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

Snell 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. (Oct.)