John Daly, one of the world’s leading communication experts, is the Liddell Centennial Professor of Communication, TCB Professor of Management and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas, Austin.

In Part 1 of the interview, we discussed why there’s a need for a book on becoming a better advocate for one’s ideas. In Part 2, we discussed the skills necessary for effective advocacy. In Part 3, John talked about some of the counter-intuitive notions necessary for successful advocacy. In the final part, Part 4, below, we review some of the key mistakes advocates make, the key barriers they face, and what advocates need to do to overcome them.

Strategic Leadership Communication:

What are the common barriers that get in the way of successful advocacy; what is the most common mistake advocates make?

John Daly:

The most common mistake that people with ideas make is not believing that they have to advocate at all.  They say, “Here’s the document, here’s the white paper, here’s the prototype. Approve it.” They think the solution is obvious, and we ought to do it. And they can’t understand why people would argue against it.

Or they think advocacy means coming up with a great slide deck.  Well, guess what? It’s not starting to matter anymore how great your slide deck is, because presentations are going away in companies. Now, when you walk into a meeting to present, people say, “I’ve already looked at your slide deck, and I’ve got a few questions.”  So, in place of your ability to come up with a great slide deck, your success as an advocate today is more likely to come from your ability to answer people’s objections and questions. The problem is that most people don’t think that way. They’ll spend days working on their slides, and then they’re absolutely floored when anyone disagrees with them.

Strategic Leadership Communication:

Once you’ve realized you have to advocate, and that simply presenting your idea is not enough, what else gets in the way of advocating successfully?

John Daly:

Managing your timing.  Timing is everything in advocacy: If your company is in cost cutting mode, the timing may not be right to call for a major investment. If it’s “top-line” focused, desperate to generate revenue, you may want to wait before you put all your chips behind a proposal for incremental improvements in efficiency.

Strategic Leadership Communication:

That just sounds like common sense. Of course, I’ve had to work with clients so caught up in the spell of their ideas that they find it too hard to hold back . Still, even a small dose of awareness, and a dash of strategic thinking, should provide some restraint on poor timing.

John Daly:

That’s certainly true to a degree. But it’s also true to some extent that you can create your own timing.

Strategic Leadership Communication:

How so?

John Daly:

By making sure that, as an integral part of your advocacy efforts, you answer the question: “Why should we do it now?” It’s one of the most important questions advocates can answer, but so few of them do. If your company can wait three years to do it, why do it now? If you should have done it four years ago, why do it now?  You’ve got to convince the decision makers that this is the right moment; and remember, that’s a perception, not necessarily the reality.

Of course, it’s also true, as you suggested, that you have to think strategically about timing. Let me give you a simple example. We know most companies’ budgets end in December.  So if you want to pitch a training course, or buy a small piece of technology, when do you pitch it?  November. Why? Because if it isn’t spent then, you’re going to lose it. So you might as well spend it.

Now that’s obvious to people like you and me, but a lot of people simply don’t think in terms of, “Wait until the end of the year when there’s excess money.” However, it’s not rocket science. It’s just thinking about whether, yeah, this is the right moment, or, if it’s not, figuring out how to make it the right moment. Even the most technical of people are smart enough to do that.

Strategic Leadership Communication:

Some of the people I’ve worked, and I’m sure some of the people you’ve worked with as well, don’t need to think about timing at all, they simply “get it;” they know, almost instinctively, when the timing is right or how to make it seem right.

John Daly:

Absolutely.

Strategic Leadership Communication:

So the question is: what distinguishes those who have “it” from those who don’t? Why is it that some people have an almost instinctive sense of timing for what they want to propose, while others don’t have a clue?

John Daly:

I’m convinced that it’s simply a result of the way that some people are raised.  I think that if you grew up in a big family, you’ve probably learned the politics of competing for what you want better than if you’re an only child. It also depends on how manipulative you were with your parents, too. Some kids want things from their parents, other kids don’t. Some people have spent time trying to read the moves of those they want to persuade, other people haven’t.

Strategic Leadership Communication:

My guess is that most of the target audience for this book – scientists, engineers, and other technical experts – may be excellent readers of written material, but not of people. It just seems to be the case that those who have really worked hard to develop top-notch analytical and cognitive skills may not have made the same investment in those tacit and relational skills that are needed for successful advocacy.

John Daly:

That’s one reason I’ve structured the book to provide a kind of framework for building skills.  On a chapter-by-chapter basis, you get a coding system, a schema, if you will, for understanding what works and what doesn’t in advocacy – whether for framing the right message, demonstrating confidence, steering a meeting the right way, forming alliances, sensing the right timing.

It’s necessary because there’s way too much “stuff” in the book to take every action it recommends. You’d be overwhelmed.

What you can do, though, as a start, is to learn to use the coding system from the book to clearly recognize the mechanisms of advocacy at work around you. Think of yourself – if you enjoy sports, for example – as learning enough from the book to be able to provide the play-by-play and color commentary at a meeting where decisions are being made:  “There she goes, she’s interrupting. Aaaah, she got shot down. Let me tell you why she got shot down – these three reasons.” Or, “Ah, he’s talking now, he’s getting what he wants. What did he do?! Simple, he did A, B, and C.”

Strategic Leadership Communication:

Step one, then, is to use this book to build your awareness of what generates the outcomes, whether successful or unsuccessful, of the advocacy efforts around you.

John Daly:

That’s right.  In fact, that’s probably the most important thing in the book for a lot of people. That, by itself, will be helpful.

Strategic Leadership Communication:

What comes next?

John Daly:

The second step is to take that awareness and apply it to yourself, to your own efforts: “That worked well because of this.” Or “It would have gone better had I remembered to do A and B, instead of C and D.” Doing that will help make you a smarter, more strategic, and more successful advocate.

And finally, there’s step three, where you would target those areas where you’re least effective – coming across confidently, or framing proposals, for example – and focus on a couple of behaviors needed for improvement, and then practice them.

Strategic Leadership Communication:

One final question. In working with people on building influence or advocacy skills, some of my clients, and undoubtedly some of yours, have raised the concern that following these kinds of recommendation seems manipulative, Machiavellian even.  How you do you respond to them?

John Daly:

Look, there is a common fallacy called the “just world hypothesis;” that in the end good will always triumph. Well, it’s very much like the idea that the best ideas will always win. Reassuring to believe in, but demonstrably false.

Machiavelli is often thought of as immoral; somehow on the side of evil.  But he was really amoral. He said, in essence, “This is what it takes to win. You can do it or not do it.  It’s your choice. But know this: someone is going to take advantage of these behaviors to sell their ideas – which may be far inferior to yours. So your choice is either to do what it takes to advocate successfully for your ideas, or let someone else do it and have their ideas win.”  My role is to say that if you’re going to advocate successfully, here’s what it takes.

That ends the four-part interview with John Daly, author of “Advocacy: Championing Ideas and Influencing Others.” Earlier parts can be found at http://strategicleadershipcommunication.com