Welcome And Why Persuasion Matters

Tom Mueller 0:07

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a Crisis Podcast. On this podcast, we talk all things crisis management, and we have a special focus around leadership. I'm Tom Mueller. Thanks for joining us again for this episode. Hey, if you want to drop me a line, you can reach me at Tom at LeadinginAcrisis.com and would love to hear from you. On our show today, uh, we're going to do something a little different. We're going to really focus on the art of persuasion. And that is a skill set that all of us would love to master, but few of us actually do. Well, our guest today is an expert in the art of persuasion and has a new book out on the subject. So we're going to talk to him and figure out how the rest of us can become really good in this art of persuasion. Josh

Josh Banduck’s Research Based Approach

Tom Mueller 1:01

Banduck is our guest today. Josh, welcome to the show.

Josh Bandoch 1:05

Tom, thank you so much. Real pleasure to be here.

Tom Mueller 1:08

Hey, now you've got a new book out, Josh. The title of it is How to Get What You Want: Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion. Just published here in 2026. Congratulations on having the book out. Was that a real labor of love for you?

Josh Bandoch 1:27

Yeah, it was uh it was a decade of labor and and love, truly. It's it's been such a gratifying project. So, yes, long-term project here.

Tom Mueller 1:37

Okay, good. Well, looking forward to diving into that a little bit. Now, your background, I understand you uh kind of worked as a researcher for various universities, including Notre Dame, uh, University of Wisconsin Madison, uh, and others. And then also, oh, speech writer, strategic communications consultant, and a TEDx speaker.

Josh Bandoch 2:00

Yeah.

Tom Mueller 2:01

Okay, all of that has kind of got you to where you are today, where you're doing training and educating full-time around the arts and principles of persuasion, right?

Josh Bandoch 2:13

Absolutely. And it's uh it's a kind of funny background that's come together in ways that are really powerful. So when I do my work in persuasion, I've had to understand what it is, and that requires, in part, understanding how this thing up here, the human brain, works. And that starts with research. So a lot of the book is grounded in neuroscience and psychology. So really putting that academic research background to use to understand how the brain works, and then taking a step that academics generally don't take and saying, okay, what is this good for? How do we use this in the real world? And then a lot of practical experience as a speech writer, even before even before that in fundraising, which is just nonprofit sales, which is um, which was extremely helpful for understanding how to persuade others, and then as a public policy advocate, whether it's writing or speaking or doing any number of things, and then now doing keynotes and workshops and things like that on the persuasion to work. So it's research, it's a lot of practice, and um, you know, it's uh ironing out the wrinkles and figuring out what works and figuring out what doesn't work.

What Great Persuaders Do Differently

Tom Mueller 3:24

Well, I've always been fascinated by some of the great communicators and and people who are good at persuasion. Ronald Reagan comes to mind. Bill Clinton, I always thought was really good at this. What are some of those key principles that you think uh helped those two and others, you know, be good at persuasion?

Josh Bandoch 3:47

Well, those are great examples. And one thing I always do when um give a workshop, especially, I'll say, hey, look, um, who are some of the most persuasive Americans of the last hundred years? And people always land on these same people JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, right? These are people that always are front and center in people's mind. And if you look at these folks, they have superpowers in common that are foundational to persuasion. So one of the most important things that they do is they proceed with enormous emotional intelligence, and specifically, they generate persuasive emotions. They were all for something, they generated positive emotions. The trouble is that we live in a time of so, first of all, we are wired, all of us, in our brains, is something called negativity bias. So our minds always go to negative information much more quickly and much more prominently. When was the last time, you know, uh someone had a conversation with their boss, annual review, boss says, Look, Tom, you're doing nine things really well. And there's just one thing I'd like you to improve on. And you go home and you were just stewing on it. Gurr, right? Okay, so we remember that one negative thing. And we live in a time where a lot of social media, a lot of journalism is just hyper focused on negativity, even to the point where it often becomes toxic. So the trouble with that is that we all know deep down that it's not persuasive. People go to Reagan and Clinton and people like that because they were positive, because they were for something. Take JFK for example. JFK said ask not. Nobody ever says Walter Mondale. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream. No one ever says Malcolm X. Ronald Reagan saw America as a shining city upon a hill. Nobody ever says Barry Goldwater. Bill Clinton, his well, he was a really powerful speaker and he was extremely emotionally connected with people that he uh that he talked to. Um Barack Obama talked about hope and change, right? These are all things that they were for, they're powerful, and they brought people to them. So I think that's the biggest place to start is generating some positive emotions and operating with emotional intelligence. That's I think something there was few people in American history who were better at doing that. Did Bill Clinton? Uh, people say that when they talk to him, they feel like they are the only person in the world, which is incredible. And, you know, think about the 1992 presidential election, the debate where uh he is it's the uh town hall debate. He's in there with the audience. He's like, you know, just feet from these people talking to them, truly connected to them, dialed in, and he's present. And then you have uh President George H.W. Bush on the stage looking at his watch, like, oh my god, is this thing done yet? And you could tell who was all in and connected and you know, and operating with tremendous emotional intelligence and who wasn't.

