'Sprint' is a guide for "solving big problems and testing new ideas in five days". The book is a perfect read for entrepreneurs who have plenty of ideas they want to test. The authors have put together a check-list that will assist anyone on problem solving and testing ideas.

'Sprint' is written by Jake Knapp with the help from John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz. All 3 authors have played a big part of Google Ventures (GV). GV is the venture capital investment arm of Alphabet which seeks to invest in startup companies. Knapp worked with Google for over 10 years and was a big part of developing Gmail and Google Hangouts. At Google Ventures, Knapp developed the Design Sprint Process which is adopted all around the world by prominent technology companies like Slack and Nest.




Summary and Key Learnings

The book takes you through the 5-day process of solving problems and testing ideas. Before diving into the day by day explanation, a few essentials are covered such as:


  • Deciding on the team.
  • Tools that you'll need.
  • The space that you want to work in.


5 Day process

  1.  Monday - focus on mapping out the problem you want to solve and selecting your main focus.
  2. Tuesday - sketching out solutions.
  3. Wednesday - decisions need to be made and your idea is transformed into a hypothesis.
  4. Thursday - create a prototype.
  5. Friday - testing your prototype with real people.




Getting Started

Before you even consider beginning a sprint, you need to ensure that you have the perfect challenge and the right team to carry this out. You need to establish a block of 5 days that you can complete your sprint in and pick a large space you can work in.


The Team
You do not want to more than 7 people in your sprint team. Too many people add confusion and slow the sprint down. Knapp emphasises the importance of having a diverse range of people, don’t have more than 1 or 2 people with the same specialty. Having a diverse range of people will open your mind up to things you haven’t considered and see options from a different point of view.


Decider
The decider is the first person you should recruit as their role is critical. A decider has all of the authority to make all of the decisions. Knapp explains that a decider needs to have a thorough understanding of the problem you are trying to solve and needs to be opinionated and well educated. They need to be involved from beginning to end of the sprint and therefore must commit to a whole week. They need to be dedicated and determined to find the right solution.


Facilitator
A facilitator has the tricky role of keeping the sprint moving forwards and managing everyone involved. They need to manage the team, time, conversations and the process as a whole. A good facilitator is someone who is confident when talking in front of the group and leading discussions, they need to be able to summarise whats been said and relay information to the team. It’s important that they understand when something needs to be put to bed and the team needs to move on. Knapp emphasises the importance of a facilitator being unbiased and therefore the facilitator cannot be the same person as the decider.


Extra for experts
‘Experts’ should be invited, on top of your team members on Monday. Experts can be used for interviews and information. They do not need to be available for the entire sprint and are only necessary for the Monday.


Keeping time
A sprint day is slightly shorter than a working day, it's recommended to start from 10am - 5pm.
This also includes an hour break for lunch. Knapp emphasises the idea that working more hours isn’t going to result in a better outcome. It’s much better to work productively for fewer hours and you’ll get more done. The process is designed to be fast and the schedule should not be ignored.


One working week
Knapp explains that all you need is one working week to complete your sprint. 
"Five days provide enough urgency to sharpen focus and cut out useless debate, but enough breathing room to build and test a prototype without working to exhaustion.”
It’s absolutely critical that the sprint room is distraction free, every team member needs to be 100% committed and focused on the task at hand.


Tools
Couple of tools that are essential include 2 large whiteboards or more. If you cannot get whiteboards, then get large sheets of paper. Have plenty of pens, coloured markers and post-it notes.




Day 1 - Monday

Monday involves:

  • Start with defining the goal.
  • Make a map of the challenge.
  • Ask the experts to share what they know.
  • Pick a target, an ambitious but manageable piece of the problem that you can solve in one week.


Start with the goal
The first task is to set a long-term goal. You can’t begin a sprint without knowing where you intend to be at the end. Ask yourself why your focusing on the project and where you want this to take you in six months, a year and five years from now.You need to consider the principles and aspirations of the team as a whole, how do they tie in with the long-term goal. Be as specific as you need to be. As soon as you’ve committed to your long-term goal as a team, write it down as big as you can at the top of one of your whiteboards and don’t remove it for the entire week. Revisit the goal regularly throughout the sprint to ensure that you are working in the right direction.


Questions to ask
The team should discuss the following questions:
  • What are the questions you want to be answered in the sprint?
  • How do you plan to meet the long-term goal? How will you know it has been reached? 
  • If you somehow knew that in the future your project had failed, why do you think that might be? What are the potential hurdles you need to overcome to ensure success?


Mapping
In order to map out your project, follow these key steps:

  • On the left-hand-side, write down all actors involved. These are the people that are crucial to the project, most commonly the customers. 
  • Use the right-hand-side to write out the ending, the long-term-goal. 
  • Use a variety of words and arrows in between to visually explain what is needed to get the actors to the ending. 
  • Ensure that the map is simple, straightforward and easy to understand. 
  • Make sure that the whole team is involved in the mapping process and everyone understands each point. 


Experts
Set aside some time dedicated to the experts to interview them and gather as much information on the problem you have defined. This process should introduce new insights and new ideas, you will likely find yourselves updating the map and even your long-term goal as you discover more about the problem. It's important for the team to take notes as the interviews are completed. You don’t want to forget critical information and you want to add more information to your map.

"Your job on Monday afternoon will be to assemble one cohesive picture from everyone’s pooled knowledge and expertise."

