Show you’re on the same side

All right. So then when it's time to step up and speak up, what do we do in that very moment? That's about what you say, where you say it, how you say it, with what emotional tone. And I'll give just one specific, sort of, general piece of advice here. All of us when asked or when thinking about, like, I'm gonna go for it on this issue, our first instinct is going to be to say the matter, present the issue, try to give the persuasive remarks from the perspective that's compelling to us. I mean, after all, right, I mean, it's our brain in which we're concocting the story, the argument, the pitch. And so our tendency is gonna be to frame it in a way that works for us. Often that's exactly wrong, because if you already controlled, right, the behavior of the other person or the resources the other person controls, you don't need to do this anyway. And so imagine, for example, that I work for you or with you, and you are really compelled by things that affect us economically, that hit the bottom line, and you really are sensitive to threats or risks to our well-being or performance. So you care about the money and you care about threats. But I come in, pitch in this great new idea to you, and I'm talking about how it fits with our values and is so culturally aligned with who we are and how it's such an opportunity. And that opportunity, framing and cultural framing doesn't resonate for you at all, because I failed to mention the economic reality or the potential threats if we don't do this. And so people have to remember that it's the target's ability to hear and respond well to what you're saying that makes all the difference. And my book talks about lots and lots of specific strategies for achieving that. But the high level concept is you got to speak to the target. And then as we started with, you know, I mentioned the importance of following up, whether things have gone well and you're securing additional resources or timelines or whether they haven't gone so well and you're trying to mend fences. That's really important too. And so then with -- when it comes to the framing, I would like to hear some of these specific tidbits there. So do you have some archetypes or categories of frames, or values, economic? Those sounded nice in terms of, yeah, those have very different flavors to them. Any others that come to mind? So there are some other, sort of, broader frames, for example, I versus we or, sort of, win win versus win loss. I think what we often fail to remember, we know this, but we fail to remember it in the moment, is that when you're telling somebody why they should do something differently or you're pitching your idea, part of what they're hearing is -- as the recipient is, oh, you're saying I'm bad or my idea or current practice is inferior or, oh, you wanna do this, so you look good and I look like a fool. And so framing that helps people understand I don't want to replace or win at your expense, I want to take what you've done to the next level. I wanna be the scout out front who then brings us all along together. I wanna expand the pie for everyone so that helping people be able to hear what you're saying because they really think you're on their side and that you're advancing excellence rather than beating something down. That's a huge element of positive framing.