Slacker Manager

Do you WOO?

by David Zinger on November 28th, 2007

Can you mentally move from woe is me as a manager to woo is you focused on followers and customers?

Do you woo? Do you know what woo is?

Here is the description of woo from the Gallup StrengthsFinder 2.0:

Woo stands for winning others over. You enjoy the challenge of meeting new people and getting them to like you. Strangers are rarely intimidating to you. On the contrary, strangers can be energizing. You are drawn to them. You want to learn their names, ask them questions, and find some area of common interest so that you can strike up a conversation and build rapport. Some people shy away from starting up conversations because they worry about running out of things to say. You don’t. Not only are you rarely at a loss for words; you actually enjoy initiating with strangers because you derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection. Once that connection is made, you are quite happy to wrap it up and move on. There are new people to meet, new rooms to work, new crowds to mingle in. In your world there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet—lots of them.

Shell and Moussa wrote The Art of Woo, Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas. They claim, “wooing may be the most important skills a manager can develop. The art of woo has a sense of romancing. As in a love affair, you want to develop a persuasive message to a target audience that brings commitment and builds a relationship.”

Here are 9 tips from his book:

1. Choose your target
2. Polish your idea
3. Tell a story
4. Personalize it, vividly
5. Question the obvious
6. Demonstrate
7. Use emphasis
8. Pose a challenge
9. Get a commitment

If you want to read more about woo I encourage you to read the two posts below. The first post is a 4 page article on the book from Knowledge @ Wharton. The second post is a short review from Leadership Now.

1. The Art of Woo’: Selling Your Ideas to the Entire Organization, One Person at a Time .
2. The Art of Winning Others Over.

All the best in WOO  to you!

Photocredit: startrails by http://flickr.com/photos/maxelman/299687495/

David Zinger

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POSTED IN: leadership, management, productivity, teamwork