So what is the resistance really trying to tell us?

I think it's telling us a couple of things and we have to differentiate because they carry different weight.

So the more your persuasion challenges or threatens the identity of the people who you're trying to buy in, the less likely you'll get any agreement.

And so this is very important.

And in the book, I have this really wonderful story of Julie Morath, who comes into Children's Hospital in Minneapolis as the COO.

And her passion in life is patient safety.

And she said to me, she said, Jay, you know, you tell doctors and nurses in a children's hospital that they aren't delivering the safest care and they will laugh you out of the room.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So there was a big scandal which occurred in the first decade of the 21st century related to insider trading.

And Michael was an attorney for, it's a fairly sizable investment firm, Cornerstone.

And He and his boss, who is the chief attorney for the firm, said, you know, this is so serious, we can't set ourselves up for liabilities.

And so I think what we're going to have to do is ask all the investors not to rely on a minimum of external experts.

Because it could lead to some kind of gray zone and we could get in trouble.

So Michael sat down after this mandate from the boss and he kind of worked through his persuasion, what he was going to argue as to why all these investors had to stop using experts to further kind of firm up that this is a good investment.

And I

But there's a real information asymmetry of what people see is a very tiny fraction of what's actually going on and who they are.

So this is a very important idea.

And the more a leader is at a higher in the hierarchy or more removed from you seeing him, these spotlight moments become very important.

So will you remember when you were given a magnifying glass as a kid? Oh, yeah.

What did you do just between us? What'd you do with it? Burn ants.

Perfect.

So the people who are watching a leader have these magnifying glasses and they're going to take something and they're going to exaggerate it.

So what have you seen from your research and your work with other companies that gets to the end state that that car dealer CEO had?

Can you talk about your example with Meditech and the patient safety initiative? Sure.

Yeah, so Meditech individual who's campaigning for an important change does a good job of preparing for her key decision makers.

But what she doesn't realize is they might be the decision makers, but they're a whole group of implementers who also have to be bought in.

And she overlooks them all.

Whereas, for example, the Children's Hospital with Julie Morath, Julie Morath comes into Children's Hospital of Minnesota as an outsider.

And she comes in with a real personal mandate supported by the CEO, which is patient safety.

And Julie said to me, she said, Jay, you go and tell a group of doctors and nurses in a children's hospital that they're not delivering the absolute safest care and they will laugh you out of the room.

Talk about how Rent the Runway has found a great concept for how to get the buy-in with their pilot pop-ups and listening tours.

Do you think-

But what I wa- what I watched him do, 'cause I, I shadowed him, he would come into you and he'd say, "Tom, this is something I'm thinking about that's a problem we have.

Do you think it's a problem?" And he would listen to s- hear what you said and, and if you were close to it and you did not describe it as a significant problem, and maybe three other people did not, he would postpone persuading about it.

He would say, "The timing's not right.

People are not really feeling this is a significant problem or opportunity." If you said, "Yes, it is," he would then start, uh, the second step of persuasion, which is reconnaissance.

He would say, "Tom, who else do we need to kind of engage in this issue? Um, who would be gatekeepers to resources? But who might have to implement this that I need to go talk to?" And so he would start building a coalition.

So we think of persuasion as an event, and yes, those two other forms, the pitch, the sales pitch, and the manipulative pitch, they are often an event.

Right.