Over my many years in business I have found that individuals of brilliance or exceptional talent often fall short of their true potential.
Encourage your staff to use their own abilities to implement new ideas, or improved concepts. Provide them confidence to break through and carry out the mission.
It seems they want others to break through and are happy operating in the sea of business mediocrity. Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century.
The ability to persuade, to change hearts and minds, is perhaps the single greatest skill that will give you a competitive edge in the knowledge economy — an age where ideas matter more than ever.
Some economists believe that persuasion is responsible for generating one-quarter or more of America’s total national income. As our economy has evolved, successful people are capable of convincing others to act on their ideas. Think about the role of persuasion in our daily lives:
- Leaders persuade employees to take specific plans of action
- Salespeople persuade customers to choose their product over a competitor’s offering
In short, persuasion is no longer a “soft skill”— it is a fundamental skill that can help you sell products, build brands, inspire teams, and trigger action. Persuasion is so important to billionaire Warren Buffett that the only diploma he proudly displays in his office is a public-speaking certificate from a Dale Carnegie course. He once told business students that improving their communication skills would boost their professional value by 50% — instantly.
Brevity is a crucial element in making a persuasive speech. An argument, Aristotle said, should be expressed “as compactly and in as few words as possible.” He also observed that the opening of a person’s speech is the most important since “attention slackens everywhere else rather than at the beginning.”
The lesson in this blog is: start with your strongest point to persuade good people to react and move beyond being just normal.
