How To Influence Decision Makers

If you really want to influence the room that happens, you can't be a b player. You can't be like, well, they get some stuff done. Irreplaceable Yep. Is really where shit happens. This is Dalton plus Michael, and today we're gonna talk about how to influence people, the people who are in the room where it happens.

So to kinda set this up a little bit, we're stealing a little bit from Hamilton, the room where it happens, but there are many moments in your life where important decisions are made about you and you are not there when the final decision's made. Founders, employees, all the same. Some examples, promotions, raises, demotions. Do people get demoted anymore? I don't think so. They're just just yeah.

Fired. Fundraisers. Right? That last meeting where they decide whether you get the money, you are not there. Yeah. You're not in room. You're not in the room. Product meetings, annual planning if you're in big companies, oftentimes you're not in the room and they decide are you gonna get your budget and you get your head count.

Riffs, oftentimes you're not in the room. So one of the things we want to talk about is how you can influence that decision. Let's just assume you've made an amazing factual argument. Right? Like Yeah. That's table stakes. We're assuming Table stakes. Yes.

We're assuming.

you've presented coherent arguments everything does, everything you say makes sense. That's the Logical. Table stakes. Yes. That's table stakes. What are other things you can do.

to make sure that the people in that room make the decision that you want them to make? What do you think, Dalton? Where do we kick this off? Well, I think to start with,.

you can control things like your attitude or demeanor. Yes. You can control your long term track record how people have worked with you. Again, they don't make a decision based on exactly the facts as you want them presented. There's usually this whole amount of context that you may or may not be able to control. It's funny how sometimes there's memes Yep. About people. Yep.

You know, one thing happened once. You know how it's like how you get a nickname? Yeah. You do one thing once when you're 18 and for the rest of your life That's it. That's your nickname? Yeah. And so there might be some sort of personal brand you have for better or worse Yes. Yes.

That is remembered. Yeah. I think another one is.

and this is tricky to describe but oftentimes when people in that room are making a decision, in the back of their head they're making a decision whether they're gonna be spending more or less time with you. Right? Yep. If someone's gonna do your series a, they're gonna be on your board. They're gonna spend a lot more time with you. Yeah.

If someone's giving you promotion, maybe you're now in an exec team meeting or maybe you're now in more meetings with them, more interaction, etcetera. And I think there's a very real question of whether they want to spend more time with you. That is what they're signing up for. Remember that? Right?

And that doesn't necessarily mean you have to be nice, you can't be confident, but but I do think like putting that in your frame of reference, like everyone hopefully has been on a team where they have teammates where they like, I loved being on a team with this person. And teammates are like, that was indifferent. When I see this going afrae, it's the person who just feels slightly too negative.

There's like realistic. There's realistic slightly paranoid, and then there's like always negative about everything. And hey, sometimes they're making amazing factual points. Yep. But it's just like you can tip over that line a little bit. You know, another one I think a little bit about is like how their team members react to them.

Like secretly, oftentimes during that meeting, you're saying, do you want other people on the team to act like this person or or not? Do we wanna make a positive example of this person? And so you have to be thinking about that. Like, am I acting in a way that if others acted around me, that's okay? Like, that makes the organization better. What else comes to mind for you? I think sometimes.

people maybe learned the wrong lessons from movies or books or, like, life advice or life coaches where they think doing really weird over the top lobbying or politics or like things like that is gonna work. And like you have to really understand the culture or morals or social norms of the place, of the decision maker that you're interacting with. Yes. Because there's no sure way Yeah.

To have decisions work against you when you're not in the room than you committed like a major faux pas. You basically did something that is like aggressively not helpful. Michael and I, experience this a lot Yes. Of people doing weird things to try to get into YC Yes. Send us weird emails, and this is not helpful. No.

We don't read an email from someone that's like this long being like, we just I just need fifteen minutes and blah blah blah blah blah. There's never a case where like, wow, this is a really good email and I'm I'm definitely gonna take this seriously.

I think you made an amazing point which is like you have to know the environment you're in. Right? Like, think there are probably other organizations, large companies where maybe politics and lobbying is like the only way you get seen. Yep. Like, you know, I know in Facebook people have to strategize about how they post to their, like, Facebook feed.

So it's kind of being able to read that environment because if you screw it up, it's always bad. Right? Like, in every environment,.

if you go It's worse nothing. Right? It's worse than nothing. If.

you just don't do it, you're way you're ahead. Yes. You're playing with fire when you're lobbying politics. And it's surprising how you can go over the line so fast. Right? It's like inches matter Yep. In that game. You know, think another thing that matters a lot is track record.

