Persuasion Tactics That Actually Work for Cross-Departmental Buy-In

Welcome. Dear listeners, to the speak and flow podcast, where we dive into unique strategies to help you and your team achieve maximum potential and flow even in high stakes moment, and I know that I have one of the best leaders out there to guide us through. How to get buy in

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Melinda Lee: his name is Steven Marr. He's the chief legal and administrative officer for Odeca

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Melinda Lee: Co-chair for the Bay Area Asian American General Council. He's won numerous awards, including the Association for Corporate Council, top 1030. Something welcome, Stephen.

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Melinda Lee: Thanks for having me, Melinda.

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Melinda Lee: I am so excited to dive in. I know this is a very juicy topic that a lot of my audience members are really wanting to learn more of which is to get buy in

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Melinda Lee: from different members different people within the company or clients or stakeholders. So before we dive into that share with us, like, what are you excited about in your world today?

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Stephen Mar: Sure. So so in my role, at my current company. So one thing I'm really excited about is the customers that we work with. So our core customer right now are coffee shops and cafes largely independent, or kind of smaller chains. And it's really great, because, you know, small businesses, I think.

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Stephen Mar: You know, you can really tell that they love what they do, and working with with those people every day and trying to make their lives better, is something that

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Stephen Mar: brings me joy on a personal level and makes me excited about work. And then, I guess on a on a more like work related level. A couple of things that get me very excited. So in addition to the legal hat that I wear. I wear a couple of other hats, and one of those is the Hr hat, and

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Stephen Mar: as a people team we're we're have. We're in the middle of an exciting project where we're trying to update our company values. And so it's an exercise where we spend a lot of time thinking about what's important to us. What should we be aspiring to as a company? What should we care about? And so that's given us the opportunity to really dive into the company's culture a lot more, and figure out how we can.

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Stephen Mar: you know, make all of that. Get that all that to the next level which has been exciting, and then.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, that is a fun project.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah, so it's a lot of fun. running focus groups and and just talking to more people at the company. And then we're also growing a lot as a company and some of that is growth by, just, you know, finding customers and and bringing them onto our platform we're also doing some mergers and acquisitions, some m and a. And so all of that is is very busy time. But we're we're very excited to continue to grow and make the company better.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, that's fascinating! What a what! They're really lucky to have you as part of their legal team. And so you've led some legal big initiatives and and had to talk to multiple stakeholders where people had different opinions

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Melinda Lee: and need to still get the buy-in. So what in your experience have you seen where people do it?

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Melinda Lee: They they miss. They have mistakes, they don't do it correctly.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah. So I mean, and some of these will be my mistakes as well. Right? Because because I've made a lot of them in in my time. So I think, one of the big things that I see in terms of

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Stephen Mar: people not optimizing the message is, they think too much from their own perspective. And so when they're trying to get buy in from other stakeholders in their organization, they're delivering their message. They're delivering. You know what's persuasive to me versus what's persuasive to the people that I'm speaking to so, for example.

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Stephen Mar: if you know if I'm if I'm speaking to other people, and I'm from the legal team. But I'm speaking to someone from the finance team, someone from the Hr. Team, someone from the tech team. They're not necessarily gonna care about the same things that that I care about or to the same extent that I care about them. And so I think

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Stephen Mar: one thing that people sometimes forget is that you know, even though we're all part of the same company, we may have different perspectives about what we want to accomplish and how we should accomplish things. And so, I think tailoring your message at the beginning and framing it in the right way, or in the way that you think is more likely to get buy in from the stakeholders that you're actually talking to. I think that's something that that people don't always think about.

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Stephen Mar: Another example is is when you know again. And this relates again to thinking about your audience, thinking about how much information they actually need?

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Stephen Mar: And how much detail do I need to go into? And what do they actually need to make the decision? And one thing that I see happen a lot is you know, people go into a meeting where they only have so much time, and they need to deliver a message, and they spend

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Stephen Mar: too much time going to the details, getting to kind of a level of detail that the other people in the room don't need to to get to understand. And, in fact, actually detracts from the impact of their message. And so cause cause. I think there's a tendency when you are owning a project, and you know a lot about it, to be able to share what you know. But I think, you know.

