Making Your Case for Change: The Value of Improving Advocacy Skills

The Power of Advocacy

As defined by Fast Company¹, “The purpose of advocacy is to achieve change – and more specifically, change for the better.” In the workplace, the ability to advocate is an essential skill because:

• Success is not correlated to quality of ideas. It’s correlated to how these ideas are advocated for.
• Everyone, and especially leaders, needs to have a voice.
• Ideas that rise to top influence the course, and oftentimes success or failure, of an initiative or organization.
• Data illustrates that persuasive leaders are much more impactful.

How to Advocate for Your Ideas

A 5-step Model of Influence outlines the most effective way to advocate for your ideas, communicate a vision, and drive action.

1. Create a Need: Pain is the secret to successful need.
2. Have a Plan: People like short-term wins better than long-term ones.
3. Show Benefits: People want to know their WIIFT (‘what’s in it for them’).
4. Handle Challenges: Pairing answers with an alternative showcases knowledge.
5. What Happens if You Don’t Adopt: People fear regret and actions not taken more than they enjoy excitable opportunities.

One-to-one conversations are more powerful than group conversations as they afford more control and allow you to capitalize on personal relationships.

7 Keys to Showcasing Benefits and Asserting Influence

There are established best practices and models for how to drive organizational change, including the Model of Influence described above. The challenge many people face when advocating for an idea or initiative is neglecting to consider the perspective of their audience. When asserting influence, it’s always important to consider the WIIFT – What’s In It For Them? – question. This is applicable whether you’re establishing the need for change, framing your solution, or highlighting benefits. Here are 7 ways to incorporate your audience’s perspective and biases to become a more effective advocate.

1. Availability Heuristic The availability heuristic states that we overweight vivid and striking information, even when it doesn’t represent an actual statistical profile. For example, we are more concerned with shark attacks than car accidents, even though car accidents are substantially more likely.
   • TAKEAWAY: Emphasize the striking points you are making.
2. Equivalency Equivalency allows you to make numbers have meaning, by showcasing in terms that are understandable to your audience. For example, money is meaningful, but the consequence of money gets peoples’ attention. Saying ‘you can see a sunrise and sunset every 45 minutes’ is more impactful than describing the scientific rate at which the sun is moving.
   • TAKEAWAY: Include an ‘equivalent to’ with numbers or stats and use vivid imagery.
3. Choice Bias Providing choices offers a sense of control, and consequently makes people feel like the idea they pick is their idea since they are selecting it. However, you still have control since you curated which choices you decided to present. Just keep in mind there is a balance – too many choices overwhelm people.
   • TAKEAWAY: Offer a curated list of choices, all of which you find to be appropriate or top solutions.
4. Norming Bias This powerful bias explains our desire to be like others, rather than different from them. It captures the fact that people don’t want to appear deviant, especially in uncertain situations.
   • TAKEAWAY: Showcase an industry standard as part of your argument.
5. Lust and Disgust Organizations Lust organizations are those an audience deeply admires. Presenting your idea, or aspects of it, as similar to those companies can be a persuasive tactic. Conversely, disgust organizations are those that are not seen favorably or are strongly disliked.
   • TAKEAWAY: Identify companies regarded as lust organizations in your field and use them as a standard.
6. Consistency Bias People want to be consistent in their beliefs and attitudes.
   • TAKEAWAY: Endorsements have impact, and names of people we know and admire work – especially when used consistently over time.
7. God Terms God terms are the things we worship. For example, words like quality, customer focus, and safety. God terms make it hard to disagree even if you don’t like an idea; it’s difficult to fight or refute things like “trust.” Keep in mind that god terms change over time.
   • TAKEAWAY: Know your current god terms and sync a couple to your idea when pitching.

How Advocacy Transforms Your Organization

Advocacy is an important skill that can have major impact and reach across an organization. Advocacy unlocks doors to innovation, empowering leaders to advocate for:

• Their Ideas: Bringing a vision to life and obtaining buy-in.
• Their Staff: Increasing performance and engagement, motivating, and bringing teams together.
• The Organization: Ideas can drive an organization to success via sales, revenue, and competitive advantage.

The power of advocacy is clear. This means that as a L&D or HR leader, you need to both train and hire for this skill to ensure your organization’s success. If you’re looking to improve advocacy skills among leaders in your business, an executive education program might be just the way to do so.

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