Take notes
Taking notes might seem like a simple task but Knapp outlines the best way to do so. He recommends that every team member has their own set of post-it-notes. Using the notes, everyone should write the letters HMW (How Might We) in the top corner. When something interesting is brought up, a team member can convert this into a question and write it on a note. Use a new note for every new point/question. Once the information is collected, arrange all of the post-it-notes on a wall and organise these into different categories. Then, everyone can vote on the notes using coloured dots, the notes with the most dots will be a top priority and should be answered first. Knapp believes that this process will help the decision-making process significantly.


Who's the target
The last thing to do is to decide on who the target of your sprint is. The target should be considered as the most important customer. You should identify who this person is and what are their needs. Consider their experience with the project and define the critical points that you need to get right. Ensure that the decider is on board to make the final decision and define the target.




Day 2 - Tuesday


Tuesday is all about developing solutions and critical thinking:
  • Begin with an analysis of all ideas that have been bought up, aim to combine these where appropriate and make improvements where possible. 
  • Every team member will then do a sketch.


Lightning Demos 

  1. Get every team member to produce a list of products/services that can be considered a solution to your problem. Have each list ready for a review. 
  2. Each team member will take a turn defining their product/service and explaining how it will solve the defined problem. For this step, use a timer set to 3 minutes for each pitch to avoid going over time. 
  3. As each person takes their turn, ensure that notes are being taken on the whiteboard to look back at later. 


Sketch
Then dedicate some time in defining the solutions. However, Knapp believes that brainstorming, shouting, talking over one another and making judgments can be detrimental to the process. For this reason, this step is an entirely individual task. You want to enable radical ideas to be introduced without fear of judgment. Each team member will have an individual sketching pad and will use this to jot down all of their ideas.


The four-step sketch

  1. Take a look at all of the notes taken over the last day and establish a list of what you consider to be the most important points. 
  2. Write down all ideas, no matter how rough. Use a large piece of paper and feel free to doodle, draw diagrams, figures or anything that you might find useful. Don’t be shy. 
  3.  Knapp’s Crazy eights is an exercise that should be used on Tuesday. The idea is that each team member picks their best idea and takes eight minutes to sketch out eight different iterations of their idea/product. This concept is designed to push everyone past the obvious solutions and consider different options. 
  4. The final step is called the solution sketch. This is where everyone jots down their very best idea in great detail. This should be an outline of how the problem will be solved and why it will work. The team will then get together and judge each sketch. Ensure that the solution sketch is the easiest to read and understand. You want the message to be clear and straightforward.




Day 3 - Wednesday


You should now have a whole pile of solutions to your defined problem as the results from the previous days. The next step is weeding through these and making decisions about what to prototype. You simply cannot prototype and test all of your options so you need to dedicate time to assessing each solution. Decide whether or not they are viable and will help you reach your long-term goal.


Decisions
First, examine all solutions at once, then go through the critique and finally make the decisions. Don’t seperate these out. By the end of Wednesday morning, you need to have decided which solutions you will be moving forward to the prototype session. You need to be as efficient as possible. 

Out line of the five-step decision-making process:

  1. Called the art museum, stick all of the solution sketches from Tuesday to a wall.
  2. Next, the ‘heat map’. Knapp explains that everyone should assess the solutions in silence and individually. Whenever anything stands out as particularly interesting, add a sticky dot. 
  3. For the speed critique step, the team should speedily discuss the best part of each solution. Write down key points on sticky notes. (We’ll discuss this step in more detail below). 
  4. Next the vote. Everyone can select their favourite solution and vote for it using a sticky dot.
  5. The decider always has the final decision, if there’s a top two or three, it’s up to the decider to commit to one solution to push forward with. 


The speed critique

  • Everyone to focus on one solution sketch
  • Set a three-minute timer
  • The facilitator can explain what the sketch is.
  • The facilitator then identifies any sections of the idea that have sticky dots, suggesting that they are ‘stand-out ideas’.
  • The team can then assess and come up with any other stand-out parts of the sketch.
  • The scribe’s role is to note down any thoughts and ideas about the sketch on sticky notes and add them to the sketch.
  • Go over any quick questions.
  • Whoever came up with the idea is to add no input during this process until completed. Once done the creator can add anything extra that could be considered important.
  • Repeat with remaining solution sketches.


A rumble vs. an all-in-one
In some situations, there will be multiple winning solutions. When this happens, everyone needs to decide whether to move forward with a rumble or alternatively to try and combine the solutions into one and create a prototype.

If you move forward with a rumble, rather than just offering your customers two prototypes and naming them A or B, get creative and come up with clear distinct fake brands and names. This will allow the customers to understand the difference and be able to clearly explain which one they prefer.


Storyboarding
Once the morning tasks have been completed, Wednesday afternoon should be dedicated to creating a storyboard. You’ll need to take the top solution sketch(s) and piece them together into a chronological storyboard. The goal of a storyboard is to create a visualisation of your final prototype. This will allow the team to identify any issues before the building is done.

It's recommended to build your storyboard with a grid system. You’ll start with a bunch of squares. Use the very first square to outline exactly how a customer will discover your company, will it be online, in the app store, facebook etc. Consider how you’ll reach your target audience. The idea is to use each new square to introduce a new stage of the company process and you’ll end up with something looking a bit like a comic. It's important to have the whole team together for this step. This step is one of the most important steps.




Day 4 - Thursday


"On Thursday, you’ll adopt a “fake it” philosophy to turn that storyboard into a realistic prototype. Instead of taking weeks, months, or, heck, even years building that solution, you’re going to fake it. In one day, you’ll make a prototype that appears real."


How to prototype
Instead of focusing on getting your prototype perfect, you will instead focus on creating something that is ‘just enough’. Prototypes cannot be about long-term quality, instead, prototypes should be temporary simulations. This mindset shift can be difficult for some but is essential when prototyping.