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Stephen Mar: taking a step back and saying, Okay, I may know all of this, but how much does everyone else actually need to know in order to understand whether they'll agree with me and want to, you know, do what I'm advocating for. So I think learning to cut out some of that detail can be really helpful.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, I mean, what are the repercussions of sharing too much? Because, like you mentioned, I know so much. I want to share as much as because on my end, if I want to share it sounds great. It sounds like it makes me feel like I I know it all. But what might be the repercussions or the risk of sharing and over sharing too many, too much detail to an audience that doesn't care.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah. So so I've actually made this mistake before. And it was really important lesson that I learned very early on. So when I started my legal career. I I was at a law firm and at a law firm. You do a lot of communication by email. And so I remember that I was tasked with a prod, a research project,

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Stephen Mar: and I had to kind of figure out what the answer was. On the project. And so I wrote this like very detailed email that had everything that I had done. And all of the, you know, you know, basically trying to show the work that I put in to show that I had really come to this answer through being very thoughtful and being very thorough. And then I sent that

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Stephen Mar: email off. And and then the response I got was like, Well, what's the answer? Because it clearly like, you know, I had put the answer at the bottom of very long email. Probably like 10 paragraphs more than I needed. And that was actually really helpful, because I realized that I had written that email for myself, and what I, you know.

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Stephen Mar: wanting to show off what I had done rather than sending the email with the purpose of making it really clear to the to the person I was emailing.

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Stephen Mar: you know what the answer was, and you know very briefly how I got to that answer. And so now, when I think about how I communicate, I try to flip that script instead of starting with. Like all that, all this background information I just kind of start with. Here's what I found, and then and then you can go into a little bit of the detail enough to give them confidence that you know what you're talking about. But

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Stephen Mar: starting with the answer has been a really helpful lesson for me in terms of communicating.

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Melinda Lee: Right? Yeah. So give the information what they need want. First.st

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Stephen Mar: Yes.

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Melinda Lee: Yes.

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Melinda Lee: it's so true because we want to come in. But your thought process was it wasn't ill harm and didn't harm anybody. You're actually just showcasing what you did all the research. But at the same time yes, stepping back to really think through. Who's the audience? How are they going to receive all this information.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah, exactly.

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Melinda Lee: Just the order it could have been. Had you just flipped it, it probably would have worked really well.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah. So I should have led with like, here's the answer. And then, yeah.

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Stephen Mar: And then sometimes what I do now is like, if you, if you actually want to know, you know all the details. Here it is. But then I put it like lower down, so that if they care, and it's the sort of person that does want to know the details, because sometimes they do, they have the opportunity to look at it, but if they don't care, they just want the answer so they can move to their next decision. Then they have that really cleanly at the top.

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Melinda Lee: Right? So when you're about to go into a meeting with multiple perspectives, different perspectives, people are not on the same page.

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Melinda Lee: and you want to get the buy in from other stakeholders. What were your steps to prepare then?

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Stephen Mar: So I think there's a few different things you could do. And and you know the the amount of time you put into this sort of prep. Probably you you tailor it right to the importance of the meeting. How important it is to get the buy in do you think it's gonna be difficult to get buy in? Or do you think it's gonna be easy if you think people are already on likely to be on board. Maybe you don't need to invest as much time. But, there's a few things that that I like to do.

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Stephen Mar: Whether it's me leading the meeting or or someone on my team. One is to just

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Stephen Mar: understand who the stakeholders are, and we talked about this a little bit earlier. But if you know you're gonna have representatives from certain functions, and you know that they're likely to care about certain things, making sure you

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Stephen Mar: weave that into your story or your your argument, or the case that you're making? I think you also need to know your audience, not just based on the team or the function they're from. But you may need to know about them individually. So

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Stephen Mar: if you have someone you know that they care about, you know this one thing, and they always ask a question about this one topic. You make sure you either mention it right away, or you have a very quick answer, so that if they bring it up, you, you know you don't spend time, you know, worrying about it or worrying that you're gonna give an answer that won't satisfy them, and then they'll be thinking about it the rest of the time. So I think.

