How to Effectively Influence and Impact Your Stakeholders

Success in negotiating is all about maintaining control in a conversation, & the person in control is always the person who is asking the questions — Phil.M.Jones

Most of the time, sharing your work with high profile executives may seem thrilling, but most designers don’t know how to showcase their work outside of design and product teams. You become engrossed in sprint demos and design critiques, perfecting aesthetic aspects and explaining how features like navigation and tabs operate. Instead, stakeholders want to know how your work relates to the company’s goals and strategy.

In this post, I’ll go through a few ways designers may re-direct meetings in a good manner by modifying the way we re-phrase particular lines during meetings to obtain stakeholders’ green light and greater engagement in understanding the value our work adds to their product.

Stakeholders, PMs, and other groups that may be participating in these sessions are those who have an interest in what you’re doing but want to keep things high-level so they can focus on strategy and business more successfully.

There’s a ⏰ to educate and a ⏰ to influence.
We frequently combine the two, assuming that by teaching non-designers design principles, UX Laws, or best practices, our audience will inevitably arrive at the same conclusion.

FYI — No. Not at all :/

Educating others on design principles can only get your designs so far to being strong & scalable BUT they are 👎🏽 influencers.

Heres a few examples that stood out from the book we’re currently reading for our bookclub at Z2D ‘Exactly What To Say’ by Phil M Jones on how you can influence others simply by words.

Before you make your mind up

It’s hard to persuade someone to change their mind from a no to a yes, but it’s more possible to persuade them to change their mind from a no to a maybe, and then steadily try to persuade them to change their mind to a yes.

Most times, clients seem to fixate on one specific design for their product & don’t fully consider if that is the best option to go ahead with in regards to both business & customer goals. When using this statement, it inspires people to rethink their choices and not just straight up make a decision on the first thing that comes to mind [ Availability bias ]

Examples:

• “Before you make your mind up on one of these design solutions, let’s first go through the benefits each option would provide a user,” say this during share backs.
• Before you make your mind up, let’s go through the advantages and disadvantages of each of these features in depth so we can figure out which one best fits your product’s objectives.

What questions do you have for me?

We’ve all come across so many TED-talks, workshops, meetings etc that all end with a “Does anyone have any questions?” — Cliché

A minor phrase change can assist you here. Ask “what questions do you have for me?” instead of “do you have any questions?” The easiest response is “I have no questions,” which also provides you power over the conversation as a result of this simple switch. When they claim they have no questions, you know they’ve made up their mind and you may go on with the next steps.
This does not only have to be used at the end of meetings but can also be used to get feedback from the individuals you’re presenting to.

You have Three Options

If you’re not aware of the peak-end rule, make sure to read my previous post .
It states that people are more likely to judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak and at its end, rather than the total sum or average of every moment of their experience.

Imagine I am trying to convince you to opt for a design layout that will improve your products UX. But you’re still convinced that your idea best suits your products users. So, I tell you that you have three options:

• Option 1: We can go with your choice of adding a toggle button on the top of the card, add a preview & edit option CTA’s on the bottom, add in an ellipses for other actions and finally display a thumbnail of the email template.
• Option 2: We can leverage the current design patterns of our product and choose to layout the cards content in a vertical view. Taking into account the law of proximity, this may not be the best user experience as the interaction points would be on the far right whereas the thumbnail and heading on the far left :/
• Option 3: With using the label component that already exists in the design system, we can get rid of the toggle button & instead have that actions tucked away in the ellipses. This not only makes the cards content easier to digest but also helps differentiate each card with the use of labels. Additionally the ellipses is now a hub for all the action points a user can take.

Of the 3 options, which one do prefer? Most people would opt for option 3
I summarized all three choices using the Peak-end rule, but kept the best for last.

What Makes you Say That…

During different conversations objections are often raised. Objections such as:

• I don’t agree with your rational on xyz
• I’m not sure we should include this feature on the product
• I doubt this is what our users want.

When met with objections we always try to counter what the opposite person has mentioned. Although, this isn’t the greatest approach because the initial objection isn’t always the true one. The best course of action is to remain interested for a little longer and attempt to figure out what the true issue is. This not only makes your stakeholders feel more heard but in fact gives them more time to better explain themselves.

Respond with:

• What makes you say that you disagree with the rational I’ve just presented?
• What makes you say that you’re uncertain on the addition of this feature?
• What makes you say that our users may not want this?

Staying interested for a little longer allows you to better comprehend their situation and learn how you might be able to assist them with their decision.

Most People

Indecision is the biggest thing that stands in the way of progress — Phil.M.Jones

We’ve all been in a position when we ask the waiter at a restaurant or the cashier at the grocery store what the majority of people like, whether it’s a menu item or a products brand.
The majority has an impact on us. We look at product reviews to discover what other people think about certain items.
As a result, this term is an excellent tool for persuading/ priming individuals to take certain actions/decisions.

Examples for share backs with clients:

• Most people’s mental models are used to having the search icon as the magnifying glass.
• With other competing products, most people fill out a form when signing up & then receive an invite/confirmation link once their accounts are set up.

Most people that reach the end of a Medium post decide to clap for it… hehe see what I did there 😏
Hope you found this post insightful & you apply a few of these to your next meetings :)
Make sure to drop some gems in the comments on other great techniques you’ve used with stakeholders.