Remember the following points when building your prototype:

  1. ANYTHING can be made into a prototype
  2. A prototype should be disposable, they are not designed to be everlasting. 
  3. Don’t build more than you need, do the bare minimum that will allow you to learn enough. 
  4. It’s important that the prototype seems as real as possible. 

The goal is to provide potential customers with a realistic prototype on Friday so you can gauge their natural and honest reactions. It’s important that your prototype is realistic but doesn’t take too long to build, you only have one day to do this. 


The prototype
There are different ways to approach your prototype depending on what you are building. It’s important that you use the appropriate tools. If your designing something to be displayed on a screen, consider tools such as keynote and apps like square space. However, if you’re creating a service you’ll need to enlist people to act the part and have a script written. If designing a physical space, work with something that already exists. Objects are best prototyped through 3D printing or on programs. There’s also an option to modify an object that already exists.

When beginning the process, the best plan of attack is to split the team up and designate jobs. You need the following people:
  • Makers - the designers or the engineers.
  • Stitcher - goal to gather all of the components provided by the makers and smith them together.
  • A writer/asset collector - their role is to research and use the internet to get images and information. 
  • An Interviewer - prepped to conduct interviews with the customers on Friday. 

You need to do a trial run with the prototype, don’t leave this too late otherwise you may not have any time to identify and fix any issues.





Day 5 - Friday


Friday you’ll take your prototype to the pretend market and test your product. The idea is that you’ll interview your potential customers and get feedback on their feelings towards the prototype. Ensure that they are free to use and understand the prototype naturally to guarantee the best feedback.

"This test makes the entire sprint worthwhile: At the end of the day, you’ll know how far you have to go, and you’ll know just what to do next." 


Five
Five is the number of interviews you should be aiming for. Five interviews should provide adequate feedback and enough different perspectives to show you what you need to do next. Knapp emphasises the importance of one-on-one interviews for this step, it allows you to really learn as much as possible about your customer and their relationship with your potential product. This step is crucial and one you simply cannot skip. Without the interview stage, you might move forward with a product that doesn’t suit your target market.


How to interview
Here are a couple of tips from Knapp on conducting successful interviews: 

  • Open with a welcoming introduction.
  • Start with general questions that are open-ended and designed to understand the context of the customer. 
  • Explain and introduce the product prototype. 
  • Get the customer to engage with the prototype organically. 
  • Wrap up with questions surrounding the customer’s use of the prototype and their impressions.
  • Ensure that you take notes throughout the process so that you can look back and identify patterns between interviewees. 




Finishing up

The last step for your team is to re-visit the long-term goal and questions you set on Monday. See how many questions you have been able to answer over the week. You’ll be able to see that you have made clear progress in the right direction. Using all of the feedback from the interviews and the prototype the next step should become clear. The decider has the ultimate power in deciding what comes next. Essentially the sprint week has been completed. You’ve tested ideas and prototypes and hopefully, come up with a solid solution. Now it’s time to take this to the next level and start creating a product for real.


Image resource: Book Video Club


The book 'Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die' provides a practical way to create ideas that are understood, remembered and have a long-term impact. It examines advertising campaigns, urban myths and compelling stories to determine the 6 traits that make ideas stick in our minds. The book is useful for crafting a compelling message, public speaking, marketing, writing and anytime you need to persuade people to listen, believe and act.

'Made to Stick' is written by the brothers Chip and Dan Heath. Chip Heath is a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Dan Heath is a senior fellow at Duke University's CASE center, which supports social entrepreneurs. The book is based on the brothers' 10 years of study of answering the question; 'Why do some ideas succeed while others die?' Since its release in 2007, it has become popular with managers, marketers, teachers, ministers and entrepreneurs. Made to Stick made the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists and was selected as one of the best 100 business books of all time.




Summary and Key Learnings


What makes an idea psychologically sticky? The answer is SUCCESs:

  • Simple
  • Unexpected
  • Concrete
  • Credible
  • Emotional
  • Stories



Introduction - The Curse of Knowledge


"When an expert asks, 'Will people understand my idea?' her answer will be Yes, because she herself understands." - Chip and Dan Health
This is known as the curse of knowledge. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like to not know it. Our knowledge has 'cursed' us, it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others as we can't readily re-create our listeners' state of mind. An example that illustrates this is, one study tested a "tapper and listeners" game. In the study they asked a person to tap out the rhythm of a song and have another recognise it. The listener nearly always failed to identify the song. What happened, of course, is that the tapper sings the song in their head and thus thinks they have the right rhythm. However, the person hearing the taps cannot hear the song inside the others head and therefore has no idea of what the taps mean.




Simple

Sticky ideas are simple and short. They are often distillations of complex ideas embodied in a compact phrase. Simplicity is not just about using fewer words, shorter phrases or sound bites it is about:

  • Finding the essential core of our idea 
  • Sharing it in a form of a compact idea

Simple = Core + Compact

Tip - Finding the core: 
The goal is to strip an idea to its core without turning it into a silly sound bite. The hard part is weeding out unimportant aspects i.e. distilling to the most important idea at the core. Determine the single most important thing. The military uses a "Commander Intent" instead of a plan. For example, rather than details on how to take a bridge, the CI might be "take the bridge." Use the technique of the inverted pyramid from journalism: Tell the most important aspect first, then tailor it and add details. This forces prioritisation.

Tip - Sharing the core: 
The key to motivating others with your ideas is to use the core message to help them make decisions as they apply your idea. The essential part is to make the message compact and to have it imply a sense of worth or priorities about how to implement it. It needs to be both compact and profound. 

