How to Be a Master Convincer with Adele Gambardella and Chip Massey
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
“Focus on the person, as a person that is just trying to do the best they can.”
– Chip Massey
Adele Gambardella (PR expert, spokesperson for Facebook, 20+ years experience) and Chip Massey (former FBI special agent)
Co-founders of The Convincing Company, specializing in PR and crisis negotiation
Importance of Mitigation in Leadership
Adele: Mitigation is crucial in leadership to create a safe environment for trying new ideas and making mistakes without fear of punishment.
Chip: Emphasizes the importance of role clarity and teamwork in crisis situations, drawing parallels with FBI practices.
Insights from Hostage Negotiation
Chip: Describes the need for specialization and knowing one's role in high-stakes situations.
Adele: Highlights the importance of team cohesion and mutual support.
The Convincing Company Origin Story
Adele: Transitioned from a high-profile PR career to entrepreneurship; met Chip at an entrepreneurial dinner.
Chip: Shared FBI negotiation techniques; together, they identified a market need for their combined expertise.
First Collaboration: Organized a successful masterclass in NYC within three months.
The Art of Convincing in Leadership
Convincing vs. Negotiating:
Convincing involves aligning values and changing perspectives.
Effective leaders use convincing techniques to inspire and motivate their teams.
The Convincing Continuum: Start with a point of agreement, then gradually address fears, uncertainties, and doubts.
Effective Communication Strategies
One-on-One Conversations
Forensic Listening: Focus on:
Emotion
Themes
Body Positioning
Voice
Unstated Narrative: Understand the hidden beliefs and concerns of the person you're speaking with.
Non-Defensive Dialogue: Stick to the facts and avoid personal attacks.
One-to-Many Communications
Know Your Audience: Tailor your message to the majority's convincing style (fact-based or emotional).
Combination Approach: Use both one-to-many and one-to-one strategies to ensure everyone is on board.
Handling Performance Issues
Empathy and Understanding: Leaders should try to understand underlying issues affecting performance.
Non-Judgmental Approach: Focus on creating a supportive environment to encourage open communication.
Addressing Crisis Situations
Calm Leadership: Leaders must manage their own stress to effectively handle crises.
Focus on the Person: In high-stress situations, prioritize the individual's perspective and needs.
Websites:
Thanks for listening!
Apply for a free coaching call with me
Get a Free Gift ⬇️
🆓 The limitless organization short video course
Connect with me
www.instagram.com/mikegoldmancoach/
www.facebook.com/mikegoldmancoach/
www.www.linkedin.com/in/mgoldman10/
I invite you to assess your team In all these areas by taking an online 30-question assessment for both you and your team at
-
Mike Goldman: Adele Gambardella and Chip Massey are two accomplished professionals with diverse backgrounds and a shared mission. Adele, recognized as a prominent figure in the PR world, brings over 20 years of experience serving as a spokesperson for Facebook. Fortune 100 companies and teaching at prestigious universities.
Chip, a former FBI special agent offers a wealth of experience and high stakes criminal cases and negotiating techniques together as co founders of the convincing company. They bridge the worlds of PR and crisis negotiation, providing global consulting and training services to a wide range of clients from tech startups to fortune 500 companies, Adele and chip.
Welcome to the show.
Chip Massey: pleasure to
Mike Goldman: really excited about this. We're going to talk about all things convincing and persuasion, and maybe even a little,hostage negotiation thrown in there we'll see.
But, you know, the first question I always like to ask and maybe Adele, you can answer first and then chip is from your.
Experience what do you believe Adele is the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team.
Adele Gambardella: Mitigation. I think mitigation is one of the most important parts of a leadership team because if people feel like when they fail, they will be punished or they can't try something new or they can't maybe disagree. I think if you don't allow them that mitigation to do that, then I think your leadership tems fall apart
Mike Goldman: So, so dig one level deeper on that. When you say mitigation, how do you define mitigation?
Adele Gambardella: I would define it as giving people an opportunity to save face when they've made a mistake. and or that they just maybe get something wrong. And if people feel like they can't do that at work, they can't have forgiveness. They can't have some level of, Hey, you know, I did something wrong. Now I want to correct it.
Or I think if you don't have that on a leadership team, people fail, people fall apart, people hide, people do things that aren't going to help them or the
Mike Goldman: Beautiful, beautiful. Love that. Chip, same question for you.
Chip Massey: Right. And it's one of the things that actually Adele pointed out to me.
She, you know, we were going through the idea of what a hostage negotiation team looks like and the various roles that the people have
what is it like to work a case and how does, you know, how do people on the squad interact?
came to the point where we were discussing, and it's about, being comfortable in your role. And one of the things that the FBI does really well is that it's set up for crisis work and everyone, when they go, whether it's the working a case or they're working a terrorist event or whatever, every agent. knows their role. Every agent knows what they're supposed to do, and they stay in a lane, but they're also concerned about the wider team. And it's a specialization, I think, that really helps with that, is that everyone knows they're bringing something to the table. And I think for teams, and this is one of the things that we've seen when we, you know, functioning when we work,
with companies
high functioning teams, as you know, Mike, they have to operate with a sense of, it's not just about me.
