Why should I trust you?Yes we can!
We’ve covered a lot of ground over the previous nine chapters, and your head may be spinning just a little. How am I supposed to remember to express caring and empathy while keeping my hands visible? What signal do I send if I look up and to the right? Which portion of my CODE score should I try to bolster if I’m a man? At what grade level am I supposed to aim my messages? Should I wear a tie?
If you feel that way, it’s perfectly normal. At some point during their training, almost all the people with whom I work worry that they’ll never remember to do everything right or be able to earn a perfect CODE score. As with any skill, the ability to break through and win people over must be built over time through lots and lots of practice. This book will give you a strong foundation on which to build. Hopefully, you’ll keep it on a shelf in your office and review it from time to time, especially before you’re about to engage in a conversation with someone who’s angry, worried, and suspicious.
In this chapter, we’re going to review another tool you can use to pull together many of the strategies, skills, and techniques we’ve discussed. My firm calls it the CAN Response (hence my use of Barack Obama’s campaign slogan as opening quote for this chapter), and it provides a framework for answering the most difficult questions people ask in tough situations. I’ve referred to these as credibility questions—questions that directly challenge your trust and credibility and are designed to drive down your CODE score (unlike fact questions, which are meant to elicit basic information and are not aimed at your CODE score). Credibility questions come in many forms. Here are some of the most common ones:
Why should I trust you?
Are you lying to me?
Why should I believe you?
Why are you doing this to me?
What are you going to do about the harm you’ve caused me?
When someone asks a credibility question like one of these, alarm bells should go off in your head. Remember, your first priority in a tough situation is to establish and maintain trust and credibility. If you don’t, you will never be able to win people over when they’re angry, worried, and suspicious of everything you say. A credibility question is a signal that your CODE score is under attack, and you need to do everything you can to keep it as close to 100 as possible.
The CAN Response is a simple, straightforward model for answering credibility questions. To see how it works, let’s break it down letter by letter.
The CAN Response begins with a C for the same reason that the CODE for trust and credibility begins with a C: caring and empathy together are the most important criterion by which people judge whether or not you’re a trustworthy and credible person and source of information. When you’re answering a credibility question, the first words out of your mouth must be caring and empathetic. Again, the best way to do this is to tell a personal story that resonates with your audience.
Remember Mr. Dawson from the previous chapter? He’s the food company CEO we helped to prepare for testimony before a congressional committee regarding a salmonella outbreak. We anticipated that one of the members of the committee would accuse him of making people sick. He might also hear the same thing from reporters or regulators—or even from someone who got sick. We had to make sure he was ready for that accusation.
It turned out that Mr. Dawson had suffered from food poisoning during an overseas trip, so we encouraged him to talk about that experience when it felt appropriate. I’m paraphrasing (and I’m not sure he ever had to use the anecdote), but it went something like this:
I can sure understand why you would be worried and upset about getting sick. Food poisoning is scary. It actually happened to me about five years ago during a trip abroad. I was sick as a dog for two days. Fortunately, it passed pretty quickly, and all I missed was a couple of days of vacation. But when I got back, I redoubled my efforts to make sure my company does everything possible to ensure that its products and processes are safe, because I don’t ever want anyone to feel the way I did.
Remember that men need to spend more time expressing caring and empathy than women. A full CAN Response should last between two and three minutes. For men, about one-third of the response (between 40 and 60 seconds) should be devoted to the C in CAN. Women can limit caring and empathy to about one-fifth of the answer, or about 30 seconds. In either case, the only way to fill that much time is with a personal story.
People often ask me if they need to express that much caring and empathy in response to every single question. The answer is no. It’s important to do so initially, when your audience is first judging whether or not you’re trustworthy and credible. When you begin to sense that you’ve earned all 50 caring and empathy points, you can start to back off from expressing caring and empathy every time someone asks you a question, especially if it is a fact question. But keep the C in mind. If things are going well and then someone suddenly fires a tough credibility question at you, go back to basics and provide a full CAN Response that includes a complete dose of caring and empathy right up front.
