Do you woo?

What exactly is Woo? Sometimes when we ask what something is, it is helpful to also understand what it is not. G Richard Shell and Mario Moussa explain that Woo is not about setting high-level strategies to defeat opponents in a competitive world. Rather, they profess, Woo helps us to 'sell an idea'. It involves relationship-based persuasion involving a strategic process for getting people's attention, pitching ideas and obtaining approval for plans and projects. They believe that Woo is one of the most important skills to develop if your work requires a reliance on influence and persuasion rather than coercion and force. I agree, but I also believe that it has a wider benefit as a useful, if not essential, life skill. Since we all have times in our daily lives when we need to influence others, whether it be in a business or personal context, this is something we need to focus on developing.

The book arises out of the rich experiences of Shell and Moussa, both of whom have a link with the Wharton School of Business and teach and give seminars on negotiation to business and non-profit executives.

It is a well-structured, step-by-step guide that takes us on a journey, describing and explaining the process of selling ideas. Easy-to-follow techniques and a systematic planning process to help us practice the 'Art of Woo' are also included. They explain a four-step Woo process, which one can follow in order to advance a proposal. Woo requires us to focus on others, ie the people being wooed.

he litmus test for success is when your audience stops being 'the other' and starts becoming your partner-in-persuasion. In order to be able to influence others, we must first have a deep understanding of ourselves (a bit like the idea that in order to love others, we must first love ourselves). To accomplish this, the book offers two personalised surveys to help us to discover our unique persuasion styles and preferences. These enable us to understand which of the six main channels of influence (authority, rationality, vision, relationships, interest and politics) we naturally prefer to use when solving problems. They also teach us which of the five persuasion roles (driver, commander, promoter, chess player, advocate) we prefer to play.

If you have the time on your hands and enjoy stories that help to explain hypotheses, theories and models, then the hundreds of examples and practical real-life experiences woven throughout each chapter of this book will be of interest to you. These tend to be primarily rooted in US history and the contemporary US business world. I found this style a bit too wordy, long-winded and
cumbersome at times, so for those who prefer to get to the main idea, the authors neatly summarise the key themes as part of the conclusion to each chapter. If you are really tight for time, the final chapter (chapter 10), in conjunction with appendix C, provides a summary of the whole book by detailing a 10-step guide to the art of persuasion, as well as an overview of the techniques recommended.

I thought it was interesting to note that even uncomplicated decisions require contact with an average of eight people, and complex ones can involve as many as 20, thus re-emphasising the importance of developing this skill. Good luck on your journey, and as Shell and Moussa say themselves: "Woo. Simple to say. Hard to do."

The Art of Woo - Using persuasion to sell your ideas, by G Richard Shell and Mario Moussa
Publisher: Portfolio (2007)
ISBN 978-1591841760

Val Quinn is managing director of Coca-Cola Ireland

This article first appeared in Owner Manager magazine.