It's not just about, you know,
I need to stand out from this group. I've got to prove myself.
say, but,
the more the leader
say, you know, highwaters float all boats. And if you are contributing at a capacity that you know, you can contribute at, and you are giving that to the team respective of your role
but
and not to diminish other people, but to, you know, to bring what you have, that is also going to build up the team.
That's powerful, you know, because it's, I know it's a little bit different. It, well, that's actually a lot different in corporate as opposed to law enforcement, because law enforcement mission is all about. Yeah, we're going to get the bad guy. We're going to solve this crisis
And in corporate.
It's it. You do have to stand out, but if you can do it with a semblance of I'm also I'm standing out, but I'm also contributing to the team
then you can make all the difference
Mike Goldman: love it.
So
let me dive into a little bit of your background before we get to the heart of, of the discussion, which is going to be all about, as I said, convincing and influence
and, negotiation ishow does a Public relations professional and a FBI negotiator, how do you two find each other and get together and think, Hey, maybe we could do something together.
Adele Gambardella: Well I had my own agency for about 15 years before I met Chip. And I
was an entrepreneur, I had been in both journalism and public relations for a long time in some pretty high profile places. And I kind of got burned out, you know, I had a staff of 15. I just was sick of managing people. And I'm like, you know what, I just kind of want to go out on my own and figure out my next path, my next approach to doing business. I go out to an entrepreneurial dinner and we're all like introducing ourselves and Chip introduced himself.
And I'm like, hmm, I'm like, okay. That's pretty cool. I was like, that would be a very cool melding of my crisis management work because sometimes Executives are so they I know what they should do they know what they should do, but I can't get them to do what I want them to do to solve a crisis
And I'm like but a hostage negotiator.
I was like he could probably do that I was like walk up to him and I was like Chip I was like, you know, I think it'd be very interesting for us to talk about maybe potentially working together. I think there could be a lot of similarities in, in, in how we approach things, but differences. And I would just, I'd love to talk to you and see if there's some synergy there. And there was, And yeah, and I'll let Chip tell the rest.
Chip Massey: Yeah. so after that, you know, we're talking And Adele is asking me question after question about, you know, how the FBI worked, how the hostage negotiated, what the techniques and tactics that you used, you know, what was it like investigating cases? What did you do? That kind of thing. And after a period of time, this is like, you know, five years ago, August. So, yeah. And, she says, okay, I think we have enough now. I said, great. She said, yeah, this is something that business needs. I can see this clearly. so we're gonna do a masterclass. I'm like, okay. And she goes, we're gonna do it in three months. Okay. And you're gonna have it in New York City. All right. So, you know, my governmental, you know, self FBI guy thinking, wait no, I've got a dot all the I's cross all the T's. I got to plan this. I got to see it on the paper. You know, Adele is like, she sees a million. She moves. And that's what we did. Three months later to the date. we put on a master class NYC.
Adele Gambardella: And
Chip Massey: we sold
Adele Gambardella: out
Chip Massey: Yeah. she sold it out.
Adele Gambardella: that.
Chip Massey: She's also, it's not a bad move to have a marketing PR professional, with you on the team. And then we, and then she did it again in DC, same thing. and then COVID hit. So the first events were out.
Mike Goldman: I love. and so I think you just told me everything I need to know about convincing is you just tell people, this is what we're doing. And it's like, Oh, okay.
That's the, well, thank you very much. It's been a great show. so, so the company is the convincing company. You know, the book is, Convince Me, right?
Is that the name of it? Yeah. Convince Me. There you go.
Same with the book. So go buy the book. it'll be in the show notes, but so that word convincing is pretty important. why is it important?
You know, certainly I'm going to, we'll take the standpoint of not hostage negotiation, but leadership and maybe sometimes leadership is very similar.
sometimes it certainly feels like a hostage negotiation, but why is it important for a leader to, to be so good at convincing? Right. Leaders, a leader of a team could say, Hey, kind of like you did Adele here. Here's what we're doing. I can just say, here it is. Here's what we're doing. Some feel like they can dictate, some can dictate at certain points.
Why is the skill of convincing so important?
Adele Gambardella: Well, I do want to say, I actually think I did use some of the principles that we talked about in our book when I was talking to Chip, when we first started working together, because think what I did was I interviewed, I use my journalism background, right? Like I have a journalism background.
