Lenny Rachitsky: uncertainty

Transcript context

…ng, so let's give it a go." And they all go and don't enjoy it. And we see that play out all the time. And a lot of people will just say, "I can't do anything. I don't have any influence in this case. We're just going to let him fail and they'll learn." Or this impolite person like me giving feedback the wrong way years in the past, I'm not going to sit Evan down and talk to him about this. He'll figure out on his own through failure that this doesn't work. And that can take months, that can take years, that can take a lifetime for people to learn the slow way. And it is a form of influence. You are being intentional to say, I think the world will create enough failure that adaptation will occur. That is a form of influence, just the slowest one. And a lot of people listening probably realize, "Oh, that's what I'm doing. How can I go way faster than just letting things fail?" So that's where moderate influence comes in. And a great book to read for a moderate influence is the Challenger Sale. And in the Challenger Sale, what we're looking at is the concept of teaching people something. And then when they live with this new knowledge, they'll see things that they weren't seeing before. So for example, in the feedback example that we can keep using over and over again through this is, "Hey Evan, you might want to notice people's body language while you're saying these things and here's some signs to look out for that when you've done this and you get this, that's probably a sign that people are bought in and still with you. And when you see this, that's probably a sign that people are pushing back." And you can ask this question in that moment and you'll probably hear answers like this. So you're like giving somebody a tool that their future is going to unpack. And the Challenger Sale kind of assumes a long enough sales cycle where you're not going to land the sale in the meeting, you're not trying to close them right there. You'll teach them some stuff and you'll, "Hey, if you see this stuff, that's a pretty clear sign that you need to take action. So why don't we call you in 30 days, and 30 days later we get on phone, "Hey, have you been seeing this?" And they'll go, "Everywhere I look, I can't not see it now." And that's how you influence a person in a few days, a few weeks, maybe a few months at worst, way faster than letting them fail. We actually had, I don't know if you know this, we had the author of that book on the podcast, Matt Dixon, I think his name. And the Challenger Sale, the idea there is challenge their perspective and view on what is actually real about the market and what they need. Exactly. Yeah. I think yes, there's the challenge component to it, but I think the underappreciated piece of that methodology is that you're still letting that person see the world, but you've given them new information that is breaking some calcification in their brain challenge. It's not the moment of the challenge where all the magic happens. There's moments that occur later that continue kind of putting that calcium, lime and rust melting formula on this expectation or this kind of decision in their mind to the point where sometimes they'll turn around and be like, "Thank you for even telling me this."…

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