PM360 BOOK Review

By Craig DeLarge
The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas by G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa

As marketers, ideas are our stock in trade to as great a degree as in any profession. Because marketing has become more complex as I have progressed in my career, I decided to listen to—and recommend to you—The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas (Portfolio, 2007). The authors, G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa, co-direct “The Strategic Persuasion Workshop” at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. This book’s topic is relevant and critical since all the good ideas you can come up with mean little if you cannot get them supported and funded for execution. Success at every level and in every type of organization (or network) is tied to our ability to get support and funding for our ideas and those of our management and teams. I found this book’s value to be not so much in the “new” it presents as in how it organizes and refreshes the “tried and true” in a memorable and actionable manner. It reminded me that often we do better to sharpen the pencils we have than to keep seeking to acquire new ones.The authors organize their model into three subtopic areas:
1) 5 persuasion styles, 2) 6 influence channels, and 3) the 4-step Woo Practice Process

The Persuaders
The persuasion styles are Driver, Commander, Promoter, Chess Player, and Advocate. These styles are based on one’s self- versus other-orientation and one’s preference for extroversion versus introversion. The Advocate is the moderate style that best balances these 2 dimensions. The influence channels are authority, rationality, vision, relationships, interests, and politics, and these are the means by which we woo. The book includes an assessment tools for the styles and channels that help you determine which are more naturally yours. The 4-step Woo Practice Process consists of:
1) situation survey
2) barrier confrontation
3) pitching, and
4) securing commitment

The most newly enlightening information here are the 5 Barriers: relationships, credibility, communication mismatches, entrenched belief systems, and interests and needs—all situational factors that we often discount to the disadvantage of our ideas.

Real-World Wooing
Aside from the book’s organization, the stories of the concepts in practice are most valuable and enjoyable. The authors use a broad range of anecdotes to bring this subject alive. Some of the most compelling examples are Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Andy Grove, and Bono.
I know that there are those skeptics out there who have an aversion to any book that talks about persuasion and politics as though all uses of such are disingenuous. Before you give in to this bias and discount this read, I’d like to caution that you shouldn’t discount the tools in the toolbox because you’ve witnessed craftspeople wield them destructively. The fact is that these tools can create as well as destroy. Let us be master creators with them in a world where nothing of significant scale is built outside of groups, organizations, and communities. In this spirit, I like the authors’ statement that this book is about Woo (Winning Others Over) versus war. They recommend Sun Tzu’s Art of War for those out to defeat—versus winning over—their competitors. If you are tasked with wooing in your work, or your life for that matter, then I highly recommend this book to you.Good reading! And, yes, I would like to hear what you derive from reading this book at cadelarge@yahoo.com or www.facebook.com/cadelarge.

Craig DeLarge is Associate Director, eMarketing & Relationship Marketing, at Novo Nordisk (www.novonordisk.com). He can be reached at cadelarge@yahoo.com or www.linkedin.com/in/cadelarge.