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The Power of Powerless Communication

How to Be Modest and Influence People

Speak softly, but carry a big stick.

—Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. president

Dave Walton
took a deep breath. He was an employment law expert who specialized in trade secrets and employee competition cases. As a partner at the firm Cozen O’Connor, Dave was one of the youngest lawyers to be elected shareholder, and he had been named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer—Rising Star for several years. But he was about to stand up and give his first closing argument in front of a jury.

It was 2008, and Dave was representing a company that owned Acme-Hardesty, a Pennsylvania castor oil distributor that received its supplies from Jayant Oils and Derivatives in Mumbai, India. In December 2006, the CEO of Acme’s parent company was informed that Jayant was setting up a U.S. office and sales organization, and would no longer supply Acme with castor oil. During the following month, Acme executives learned that Jayant was planning to sell castor oil products directly to customers in the U.S. market, competing with Acme for business.

In the summer of 2006, two Acme employees had jumped ship to Jayant and helped them set up the competing company. Acme’s parent company filed suit against Jayant and the two employees, accusing them of stealing trade secrets and confidential information.

Dave prepared diligently and spoke passionately. He presented evidence that in March 2006, while still working for Acme, the employees agreed to financial terms to help Jayant start the competing distributor. In June, each of the two received initial payments of $50,000 from Jayant for consulting services.

The employees gave notice that they were leaving and went straight to India without informing Acme of their new positions. Dave argued that in India, they incorporated knowledge from Acme into Jayant’s business plan. One employee provided Jayant with a list of U.S. customer prospects that he was paid to develop for Acme, Dave claimed, and the Jayant president admitted that Acme’s documents were used to generate projections for investors. Dave further argued that while the employees were setting up the plan for Jayant in India, they used false e-mail aliases that gave them continued access to Acme’s orders.

The defendants were represented by three different prominent law firms, and Dave’s opponent in the trial was highly articulate. He had twenty-five years of experience, a law degree from Columbia and an undergraduate degree from Cornell, and a slew of awards under his belt, including being named one of the top one hundred lawyers in Pennsylvania and the litigator of the week for the entire country. One source described him as an “accomplished, knowledgeable, and sophisticated lawyer who is amazing on his feet in court.”

The defense attorney was eloquent and polished, telling the jury that Jayant engaged in legitimate competition, as it was entitled to do. Acme did lose some customers, the lawyer admitted, but it wasn’t because the employees did anything wrong. Acme was the middle man distributing Jayant’s castor oil products to customers. By cutting out the middleman, Jayant was able to sell the products more cheaply, which is precisely the point of fair competition. The employees were being treated poorly at Acme: one described it as a “hellhole,” the worst job of her life. The defense attorney nailed his key arguments, and he questioned the credibility of Dave’s main witnesses. Dave was impressed with the skill that the defense attorney demonstrated. “He was really good. He made better arguments than we anticipated.”

Dave knew the trial could go either way. On the one hand, he had painted a compelling portrait that Jayant and the two employees were guilty. On the other hand, this was a high-pressure, high-profile case. It was Dave’s first time taking the lead in a jury trial; he was by far the youngest lawyer there. During one of his examinations, an old foe reared its head: Dave started stammering. This happened a few more times, and it signaled that he lacked confidence.

Dave was particularly concerned about the effect on one particular juror. During the trial, this juror made it clear that he was in favor of the defendants: he felt that Jayant and the employees had done nothing wrong. The juror responded enthusiastically to the defense attorney, nodding appreciatively throughout his arguments and laughing loudly at his jokes. In contrast, when Dave spoke, the juror avoided eye contact, smirked, and made dismissive gestures. Throughout the trial, the juror came to court wearing blue jeans. But on the day of the closing arguments, the juror arrived wearing a suit and tie. When Dave watched the juror waltz in, his heart sank. The juror wanted to be the foreman, and he was obviously vying to turn the jury against Dave’s case.

Dave finished his closing, and the jury went into deliberation. When they came out, the antagonistic juror walked out first. He had been elected foreman, and he read the verdict.

The jury ruled in favor of Dave’s client, to the tune of $7 million. Dave’s victory set a record for the largest trade-secret verdict in Pennsylvania. There’s no doubt that Dave presented a brilliant case, speaking with conviction as a true expert in his field. But there was another factor that gave him the slightest edge.

There’s something that separates Dave Walton from other distinguished lawyers—and it’s something that he shares with former GE CEO Jack Welch, Vice President Joe Biden, singer Carly Simon,
20/20
anchor John Stossel, actor James Earl Jones, and Bill Walton of the Portland Trail Blazers, who is now a basketball announcer.

