Power Persuasion: A Surefire System to Get Ahead in Business

Are you interested in how any particular decision will turn out? And on knowing the likely outcome, what would you do to influence the decision so it turns out in your favor? These are the two main questions addressed by the book. Most of us have instinctive ways of dealing with them. The authors put order and discipline to instinct, and describe a systematic approach, enriched with guidelines and clever tips. The system works this way: a. Identify the 5 major variables that enter into a decision. These are: the decision statement itself, the players, and each player's position, power and priority. b. Rate each player's position, power, and priority. Position goes from -5 (strongly against the decision) to +5 (strongly for the stated decision). A player's power and priority each go from 1 (very weak power or near indifference) to 5 (strong power or high priority). Each player's power-position-priority score is calculated. The total of "pro" scores over the contribution of all players is evaluated to arrive at a probability value for a "pro" outcome (same reasoning goes for the "anti" outcome). The balance of forces can also be presented graphically. c. Plan a strategy focused on specific variables. Identify those variables which when changed will best change the probability of the outcome. From a description of strategy you will learn in what context you may effectively choose to remove a player (by promoting him/her, for example), or reframe a decision statement, or stall for time, or speed up a decision, among many other strategies. There's a chart near the end of the book to guide your choice of strategies. The scoring system forces you to give a numerical score rather than a verbal description of a variable's importance. The scoring system is not overly complex as to be incomprehensible. The calculations are, in fact, the easiest part of the method. The authors claim from experience --- in consulting with business and government, including the CIA --- that the method estimates outcomes with good confidence. However, accuracy and precision are primarily the result of proper selection of the variables, especially players, and giving a score to power, position, and priority. These two steps --- selection and scoring --- are the most demanding part of power persuasion. (In later books by the same authors the method is called Political Accounting.) The method, however, gives a snapshot of the condition of the balance of forces. The authors discuss how to incorporate estimates of the evolution of this balance. They also discuss how to rate players considered as a group, how to use the method to run meetings, and how to answer objections to the method's use. The method has applications in every field wherever decisions are involved, from the home to entire nations. The authors make this clear, and write in a fitting style. It's a practical book for practical people, not a scholarly work, though its insights on human behavior can