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Melinda Lee: I have a question about that. I'm thinking about this. What if it's something that

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Melinda Lee: it's an opinion that you don't, that it's the opposite from yours. It's probably better to bring it up right like you, said.

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Stephen Mar: So, yeah.

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Melinda Lee: Something that is the opposite opinion.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, bring it up.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah, and and contextualize it, right? And and sometimes it. It depends on on your communication style. But one thing that I found to be effective, is almost joking about it, making it so.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, right, right.

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Stephen Mar: And it again. That won't work with every personnel, but with some people who I know always care about something. I'll even make a joke is like, I know you're gonna ask this

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Stephen Mar: right? Right?

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Stephen Mar: It was out of the way. And then you give your response. And they know that they that you're thinking about them, and that they're being heard right, even if you may have a different opinion, or you may have a slightly different take on what they care about. At least they know that you're you know, kind of thinking about them and accounting for how, how they view the world.

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Melinda Lee: yeah, yeah, so okay, so going back to the preparation, it's like like you said thinking about the entire team where what is the entire team, the other perspective thinking, but then also drilling down to each individual. What does that individual care about.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah, and and that again, you know it. It's situation dependent, right? If you have a meeting and you're you're talking to 30 people, you probably can't do that. But you can do some of it right? You can understand. You know, what are the 3 points that are gonna be most important to the greatest number of people in that room. Or if there's a subset of that group that really needs to be on on your side. Maybe focusing on those people.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, and is there anything else with regard to buy in.

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Stephen Mar: So

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Stephen Mar: you know, this is gonna be like very similar to what what I what I just said. But even just speaking speaking the language of the people that you're talking to so as lawyers. Sometimes I think the trap that we fall into is, we think that everyone else thinks the same way that we do. So everyone else is

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Stephen Mar: very concerned about risk. Everyone else. Understand the Latin phrases that we use or the acronyms that we use. And I think this is true, for for you know, for people in different areas, right? We all assume that this kind of shared language that we have. Other people understand it, and that's not always the case. So whenever I'm working with

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Stephen Mar: someone on my team, whether they're a lawyer, or they're someone from our people team or from whatever team and they're, you know, doing kind of a dry run with me on a presentation. I try to strip out all the jargon strip out like anything that they that you know, maybe, is a common phrase for them, but not a common phrase for

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Stephen Mar: the general public or the rest of the company, and make sure that they're speaking as plainly as possible. Because I think

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Stephen Mar: you know again, the more specialized you get, the more kind of phrases and acronyms and other and specific jargon you use, that other people are just not gonna understand. And.

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Stephen Mar: People will not always ask if they don't understand, because they don't want to look like they don't know what they're talking about, and so. I think I always put that burden on the person communicating to be clear from the start, and not and and to try to like make it so that no one will have to ask you. You know, what does that mean? Or I don't understand that that acronym. So

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Stephen Mar: it so so I think that's really important to do, because you you don't want people to feel like they have to ask, because they may not feel comfortable doing so, and they may just stay silent, and then they won't understand what you're saying.

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Melinda Lee: Right right, and then you've missed. You could have missed the mark.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah, exactly.

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Melinda Lee: And then they're not asking and using.

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Stephen Mar: Thinking about. You're spending the next like 20 seconds thinking about what does that mean? And then, whatever you're saying for for that period of time.

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Melinda Lee: Right? Right? So as an attorney, you have to balance the the information giving right you. You're talking about transparency and being very transparent in your communication. So how do you balance the

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Melinda Lee: like? The difference between how much to deliver to somebody? And and still being transparent.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah. So that's something that that I think I I'm still in the process of learning. And part of it is just knowing your audience right, and knowing what information will be useful to them, and what information won't. So one thing that that I've seen sometimes people do not as effectively as they

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Stephen Mar: can, is. And and I think I mentioned this earlier is just providing too much information. And sometimes and and this is. And this is something that I think about a lot. You know. Obviously at my company

