The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Mario Moussa (Author) "We once met a thirty-one-year-old technology manager on the West Coast named Kumar Chandra..." (more)
Key Phrases: boundary spanners, persuasion channel, persuasion styles, United States, Sam Walton, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Shell and Moussa, both on the Wharton School faculty, aim to help readers get attention and sell their ideas through strategic relationship-based persuasion, or "woo"-or "winning others over." The authors consider wooing to be one of the most important skills in a manager's repertoire; while the concept may seem simple, mastering it is an art. The challenge is in striking a balance between what the authors identify as the "self-oriented" perspective-where focus is on the persuader's credibility and point of view-and the "other-oriented" perspective, which focuses on the audience's needs, perceptions and feelings. Drawing on their experience in teaching executives to negotiate, the authors examine the most important moments of influence and provide a four-step process to achieving goals: survey your situation, confront the five barriers, make your pitch and secure your commitments. They offer a practical guide to improving one's wooing skills, highlighting successes and failures from history and the present day. An entertaining and useful guide to acquiring the power of woo, this book will help readers beyond the professional realm.
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Review

“Ranging across history, from Charles Lindbergh to Sam Walton, the authors examine how savvy negotiators use persuasion—not confrontation—to achieve goals.”
—U.S. News & World Report --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio; 1 edition (October 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591841763
• ISBN-13: 978-1591841760
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #59,338 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Influencing with Integrity, November 18, 2007

By	Dr. Richard G. Petty (Atlanta) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Two things attracted me to this splendid little book. First, when I saw it in a bookstore, the clever title seemed to be a play on words - The Art of War - with a cover of one bird trying to persuade - woo - another. Second was a brief but enticing review in Time magazine.

I am delighted that these two factors lead me both to buy and read the book.

The authors are both on the Faculty of the Wharton Business School in Philadelphia, and by "Woo" they do indeed mean the art of the relationship, by which they mean the ability to win over colleagues and co-workers, clients and customers. We all have different motivations for doing the things that we do, and a half-century of research has shown that they cannot simply be reduced to pain and pleasure. Things are often a lot more complex than that. So the ability to influence has to be similarly multifaceted.

Many great leaders have had this remarkable ability to bring people on board by using emotionally intelligent persuasion in place of coercion. It is no surprise that the authors use Napoleon Bonaparte and Abraham Lincoln as two examples of people who were masters of the art of "woo," before also describing a number of famous people form the business world.

Since a viable interpersonal relationship requires more than one person, the book examines "woo" for people throughout an organization. So you can certainly sell yourself and your product, but it is best to do the selling after learning about your own strengths and weaknesses, so that you develop a style based on a dynamic self-awareness.

The authors use a model based on five styles, to describe different approaches to persuasion:
Driver (e.g. Andy Grove of Intel fame)
Commander (e.g. J.P. Morgan)
Promoter (e.g. Andrew Carnegie)
Chess player (e.g. John D. Rockefeller)
Advocate (e.g. Sam Walton)

As we would expect, the authors have deliberately taken extreme cases to illuminate their model, and most of us are composites of a number of styles.

The authors also step outside the business world and highlight people like the singer Bono, who has a legendary ability to find the right way to engage with the people who can support his social causes. This is an example of a high level of "woo" being used in a good cause. But the authors are not so naïve as to assume that "woo" is necessarily a good thing. Many psychopaths are masters of the art of woo, and there are several people currently serving time behind bars for their ability to persuade colleagues, subordinates and investors to jump over a cliff on their behalf. So the authors also emphasize the importance of wooing with integrity.

This is an excellent and well-written book that I recommend highly to anyone who ever needs to influence someone else to do something. And that probably means all of us!


Richard G. Petty, MD, author of Healing, Meaning and Purpose: The Magical Power of the Emerging Laws of Life

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ideas alone won't get you anywhere: an important book on idea persuasion, November 16, 2007

By	Russ Emrick (Monument, CO) - See all my reviews

"The Art of Woo" hits on all cylinders, except perhaps its title. This book offers practical advice and a clear roadmap on how to persuade others, that is the selling of ideas. The book is entertaining, well written, and full of good stories, quotes, and historical personalities and business greats. I highly recommend this book for everyone because all of us has to sell our ideas: to our families, co-workers and clients. As Lee Iacocca said "you can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere."

What makes "The Art of Woo" so good is its emphasis on relationships and people skills. Woo is about "relationship-based persuasion, a strategic process for getting people's attention, pitching your ideas, and obtaining approval for your plans and projects." In our manically fast email impersonal technology driven world "woo is about people, not saving time."

The book includes self-tests, practical tips, and a clear strategy: 1) survey your situation 2) confront the five barriers 3) make your pitch, and 4) secure your commitments. The barriers include relationships, credibility, communication mismatches, belief systems, and interests and needs. The authors recommend other books and have documented their research.