Leading Through Crisis By Naming Emotions

Tom Mueller 7:09

Well, uh Josh, let's take it to the realm of crisis, crisis management now. Uh you know, when we get into a crisis situation, emotions get ramped up. People are impacted by whatever the incident might be. They might be worried, concerned for their health and safety.

Josh Bandoch 7:29

Yeah.

Tom Mueller 7:30

And now you have a chief executive or an incident commander who has to step up and reassure those people and persuade them that it's all going to be okay despite the fire and flames or other issues you might see. How do how does that person leverage some of this to connect with the audience and help persuade them?

Josh Bandoch 7:57

That's a great question. And I think that to be a leader, people people have to want to follow you. A manager is simply somebody who is empowered institutionally with certain authority. When you're a leader, people want to follow you. And when when things are good, that's easy peasy, right? Hey, team, we had a great quarter, we grew by 8%. Ah, great, that's amazing. Everyone's doing great, cool. And when things are tougher, when there's a crisis, uh-oh, things get tricky. And negative emotions, they run high. So although ultimately uh positive emotions are more persuasive, and we'll come back to that. Um, when there's a crisis, people are experiencing a lot of naked motions. Maybe it's that uh there's a financial crisis at the company or just, you know, nationwide. Um, maybe it's, you know, if you're a company that requires a lot on gas and gas prices are high. Oh my God, right? Margins, oh my, like we're we're in the red this quarter. So the best way, don't do this. The absolute worst way uh uh to get people to calm their emotions down is to tell them you shouldn't feel that way. Because when was the last time you you tried that with like a friend, your spouse? Right, you know, if I tell my wife, you shouldn't feel that way. Well, it's even worse, like you shouldn't feel that way is like denying somebody's emotional reality. Telling them to calm down is almost as bad, hey, just calm down. No, no, no, no, no. So a leader has to recognize what his team or her team is feeling. And they have to be mindful of that and they have to tackle those emotions head on. So if your team is anxious, instead of ignoring that, you have to call it out and you have to say with emotional intelligence team, look, let's let's say the company is in a challenging situation financially, right? Things are really tight. Look, um, the budget's really tight right now. Uh, it's been a rough six months. And I know that you all are worried. You're worried, are we gonna make it through the next six months? Or a startup, right? These first three to five years are make or break. And the next six months are extremely important. Don't deny those emotions. Don't say, hey, no big deal, we'll figure this out. You recognize them, and then you have to offer a positive vision, a positive pathway to overcome that. If you simply skip past the negative emotions, you can't address them. And then they stay there and they linger, maybe in the back, but oftentimes right in the front of somebody's mind.

Tom Mueller 10:34

Okay, so that's a common concept that I'm familiar with, where you're trying to, you know, establish common ground with folks, right? Acknowledge the emotions that they're feeling. Yeah. And then you create that connection, that common ground. And now you've leveraged the emotion a bit. You've what I like to say is you've purchased some listening power. Yeah. And now you can move forward and describe your responsible actions, the, you know, whatever you're doing to try and resolve the situation and moving it forward. And hopefully you're bringing those stakeholders along with you.

Josh Bandoch 11:15

Yeah. Exactly. Right. And although common, I think that a lot of leaders skip this, maybe because they they have a plan, they haven't articulated it, or they they discount the emotions that their team uh is experiencing. And it's one thing, okay, look, you know, I know that you guys are worried. No, no, really caught those emotions, acknowledge them. Acknowledge those emotions because then people feel connected to you, and that gives you a much longer runway to have these conversations. And I do think a lot of people skip that. And then when you acknowledge them and you work through them, you have to pivot and say, Look, yes, all of that, I acknowledge all that. And now you're wondering, are we going to actually make it through this? Right? Here's our plan for doing that, and here's why we're doing this, and here's why this is gonna work. Because if people are like, okay, he gets it, we're in a big, big pickle here, and he doesn't have a plan for getting us out of it. Um, that's that's also really bad because then people start to jump ship. And then, all right, like then you the talented people they go first. So then you're in big trouble,

Feel First Then Reason

Josh Bandoch 12:26

right?