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Stephen Mar: we have executive meetings right where it's the executive team talking about very kind of high level or strategic initiatives for the company maybe bigger things that we're thinking about or concerned about or need to decide and then and then after those meetings there's always the intent is always to cascade some of that information down right to the people on my team to the

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Stephen Mar: people that report to me, and then they do the same thing and and cascade that information further down. But I think at every layer. You're not always going to be

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Stephen Mar: or almost never. You're gonna be. You're almost never gonna be passing along 100% of the information that you're provided. And and there's a lot of reasons for that. But I think one of the reasons is it's not gonna be useful right? Because the people on my team? They have. You know, their roles that they have, and they may not need to know right? 70% of what

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Stephen Mar: of the information that came out of that meeting? And so it's my job, and and as a communicator, right? And as a leader, it's my job to figure out what is the information that they need to know to be able to do their jobs more effectively?

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Stephen Mar: What's the information that they may not need to know, but would be they would appreciate knowing, because then they feel like I'm being communicative with them. And then what's what's the information that I should not pass along whether because it's confidential or because I think it'll actually be harmful for them, because they may spend a lot of time thinking about this thing that

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Stephen Mar: is not part of their job. They have no control over. Instead of like being able to focus on their job effectively. And I think that's really hard to do. And again, I am always in the process of learning how to do that better. But I think that that

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Stephen Mar: sort of analysis is the same thing you can do, whether you're trying to deliver information to a client or deliver from information to to a colleague to convince them of something at the company, or or even in your interpersonal communications with your family. Right? You're always trying to figure out how to filter communication in the right way. And I think that's a really really hard thing to to do, and no one's perfect at it. I'm definitely not. But it's something I think, about a lot.

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Melinda Lee: You're so you're a very genuine person. I really love that. And I think those buckets are great in terms of how you categorize it. Okay, what is the information they need to know? This is this is just yeah. It's very easy to determine that it's the information. After that, it's like need to know, but appreciate like. It would be helpful for them that information is helpful to share, because then they feel a part of something they feel like a part of

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Melinda Lee: the team and but then the information that is harmful that they might, and especially if they can't, control it. That's information that you, you definitely have to think more carefully about and be more cautious about only to yeah, protect them, and also the the entire company. But

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Melinda Lee: and maybe you tell them at a different time when you have more information. You know there's different reasons why maybe you don't share that last piece.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah, exactly.

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Melinda Lee: Exactly.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah. But those buckets are great. I think that's very helpful. For me.

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Melinda Lee: Bye, that would be. I'm learning.

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Stephen Mar: For me. Hopefully, it works for other people.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, you are very successful, and you've had a lot of experience and history about, you know you you stem from. You told me your story about how you even knew you're gonna become an attorney anyways. Can you share a little bit about that? Because.

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Stephen Mar: Sure!

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Melinda Lee: Fascinating.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah. So so I think my parents knew before I knew that I was going to be attorney, and they would always joke because I

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Stephen Mar: I was. I was not the best kid, and I would argue with them all the time, even as like a you know, like I think you know, as young as 8, and so they would always joke that they always knew that I was going to be an attorney, but I think I I 1st thought that might be a path for me when I was in high school, and when I was in high school I was part of our debate team, and they did the same thing in college. But I think

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Stephen Mar: what was really helpful about that was obviously, when you think about debate, you think about people standing, you know, at a lectern or a podium, and arguing with each other and trying to persuade a judge of

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Stephen Mar: your position. But there's a lot more to debate than that. There's a lot of research. There's a lot of behind the scenes preparation that goes into it. There's, you know, practicing how you speak and how you communicate learning. You know how to communicate effectively to get buy-in from your judge, and a lot of that extra work behind the scenes. When I was talking, I think, to a career counselor at some point they said, look like.