So I went and I said, what about what you did connects? Like I, I was so interested in. What he did, what he was doing. I was listening intently. I was taking notes. I was really paying attention. I was seeing what the connects were. And then I was like, well, you know, I know that this is something you want to do and something that could be really unique to the market. test it out. Let's check it out. I mean, so I think there are a lot of principles in convincing that we talk about in the book that I implemented right there. Chip, do you want to, do you want to talk about why it's not a hostage negotiation? Because I think that's a great, that's a great answer.
Right.
Chip Massey: And,
this is, I think one of the important caveats that we always say, when we're talking to groups.
is that the idea here is that as a hostage negotiator,
I never negotiated with anyone. That wasn't my job.
My job was to convince that guy that has a gun to somebody's head to value what I value.
Chip Massey:
So it was never going to be, all right, you got seven in there, tell you what, kill three, give me back four, call it a day. That wasn't going to be an option that there was never going to be give and take. They want 20 million and a jet. Well, they're not going to get 20 million in a jet. We know that, but we need to work down from there.
We need to change the narrative. so he's got to start seeing the world in a more correct fashion right now, because he's escalated. He's, you know, dealing with a lot of different things. He's in crisis mode, but I've got to take my time with him and move him down. so from what he wants and what he thinks the world is, to where it actually is and realizing that I am the conduit for him getting out of there safely today. So eventually he's going to change what he values from, you know, the escape route and the million dollars that 20 million to, can I get out of here with my life? and that's where it eventually changes. so convincing as opposed to negotiating really. We use it. We use it in the incorrect way. Most of what we do day in and day out is all about convincing somebody else of what is what we think is important.
Adele Gambardella: And if you think about it, right, like if you think about it, Mike, like one of the things that Chip just explained is the same thing that we have in the book called the convincing continuum, right? And essentially what the convincing continuum is,is you are unfreezing people's cognitive biases they have coming in when you. Make a point, right? Let's say you want people to do something at your company You desperately want them to do it because you know, it's gonna help your company grow. You're gonna have revenue You're gonna help your team, morale, whatever. You start out with your strongest point because that's where we're all taught We're all taught to start out with our strongest point and get the team ready and make them do it Like that's what we're taught how to do and actually 40 years of influence research, convincing research, shows us that if you start with your strongest point first, all you do is make people go, I'm going to dig my heels in. actually what's unfolding right now in the political sphere, regardless of what your politics are, is a really interesting demonstration of this. Let me explain. When Biden was going up against Trump, his whole push was January 6th is like the downfall of democracy, right? And if you're on the Trump side, or if you're anywhere in the middle, you go, Ooh, that's a pretty extreme perspective.
I'm going to dig my heels in. I don't want to believe that Trump is about the downfall of democracy. I'm going to dig my heels in further, right? That doesn't work. Instead. What Kamala Harris's team is doing is fascinating and actually falls right into what we talked about. Her team says, It 's weird. Trump is weird. And, regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, regardless if you like him, if you don't like him, we can all agree he's a little weird. So, instead of starting with your strongest point first, you start with a point of agreement. And then you move people down. And you go Here's FUD. Here's why you might fear. him as president. Here's why you might be uncertain with him as president. Here's why you might doubt him as president. Whatever side you're on, you could use the same technique. But the point is, you've got to start with your point of agreement, and you move people down a continuum, and then you have to have the discipline.
And this is what Chip did as a hostage negotiator. at some point, he's got to move people down where, and Chip, tell me if I'm right about this, because I'm guessing, but you have to move people down. You've got to get them to value what you value. And then. And then at some point, you got to go, I'm hoping, we hope you're going to do the right thing. And then, or you have to stop. You have to stop the negotiations, you have to stop the convincing, you have to stop whatever. And it's the same is true in business. You have to stop at some point and allow people to change their own minds. And that can be very hard for leaders, especially Type A
Mike Goldman: So I want to take a couple of scenarios to step it through and get very specific and tactical. so a leader listening to this could look and go, ah, you know, here are the steps I need to take. and the two different scenarios. That I want to run by you is one is more of a one on one scenario, a leader
that may need to have a difficult discussion with someone on their team, one of their direct reports. and that difficult discussion
Could be about their performance. That difficult discussion could be about,
changing their strategy to get something done. but we've got a one on one difficult discussion.
and then,
The second scenario is more of a one to many scenario is again, I am a leader of an organization.
I might be a CEO. I might be the head of sales, but I need to communicate a new vision and set of strategies to a team to get them to buy in and feel. You know, as strongly as I do about making this happen and maybe let's start with one on one first. So I'm a leader that needs to have a difficult discussion with a colleague or with a direct report where we are, you know, we're kind of mashing up against each other and not getting along or not agreeing.
How would we take your concepts and approach that difficult discussion?
Chip Massey: I think one of the things we realized really quickly was that Adele is very adept at the one to many, and that's where she spent a lot of her world. Mine was more in the one to one.
