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 Tact and DiplomacyMy article "Developing Tact and
Diplomacy" (www.siccg.com/articles/developtact.php) has
attracted considerable interest over the last couple of years, particularly
with those who need to demonstrate greater sensitivity when influencing. They are
often bemused by the way others seem to take everything so personally! They are tough but
fair. The need to adjust their behaviour is obvious, as too is the positive impact the
change can have on relationships. Less obvious is the need for naturally sensitive
people to lower their tact and diplomacy to achieve greater influence. When these people
need to influence tough customers they run the risk of being perceived as lacking
directness, “walking on egg shells” and generally wasting time getting to the point. Thi
s mental reaction (noise) creates and unhelpful distraction. In reality, their desire to
be tactful and not upset people is often having the reverse effect. By reducing the level
of diplomacy in their behaviour, they gain more respect and this hopefully clears the way
for more effective influence. Posted by Colin Gautrey on 14-Jul-2010 11:59:13 BST
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Tact and diplomacy are key influencing skills and need to be balanced by the ability to influnece individuals who themselves lack tact and diplomacy. One useful insight is to differentiate push and pull influencing styles. Push involves telling/stating and a lack of tact and diplomacy. Pull involves asking open questions and active listening. The key is to match the style that the other person is using and then move to more of the pull style. One of the biggest reasons why tact/dipomacy and developing the pull style are important is that in most sales situations, understanding and listening to customers will deliver much higher sales Posted by Peter Callender on 23-Jul-2010 18:37:43 BST | Just wondering if we need to identify some business reasons why tact and diplomacy create
more sales? One of the close links to tact and diplomacy is with self
awareness and impact. Individuals who can develop these skills will generally be more
successful in business. One client whom we worked with improved her sales
by over 23% in a quarter through learning how to use some of the softer tact and diplomacy
influnecing skills. She was the sales director of a well known fragrance house. Posted by Peter Callender on 26-Jul-2010 16:22:11 BST | Hello Peter, that is an incredible result you are evidencing there - well done! An I'm guessing that it can also easily be turned into an ROI for the work you were doing with her too. However this is one example, and I agree that ordinarily we would hope that those with more tact are more successful, but I wonder if you are aware of any robust research on this? Posted by Colin Gautrey on 26-Jul-2010 21:00:32 BST |
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