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Stephen Mar: you know, not a lot of people necessarily enjoy all of these things like the public speaking, the research that you have to do all of that, the kind of organization making outlines. And they said, Have you considered a career in law, and

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Stephen Mar: I hadn't, because I was in high school, and, you know, wasn't thinking about what I was going to do for a career. But but that did kind of start me thinking, is that something I would enjoy? And I talked to people as I continued through college, and it did seem like something I would really enjoy and and be decent at. And so I ended up going to law school. And and you know, however, many years later, still enjoying being a lawyer and everything. So I so I guess it was. It was good advice.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah. And then all those skill sets like you still have them. You still use them. The preparation right, the behind the scenes, the research the practice and then going up there to yeah. Talk about your position. And and I I love that. You're flexible. And you listen. It sounds like you're you're authentic, and what you say. And so I feel like that makes you a really good attorney.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah, it's actually funny, because,

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Stephen Mar: you know, you don't. I guess I don't really think about that all the time. But a lot of the skills when you think of them more as adversarial. Right? Like, you're debating with someone you're arguing with them by those same skills in like non adversarial context. Right? As you said, when I'm just trying to convince someone at the company, or I'm just trying to build a relationship with a colleague. You can apply some of those same skills. And it's not, you know, people pitted against each other. It's more just general persuasion.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: and those. But the skills that you're talking about it may not fit like you said, it seems, and the off the cuff seems adversarial, but the actual skills is more about listening.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: Right? We're not combating. We're actually listening. If you really want to have a persuasion or a persuasive perspective.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah, what?

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Melinda Lee: Right.

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Stephen Mar: Yeah, because one of the things you when when you're you know you're you're when you're debating, is you the judge and one of the things that you learn is to read their you know their nonverbals right? You can tell when someone's confused or you can tell when someone disagrees with you. They'll make a face sometimes, because, you know, not everyone has a great poker face, and so learning to like adapt your message in real time, based on how your audience how you think the audience is, is receiving or not receiving your message.

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Stephen Mar: It's very useful in a lot of different contexts. So.

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Melinda Lee: I've learned so much. I think these are all so very helpful. Can you share with us a story or an example of how you've

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Melinda Lee: gotten buy-in.

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Stephen Mar: Sure. Yeah. So let me think of it. Let me think of one. So

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Stephen Mar: I mean, this is a pretty generic example. But it's something that's happened probably a few times. And so I think it's it's a good one. So in one of my jobs,

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Stephen Mar: you know we would I I would I oversee a team, and we would be in charge of like these projects that were pretty important to the company, but also very high stress and a lot of eyes on them. And a lot of representation from different teams at the company. And so in going into those meetings knowing that you had to kind of get buy in that we're gonna take a certain path forward we would do a lot of

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Stephen Mar: prep into like making sure that our message was as likely to succeed as possible. And so you know, there's, you know, we applied a lot of the principles that we've talked about. in the past, you know. 15 min. And one of those was you know, we knew that there were going to be certain stakeholders from certain functions, and they cared about certain things.

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Stephen Mar: And so we made sure that our presentation or or our agenda. Weaved in those concepts that were likely to to bring them bring, buy in and another thing that we did was we. We went around before the meeting, and kind of got some informal feedback from people that we knew were going to be at the meeting.

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Stephen Mar: And kind of got made sure that it was okay with them, so that when we presented it in the meeting we already kind of had allies who who agreed with us and were able to kind of you know. Say that in the meeting and and you know, that obviously helps because it shows that you have different people from different groups, agreeing on a path forward.

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Stephen Mar: And then we also knew that there were people who thought about the issue a little bit differently, and we would have to do some actual persuading in the meeting. And so we spent actually a good amount of our prep time focused on on those people, the people who maybe had different concerns than us, or thought that it made sense to take a slightly different path. And we kind of prepared. How would we deal with that? How would we

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Stephen Mar: address it in a way that still kind of communicates our position, but also makes them feel like they. They have been heard which again, is like a very difficult sort of position to weave to, to kind of navigate. And so we were not always 100% successful. But I will say that the prep work that we did ended up being hugely helpful in

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Stephen Mar: in not only more often than not getting us to what we thought was the right solution, but doing it quicker than I think it would have otherwise taken like maybe it would have taken 2 or 3 meetings, but we could get it done in one meeting, or or something like that.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, I love that. I love that. That was very very clear example, right of actually applying all the skills

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Melinda Lee: and turning it into. And then did you, in the particular moment in that situation, did you? Were you successful in turning and getting everybody on the same page?