One way to do this is to tap into the memory of the idea's recipients by embedding schemas. (For example, it is hard to remember the letters J FKFB I, but easy to remember the same set arranged as JFK FBI.) In pitching a Hollywood movie a producer would describe it in terms of other hits such as Speed will be Die-Hard on a bus or Alien will be Jaws on a spaceship. One can use memory schemas to keep an idea simple such as, one could describe a pomelo as a "large citrus fruit with a thick, but soft rind", or as "a pomelo is basically a super-sized grapefruit with a very thick and soft rind." Another way to describe this is as a "generative analogy" that is, a metaphor that generates new ideas.





Unexpected


Sticky ideas are surprising and interesting. They grab our attention by defying our expectations. The first requirement for effective communication is getting attention, the second is keeping it. In order to do this you use the unexpected. Humans like to think in patterns, the key is to break these patterns. There are 2 parts to this principle:


  • Get Attention through the emotion of Surprise
  • Get Attention through the emotion of Interest


So a good process for making ideas sticker is:


  1. Identify the central message you need to communicate. Find the core
  2. Find out what is counter-intuitive about the message i.e. what are the unexpected implications of your core message? Why isn't it already happening naturally?
  3. Communicate your message in a way that breaks you audience's guessing machines along the critical, counter intuitive dimension. Then once their guessing machines have failed, help them refine their machines.

Tip - A key is to always use a mystery story, even in science. As scriptwriters have learned curiosity is the intellectual need to answer questions and close patterns. Story plays to this universal desire by doing the opposite, posing questions and opening situations. So the key is to open gaps first in presenting your ideas, then work to close them. Remember to give facts first. The local news uses this technique very well. They might start with "There's a new drug sweeping the teenage community - and it may be in your own medicine cabinet! A ‘radio that fits in your pocket’ (a pocket radio), like a ‘man on the moon’ both surprised and teased. These surprising and interesting ideas also made sense, it's not about randomness. It's about creating a 'huh?' moment and then a 'a ha!' moment. So look for knowledge gaps in people's minds and appeal to their curiosity in a surprising way.





Concrete


Sticky ideas are tangible, real and appeal to our 5 senses. Something becomes concrete when it can be described or detected by the human senses. One of the problems are, experts tend to get more abstract because they have so much knowledge. They tend to see the patterns and insights between details, rather than the concrete details. Abstract ideas are hard to understand and are open to different interpretation.

Tip - To help people understand and remember, we must make our ideas clear and concrete. Give a concrete context, provide memory hooks and create a “universal language” that everyone can speak. The power of being concrete is illustrated by the longevity of Aesop's fables. For some 2,500 years they have resonated and been remembered by humankind. They are a striking example of concreteness. For example, the story of the fox and the grapes ends with with the fox concluding that grapes out of his reach are likely sour. Hence the phrase "sour grapes" is fairly universally understood and appears in nearly every language.

For example don’t sell the soft hands, sell the hand cream. An attribute, hand cream is concrete. A benefit, soft hands is abstract. Don’t sell a concept, sell a prototype. Don’t sell with statistics, sell with examples. For example, people prefer to give donations to real people, not abstract causes. So make it real and avoid abstractions, metaphor, numbers and jargon. Use the senses and sensory language to paint a vivid mental picture. 




Credible


Sticky ideas are believable. They make sense and have proof to support them. What makes people believe ideas? We base it on authorities. If one can bring in a true authority then the problem of credibility is easily solved, but what if we cannot? This chapter focuses on how to create credibility when you don't have such authority figures. There are several ways to do this:

  • Anti-authority 
  • Concrete Details
  • Statistics
  • Sinatra Test
  • Testable Credentials

Tip - Use any of the techniques above to add credibility to your idea. For example, use an image of a dying smoker to ‘prove’ smoking is bad for you (Anti-authority). Or use rave reviews and popularity as proof you’re as good as you say you are. And let people try-before-they-buy to prove to themselves you’re worth it. Finally, use the ‘Sinatra Test (‘if I can make it there, I can make it anywhere.’) by deploying an extreme example to prove your worth (‘the makeup of make up artists’).






Emotional


Sticky ideas move us and evoke emotions. They make us feel something and in doing so they make us care. To make people care about your ideas you can do the following:

  • Create empathy for specific individuals. 
  • Show how our ideas are associated with things that people already care about.
  • Appeal to their self-interest.
  • Appeal to their identities. Not only to the people they are right now, but also to the people they would like to be.

Tip - To make people care about ideas we can use any of the techniques above. Another important thing to remember is to try not to envoke so much reason such as using a lot of statistics. Get people to take off their Analytical Hats. For example, to illustrate the effect of emotion versus reason a group studied the effect of soliciting funds for starving children in Africa with two appeals. One appeal was based on statistics and the other focusing on a single named child. Of course, the latter won. The surprising part of the study was that any time reason was evoked the amount of giving decreased. For example if they used both the statistics and the individual child, giving funds decreased. Also, if they asked a person to do a simple calculation, not related to the charity, this also decreased giving funds. Once we put on our analytical hat we react to emotional appeals differently, they hinder our ability to feel.




Stories


A key to making an idea sticky is to tell it as a story. Stories encourage a kind of mental simulation or reenactment on the part of the listener that burns the idea into the mind. Stories usually automatically meet other criteria for making ideas sticky. They are almost always concrete, they are often emotional and have unexpected elements. The difficulty is to be sure they are simple enough. The hard part about using a story is creating it. The best way to use a story is to always be on the look out for them. Most good stories are collected and discovered, rather than produced.

