How to influence people, run better meetings, and grow your company's average

Executive overview

Most leaders communicate by delivering content — but content without attention gets ignored. The real job is to influence: first yourself, then your team, then your CEO.

Bernoff introduces a set of practical techniques for getting attention, building agreement, and planting ideas so people act on them without resistance. The underlying claim: your company performs at the level of your average — and the only way to grow the company is to raise that average.

Your company is a direct expression of your average communication, thinking, and culture — raise the average, raise the company.

Getting attention before delivering content

• Say "look" or "listen" at the start of any conversation or meeting — triggers attention, not autopilot
• Identify which ear and eye your counterpart is more receptive on before a one-on-one
• Start with something unexpected or out-of-pattern to break the person's auto-program
• Most people open meetings by delivering material before they have the room's attention
• Attention comes before alignment — if people aren't tracking you, your message doesn't land

Pacing to build agreement

• Pace, pace, pace (PPP): state three obvious truths before the thing you actually want them to agree to
• When three things are true, the fourth becomes automatically true — one plus one plus one equals four
• Point at what's happening in the room right now ("as you're sitting there, listening…") to stack yes responses
• Global agreement: open with something universally observable ("have you noticed how distracted people are?") before narrowing to your point
• Use PPP at the start of any meeting to lower resistance before introducing a new idea

Planting ideas so people think they're their own

• Draw a big picture first — frame a market-level or world-level problem before proposing a solution
• Competitive people need a battle; position the idea as something few companies can pull off
• End with "how would you like to proceed from here?" — the CEO will ask you for solutions, putting you in control
• Never present a logical plan to an emotional decision-maker; build desire, then let them drive

The influence technique in practice (getting CEO buy-in on focus)

• Open: "Have you noticed how distracted people are? Phones are killing productivity across every company."
• Widen the frame: "Facebook has people's focus — whoever figures this out wins."
• Challenge: "I don't know if we can be the first company to pull this off."
• Hand it back: "What do you think we should do?" — they propose the solution, you execute it

Running better meetings

• Start Monday calls by acknowledging the obvious: "I know it's Monday, last thing you want is to be back at work."
• Rename recurring meetings to something that carries identity (e.g. "Seal Team 6 prep") — people behave like the label
• Give team members a role in running the meeting (e.g. Tracy reads the agenda, including your tasks)
• State the why before the what — technologists and project managers engage more when they understand the customer outcome
• Ask one person to do roll call; rotate small ownership tasks to build engagement
• Close with feedback loops: ask "how do we know this meeting went well?" and make the answer measurable

Communicating on phone and virtual calls

• On audio-only calls, engineer engagement — ask frequent short questions rather than broadcasting
• Use "does that make sense?" as a regular pulse check; it creates rhythmic micro-agreements
• Tell people at the start: "I'm auditory — give me verbal feedback so I know it's landing"
• You can get 100 people on a conference call feeling individually involved with the right pacing and question structure

The average problem: why companies plateau

• Every company gravitates toward the average of its culture, communication, and thinking
• Individuals wake up each day and unconsciously re-run yesterday's identity script — same behaviours, same results
• High years and low years tend to average out; the number barely moves over a decade
• The wall in front of you is glass — you think you're moving toward your goal, but your identity is keeping you in place
• The only way through the wall is to grow: skills, confidence, influence, self-concept
• You cannot become the company you want while operating as the person you currently are

Identity and change

• A four-year-old knows exactly what they like; a 40-year-old hedges because social programming replaced self-knowledge
• "Sure" and "maybe" are evasion words — competitive CEOs want definitive language
• Deadwords to remove: try, maybe, sort of, complacent — they signal uncommitted action
• Peak emotional experience, not linear instruction, is what actually produces change
• Learning a strategy does not change behaviour; changing your identity does

Learning and retention at live events

• Most people enter events with no retention strategy — they listen, take notes, and forget
• Writing while listening splits attention and reduces comprehension
• Write only what feels important; the brain weights importance of whatever it chooses to record
• Pay attention to how content makes you feel, not just what it says — that's what encodes it
• Engage physically and verbally during sessions; passive reception produces passive retention