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Stephen Mar: Yes, not not not every time.

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Melinda Lee: America.

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Stephen Mar: I always had like. Sometimes you would have a straggler or 2, but I think overall in most of those situations we were able to get at least people even if they weren't like fully 100. I agree this is the right way. They were at least willing to go along with what we had proposed, because we came across as thoughtful and considering others views, and we hadn't just like decided

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Stephen Mar: we should do this. And let's just, and everyone else needs to come along. We we showed that we cared what other people thought, and that we had put a lot of thought into what? Our proposal was

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Stephen Mar: right right? And then also you streamlined it like in terms of 1, 3 meetings, one meeting versus 2 or 3, right?

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Stephen Mar: Because people people's time is valuable. No.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, right? Right?

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Melinda Lee: So, yeah, right? So if they felt heard, then you can move along faster.

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Stephen Mar: Exactly.

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Melinda Lee: Find the commonality.

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Melinda Lee: Love it. Thank you so much, Steven. So what is your one leadership, golden takeaway that you want people to remember.

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Stephen Mar: So for for me. And I suspect this is true for for most other people, but for me the I think the one

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Stephen Mar: trait that I think has served me very well is being authentic and

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Stephen Mar: by authentic. I don't mean, you know, you have to overshare and like. Say everything that's always on your mind, but I think authentic meaning. Knowing yourself well enough to know

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Stephen Mar: You know how you come across and how you communicate and not trying to create this almost like facade of who you are depending on who you're talking to. So I do think it's important to build rapport, and to be able to speak the language of your audience. But you can do that in an authentic way, and I've always found that when I have been authentic and kind of represented who I am.

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Stephen Mar: and communicated from that viewpoint. It's always ended up being better in the end than trying to almost change my personality or change who I am depending on, who I'm talking to, because if it's not authentically, you at some point, you're gonna slip, and you're, gonna you know.

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Stephen Mar: not be able to to act that way forever. And so

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Stephen Mar: you know, it's gonna be a lot easier for you mentally, if you just are yourself.

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Stephen Mar: Find a way to be persuasive and to communicate that is authentic to you.

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Melinda Lee: I love it. I'm I love it. I think it's so true, definitely. Be authentic. Be true to you. Speak your truth.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: yeah, it's difficult that it is, but it does require that you have higher self awareness about who you are.

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Melinda Lee: and it comes from ourselves like taking a deep dive into who we are. First.st

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Stephen Mar: Yeah, it it that. And I think that's so important. And and you know I'm not perfect at it. And I don't think there probably is anyone who's fully self aware. But I think the more you understand how you operate, how you think, how you come across to other people. Then the more self aware that you are, then then

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Stephen Mar: the I think the better ultimately that you'll you'll come across to others.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah. And it's okay to have these weaknesses, blind spots.

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Melinda Lee: And the more we have acceptance of them, I think it it becomes does like it, it comes across more natural.

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Stephen Mar: You can tell when you're when you're not being authentic.

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Melinda Lee: Right, right.

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Stephen Mar: You think you're being really good at.

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Melinda Lee: Right, right? I love it well, thank you so much, Steven. It was a really fun conversation. I really enjoyed it. And just because these high stakes conversations are really important, they they matter. And so you've shared a lot of great nuggets and takeaways for people to be able to navigate these difficult conversations. So I really appreciate the time.

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Stephen Mar: Of course, and thank you for having me. I I really enjoyed the discussion as well and hopefully. Hopefully. It was, you know, a couple of useful things for people.

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Melinda Lee: I do. I believe that. And so thank you. Audience, for being here. I trust that you've gotten your leadership golden takeaway today. So implement them. And remember, anytime you have a chance to communicate. You also have a chance to connect, to inspire, and to make a bigger difference in this world and the community, and until next time I am your sister and flow. Take care much love. Bye, bye.

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Melinda Lee: thank you.

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Stephen Mar: Thanks, Melinda, this.