Once you’ve provided the right amount of caring and empathy, the next step is to answer the question. The whole point of establishing trust and credibility is so you can impart information that will change people’s attitudes and beliefs. If the C of a CAN Response is the part that allows you to break through to people, the A is the part where you win them over. We don’t necessarily want people who are angry, worried, and suspicious to remember that you’re trustworthy and credible, although that’s what you need to be. As we discussed in Chapter 3, what we want them to remember are your key messages. The A represents the portion of your CAN Response where you convey that message, or sound bite.
The formula for the A portion of your CAN Response is:
message-supporting facts-message
Let’s take a closer look at each element of this formula.
Let’s visit with Mr. Malone from Chapter 5 one more time. He very effectively used just about every strategy, skill, and technique we’ve discussed, and he earned a CODE score of close to 100. But Mr. Malone didn’t want the people in the auditorium to remember how caring he was. Or open. Or dedicated. Instead, he wanted them to remember that the leak, while unfortunate, was very small and that it would not harm them or their families. In fact, the answer to most credibility questions is often some variation of, “You’re going to be OK.” The message Mr. Malone was trying to send was, “You and your family are safe.” Dr. Pierce from Chapter 4 wanted people to know that the procedure he was defending was “safe, effective, and necessary.” If you’re encouraging an employee to improve his performance, it might be “While we need you to step up your game, we want you to do well here.”
Whatever its content, your sound bite message should be:
Short and simple. Since the message is what you want people to remember, you need to make it easy to remember. A long message containing big words won’t work. Keep it to between 7 and 12 words, and leave out any jargon. Try to use words with no more than three syllables; two is even better.
Positive. Do your best to eliminate negative words from your answers. It’s always possible to flip a message to make it positive. Note that Mr. Malone didn’t say, “Don’t worry about the leak.” If someone asks why you’re lying to her, don’t respond by saying, “I’m not lying to you.” Try “I’m telling you the truth” instead. If you’re arguing with a significant other, it’s “I need you to hear what I’m saying,” rather than “You’re not listening to me.”
Caring and empathetic. Many of the people I train have trouble distinguishing between a message and a fact. Since so much of what we work on involves caring and empathy, it usually helps them to think that way when formulating the A part of their CAN Responses. Mr. Malone didn’t want people to remember that the leak was small or that it had dissipated to below background exposure levels. The professor who joined him on the stage that night sent those kinds of messages, and the audience attacked him. The message you convey should not be factual; it should be caring: “You’re going to be OK,” not “Exposure levels are too low to cause harm.” Ultimately, the answer portion of your response must address the underlying concern contained in the question. In most cases, that underlying concern will involve fears about personal safety or well-being. Occasionally it will involve financial concerns or emotional burdens. Every time, the messages you convey should address those fears.
The message is only the first part of the A. Once you’ve conveyed the message, you need to support it. Almost by definition, messages are assertions. If you want someone to process and believe them, you need to back them up. This is where you want to include supporting facts that help to prove that the assertion contained in your message is true.
The second part of your answer should include two supporting facts. Remember the power of third-party credibility, and try to use one fact that cites an independent expert with greater credibility than you. Had the professor’s CODE score not been so low because of his own mistakes, Mr. Malone could have cited him as a credible independent expert. The other supporting fact can be almost anything, although a good, short anecdote is most effective. The same rules that we applied to the message portion of the answer also apply to the supporting facts: keep them short, simple, and (if possible) caring and empathetic.
Once you’ve provided your supporting facts, repeat the message (or sound bite) exactly as you stated it at the beginning. Repetition is the basis for any good ad campaign, because people need to hear or see something at least several times before it really penetrates.
We even encourage our clients to highlight the message somehow. One way is to raise your voice slightly while conveying the message, so people hear it more clearly and understand that it’s more important than everything else you’re saying. Another is to telegraph the message verbally by saying something like “Here’s the most important thing I’m going to say to you” or “If you only remember one thing I’ve said, this is it.” The goal is to make sure the message penetrates.
Before you complete a CAN Response, you should make one last effort to boost your CODE score by letting your audience know what’s going to come next. This is all about the D in CODE, or dedication. If you’re reprimanding an employee, let him know what you intend to do to fix the situation. Tell him, for example, that you’re going to meet twice a week at a certain day and time to review his performance. Encourage him to come to you if he has any questions or concerns. If you’re talking to a group of people, copy Mr. Malone and bring business cards to hand out so they can reach you after the meeting is over. Or make sure everyone has your e-mail address.