So let me take the one to one, it all begins, Mike, with our principle called forensic listening. And forensic listening is kind of the umbrella of our entire book. idea here is that it is the art and science of analyzing a conversation after it's happened. So what we're talking about here is to observe somebody, interact with them,
and
pay attention into four areas. Those four areas are
areas
the emotion that's being presented,
second is
The second is the themes that are being developed.
The third is their body positioning,
how
they are moving and interacting to towards you and in the world around them.
And, the fourth is the voice.
that's their pitch, tone, and cadence.
Now to just to quickly unpack each one. So
for
the emotion, you're talking to this person, you're observing them,
seeing where they're, you know, excitement goes.
and where
they seem to plateau and go down on and where they're, you know, not as excited.
On what theme are they,
where Are they talking about? What is the thing that they're repeating more than once? If they're repeating something more than once, it's important to them. So you've got to make note of that and pay attention. for their body movement, we differentiate that from body language. So body movement.
is
is actually watching that person and seeing how they are interacting. When you are taught when they are talking, you are talking about different ideas and concepts
where
you know, sometimes people will lean in
going
and you know, or sometimes you see the head swivel and they're looking away.
All these are indicators.
And at what point are
they doing these specific things? And the fourth, the voice. where do you hear their voice pick up and they're, you know, more rapid in their speech up? going down and where does their energy seem to ebb? You combine all those things as you are, let's say like you framed out, Mike, you're the one that needs to have this tough conversation. So you have a, you have an idea about what this person is about, where they get excited and where they don't. Now, the next thing we want to ask is for the idea here is the unstated narrative.
The unstated narrative is the holdback.
The unstated narrative is that disconnect between what that person believes and thinks about you versus what they'll tell you to your face.
Now, a leader's job
is to get as close to that unstated narrative in that person's head as they can.
Chip Massey: Not that they will get it 100%, but that they get close. So a good leader will have already observed their direct
For you know many months, right? This is not coming out of the blue. This is either you know, a quarterly or an annual review. So you already have a good amount of baseline material
where to work with. Next is going to be when you're having that one to one is that you were going to key in.
all those things that were important to that person that they knew were KPIs. and where was it that they fell off and have a dialogue about it? You know, the idea here is that it's not defensive. You've got to, you've got to create the same kind of atmosphere as I did as a hostage negotiator.
and that is there's no judgment right now, I just want to hear what you think the performance level is. Let's take a look at our KPIs and let's go down this list
understand from a standpoint of that. You understand that person so well
what that you know where they're going to be pulling back from you, where they're going to feel defensive.
what are those things?
And then, just ease your way into each
Mike Goldman: And Chip, let me interrupt for a second, And I love this. This is so helpful because
I've got this process I use with my clients, how to have a difficult conversation
And
you're stripping it down to something or getting it down to something much deeper, which is beautiful and helpful to me.
When we talk about
no judgment and getting to the point where it's not a defensive conversation, is it fair for me to say, and am I thinking about this right? To say that a key way to do that, if I believe that you are not performing at your best. You know, in my heart of hearts, I'm thinking, you know, is he lazy?
Does he not care? That might be what I'm thinking. I've got all these thoughts of negative intent on your part that you don't really care anymore. And, you know, maybe you're not passionate about our mission anymore. So I've got all these judgments in my head. How important is it to stay away from defensiveness to stick to the facts?
You know, last Tuesday. This happened, fact, not judgment.
you know, we've missed this key performance.
Indicator by 20 percent or more for the last four months.
So is that what we mean by staying away from judgment? Really just stick to the facts
That almost can't be argued, just the facts so that we don't get into that defensive conversation.
Is that what we're talking about?
Chip Massey: Oh, that's it. It, you know, so, so you are approaching this from a standpoint of,
you know, these are not personal attacks on this individual, so we're going to stay away from words like, you seem a bit lazy now, you know, you don't have the edge that you used to, I feel like you're distracted, you've got, you know, something else might be, pulling you away from this.
I don't know what,
Whatever that is, right? you stick to the facts and you're still going to listen with empathy. You're still going to want them to like, Hey, explain it all out to me. Help me understand, you know,
where
we are on this.
and
then you're going to get to the whole backs.
That's when, as long as that person feels comfortable sharing
want and say, look, I just want to understand. I want to be able to build you up.
Obviously your success is my success.
And I want you on all eight cylinders. So help me understand, you know, where we went south on these things.
And then what we can do, what I'm, my intent is
to build in, something that's going to make you on a success in this.
You're going to, you're going to come back from this
And we're going to hit all our targets.
And that's what I want to get to. So it's no, a lot, you know, it's not,
their in their face, you know, the yelling, screaming red face,
That's
not going to increase performance. It might increase performance for a day.
it's not going to get that person on board back engaged.
Mike Goldman: Love that
What advice would you have for a leader that is really
frustrated and tough for them to keep that frustration out of their voice, which even if the words are right, it's going to sound like judgment. right, How can a leader go into a conversation? I guess without that
I don't want to say without emotion because we're not talking about being robotic here, right? But without that kind of disempowering emotion, that, that frustration, what advice do you have? So a leader goes in more open minded, more empathetic without that frustration.