There are typically 3 types of stories:

  • The Challenge Plot: 
This is the classic underdog, rags to riches or sheer willpower triumphing over adversity. The key element of the Challenge plot is that the obstacles seem daunting to the protagonists. E.g., Subway's Jared losing 245 pounds.

  • The Connection Plot: 
A story about people who develop a relationship that bridges a gap -- racial, class, ethnic, religious, demographic. An example is the Mean Joe Greene commercial of the 1970s where he make friends with a scrawny young white kid. All connection plots inspire us in social ways. They make us want to help others, be more tolerant of others, work with others and love others.

  • The Creativity Plot: 
This involves someone making a mental breakthrough, solving a long-standing puzzle or attacking a problem in an innovative way.


Tip - For an idea to stick, it has to make the audience:
  1. Pay attention (unexpected)
  2. Understand and remember it (concrete)
  3. Agree/ Believe (credibility)
  4. Care (emotion)
  5. Be able to act on it (simplicity / story)


'Words that Change Minds: Mastering the Language of Influence' is a book that describes how different people are motivated by a variety of factors. The book enables you to understand and predict from someone's language in everyday conversation, how they will behave in a given situation. It aims to help you learn how to customise your language for specific people and groups to trigger motivation and change people's minds. The book expands on a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) tool called Language and Behaviour Profile (LAB Profile) which was developed by Rodger Bailey.

Shelle Rose Charvet is the author of the book and is a Canadian NLP expert and a best selling author. 'Words that Change Minds' was listed on Forbes as the number one book on their list of best management books for entrepreneurs and executives.

* It's important to note that neuro-linguistic programming (not to be confused with natural language processing) is considered a pseudoscientific approach to communication and personal development. Surveys in the academic community have shown NLP to be widely discredited among scientists. Although, me being a very logically and rational person, I tend to be naturally repelled to anything associated to the New Age category. Despite this I thought I'd read this book with an open mind with the hope of being pleasantly surprised.


Foreword

In the past I use to write reviews on books. The main reason for writing these reviews was in the hope of retaining the information that I had just learnt from reading. I realised how silly this is as whether I liked, disliked or had neutral thoughts about a book doesn’t really matter in the quest for knowledge. This may actually cloud my judgement and hinder from absorbing valuable information. Consequently, I’m taking on a different approach by writing summary notes and key learnings rather than giving a personal opinion. Hopefully, this approach will help me remember valuable information, as well as, help others who may serendipitously come across these summaries.




Summary and Key Learnings

Basic concepts that are explored:

Motivation

  • 2 Motivation Traits - Proactive and Reactive
  • Motivation Directions - Toward and Away From
  • Sources of Motivation - Internally and Externally
  • Motivation Reason - Options and Procedures
  • Motivation Decision Factors - Sameness and Difference

Working Traits

  • Global and Specific
  • Sorting - Self and Others
  • Stress Response - Feeling, Choice and Thinking
  • Working Style - Independent, Proximity, Cooperative
  • Facts and Feelings - Person and Things
  • Convincer Channel
  • Convincer Mode




2 Motivation Traits - Proactive and Reactive


Proactive
Shelle claims that proactive people make up 15 to 20% of the population. They act without thinking or analysing. Their main aim is to get things done. These people tend to have difficulty sitting still, they use short sentences with nouns, active verbs and tangible objects. They can get impatient and bored. They usually buy a product when it enables them to do something right away. Tip - To influence these types of people, offer them something that will fulfil an immediate need.

Reactive
Reactive people supposably make up 15 to 20% of the population. They use incomplete or long convoluted sentences often with the subject or verb missing. They tend to use passive verbs and nominalisations (nouns created from adjectives e.g. judgement rather than judge). Reactive people need to understand, analyse, consider ramifications and alternatives. Taking the initiative stresses them. They tend to buy a product a when it allows them to gain an understanding. Tip - Since these types of people are waiting for something to happen before they decide, you can say phrases such as, “this is what you’ve been waiting for” to coax them to buy your product.

People who are equally proactive and reactive make up 60 to 65% of the population.



Motivation Directions - Toward and Away From


Are you motivated by what you want (pleasure) or by what you want (pain)?
The carrot versus the stick approach for motivation is where the carrot is the reward for compliance and the stick is a consequence for non compliance.

Toward
Toward people make up 40% of the population. Toward people consider goals to be achieved. They are good at managing priorities, they are excited and energised by goals. They can have trouble considering potential obstacles. Tip - To influence these people provide them with a goal to achieve. 

Away From 
Away from people make up 40% of the population. They consider what should be avoided, what should be gotten rid of and problems that need to be solved. Threats and deadlines energise them (they call targets deadlines). They are easily distracted and are compelled to respond to negative situations. They often forget priorities and focus on the crisis. Tip - You can influence “Away Froms” by presenting in terms of preventing or solving problems.

Insurance is mainly an example of 'away from', while investment is and example of 'toward'. People who are equally 'toward' and 'away from' makes up 20% of the population.




Sources of Motivation - Internally and Externally

Sources of motivation relates to our frame of reference for knowing whether we have done well. We have different frames of reference in different situations. Learning something new requires an external frame.

Internal Frame of Reference
Internal frame makes up 40% of the population. They gather information from the outside and decide based on internal standards. They take orders as information, they don’t need praise or feedback. They provide their own motivation and judge the quality of their own work for themselves. They can become demotivated when they don’t get to decide anything. Tip - You can influence them by asking them to consider information and letting them decide for themselves.