Tom Mueller 12:26

Well, you you mentioned you know that some managers or leaders will skip this emotional piece of that. Um, and it it comes around to sort of emotional quotient here. Why? Why are people uncomfortable tackling these emotional things head on, do you think?

Josh Bandoch 12:46

Well, I think there are two reasons. And before I say those reasons, I want to point to the neuroscience here. This is not Josh talking. This is what all the neuroscience and all of the psychologies show. Human beings, all eight billion of us. We feel first, then reason. We feel first, then reason. It doesn't mean that we don't reason. Uh sometimes it happens really quickly, sometimes it's feel boom reason. Then it says feel, then reason, sometimes it's feel, and we never get to reasoning. And moreover, uh, people who suffer brain damage and lose the ability to emote, their reasoning is actually impaired. So, what this means, writ large, is that first of all, the logic first approach to persuasion is actually illogical, and that you have to start with feelings. Whether you're in a crisis or you're not in a crisis, persuasion starts with feelings. It does not start start with logic. The trouble is that a lot of executives they've climbed the ranks because of their intellectual acumen. They're smart, they have great analytical skills. They might be a phenomenal individual performer, and so they pride themselves on their intellect, their ability to analyze whatever is that they're analyzing. So they think that persuasion and leadership and all and success is all about logic and all about thinking. And the trouble is that none of the neuroscience supports that. So they think, well, I'm this smart logical guy. And if I just offer my smart logical reasons, hey, I have a seven-point plan here. Like, yeah, tough quarter, but look, here's how we're gonna do this seven-point plan that everyone's like, oh yeah, cool, like seven-point plan, you know, uh, that all adds up to like wild success. So um, I also think that people see emotions as like weaker and inferior to reasoning. And I've actually come to embrace the reality that our intuitions, the feelings that we have and the quick intuitions that that we have, they're extremely powerful because they're really quick and they're grounded in reason. So when you share something with somebody and they're like, uh, I don't know about that, um, their intuition is that they're hesitant. And that's grounded in reason, but that gives me instant access to the reasoning. And so I would say, hmm, what makes you hesitant? And then they would tell me, and I have correctly observed that they're hesitant and they appreciate that and then they share it. And a lot of people just like to barrel on because they're much more focused on being right than they are in making a difference.

Tom Mueller 15:26

You know, I uh one of the issues that pops to mind,

Gender And Emotional Intelligence At Work

Tom Mueller 15:29

Josh, as you're talking about that is just sort of gender issues, right? In my life experience, it's you know, it's women tend to be way more tuned in on the emotional quotient, right? Yeah. And men, we struggle with that. Um, you know, and I'm thinking about, you know, those executives who've run up the chain and get into leadership positions, and as you've said now, suddenly they have to lead a team or an organization. Yeah. And just the intellectual stuff isn't enough. But uh does the science say anything about the differences between men and women in these areas?

Josh Bandoch 16:07

I do think that women have some built-in advantages. You know, I think men like to poo-poo, oh, you know, women, they're like a little more emotional. Well, if we feel first and reason and if emotional intelligence is far more important in almost every situation than raw IQ, then maybe being a little more in touch with your others' emotions is actually the logical thing to do. And men like to poo-poo that, and it's actually illogical. And I do think that women, for any number of reasons, all the going all the way back to the mothering instinct and being attuned to their kids' emotions. Um, I do think the women have built-in advantages. And, you know, I I I was uh giving a talk to some high-level folks that was back in April, and this one guy was poo-pooing it and it was like, oh, what do you want us to be more like women? And I'm like, well, if by that you mean uh sensitive to the reality of emotional intelligence, then sure, that's exactly what I mean. So fine with me.

Storytelling That Moves People To Act

Tom Mueller 17:09

Hey, let's pivot. And uh one of the other things that that you talk about in the book a little bit is the issue of storytelling. Yeah. And uh I'm kind of curious where you land on good storytelling and how does that work? Um, because you know, this is again, great communicators tell great stories. I mean, I think back to Ronald Reagan and you know the tales he would weave while pulling you in. Um, but there's a real art to doing that well. And what's what's your take and your guidance to executives to be better storytellers?