Chip Massey: And that's a great question, Mike, because and this is so important because it is about for them to be in control of their emotions.
This is something we work with on a constant basis with executives
is that they are
So much of our world is programmed to react to what is in front of us,
you
know, bad numbers, quarterly, isn't looking good.
I got stockholders that are upset. My board of directors is losing their mind and they've got all these pressures on them.
And then they see the people that are working under them and for them.
and they don't feel that
They're pulling in the same direction or they're not contributing enough and they don't understand the pressures they're under.
They got to push all that out.
and there's a reason for this
because if they are focused. on their negative. If they're focused on the frustration of the day of the hour of the minute, and then they interact with that employee, it's going to blow everything away.
So for example, as a hostile negotiator, I'm dealing with that guy that's got a gun to that person's head.
If I'm focused on that gun,
I'm out.
I can no longer help those people
because all I'm thinking about is, Oh my God,
what if you kill somebody and I'm talking to him, what if, what if I, I say the wrong thing and kills more people, what,
right. and I'm only thinking about what's going wrong and I've lost my focus.
My focus shouldn't be on that gun. My focus should be on him. He's my problem and he's the one with the problems. So I need to so focus in on him that everything else falls away. You know, the gun, the helicopters overhead, the sirens, the walkie talkies.
I'm just now focused on him. Why do I do that
is because it also takes away my stress.
it absolutely allows me to just
the
dial in to him.
The reason why that's important
is because not only does my stress level go down, but I am actually now solving the problem that's before me.
I need to get this guy to trust me. I need to get this guy to value what I value. what I value.
And when I focus in on him,
he hears me with a nonjudgmental empathetic
voice that is trying to connect to his world.
so is with a leader, if you come in and you're at a 10, your hair's on fire and you're screaming, or you're just about to burst.
This is not the time to have that conversation.
Mike Goldman: is it fair
for me?
is it fair for me, Chip, to add,
focus on the person, not on the gun or not on the KPI or not that your business is on fire. Focus on the person and I'm going to add something and you tell me if this is
right, the way I should be thinking about it
or we should be thinking about it is focus on the person as a person
That is just trying to do the best they can.
Right? So I focus on
the person, I could easily focus on what an ass I think they are or what, you know, what a pain in the neck they're being. I'm focused on the person, but probably not an effective way.
How important, is it to truly believe that this is someone who's a human being like I am. They're trying to do the best they can.
It doesn't mean we agree. It doesn't mean they're doing the right thing,
how important is it to truly believe that they're trying to do the best they can.
Chip Massey: that is so important, right? Because otherwise, why are they there? are they there working for you? Why do you allow them in that workplace? So you have to, you know, if you're coming out from a standpoint, like, you know, this guy was a performer was hitting all the KPIs, all our sales targets, whatever their position was, but something's happened, something's changed. And that's one of the things that we also need to ask
It's what's the same and what's changed. Now, you might not know the backstory of this guy that he's now has to care for his mother who has advanced Alzheimer's.
And so he's like, not getting the sleep he needs. He's trying to work out, you know, day to day care, by the hour, he's trying to get other relatives to help out whatever his issue is, there's a reason behind what's happened.
now, if it's just a, you know, Hey, I need a good wake up call.
Okay, This is that wake up call. This is like, you missed your numbers.
here's what we're going to build in to ensure that, you know, you get there, tell me what you need
and next performance appraisal, we're going to see you hit it. But if it's something else, you've allowed that atmosphere to open that up. Right. He's now willing to, and feel safe to share with you said, look, I'm sorry. I, you know, I. My mom and then you're going to hear about like, okay, all right, let's see what we can do to
Mike Goldman: What I love about thinking about it that way
is
be
I
if
not
as a leader,
about negotiation. It's as a leader,
You can't put positive intent behind a person If you say, yeah, I
know I've got to look at this person as a human being that's doing the best they can. But I can't because they're screwing up so much. And I think they're doing it on purpose.
And I think now not judging right or wrong, if that's what a leader is thinking. My thought as a coach of leaders and leadership teams is if you cannot think about this other, as hard as you try, you can't think about them as someone who has positive intent. Then they don't belong on your team, right?
If things are that far off, then it's not about, it's not about convincing. It's not about negotiation. It's not about a difficult discussion. It's about making a difficult decision to say, I've got the wrong person on the team. If we are that far off from each other.
Adele Gambardella: I also think that some there are some leader and management techniques out there that are so dated and ineffective from a influence and convincing standpoint, one, one just comes off the sandwich method. It's like nobody ever believes anything that comes before. the criticism and after. It just doesn't work, right?