External Frame of Reference
External frame makes up 40% of the population. They are likely to interpret information as orders and are motivated when someone else decides. They need outside feedback or results because they gather standards from the outside. In fact, they become demotivated and unsure of themselves in the absence of feedback. When they receive criticism or negative feedback, they question themselves. Because they are good at adapting what they are doing based on outside requirements they are great in sales and customer service. Tip - With influencing these people, offer them feedback and do more of the decision making for them.

Equally internal and external makes up 20% of the population.



Motivation Reason - Options and Procedures

There are those who prefer options and possibilities or prefer to take action right away.

Options
Options makes up 40% of the population. They look for opportunities and possibilities. They create procedures and systems but don’t follow them. They like breaking or bending the rules. They like starting things, development and setup. They don’t like reducing their options. When you ask, “Why did you choose?” they give you a list of criteria. They are good at developing and testing safety procedures and process engineering. They are good at training design but not delivery. Tip - Unlimited choice motivates them.


Procedures
Procedures make up 40% of the population. Procedures believe there is a right way to do things. They are interested in how to do things. They like to finish what they start. They answer, “Why did you choose?” with, “how did it come to be?” They give you a story or series of events. Anything to do with safety and security needs a procedures person. Telemarketers with a procedures pattern sell three times more than options people. Sales requires honing procedures until they work. Tip - To influence them talk about “the right way”.




Motivation Decision Factors - Sameness and Difference

Decisions tend to be made based on 'keeping things the same' with some exceptions or inviting difference and change. This is called the relationship filter - sameness and difference. This relates to how often we need to change things in a particular context. Does the successful fulfilment of objectives demand creating a revolution, building upon what is already there, or maintaining the status quo? A combination of options and difference can lead to compulsive change.

Sameness
Sameness is 5% of the population. They may accept major change every 10 years and will actually provoke change every 15 to 20 years in a given context. Sameness with exception is 65% of the population. They prefer evolution over time, improvements, and need change every 5 to 7 years.

Difference
Difference is 20% of the population. They resist static or stable situations; need major change every one to two years and like change to be revolutionary. Sameness with exception and difference is 10% of the population. They like change and revolutionary shifts. They are comfortable when things are evolving and need major change every 3 to 4 years




Working Traits

The patterns below show how people deal with information, what types of tasks and environment they need to be most productive in the given context. In addition, these patterns show how people get convinced about something and how to maintain someone’s motivation.


Global and Specific


Specific
Specific makes up 15% of the population. They need small pieces of sequential information. They may need to start over if the sequence is interrupted. They use lots of modifiers, adverbs and adjectives and speak in sequences step-by-step. They get frustrated with summaries and may have difficulty prioritising this. This pattern is is useful when dealing with bookkeeping, contractual agreements, working on an assembly line or as a pharmacist.

Global
Global, or big picture makes up 60% of the population. They prefer overviews and summaries, concepts and abstracts and may present things in random order. They tend to use simple sentences with few modifiers or details, speaking in vague terms. Sometimes they don’t specify the link between items and ideas, which can be confusing. They can get bored or feel overwhelmed with lots of detail. This pattern is useful when deciding on financial strategies, dealing with people and project management.

Equally global and specific makes up 25% of the population. They can handle complex tasks and analysis.




Sorting - Self and Others

The patterns described below provide examples of how a person can perceive and respond automatically to the body language and tone of voice of other people.

Self
'Sorting by Self' people makes up 7% of the population. This filter experiences a gap between receiving a stimulus and responding to it. These types of people have difficulty with rapport, they don’t notice other people’s body language and queues. Instead, the content of what people say convinces them. Since they have little or no facial expression or voice variation, they often find interpersonal communication difficult. This pattern is not suited for customer service and they do well where technical expertise is required.

Others
'Sorting by Others' people makes up 93% of the population. They consciously and unconsciously receive responses from other people and are good at creating and maintaining rapport. Their body language is animated. They respond to both content and nonverbal aspects.




Stress Response - Feeling, Choice and Thinking

This pattern is about how people respond to typical work pressures.

Feeling
Feeling makes up 15% of the population. This pattern visibly and vocally has an emotional response while describing a difficult situation. They can overreact or be hypersensitive and find it difficult to handle rejection. This pattern is well suited for artistic and creative work. They need tasks they can get passionate about.

Choice
Choice makes up 70% of the population. They have an emotional response and then return to an unemotional state. They feel emotions and therefore can empathise with others and are therefore good people managers.

Thinking
Thinking makes up 15% of the population. They don’t have emotional responses to normal stressful situations and have trouble empathising with others. This enables them to keep cool in most emergencies. It is useful with occupations like air traffic control or pilot, anywhere where it is necessary to present logical facts or think clearly.




Working Style - Independent, Proximity and Cooperative

Independent
Independent makes up 20% of the population. They like to work alone and have sole responsibility. They can lose their train of thought if interrupted. They need space and time to themselves and can forget to consult with others.

Proximity
Proximity makes up 60% of the population. They want a clear territory of responsibility but like to have others involved. They don’t like to work totally alone but don’t like to share responsibility and authority.

Cooperative
Cooperative makes up 20% of the population. They want to work and share responsibility with others. They have trouble with deadlines and finishing tasks if they have to work on their own and like open concept offices.



Facts and Feelings - Person and Things

Person
Person makes up 15% of the population. This pattern focuses on people and their feelings. They talk about people’s emotions and feelings and are good at rapport. Feelings can become the task itself and they may become preoccupied with the emotions of others. This pattern is useful with customer service and reception type work.

Things
Thing makes up 55% of the population. They concentrate on products, ideas, tools, tasks and systems and tend to treat people and ideas as objects. They believe emotions have no place in the world of work and will talk about people impersonally.

Equally Person and Things makes up 30% of the population.




