was four levels below the CEO in a very large corporation. Between them there was a VP, a Senior VP, and an Executive VP. No way to get a direct communication to the CEO, much less influence or persuade him to stop the reorg that would shuffle Anne to the backwater, or to gain his support for a new initiative Anne desperately wanted to lead that could transform the organization.
Anne had tried talking to her boss about it, and her boss had even gone to his boss once, but no one had time to listen. Anne was a “nobody” to the levels above her.
Anne signed up for Beyond Persuasion: The new route to extraordinary outcomes with no real hope. Anne loves to learn and this seemed new. The course promised the sun, moon and stars, and she got a kick out of that. Saying to herself, “Well, we’ll see what you make of my situation!”
The first thing she learned about was willingness, the other person’s willingness. Anne was an expert in unwillingness. She knew a lot about that! For example, her boss was not willing to communicate up anymore, and didn’t have time to talk to Anne about it either. She was facing unwillingness square in the face.
The fact is, you depend utterly on the other person’s willingness. You can’t do anything while the other person’s not willing. You can’t force people to do what you want, you can’t bribe or threaten them, you can’t manipulate them, you can’t push them, you can’t start to get tricky, you can’t insist or get demanding if you want to create a great outcome that’s going to have any success of lasting.
You simply can’t force your own conclusions on the other person.
Other people don’t like feeling pushed or forced, they actually don’t like someone even trying to convince or persuade them, so you can eliminate this as a path to success because it’s never going to be that.
The only path forward is to permit this other person’s power of choice. And to explain what you want so well, that you spark real willingness and cause it grow into something big.
Willingness is composed of 3 things: free choice, readiness and eagerness.
Free choice means the person is allowed the complete freedom to choose anything, to choose to do what you’re asking or not to do it. Willingness means they choose to do it, not because you’re asking or you want it, but because they make that choice. Most people, when they really want something, have a hard time allowing the other person free choice.
Readiness means the person says, “I’m ready to do it! Let’s do it now! No waiting! Let’s go!”
Eager means there’s a high level of enthusiasm about it.
Willingness is a package of all three. They freely choose to do it, they’re ready to do it right now, and they are eager to do it.
The important thing to know is that your success depends 100% on their degree of willingness.
I think we all know this on some level, but the thing that people don’t know is how to cause willingness when the other person doesn’t have any. They don’t know how to cause each one of the three elements of willingness above. And they don’t know how to cause enough willingness to generate real enthusiasm in the other person.
When a person doesn’t know how to cause willingness in others, they will tend to either withdraw, wait endlessly or override the other person‘s lack of willingness and get forceful. You only need to get forceful when the other person’s not willing.
Willingness, with all of its 3 elements, is king when it comes to leading, persuading, or influencing others.
The ability to cause real willingness is a skill people need to master, or they get impatient, frustrated or disappointed. That’s why I developed Beyond Persuasion. This is a 21-step virtual coaching program, built step by step. Each step teaches you to produce a specific result. The coaching ensures you’re successful. Step #1 is learning how to cause willingness, even when it seems completely absent. You’ll need what you learn in this step to be successful with all the other steps. This one step, even on its own, is one of the most powerful things you can learn.
Anne took the principles she was learning in Beyond Persuasion and learned how to explain her vision in a new way. The next conversation she had with her boss, the VP, he said, “I get it. We have to do this. You explain it so well, I’d like you to be there when I meet with the Senior VP and have you explain it to him.” And so, Anne explained her vision to the Senior VP, who said, “We really have to do this. I’d like all of us to meet with my boss (the Executive VP) and have you explain it to her.” And the Executive VP said … And that’s how Anne found herself in front of the Executive Leadership Team, explaining it to the CEO who said, “This is brilliant. We have to do this.” And threw his full support behind it.
Anne got the job of her life leading the initiative of her dreams. She used what she learned to get all levels of the organization on board and everything moved fast.
Anne was not born knowing how to do this. This is something she learned. This is something she practiced. This is something she mastered.
The ability to cause willingness in others will unlock the door to any outcome you want to achieve. Without it, you’ll stare at the door that is locked to you for a long time.
Getting the other person to see it like you see it, and then having them execute on that vision with enthusiasm at a level far above anything you thought was possible is a power very few people possess.
Imagine what could happen if one of those people was YOU?
Be the cause!