It just does not work. And so we fall back on these patterns that we're taught. It's like management says, do the sandwich method. That's going to help somebody. No, it's not. Put somebody on a performance review. those aren't probably going to work because that person feels like, wow, I'm going to be under a microscope for 90 days.
And I probably am going to screw up more in those 90 days because they're watching me to wait for me to screw up and like that's not going to help somebody perform better. That's not going to help. what Chip is suggesting and what you're suggesting Mike is going to dial into this person. I'm going to understand what their needs and yeah, I mean I'm going to use empathy because empathy is super effective.
It is. It's effective in getting them to do what you want. If you want to use the sandwich method, that's not going to work. If you want to put them on a performance review, that's probably not going to work either. You know, I think we've all probably worked for micromanaging bosses. That person made me more anxious.
Like, it did not work. It did not work. and you know, I mean like I've far surpassed that boss in like my professional career and that's fine. But man, I was under a microscope and it made me screw up more. It did. It
Mike Goldman: Yeah, I agree. And especially, you know, the idea of, we'll put them on a PIP, you know, performance improvement plan. now I,
Adele Gambardella: It's the worst
Mike Goldman: to me, the
reason for doing that is because the lawyer said, that's what you have to do. and I always tell my clients, I get the lawyers trying to protect you. They're doing the right thing.
The lawyer is not trying to help you grow your business. So sometimes you've got to do what's Right for the business. And the problem with a performance improvement plan, although it. Sounds like the right thing to do. If someone's under pressure for 90 days, you've got to change your behavior. Anybody could fake it for 90 days and then they go back to who
they were.
So, so I'm with you. And also that sandwich method, Adele. Yeah,
I'm with you on all that.
so
Adele Gambardella: No, no, no. I will tell you what, like I had a job and like, and this was like in the course of the, all the jobs I had, I thought I was like, I want to be an editor. That's the worst job for me. First of all, I have ADHD. I'm not good with details.
I mean like I have, I can be good with details when I'm hyper focused and when I like something. But like to put me in charge of details. It's probably the worst job you could ever get me, right? I had a certificate in it. I'm good at it. I just can't do it for prolonged periods of time. But I had that job.
I was a magazine editor for like a year and I worked for this woman and man, she hated my guts because sometimes I would turn something and I'm like, I caught all of the typos. Look at how awesome I am. And then other times you're like, I don't know. I didn't know that word was misspelled and she would hate my guts and give me like this, like red bleeding paper. And I actually, for a year, I was like, I am terrible at everything. I am bad at everything because she made me feel that I'm just in the wrong job. I'm like that. I came to that conclusion. I'm like, I am in the wrong job. And so sometimes like leaders should,feel okay about the fact that they're gonna let somebody off the hook to find something better, more
Mike Goldman: yeah, I was tough.
Adele Gambardella: It was
Mike Goldman: was I always tell leaders and I've got a slide that I use when I'm up on stage that very purposefully has people disagree with me. And then I click and they agree with me and the slide starts off. It says, everyone has the ability to be a superstar performer. And everybody's like, Oh, who is this guy with this pie in the sky crap.
And I know that's what they're thinking. And then it says, everyone has the ability to super be a superstar performer, dot, dot, dot. And then I wait for the groan and then I click and it says somewhere, everybody has the ability to be a superstar performer somewhere may not be in your company and may not be on your team.
And you're actually better off saying goodbye and firing them to let them go be a high performer. Somewhere else.
but that all being said, Adele, I want to switch over to the one to many. So, so let's talk about the scenario of a leader who is, has got to convince their organization of a change in vision, a change in strategy in order to do this, we're all going to have to work harder and level up our skills.
Something that may not be so easy for people to hear, but it's important for the company. How should we be thinking of that? Type of convincing.
Adele Gambardella: Yeah. So, you know, I could probably talk to you about that for an hour because I have about 20 years of experience doing that. But I want to focus on one area that I think is like the easiest thing to apply and implement for leaders who are listening, which is, Think about the group you are convincing and what type of convincer you are and what type of convincing that group may need.
So let me say this. So if let's say it's sales directors, you've got one sales director who is all about the numbers, all about the facts, all about the data. I dialed a hundred people. Maybe the offer isn't working because the data shows me this isn't working. Okay. Well, that person is likely to be more convinced to change their approach with a fact based argument. Now, if you have a sales leader who is more emotional, and when you say, Hey, you didn't meet your quota. Hey, you, this isn't working. Whatever strategy we're doing is not working. It just isn't working. And they come back to you with. six stories about why it isn't working, about how they feel about why it isn't working, about, they're more of an emotional person and they could be more convinced with emotions. So just making this one tweak to say How do I convince people? Do I go into every argument like I want to be convinced? So like for instance,I'm the type of person who would be more moved with a heart based emotional argument than a fact based argument. Sure, I want facts, I want them to be in there, I do, it's not where I want, if you lead with that, I'm, you're going to lose me. So you think about concert convincing or like convincing large groups of people, think about what their preferences are. Are your sales directors mostly fact based people? Come at them initially with a fact based argument about why a change is necessary. If your whole sales team are more emotional, story driven, what the customer needs, wants, desires are, go after them with a emotional argument.