Convincer Channel

How do you know someone is good at their work?

See makes up 55% of the population. They need to visually see a product service or idea to be convinced.

Hear makes up 30% of the population. They need an oral presentation or to hear something to be convinced

Read makes up 3% of the population. They need to read something to be convinced.

Do makes up 12% of the population. They have to do something to be convinced.




Convincer Mode

After someone has gathered information in a specific sensory channel, they need to process it to become convinced. What do you need to be convinced that you know something?

Number of examples makes up 52% of the population. Advertising is based on the theory that if you repeat a message six times in a given time, most people get the message.

Automatic makes up 8% of the population. They give things the benefit of the doubt and tend to jump to conclusions.

Consistent makes up 15% of the population. They are never convinced and need to reevaluate every time. You need to reestablish rapport and credibility at each contact. This is useful for quality control.

Period of time makes up 25% of the population. They are convinced after a period of time such as after seeing someone in a particular job for six months.


'How to Win Friends and Influence People' was a book written by Dale Carnegie in 1936. It was listed as one of the most influential books on Time Magazine and has sold over 15 million copies worldwide. The principles of the book are to help you convince people to your way of thinking, avoid arguments and become more likeable. It's a book that helps you work, communicate and manage better.

Dale Carnegie was born in 1888. Carnegie is a celebrated American author, lecturer and a developer of courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training and public speaking.

*I must admit that some of the teachings in this book are things I generally already do. There are some teachings that I don't entirely agree with however, maybe in time I may warm to those that I'm currently opposed to.



Summary and Key Learnings

Carnegie discusses 4 key concepts:


  1. Fundamental techniques in handling people
  2. Ways to make people like you
  3. How to win people to your way of thinking
  4. How to change people without giving or arousing resentment



Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

When handling people there are 3 key principles that you need to follow:

1) Don't criticise, condemn or complain
Tip - Be understanding
The first principle is to get to know people, understand what makes them tick. Find out what motivates their behaviour, find out their personality and actions. Refrain from criticising, condemning or complaining about someone. Showing kindness is always beneficial, be tolerant and sympathetic.

2) Give honest and sincere appreciation
Tip - Honesty is everything
Give honest and sincere appreciation. We are all human and enjoy feeling appreciated. When you show someone appreciation and honesty, people will recognise your sincerity. 

3) Arouse in the other person an eager want
Tip - Make them want it too
The only way you're ever going to convince anyone to do something you want them to do, is to make them want to do it. We are stubborn creatures and need to feel motivated to do things. Instead of boasting about ideas you have come up with or things that you need to be done, let others think they have come up with the ideas themselves. Let others feel a sense of responsibility towards it and own it. This will create a drive within them to want to succeed. 





Ways to Make People Like You

There are 6 principles that will help with gaining acceptance:

1) Be genuinely interested in other people
Tip - It's not all about you
In order to make true friendships you have to be there to help others and have a genuine interest in other people. You need to show them they are worth your time and energy, that you can be thoughtful, sympathetic and selfless.

2) Smile
Tip - A simple smile can help lift people's moods and motivate them to smile too. 
Smiling makes you more relatable and approachable.

3) Remember that a person's name is important
Tip - People love hearing their names, it makes them feel special and important.
Take note when people tell you their names and repeat it back to them.

4) Be a good listener and encourage others to talk about themselves
Tip - Actively listen and be genuinely interested
Express your attentiveness by asking questions about the topic the other person is discussing. Encourage them to delve deeper into the conversation. People love to talk about themselves, they don't often need a lot of prompting, just give them the opportunity and listen.

5) Talk in terms of the other person's interests

6) Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely



How to Win People into your Way of Thinking

To encourage others into your way of thinking there are 12 principles to follow:

1) The only way to get the best out of an argument is to avoid it
Carnegie explains that 90% of the time arguments don't end well and results in both parties convinced they are more right. It's rare that an argument comes to a resolution. In the end people get fed up which leads to nothing changing.

2) Show respect for the other person's opinions
Tip - It's important to remember that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and it's important to never tell someone they are wrong. Even if you disagree with the other person, don't tell them as this is only going to rile them up. Remain diplomatic, this will make it easier to get your point across.

3) If you are wrong admit it
Tip - If you are wrong admit it quickly and emphatically as possible. Being honest is a trait that everyone admires and by admitting you are wrong, people will respect and trust you. If you instantly put up a defence then you're only going to look bad. 

4) Begin in a friendly way
There are 2 ways of approaching a new situation or a new person which is to be friendly, warm and welcoming or you can be cold, unfriendly and unapproachable. People are more likely to respond the way you want them to if you are friendly and kind. 

5) Get the other person saying "yes, yes!"
The aim of the game is to get the other person to say "yes, yes!" immediately. Carnegie refers this to "Socratic Method". Socrates prompted his rival with a question that he knew they would have to agree and would continue in this way, one question after another. In the end the rival would find themselves agreeing to something they never intended to. 

6) Let the other person do a great deal of talking
Humans love the sound of their own voices. It's important to listen patiently, sincerely and be genuinely interested so the other person feels comfortable in truly expressing themselves. 

7) Let the other person feel that an idea is theirs
Tip - Don't be the person who constantly has all the ideas and opinions and tries to force them onto other people.

8) Try to see things from their point of view
In everyones minds, everyone is right. Try to understand others and see what makes them tick. 
Tip - Find out what has lead them to that view point. Put yourself in their shoes, take on their experiences.

9) Be sympathetic to their opinions and desires
Tip - If someone explains a tricky situation they are in, the best way to respond is to tell them that you understand the way they feel and if you were in their position you'd feel the same way. Make them feel as though they are not alone and be sincere. 

