5 Powerful Persuasion Methods for Engineering Managers
Insider tips to drive results, accelerate decisions, and build consensus from a former Google Engineering Director
Persuasion is an essential skill for Engineering Managers.
We persuade executives to approve new projects.
We persuade our leadership to give us more resources.
We persuade reports to tackle tasks that may not excite them.
We persuade peer managers to lend us their help in cross-team projects.
We persuade our cross-functional partners to move deadlines when they might overwhelm our team.
We persuade during calibration and promotion sessions.
We persuade potential hires to join our team.
The list is endless.
Ever wonder why you feel drained after a day of sitting in meetings? Now you know!
Today’s article is a guest post by
- who got promoted at Google from intern to Director of Engineering, and writes .She’ll share five persuasive methods that work well for engineering managers, with real-life examples of when and how to use them:
The Nemawashi Method
The Decoy Pricing Method
The Reverse Psychology Method
The LMDTFY Method
The Engineered Serendipity Method
The Nemawashi Method
Nemawashi is a Japanese term that translates to “going around the roots.” It's a Japanese gardening technique used when transplanting trees.
Transplantation (moving the tree from one location to another) is a large change for a big tree. Gently digging at its roots, one strand at a time, helps prepare the tree for the shock of the big change.
As a manager, you can use the Nemawashi method when you are persuading a lot of stakeholders. The best example of this is if you want to get a higher calibration rating for your report.
At Google, only a small percentage of candidates receive the “Outstanding” rating. This applies to 18% of those in organizations with 200 or more members. So only 36 people across all levels would get this rating in a director-sized organization.
In one calibration cycle, I had a report who received a promotion 6 months ago. By the general rule, they would receive a “Significant Impact” rating. This is Google’s version of “Meets Expectations.” I felt they exceeded expectations even after the promotion and deserved the “Outstanding” rating. The Nemawashi method helped me convince most managers in my director's organization, including my director, of this.
I met 1:1 with a few peer managers. I chose those who had experience and influence in the organization. This was before the main calibration meeting.
In each 1:1, I tailored my reasons for why my report deserved an Outstanding rating to the individual I was meeting. Some valued technical excellence, so I showed them well-written design docs. Others valued high throughput, so I showed them my report’s large number of coding contributions. Some others looked at business impact. So, I shared peer reviews from cross-functional partners, like design, PM, and GTM, who had worked with my report.
With Nemawashi, I gained time to hear their honest feedback. I listened to their objections and addressed their concerns. This helped me win their support.
Getting this support ahead of time made the actual calibrations much less contentious. This is how I was able to avoid the calibration blindside for my top performer and get them the Outstanding rating they deserved.
Want to help your top senior and staff engineers avoid the Calibration Blindside? Tell them to sign up for Chaitali’s Maven course - Outstanding!
The course will teach them the tools and concepts they need to become the senior IC leaders you need so you can delegate more and scale yourself. Helping them get reimbursed partially or fully for the course is also an acknowledgement of their strong contributions making this is a powerful retention and reward strategy!
The Decoy Pricing Method
Decoy Pricing is a popular marketing strategy. It encourages customers to choose a specific product. Here is an example:
Suppose you go to a cafe and see that a small cup costs $2.99 and a large cup is $7.99. The price difference seems large, so you are most likely to pick the small cup. If the cafe offers a medium cup for $6.99, you might choose the large cup instead. The difference is only a dollar, so it seems like a better deal. Here, the medium cup is the decoy.
During my time as an engineering manager in Google Compute Engine, I had to make a headcount request for a new project. We needed a new pre-prod environment that would allow us to test various complex scenarios for the product with efficiency and simplicity. This was a big task, the Compute stack was huge. It included different types of physical machines in a data center, networking layers, and the hypervisor.
The pre-prod environment had endless use cases. Some wanted to test disaster recovery. Others aimed to check the UI layer’s integration. Some also wanted to test specific applications, like SAP, that our customers often used on the VMs.
I used Decoy Pricing to provide a headcount proposal for building this system. I provided three options for different headcount increases: Small, Medium, and Large. For each request, I outlined what we would create and how the system would work in terms of Speed, Ease, and Quality. I felt a sense of joy when our leadership chose the Large option, just as Decoy Pricing predicted!
This method also works when you want the decider to pick the smallest option. When asking a peer team's manager for help with our launch, I would present three options. The smallest option would be the work I truly need from them!
