Josh Bandoch

Josh Bandoch published a book on persuasion, influence, and leadership: How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion. I wish I'd had this book decades ago. It handles myths many people hold about persuasion that hold people back, then builds up the skills and theory to influence and persuade people effectively. It compiles many essential building blocks of persuasion and influence into one place. We talked about it at length in this episode. I recommend it, and would if I didn't know Josh B. In fact, our shared passion for learning, teaching, and coaching how to lead is a major piece of what connects us. From his book page: Life is about getting what you want. When you’re negotiating a salary, buying a house, or talking politics with your uncle at Thanksgiving dinner, you’re always after the best outcome. Learn from an expert how to get what you want in every situation—no matter who you’re talking to. Your ability to get what you want depends upon your ability to persuade. Unfortunately, the way most people approach persuasion has the opposite effect: we double down on our own perspective and cite tons of facts to make our point—or even try to strong-arm people into giving in. None of this is persuasive. In reality, it pushes people away from us, making it hard or even impossible to get what we want. Persuasion expert Joshua Bandoch has spent over a decade uncovering the secrets of persuasion. He’s mined psychology, neuroscience, economics, public policy, and history for cutting-edge techniques that actually work—and he’s used them in speeches written for senior government officials, national leaders, business executives, and dozens of his own talks to audiences around the world. How to Get What You Want combines Bandoch’s groundbreaking research with practical experience persuading at the highest levels to give you a fresh, surprisingly simple approach that will get you what you want and need when it matters by: Adopting the persuader's mindset Learning proven techniques for making the most persuasive emotional and logical appeals Unlocking the secret formula for memorable and motivating stories Tapping into the power of tone, body language, and other subconscious signals How to Get What You Want teaches you how to navigate any political, professional, or personal situation more effectively to get optimal results each and every day.

Josh and I talked about a few aspects of his acting on his commitment from the Spodek Method. For one thing, since he and I both study, practice, and teach leadership, we talked about the technique, how it works, how it impacted him. Since leadership involves emotion, empathy, and related social and emotional skills, we talked about the emotional journey. If you ever want to infuriate me, maybe the most effective way is to get me talking about environmentalists who talk only science and policy, just what they consider the facts that make them right. They try to browbeat people into doing what they don't do themselves, as if integrity, credibility, and personal, hands-on, practical experience didn't matter for leading others. They're essential. Oops, I could feel the fury rising. Josh and I talk about what works in leading and influencing others. Listening works more than lecturing. Empathy more than instruction. Intrinsic motivation over extrinsic. Also we talked about finding and experiencing the beauty of nature, including something of his Kauai experience in Chicago, not despite but in part because he picked up litter too. As always, once people start picking it up, they find more than they thought, including in places they pass daily.

I participated in an online workshop in influence and persuasion that Josh led. We got in touch afterward and found our approaches to the practices and how to learn them overlap. We start this episode talking about his background and what led him to learning and training others in the practices. Then we talk about what we like about learning and practicing them, what works, what doesn't, misconceptions, and other aspects. Some related subjects include authority, extrinsic emotions, management, and such. We practiced the Spodek Method, him experiencing it for the first time. In this first conversation, he only experienced being led to share what the environment means to him and coming up with a commitment to help evoke that meaning. You can hear that beyond just participating in the exercise, he's also analyzing it as a professional. We'll have to wait for his second exercise to hear his experience and analysis of the whole exercise.