It's going to help you get them to where they need to be.
Mike Goldman: The reality is if you're, now, if you're talking, if you're trying to convince influence three or four people, you may say, Hey, these three are like this. And the fourth is a little different. So I'm going to, I'm going to talk, I'm going to flex my style, you know, and maybe it gets back to disc profiles and, you know, I'm a high D I'm going to flex my style.
The, these folks are all high Cs. So I've got to give them a lot of the facts and not stay high level, which is what I would want. but if I've got a leader that is, is doing a quarterly town hall and they've got their 75 or their 750 employees that are hearing this and reacting to it, and I've got all different types of Communication styles and motivational styles and learning styles.
I've got all these different types in the audience. How do I, do I need to have language and what I'm talking about that somehow gets to all of those folks? Do I try to figure out who the majority of folks are and just talk to them? How do I deal with that?
Adele Gambardella: I think you do, you figure out what the majority is, because if you're talking to a whole group of engineers, they're likely going to be more fact based, statistic based people. If you're talking to researchers, fact based, statistic people. If you're talking to medical professionals. Maybe that's a mix of both. So you have to adjust and adapt your style and the best, most convincing people in the world recognize what the majority is, start their argument with the majority, and then also offer things for everyone else in the room. But once you get to sync the larger group with what you have to say and what you believe, then everybody else is going to follow suit. just human nature, but you have to sync to the majority of the people who are in your company and you can figure out based on what you're talking about, what their convincing style is. And it's not about this profiling. It's more just about observing people in such a way that you understand what's going to work.
Mike Goldman: And is there a combination of, if I do, if it is something that I You know, big enough, like a change in vision, a change in strategy, that's going to impact the company is there a combination of both one to many and one to one where I do my one to many, but then I know I've got to go talk to these individuals, maybe especially the folks who are a little different than the many, so they may have heard it differently than 75 percent of the other folks.
So, so is it always a combination of both? One too many and one to one, or is it just about trying to do the best you can with the one too many?
Adele Gambardella: It's not really trying to do the best you can with the one to many. It's about knowing your people. And I think so many leaders do not take the time to do it. They just don't. Like, I can walk into a company, Chip and I can walk into a company a lot of the times, and we're dealing with a crisis situation, right?
Everybody's hair's on fire. The leader's like, everyone believes this. And Chip and I walk in, and we talk to five people. and we parachute in as crisis experts and we say, no, everybody believes Y. not X. What you thought everybody believes it's not true. It's your own perception or a veil that's over it that makes you think they think this. And because we have an outside point of view, we can pick that up because we're listening on a deeper level. We're connecting on a deeper level. People are able to talk to us on a deeper level because we're coming in from the outside, solving the problem. And so I just don't think leaders, listen and pay attention enough, look at the patterns that probably repeat themselves and are very obvious.
I mean, nobody does, no company is this, you know, really unusual set of patterns. Normally, there are the same repeated patterns that exist. we can pick up on that and we can address people's needs and communication on
Mike Goldman: You said something important there because you have, you both have parachuted in from the outside.
they feel like they could say things to you that maybe they haven't told the leaders. how can we as leaders help our people?
and I know it gets back to the forensic listening and the, you know, the unstated narrative, but how can we as leaders help our people feel like they could be more honest and open with us?
Because if they're telling us what we want to hear, then that's gonna, you know, that's going to really handicap our ability to convince them if we don't know what they're truly thinking and feeling.
Chip Massey: I think one of the things that we've seen be successful and it makes sense objectively is that when a leader lifts up somebody or a circumstance where that thing that they want to pull out, we call this targeted validation. And that is you like, say, like, just like you're saying, Mike, you want your people to be more forthcoming.
You want them to be able to share on a very visceral level
about what they truly believe is going on or what the problem is. Then what you do is that you point out
a team, an individual that did just that.
And you highlight it, you send, you, you know, put it out on an email blast or you in the next standing meeting, you highlight and say, Hey, everybody, I just want you to know that Janice,
uh,
you know, it, it took a lot of guts for her because
I don't think I was creating the right kind of atmosphere,
but she came into me and she said, boss,
I just want you to know that I know you think that it's this, like Adele said, it's, it, you think it's X, it's actually Y.
and here is, here are my reasons for it.
And the good boss, the strong boss, the one that really wants to affect this kind of change says, that's it. Thank you.
Thenat the next meeting, say, this is what Janice did. This is what she told me.
I I agree. I've been, you know, I've had my blinders on here. I just want, you know, this is what we need more of. Lift that up. Encourage that. That is what's going to start it.