Provide sources where audience members can go to get more information. Borrow credibility as often as you can by offering third-party sources (in today’s world, websites are the best ones), as well as your own. This is also the place to reiterate that you’ll get back to people with answers to the questions you didn’t know.
While every CAN Response follows the same pattern, each one will be different. As you prepare to communicate in a tough situation, you need to think about the credibility questions you’re likely to get and prepare CAN Responses for each one. Here are three full CAN Responses to demonstrate how the model works.
Mr. Dawson appears before the House Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry to answer questions about the salmonella outbreak involving his company. The chairman asks the following question: “Mr. Dawson, what do you have to say to the people who got sick and to their families?”
C: Mr. Chairman, I know firsthand how uncomfortable and scary it can be to suffer from food poisoning. It actually happened to me about five years ago during a trip abroad. I ate dinner one night, and the meal seemed like it was properly prepared and perfectly safe. As it turned out, three hours later, I was sick as a dog. I didn’t leave my hotel for two days. It was awful, but fortunately it passed pretty quickly. Ultimately, all I lost was a couple of days of vacation. I know that many of the people affected by this outbreak have suffered much worse. A handful of people have been hospitalized, but, thankfully, I understand that everyone is expected to recover. My heart goes out to them, and I’m very pleased that they’re all going to be OK.
I take my responsibilities as the CEO of my company very seriously, and I recognize that in my position, I have the ability to do something about food safety. When I was sick in that hotel room, I vowed to redouble my efforts to make sure our company’s processes and products are safe, because I don’t ever want anyone to feel the way I did. This is the first time in the five years since that day that my company has come under scrutiny for a food poisoning incident.
A: We’ve conducted a thorough investigation of our facilities, and my message to you, Mr. Chairman, and to the rest of this committee and to all of our customers is the following:
The salmonella in this incident came from somewhere other than our company.
Our investigation involved our own experts as well as officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the state Department of Food Safety. These experts reached this unanimous conclusion after spending more than a month inspecting our facilities and talking to our suppliers and our customers.
I recognize that our findings provide little comfort to those who were affected by this outbreak. Even one incident of food poisoning, regardless of the source, is too many. I know I didn’t really care why or how I got sick on my trip. I just wanted to feel better. But it is important for me to say this to you and to our customers, once again:
The salmonella in this incident came from somewhere other than our company.
N: Even if it came from somewhere else, we still take this outbreak very seriously. I have formed a special task force in our company to review all of our policies and procedures to determine what else we can do make sure that our company provides safe, affordable, and nutritious products.
Everyone has a role to play in safe food preparation. Consumers should follow all the proper guidelines when preparing their food. To help, my company has created a special website where our customers can go to learn how to prepare all of our different products safely. I also pledge to you and to our customers today that when the special task force’s review is complete, we will share what we learned and whatever steps we’re taking on that website.
You have to let an employee go for poor performance. After you deliver the bad news, she asks, “Why are you doing this to me?”
C: I know how hard this is. It happened to me when I was about your age. I took a job that I didn’t really even want, because I needed it. And it wasn’t a good fit right from the very beginning. I tried, but I wasn’t all that interested in the job or the work. I knew I wasn’t doing as good a job as I could. My boss told me several times that I needed to improve my performance or he would have to let me go, just as we’ve talked two or three times about your performance here.
Eventually, he called me into his office and told me my time had run out. Even though I knew it was coming, I was still shocked. And I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell anyone, and I left the building in a state of shock. This was more than 20 years ago, but I still remember how it felt.
Now here’s the good news: Even though it didn’t feel like it at the time, now I see how getting laid off from that job was the best thing that ever happened to me. After I got over the initial shock, I went back to school and got my master’s degree and wound up pursuing a completely different career. Now here I am in a job that I really love, and I’m much happier.
A: And here’s what I want you to remember as you leave here today:
You’re going to be just fine.
I looked it up before you came in here, and more than half of the people working today have lost at least one job at some point during their careers. It’s very common.
Let’s just chalk this up to a bad fit. I’m sure you can’t see it now, but one day you’ll look back, just as I did, and realize that this is the best thing that ever happened to you. So again, my main message to you is this:
You’re going to be just fine.
