英文演讲：Don't Give Orders

Lloyd George, Great Britain's Prime Minister during World War one who stayed in power long after the other wartime leaders had been forgotten, was asked how he managed to remain on top for so long. 

His response, he had learned that it is necessary to bait the hook to suit the fish. In other words give people what they want, not what you want. Don't bait the hook dessert, bait it with worms.

Of course you're interested in what you want though, but no one else is. The rest of us are just like you, we're interested in what we want. To convince someone to do something, we have to frame it in terms of what motivates them. In order to do that, we have to be able to see things from their point of view, as well as our own. 

Most salespeople are gonna spend their entire life selling without seeing things from the customer's angle. And they're gonna spend their entire career wondering why they're not successful as they completely ignore the customer's needs. 

If we can put aside our own thoughts, our own opinions and wants, and truly see things from the other person's perspective , we'll be able to convince them, that it's in their best interests to do whatever it is we're after. 

Now the world is so full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking, so the one individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage, they have little competition.

Before you speak, pause, and ask yourself how can I make this person want to do it, how can i frame this in terms of their wants. Don't give orders, ask questions. So for the most part no one really likes to take orders, so what if instead of telling people what to do, we give them the opportunity to do things themselves, to learn from their own mistakes, to think more critically about something.

So instead of telling people what to do, we should more often say things like, you might want to consider this, or do you think this would work. By asking questions it also stimulates creativity which leads to new ideas and better solutions. The real big benefit though, the reason why you want to do this is that people are more likely to accept in order, if they've had a part in the decision that caused the order to be issued in the first place.

So if you're a manager and you need somebody to do something, it's so much easier just to go to them and give them an order and tell them what to do, the challenge with that though is that they might not do it to the best of their ability, because they might resent you for it, they might say, you know, do it yourself, I don't really want to do this. 

Resist the temptation to simply tell them what to do, instead, ask them questions that will help bring them to the conclusion that that is the best action to take, and will make them actually want to do it.