Josh Bandoch 17:50

Well, the first is tell stories because we are logic processors only after we are story processors. Stories come first for humans and stories stick. So if you want the data, right? Stories are many multiples uh more effective, and people remember stories way more than they remember raw data. So if you can tell a 30-second story or give a 30-minute uh PowerPoint presentation with seven points on every slide, tell the story because people remember it. So, what does a good story look like? There's a meta-analysis of literally hundreds of thousands of stories, and they pretty much all have the same arc. Okay, there's a hero, right? Things seem fine, and then oh my god, things seem terrible, and then that that nadir, oh, suddenly things turn to get better. Okay, fine. We kind of all know that. The innovation that I offer my book is that we're never really told what kinds of stories are persuasive. We just know that we have to tell stories. Okay, well, what kinds of stories are persuasive? And I unpack this in the book a lot more. They are morally motivating, emotionally intelligent stories. The emotionally intelligent part now, after a conversation, is no surprise. Human beings feel first. You have to you have to share something that's emotive. Think about the story Tom walked to the corner. The end. That's like the worst story ever, right? There's there's nothing there. It's like, well, okay, so the opposite of that is a story that makes people feel something. Okay, well, what do you want people to feel? You want people to feel positive things. That's what we went back to. You have to be for something. Well, how do you do that? The best way that you do that is that you appeal to your audiences, not your, but your audience's values. And one of the things I talk about in the book is understanding your audience, their values, their morals, if you will, and how you can appeal to them authentically, even if they aren't exactly your values. And that's by understanding them, making those appeals, and also offering remarks or speeches, or just talking to people in a way that is both magnetic and broad. Ronald Reagan did this extremely well. Was he a conservative? Sure. And he talked in ways that were appealing to folks from all across the political spectrum. That's why I believe in 1984 he won 49 of 50 states because he was able to talk in a way that was broadly appealing to many people. So that's what a good story does. It makes people feel positive emotions and it appeals to their values.

Tom Mueller 20:41

Yeah, again, we're back to establishing that common ground with the audience, stakeholders, whoever it is that you're working with and trying to persuade. Hey, I know you have uh you're an experienced TED X presenter, if my information

TEDx Preparation And Trusting Training

Tom Mueller 20:59

is correct on that. Yes, sir. What uh well, I'm kind of curious what what are the key tenets of your TED talk? And then just what was it like sort of doing that, you know, preparing for something like that? Because you're working, you know, on a high wire without notes as you're doing that, right? Yeah.

Josh Bandoch 21:19

Well, in in terms of the the talk itself and the tenets, uh actually is some of the things we've been talking about today because the talk is called How to Be More Persuasive. And that's all about ultimately emotional intelligence. So in the in the talk, I say, well, we feel first hand reason. What kinds of feelings, positive feelings, how do you do that? Appeal to your audience's values, even if they're not your values. And when you do those things, you are unlocking opportunities, you are entering and exiting negotiations much more successfully, you're connecting with your audience in ways that are authentic and powerful. That's the General arc of the TED talk there. What is it like to prepare for something like that? Well, I mean, kind of funny. In my case, it's a little bit tricky because typically you get about three months to um to prepare for a TED talk, and I actually got three weeks. So that that was uh that was tricky. And I think what I learned were a couple things, which was to trust my training. So uh you don't you don't apply it to give a TED talk or a keynote or enter any kind of big stage if you haven't been practicing for months or years to do that kind of thing. So when you set yourself on a goal, and I had been thinking for some time before I did it, huh? I'd like to give a TED talk. And if I hadn't been getting ready for years to do that, then when I got that three-week notice, that that would not have gone very well. So when you set your site on a goal, right? Like if you want to be a leader, right? It's like what are the attributes I need as a leader? And you don't start to acquire those attributes when you're putting your application in for CEO and president roles. Uh, you're doing that for years and years and years. So it's to train, and then it's ultimately to trust your training so that you put the work in, you get ready, and then you do it. And for a TED talk, yeah, it's trickier because you have to memorize everything. You don't read from notes. I was a speechwriter, and you know, most good speeches are simply read, and because they are then delivered word for word, executed, and a TED talk is not that. And one of the things that I actually learned throughout the process was really liberating for me. It was really hard at first. I was a speechwriter, was that a TED talk is much more of a conversation with the audience, and the tone has to be conversational. So you're not a professor giving a lecture, you're not like a politician or some sort of high official reading a speech. It's a talk, it's a conversation, essentially. And so, even shifting that mindset and doing that in a way where you're connecting with your audience more, um, it was really powerful for me to understand how to start to do that and then to do so in a way that um it's gonna resonate with people, not just in the moment, but then something that people can watch online. You go to YouTube, you put my name in, first thing that comes up is a TED talk, and uh that's um, you know, that's something that's then there. So you want to make sure that it's gonna stick later as well. Yeah, absolutely.