They all stutter.

Stuttering is a speech disorder that affects about 1 percent of the population. Growing up, Dave Walton was teased and ridiculed for stuttering. When he graduated from college, he applied for a sales job, but was turned down. “The interviewer told him he would never make it in sales because of his stutter,” his wife Mary says. When Dave decided to apply to law school, many of his friends and family members raised their eyebrows, hoping he wouldn’t have to do any public speaking. In law school, it seemed that their fears were prescient. Dave recalls that during his first mock court argument, the judge started crying. “She felt bad for me.”

Most people see stuttering as a disability, and we marvel at people like Jack Welch and James Earl Jones, whose confident demeanors typically bear little trace of their speech difficulties. But the truth is far more interesting and complex. Many people who stutter end up becoming quite successful, and it’s not always because they have conquered their stuttering. In the trade secrets trial, when Dave stammered and tripped over a couple of arguments, something strange happened.

The jurors
liked
him.

At the end of the trial, several jurors approached him. “They told me that they really respected me because they knew that I had a stutter,” Dave says. “They stressed that my stutter was minor but that they noticed it and that they talked about it. The jurors said they admired my courage in being a trial lawyer.”

Dave didn’t win the trial because of his stutter. But it may have created a stronger connection with the jury, helping to tip the balance in his favor. When the jurors commended him, Dave was “surprised and a little embarrassed . . . My first thought was, ‘I don’t remember stuttering that much.’ As the jurors walked away from me, I realized that I had something that was natural and genuine. It was an epiphany—my stutter could be an advantage.”

In this chapter, I want to explore how Dave Walton’s experience reveals critical but counterintuitive clues about influencing others—and how Dave exemplifies what givers do differently when they seek influence. In
To Sell Is Human
, Daniel Pink argues that our
success depends heavily on influence skills
. To convince others to buy our products, use our services, accept our ideas, and invest in us, we need to communicate in ways that persuade and motivate. But the best method for influence may not be the one that first comes to mind.

Research suggests that there are two fundamental paths to influence:
dominance and prestige
. When we establish dominance, we gain influence because others see us as strong, powerful, and authoritative. When we earn prestige, we become influential because others respect and admire us.

These two paths to influence are closely tied to our reciprocity styles. Takers are attracted to, and excel in, gaining dominance. In an effort to claim as much value as possible, they strive to be superior to others. To establish dominance, takers specialize in
powerful communication:
they speak forcefully, raise their voices to assert their authority, express certainty to project confidence, promote their accomplishments, and sell with conviction and pride. They display strength by spreading their arms in dominant poses, raising their eyebrows in challenge, commanding as much physical space as possible, and conveying anger and issuing threats when necessary. In the quest for influence, takers set the tone and control the conversation by sending powerful verbal and nonverbal signals. As a result, takers tend to be much more effective than givers in gaining dominance. But is that the most sustainable path to influence?

When our audiences are skeptical, the more we try to dominate them, the more they resist. Even with a receptive audience, dominance is a zero-sum game: the more power and authority I have, the less you have. When takers come across someone more dominant, they’re at risk of losing their influence. Conversely, prestige isn’t zero-sum; there’s no limit to the amount of respect and admiration that we can dole out. This means that prestige usually has more lasting value, and it’s worth examining how people earn it.

The opposite of a taker’s powerful communication style is called
powerless communication
. Powerless communicators tend to speak less assertively, expressing plenty of doubt and relying heavily on advice from others. They talk in ways that signal vulnerability, revealing their weaknesses and making use of disclaimers, hedges, and hesitations. In Western societies, Susan Cain writes in
Quiet
,
people expect us to communicate powerfully
. We’re told that great leaders use “power talk” and “power words” to forcefully convey their messages. By using powerless communication, surely people wind up at a disadvantage when it comes to influence.

Um, well, not quite.

I think.

In this chapter, my aim is to challenge traditional assumptions about the importance of assertiveness and projecting confidence in gaining influence. It turns out this style doesn’t always serve us well, and givers instinctively adopt a powerless communication style that proves surprisingly effective in building prestige. I want to trace how givers develop prestige in four domains of influence: presenting, selling, persuading, and negotiating. Because they value the perspectives and interests of others, givers are more inclined toward asking questions than offering answers, talking tentatively than boldly, admitting their weaknesses than displaying their strengths, and seeking advice than imposing their views on others. Is it possible that these forms of powerless communication can become powerful?