I find this happening in both ways. One, people tend to get more of what they want when they have a track record. And two, people tend to maybe over ask when they don't have a track record. How do you think about track record and kind of like perceived effectiveness?

The concept that you and I have talked about sometimes of being irreplaceable. Yes. Which is someone runs the thought experiment. This actually comes up a lot with product market fit. Yes. Which is if your company went away tomorrow, how sad would people be and how hosed would their business be if your product went away? And so if Amazon Web Services goes away tomorrow Yes. That would be bad.

Yes. Guess you could switch to another cloud provider, but your website's going down. Yeah. Yes. You're in trouble. Very bad. And so that's like a good asset test for companies, also for people. If this person disappeared tomorrow, if they were Yeah.

You know, hit by a car,.

how hosed are you? I think this comes up in the hiring context and the people context more than people think. And and I'll tell you the advice I give to founders. Basically, say them straight up. Ninety days after someone new starts, you should be putting a calendar event on your calendar. And that should ask yourself, how would you feel if that person said today is my last day? Yep.

And anything other than distraught means that that person didn't make themselves irreplaceable. Yep. And I think what's so tricky is that sometimes like if you really want to influence the room that happens it can't be a b player. You can't be like, well, they get some stuff done. Like, irreplaceable Yep. Is really where shit happens. I totally agree.

Another one that I think is interesting is this concept of heart. I think that there are some people who on average take more from an organization than give Yep. And some people who on average give more than they take. And oftentimes in the rumor happens, you're trying to figure out where that person's heart is. Like, is this a mercenary?

If I give them something, are they gonna try to figure out how to take more? Yep. Is that their whole motivation? Or do they care about our customers? Do they care about their, direct reports? Do they care about the product that we're building? And I think sometimes, you know, unfortunately, you can be once again given advice, act like a mercenary. Yep.

That's how you get ahead.

But man, mercenaries are easy to sniff out. Yeah. And again, cultures are different, but I think a lot of folks believe that politics is the only way to get ahead. Yeah. And it depends on how you define politics. Again, man, we could talk about for like two hours.

But it seems like more than younger folks have sort of a ham fisted idea of what politics means, and they think that their job is to do a lot of things. And if you again, it's a hair trigger. If you go over the line of doing things, oh, man, you lost the decision makers completely. Yeah. Right? Yes. In a very memorable way, often. Oh, yeah.

It's disqualifying. And this brings me to like another point that I notice a lot with people. You know, we advise a lot of founders that are going out to fundraise. And something that I've noticed is when founders become obsessed and attached to one particular investor Yes. Saying yes to them and having it take over their minds, take over their thinking.

Everything they want to talk about with me is how do I get this one investor to like me? Forget this person, we're gonna win. Those people tend to get no's. Yeah. And I think it's not an accident. There's something it's like a zen thing where when you're overly attached to some particular thing happening in your life Mhmm. It tends to not happen versus when you just you're.

open to different possibilities and not attached to any one particular outcome Yes. Things tend to manifest a little bit better. I would say, in addition to that Zen thing, when you're in a situation where you're making a lot of these decisions, you can tell whether someone's desperate. Yep. Like you just you have a lot of reps and it's hard to hide desperation.

And it's funny because we saw this so much in fundraising. This is one of the reasons why we changed the standard YC deal. Yep. Because, you know, back when we were giving companies $125,000 in the lead up to Demo Day and on Demo Day, I think they felt desperate. Yep. And like, man, it was hard to shield that.

You give someone a half a million dollars, they have a year and a half, two years of runway. Same progress, same team. They go into that meeting with a completely different take it or leave it attitude. And, man, investors.

rightly pattern match that attitude with being effective. Yeah. I think. Yeah. And so again, on all these, how do you influence the people around the room? If you seem like, hey, I'm fine. I'll figure it out. Whichever way this goes, I have my own plan figured out, and I'm a happy camper, those people tend to be rewarded.

They do. And the folks that are extremely anxious and frantic and like trying.

every little thing, those folks tend to struggle. Yeah. I don't have good Yeah. Pattern matches there. And maybe the last point I'll make on this and you've you've talked about this a little bit in the past. This is a game that repeats itself.

And so I would even argue how you respond to a decision not going your way is a huge factor in the next time you're trying to influence the room where decisions are being made. And so don't go all in necessarily in situations that don't require it. And just how you respond to a decision not going your way will be you'll be judged by that as well. Alright, man. Great chat. Alright. Thanks.