N: We’re going to provide you with a month’s severance, and you can stay on our health insurance plan for nine months. We’ll pay the premiums for the first three, and then they’ll become your responsibility. And I want you to take my card with you. While this job may not have been a good fit, I like you personally, and I know you’re going to land on your feet. Call me anytime if you need some advice or some help, and please let me know when you’ve found a new job.
You head a professional society that represents thousands of people, and you decide to adopt a new logo for the first time in 25 years. Many of your members have a very strong affinity for the old logo. When you announce the change at your annual convention, several members ask, “Why are you replacing something that everyone knows so well?”
C: Change is always hard, especially when it comes to something as important as a logo. I can tell you have a lot invested in what we have today; so do I. I see that logo every day in our lobby when I arrive in the morning. It’s on all the checks I sign. It’s on my business card. Everywhere I look, there it is. It may sound a little corny, but that logo has become a part of who I am. So I understand completely why you’re asking that question. When we first started talking about developing a new logo, I asked myself the very same thing. And I talked to a lot of people before we decided to move forward. I always asked them “Are we thinking about fixing something that isn’t broken?”
A: Here’s what I usually heard in response, and it’s the best way to answer your question:
Our current logo is broken, and we need to change it if we want to grow and thrive.
That’s so important that I want to say it one more time:
Our current logo is broken, and we need to change it if we want to grow and thrive.
Here’s why I say that. We recently did a survey of our members, and more than 60 percent said the current logo no longer represents what our organization has become. Roughly the same number said it was time for a change. The percentages were even higher among emerging professionals who have been members for less than five years. Those survey findings helped to convince me that the time had come for change.
What really affected my thinking was a conversation I had about six months ago with a recent college graduate in our field. When I suggested that he consider joining our organization, he told me that he already had considered it but decided not to. He looked at our website and talked to one of his professors, and based on what he learned, he decided we just weren’t relevant to his career. I realize it’s only one person’s opinion, but his decision really resonated with me. So when I asked myself the question you just asked me, again, here’s my answer:
Our current logo is broken, and we need to change if we want to grow and thrive.
N: So I believe that this new logo is a very important step for us, but it really represents the beginning. We need to roll out the logo and implement a real branding strategy that will prove to people that we’re a different organization and that they should take another look. I plan to send it to that student with just that recommendation.
In the meantime, we need your help. We know this process will be successful only if we have our members’ support. I’m eager to hear what you think about it and how you think we can best make the transition. I’d like to know what challenges you think we’ll face. Feel free to grab me any time during this meeting. We’ve also set up a special e-mail address where you can send thoughts and feedback: newlogo@ourorg.org. You’ll also see a new LinkedIn discussion group on the topic, and I’m sure this will become a major topic on our online forum.
While each of these scenarios is based on real situations in which I’ve been involved, I did take a few liberties with the details included in these CAN Responses. Obviously, when you’re preparing your CAN Responses, every word you say has to be true and sincere (openness and honesty provide 15 to 20 points of your CODE score, after all). Once you have the formula down, constructing CAN Responses will become second nature.
Delivering a full CAN Response typically takes two to three minutes. As Figure 10.1 illustrates, one advantage of that length is that you can get out a full response in a single breath—although that takes extra practice and skill.
FIGURE 10.1 Take a Deep Breath
When the stakes are really high, it’s helpful to learn how to deliver the entire CAN Response without breathing. Why? If you don’t breathe, your audience is much less likely to interrupt you. It also becomes important for people who agree to interviews with 60 Minutes and other big-time television news programs. If you don’t breathe, it’s very difficult for a reporter or producer to edit your answer and air only part of it. The show has to air either the whole thing, including the all-important caring and empathy, or nothing at all.
©iStockphoto.com/jdavidlong
As complicated as it may seem, the CAN Response is pretty basic. Vincent Covello teaches a more complex model that he calls the Level 6 Response. By that measure, the CAN Response is more like Level 3 or 4. While the formula is essentially the same, the Level 6 Response is longer—closer to three and a half or four minutes—and consists of 17 different parts. And then there’s the Level 10 Response, which is a Level 6 done without breathing.
Finally, remember: practice makes perfect. Once you’ve prepared your CAN Responses, try them out on a colleague or family member. I’ve always found that when I can perform well in front of people I know and who trust me, I’m ready to communicate with people when they’re angry, worried, and suspicious of everything I say.