Tom Mueller 24:25

Great. Well, thanks for sharing that. I've always been curious about the run-up and lead up

Elections Authenticity Versus Manipulation

Tom Mueller 24:29

to doing a TED talk. But you know, the other thing we're running up to here soon, Josh, is elections. And um I I was just as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, boy, we're we're gonna hear a lot of messaging from candidates who want to be elected to higher office. And we're gonna, I'm curious, what do we listen for for among you know, from those candidates to see if they are using these principles of persuasion? What will do you hear from them?

Josh Bandoch 25:00

Well, maybe the biggest meta thing that I would listen for is if they're authentic or not. Are they trying to persuade or are they trying to manipulate what are their goals when they're talking? Look, I mean, it's fine to disagree with somebody. Um like there's only one person who thinks like you, that's you. And I disagree with uh some things that I did yesterday. So if I can agree with myself all the time, how can I agree with anybody else all the time? So I would say, well, what's their goal? Um persuasion is not about winning because that makes you a loser. It's not about convincing because the Latin root of the word convince actually means to vanish or to conquer. Persuasion is shared action. It's shared because it's something that we voluntarily do with others, and it's action because it is about getting things done. And that's an authentic enterprise. Because I'm trying to share action with you. What's the difference between that and manipulation? Which some politicians are trying to do that, is they're twisting things in a way that is inauthentic. They'll say kind of whatever they have to say to kind of like get you to side with them in the moment. And here I would say trust your intuitions. Manipulation versus persuasion, it's like the force in Star Wars. Um, do you want to be the Emperor or do you want to be Yoda? Do you want to be Darth Vader? Oh Luke Skywalker. And uh it's not good or bad in the sense of values per se, but rather good in the bad in the sense of are they trying to manipulate or are they trying to persuade you? And I would listen for that because I would much rather engage somebody who is authentically trying to persuade me, even if we have a lot of disagreements, uh, than somebody who seems to think like me and is trying to manipulate me because I can't trust that person.

Tom Mueller 26:50

All right. Well, we've we've got a lot of ads and speeches and airtime coming up to sort of observe that. So we'll see how that goes in the selection cycle here in America at least. Um hey Josh, on a on a softer

Sleep Media Habits And Closing

Tom Mueller 27:06

note, I'm kind of curious. Uh, you know, what are you reading today? What's on your nightstand and and what are you watching on television?

Josh Bandoch 27:14

So the current book that I'm reading is a book by a professor named Matthew Walker. It's called Why We Sleep. I think he uh one of his handles on Twitter is like the sleep diplomat. So he's, I think, one of the biggest uh science and health and medical professionals thinking about sleep. And for me, sleep is the most important thing that we do. When we talk about how do you deliver a TED talk? How do you, when you're in a crisis and you're a leader or you know, somebody on the team, um, if you're not well slept, then your brain's not going to work well. And even just losing, like being kept up for 24 hours, what that does to your cognition is wild. So if you want to perform at a high level when things are good and especially when things are bad, you need to be well slept. And there's a real science behind that. So I've been thinking about that for years, and this book just brings a lot of things together.

Tom Mueller 28:10

And on the television side.

Josh Bandoch 28:14

Your listeners are gonna think I'm crazy. Maybe you do too. Um, I don't own a television. You don't own a television. No television. Uh I also don't subscribe to any streaming services. So people, ah, you don't need a TV, you just watch on your laptop. I don't have Netflix or Hulu or any of the other ones, no HBO Max or whatever. It's just um just me. Yeah, okay. That's none of those things. Crazy, right?

Tom Mueller 28:41

Wow, all the spare time you must have not getting drug into all of that.

Josh Bandoch 28:47

Yeah.

Tom Mueller 28:48

Yeah. And a lot less stress too, with trying to figure out what am I subscribed to now and how much am I paying.

Josh Bandoch 28:55

Am I watching all the right things? Uh I don't watch anything. So, you know, some cultural references are lost on me, and it is true that I have more time to do other things that I find deeply meaningful, like hang out with my kids. Okay.

Tom Mueller 29:10

Josh, I think we'll we'll pause it there. Thanks. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast and sharing uh your uh expertise in this area. Again, the book is How to Get What You Want Mastering the Art and Science of Persuasion. Congratulations on that book, Josh, and thank you for being on the show. Incredible, Tom. Thank you so much. Great conversation, really appreciate it. And that's going to do it for this episode of the Leading in a Crisis Podcast. Thank you again for joining us. Again, if you want to drop me a line, you can reach me at Tom at Leadinginacrisis.com. And we'll see you again soon for another episode. Take care.