The Reverse Psychology Method
Reverse psychology is when someone suggests the opposite of what they want. This can make the other person do what the first person really desires. The parents among you will be well-versed in this method! You might tell your child, "I bet you won't eat your vegetables." This often makes the child want to eat the vegetables to prove the parent wrong.
I often use Reverse Psychology during hiring. My favorite part of hiring sell-calls is listing reasons why the candidate shouldn’t join my team! This always leads to some superstar hires who join because they are eager for the challenge!
Most major product areas at Google have Engineering Productivity (EngProd) teams. They focus on the infrastructure needs of developers. Here is a reason I gave potential new hires for why not to join the EngProd organization that I led.
Don’t join EngProd if you like to stay in your swim-lane and only wear one hat at work. Engprodders have to wear many hats everyday – from product manager to developer to marketer and more.
Reverse Psychology is also useful when you have engineers who are too cautious or resistant to trying new approaches. If they are naturally drawn to solving difficult problems, this will motivate them towards experimenting.
The LMDTFY Method
LMDTFY stands for Let Me Decide That For You. Think of this as reverse-delegation. You decide for someone else, but they can take control back if they don’t like it. This approach is very useful as an upward persuasion method.
The first time I used it as a new manager, I told my manager about finalizing a new hire. I said they could veto my choice if needed, but I would proceed if they didn’t respond. From then on, "silence is consent" became our go-to rule for many decisions. My manager was fine with me handling them.
Teaching my reports this method was especially rewarding when managing a global team. My reports in India would often send me messages like “I intend to deploy this release during my day. Please leave a message if you disagree,” or “I intend to hire this senior engineer candidate. Let me know if I shouldn’t.” I could ignore most of these messages, but they also allowed me to intervene if I had strong feelings.
If you are a fan of the book Turn The Ship Around, this method extends the “I Intend” approach to make decision-making easier.
The Engineered Serendipity Method
In 2016, my team tackled a tough project. It needed close coordination with a sister team. There was a lot of confusion and friction. We had a key issue: two teams followed different management paths. We only connected at our VP, who was three levels above us. We expected some escalations, but too many would not help. We couldn't rely on our VP to settle every decision.
The other team’s manager and I set up a summit for both teams to meet and solve problems. However, some big questions remained. We couldn’t address those issues with everyone in the room. What a coincidence that this other manager happened to be on the same flight as I was going to the summit! We had a great talk at the airport while waiting for our flight. This led to an excellent summit for both teams and made project execution smoother.
In reality, this wasn’t a coincidence at all. I had found out through one of their reports which flight this manager would be on and booked myself on the same one. I knew they usually arrived early at the airport to account for unexpected traffic delays (very common in the rush hour in Seattle!). I arrived early and waited near the security gates. I wanted to engineer a coincidence. 🙂
Some may see this as manipulation, but the Engineered Serendipity method does not guarantee results. It also does not force choices. It is just another tool in your persuasion toolbox to maximize your chances of persuading someone when necessary.
Finals words
Thanks
for a great article - this is actually the guest post I learned the most from! Hope it's just as useful for you.Weekly comic
Weekly dilemma
I received positive responses in last week’s poll, so I decided to add a weekly dilemma corner! I plan to share a different one each week, and share the best answers and what the real EM did in each case.
Here’s the first dilemma, asked by
in the comments section:You just hired a senior dev from Big Tech. They resigned. Their start date is next week. Then your manager tells you: “We’re pulling the offer.” What do you do?
Please reply to the email. I’ll mention the best responses (anonymously or not, up to you) in the next one, and share my own response.
Also, if you have a real dilemma (whether a past or current one), I would love to hear it! Next week, I’m planning to share a real one from earlier in my career when I really messed up.
What I enjoyed reading this week
- .
The first $ is the hardest. Here's how I made it by
. A software engineer, a friend, and a solopreneur.- .
What nobody tells developers about documentation by
.
 | A guest post by
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Great guest post! Full of insights. I like the last one a lot - thinking about communications on a higher level is a fantastic skill that I see many leaders have mastered. Engineering serendipity is great, as long as the benefit is mutual, I feel. 😄
I really enjoyed this article from Chai. It's interesting I've been using the LMDTFY method without knowing it had this acronym. During my recent years, I moved from asking for permission to leading with intent, and now defaulting to action.