10) Appeal to the nobler motives
Tip - When considering new people, it's best to assume they are honest, upfront and truthful. 

11) Dramatise your ideas
Tip - Unfortunately with media saturation people are now accustomed to expect drama and the truth is not enough to impress. Carnegie encourages to expand on the truth, make it dramatic, vivid, interesting and act as if you are telling a wonderful story. This is how you'll sell your ideas. Make everyone visualise what you are trying to sell. Sadly people are more likely to buy into the idea than if you simply stated the basic facts. 

12) Throw down a challenge
As humans we have a love for the game, the competition, the challenge to prove ourselves. "The chance for self-expression. The chance to prove his or her worth, to excel, to win. That is what makes foot-races and hog-calling and pie-eating contest. The desire to excel. The desire for a feeling of importance."




Be a Leader: How to Change People without Giving or Arousing Resentment

There are 9 principles on how to change people without arousing resentment and how to be an effective leader:

1) Begin with praise and honest appreciation

2) Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly
Tip - If you can be indirect with discussing a mistake, a person who is sensitive will accept it better and learn. Direct criticism works on some people but the majority are afraid to hear it.

3) Talk about your own mistakes before criticising other people
Tip - Phrase mistakes in a way that you can see why they made the error, frame it in a way that it's something you yourself have done in the past. Carnegie believes that this is a successful approach in convincing someone to change their behaviour.

4) Ask questions instead of giving direct orders
Tip - In order to get people to accelerate their work, explaining a situation to your staff and asking them what they think is the best way to approach this.

5) Let the other person save face
Nobody likes to feel shame and there's no need to shame another person, you'll only damage their ego. Regardless of how wrong they are you don't want to affect their sense of self and pride.

6) Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement

7) Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to
Tip - Lead by example. Give people a reason to look up to you and give them the desire to want to live up to your reputation.

8) Use encouragement, make faults seem easy to correct
Tip - If someone is at fault, you should never directly tell them as this will only destroy their desire to improve. Instead encourage them and make it seem as though the situation is easy to fix and it's something that they could do themselves. This will make them feel supported and encouraged. They will go above and beyond to fix the situation.

9) Make the other person feel happy about doing the thing you suggested
Tip - Make the other person feel happy about doing something. If they are happy they are more likely to proceed and do a good job. Get them excited and inspire a little passion.



'Thinking, Fast and Slow' is a book about the psychological processes of thought when making decisions. This book contains interesting concepts around how people make decisions and can help us understand why we sometimes make errors in judgements. It can also help us look for the signs to help avoid making these errors. The book in particular analyses 2 modes of thought which are system 1 and system 2. System 1 is where we do our more fast, instinctive and emotional thinking. System 2 is where we do our more slow, deliberate and logical thinking.

The author of the book is Daniel Kahneman, an Israeli-Amercian psychologist and economist. Kahneman has earned a Nobel prize for his work on behavioural economics.



Summary and Key Learnings

Our decisions are governed by 2 systems:

System 1

  • Fast thinking
  • Automatic and instinctive
  • Feeling based system
  • Everyday decisions
  • Error prone


System 2

  • Slower thinking
  • More mental Effort
  • Reason based system
  • Better suited to complex problem solving and intense analysis
  • More reliable

Most of the time we use system 1 when making decisions. However, when system 1 fails us then system 2 will step in for support. System 2 is designed to monitor the thoughts and actions that system 1 promotes. When system 2 is implemented, more rational thought and conscious decision making is made.




Problems with system 1 

Since system 1 works on such a rapid process, it inevitably runs into problems from time to time such as the following:

  • System 1 is not capable of experiencing doubt and leads to the tendency of being overly confident when we make quick decisions. However, system 2 has the capacity to experience doubt. Tip – To combat this, try to question your initial thought.

  • System 1 is predisposed to jumping to conclusions with limited evidence and is likely to make predictions and assumptions about the future without assessing the evidence. Tip – Try to assess the evidence first and not jump to conclusions.




Cognitive Bias

System 1 is prone to falling for cognitive bias which makes costly decisions. Example of 3 main cognitive bias that system 1 has a habit of falling for include (FaST):



(F) Frequent Exposure Bias
People tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.
Tip – To combat this we must learn to pause before important decisions and ask yourself “Is this the best option or just the option I’ve been frequently exposed to?”



(S) Status Quo Bias
This is an emotional bias where we take preference for current state of affairs. We prefer to have things stay as they are or we stick with a decision because it was a decision that was previously made. This leads to 2 psychological decision theories:

  • Loss Aversion – We are more likely to do anything we can to avoid risk, than we are motivated to make gains.
  • Endowment Effect – We are more likely to overvalue objects that we own, invest in or are emotionally attached to regardless of its objective market value. 

We instinctively overweigh losses (loss aversion) and overvalue what we own and invest in (the endowment effect), we are trapped by the past and destined to maintain the status quo.
Tip – To counteract the status quo bias, we should ask ourselves “What opportunities do I lose by maintaining the status quo?”



(T) Tunnel Vision
We have the natural tendency to form beliefs, quick judgements based on limited information and block out conflicting information.
Tip – A way to counteract this is to ask ourselves, “Could the opposite be true?”





Past and Memories

We assume we know everything about our past and therefore can predict what the future may hold. However, we know less about the past than we think. Decisions are influenced by memories and memories can be misleading or wrong.
Tip – Make note that decisions that are based on your past and memories, these recollections could be incorrect. Our memory has evolved to represent the most intense moment of an episode of pain or pleasure (the peak) and the feelings when the episode was at its end.

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