Lastly, this book pulls together much of the famous material of other persuasion books, such as Robert Cialdini's "Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion," "Soft Selling," and "Blink". The book quotes Steven Covey, Marcus Buckingham, and dozens of business and historic leaders (Churchill, Franklin, Andy Grove, Sam Walton, etc.) If you only have time to read one book on persuasion this is an excellent choice.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Winning Others Over" to Mutual Advantage, March 7, 2008

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Almost 2,500 years ago, one or more of Aristotle's students assembled notes they had taken during his lectures and compiled them in a single volume now known as "The Rhetoric." To the best of my knowledge, that is the earliest text on the general subject of persuasion. In essence, Aristotle suggests that there are four levels of discourse: exposition that explains with information, description that makes vivid with compelling details, narration that tells a story or explains a sequence, and finally, argumentation that convinces with logic and/or evidence.

In their book, G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa develop in a modern context many of Aristotle's ideas about principled as well as effective persuasion. The objective of Woo is to win others over to mutual advantage. That is, Woo "is relationship-based persuasion, a strategic process for getting people's attention, pitching your ideas, and obtaining approval for your plans and projects. It is, in short, one of the most important skills in the repertoire of any entrepreneur, employee, or professional manager whose work requires them to rely on influence and persuasion rather than coercion and force."

Shell and Moussa recommend a four-step process to achieve influence goals and then thoroughly explain how to complete each. More specifically,

First, survey the given situation by forging and polishing the idea, map the decision process by understanding the social networks within the organization, determining which persuasion style will be most effective, and summoning whatever passion and conviction may be necessary to achieve the desired objective. (Chapters 2 & 3) Next, confront the given barriers that may include negative relationships, poor credibility, communication mismatches, contrary belief systems, and conflicting interests. Shell and Moussa offer eminently practical advice on how to transform barriers into assets that can be leveraged. (Chapters 4-6) Then make the pitch by presenting solid evidence and arguments as well as using various devices to give the proposed ideas and/or course of action a personal touch. (Chapters 7 & 8) Finally, secure the commitments by dealing effectively with politics at both the individual level and throughout the organization. (Chapter 9)

Where to start? Shell and Moussa identify "the six main channels of persuasion that provide the conduits for most idea-selling messages" (each explained in detail, Pages 32-40) and suggest that their reader complete a self-diagnostic (provided in Appendix A) to determine which of the channels would be most appropriate. In Figure 2.1, Shell and Moussa provide a grid within which they suggest that there are five primary persuasion styles and a range of Volume" at which the message is delivered as well as orientation that is either focused on self or on others: the Driver (e.g. Andy Grove), the Commander (e.g. J.P. Morgan), the Promoter (Andrew Carnegie), the Chess Player (e.g. John D. Rockefeller), and the Advocate (e.g. Sam Walton). The challenge when preparing to persuade others is to formulate a presentation that is most appropriate to one's personal style (i.e. authentic because character and purpose "matter most") but also, and just as important, one that is appropriate to both the given objectives (e.g. explain and/or convince) and the given audience. Only then can the appropriate channel be selected.

For example, the essence of the interest-based persuasion channel "is inducement, not trading. Thus, you are engaged in interest-based persuasion whenever you pitch your idea as addressing the other party's underlying needs." As for rationality-based persuasion, Shell and Moussa define it as "trying to influence someone's attitudes, beliefs, or actions by offering reasons and/or evidence to justify a proposal on its merits." With regard to the relationship channel, they recommend it whenever similarity, liking, rapport, and reciprocity are used or when there is reliance on an existing network of contacts and friends to open doors as part of an idea-selling strategy.

In this remarkably lively and eloquent volume, Shell and Moussa provide their reader with a comprehensive, cohesive, and cost-effective process by which to use strategic persuasion to "sell" her or his ideas. (They use the term "road map" but I much prefer "process" because the "geography" of strategic persuasion will vary from one idea or one audience to the next whereas the information and counsel that G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa offer will be relevant to any "journey," wherever and whenever it may occur, whatever its ultimate destination may be.) They conclude with a list of "Ten Questions for Would-Be Wooers" that must be carefully considered, then answered with a high level of specificity. I remind those who read this review that self-audit diagnostic exercises are provided in the first two appendices. Each alone is well-worth the cost of this brilliant book.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Shell's Bargaining for Advantage as well as two books by Stephen Denning: The Leader's Guide to Storytelling and his more recent The Secret Language of Leadership. Also, Chip and Dan Heath's Made to Stick, Howard Gardner's Changing Minds and his more recent Five Minds for the Future, Robert B. Cialdini's Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, and Dale Carnegie's extraordinarily durable classic, How to Win Friends & Influence People.