Mike Goldman: love that, and it's similar to something I coach my clients to do when they're having monthly town
halls or quarterly town halls
and they ask for questions and they hear crickets.
because everybody's afraid to ask the question. So what I have them do
Is to get some folks to, ask questions in the audience, not easy softball questions, but Ask some folks that you trust to ask the tough questions.
If people are worried about, you know, Hey, are we not going to get bonuses again this year or
if a layoff happened and people will say, Hey, are the layoffs done? We want to know if we're like, people may be afraid to ask that question, but if you take someone you trust and say, Hey, if you're comfortable, I would love for you to ask this question that what I've seen in my clients is.
When they, they're proactive about making sure those kinds of questions are asked and they react to it in the right way, then the next time folks are going to feel like they could be open and honest and ask those difficult questions. So again, it's kind of modeling it. So the rest of the organization feels more comfortable being honest.
Adele Gambardella: Yeah, term I've always heard is, if you dread it, you'll get it. And it's true. And if you don't have a good answer for it, you're also in trouble. So yeah, I mean, I think a lot of leaders just don't want to hear the bad news. They don't, they kind of want everything to be going well. And the bad news is where the solutions
Mike Goldman: Absolutely. So as we start to. Wrap this up. talk to me a little bit about the types of clients you work with and very specifically the types of work you do. Is it all crisis negotiation parachuting in to solve some problem? Is it more, Hey, we're going to help your Salesforce do a better job of convincing your prospective clients.
Like what are the types of companies and what are the types of situations where you get involved?
Adele Gambardella: So it's really interesting that you say that we do a lot of crisis communications work where is like, there's a big issue. We don't know how to solve it. We need trusted advisors to come and help us make us look good. Solve the problem for us quickly, address it, give us a solution to move forward and move everyone else forward.
We certainly get a lot of those, and have been doing. That's a specialty,and we really do have unique experience to do that well. I can do the one to many, Chip can do the one to one, and it's really, like, this incredible skill set that we have. but we also do, we also do training, immersive training.
and when we do immersive training, that can be anything from keynote to a one day training in an office where we come in and we help people think through high pressure situations, understand how they're going to react, how they're going to react under pressure and give them skill sets so they can thrive in those situations.
And they understand how everyone in their team will react in high stress situations. And surprisingly, people never ever get the right, most calm person in their team. They always think it's someone else. And like this other person just emerges as a leader when they go through this training, which is super fun for us.
And we use Chip's hostage negotiation background. We take them through a hostage negotiation simulation. we do some very cool, things. We get people to read other people to interview them, interrogate them. but use all the same skill sets and then apply it to business. So a lot of Chips FBI,
Mike Goldman: I love that. I can imagine
telling the team. So, so by the way, good news tomorrow, somebody's coming in to interrogate all of you. Oh, good. I can't wait, but
Adele Gambardella: It's not quite that worded like
Mike Goldman: well, you're,
Adele Gambardella: training. So good.
Mike Goldman: you're better at convincing than I am. I'd say he's coming in to interrogate you and you're going to love it. God damn it. it's so important because, you know,
I can remember,when COVID happened and the lockdown happened and everybody was like, Oh my God, am I going to have a business tomorrow or next week or next month?
It was dealing with that crisis. The leaders that I worked with who dealt with that crisis. In a productive way, those companies, the culture and the company was stronger. During and, well, not necessarily revenue from the business. some really took a hit for a while, but the company, you know, the culture of the company was stronger when folks dealt with that crisis in a productive, you know, empathy driven way and the ones that didn't, even if they were viewed as great leaders before the crisis, if they didn't act the right way.
When that crisis happened through the crisis, it really impacted the culture so quickly in such a negative way. So, so dealing with those crises are so important.
So if someone wants to find out more about you or your book and all this stuff will be in the show notes, but if people want to find out more about you, your training, your book keynotes, where's the best place or places for them to go?
Adele Gambardella: We just launched a website called trainingsogood.com and we'd love for people to go to that. And it all features our online courses or live events our, the various ways at which you can book us to come speak and, and it's called trainingsogood.com. You can also go to our website, convincingcompany.com And, both of those places will get you what you need. And we're in the media a lot. So we get to do podcasts like yours, Mike. And we were featured in Fast Company and Fortune and Forbes. And so a lot of these ideas are being distilled for the business world and we're
Mike Goldman: Beautiful. And don't wait. I'm going to mark it
for you right here. Don't wait until you're in a crisis because by then it might be too late. Right? Look at this stuff now.
Adele Gambardella: it's more expensive
it's more expensive
Mike Goldman: Yeah.
Yeah.
Adele Gambardella: It's not too
Mike Goldman: So, so it's good for Adele and
Chip's margins. If you wait for a crisis, they can charge you
more, but not good for you.
So,
hey
that, this was great.
Thank you so much. I always say, if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team, Adele, Chip, thanks for helping us get there today.
Chip Massey: Our pleasure.