Why don’t business schools teach persuasion?
Very few business schools in India teach persuasion. This is curious, as business is all about persuasion. At its most basic, a business persuades customers to buy its products at a good price. But that is not all. In today’s world, a business leader needs to persuade talented people to join it. A young person may need to persuade a company to hire him — or even persuade in-laws that joining a start-up won’t harm their marriage.
Despite persuasion’s central role in business, most business schools don’t teach it. They may touch on it under advertising, but rarely cover it in other situations, including sales. I discuss why that may be so. Non-business school graduates may also want to read on — this is an area where they could have an edge over B-school graduates.
Working life and persuasion
My first job was as a consultant. Very quickly, I realized that good analysis was not enough. I had to convince my bosses that my work was analytically sound. Then, together, we had to assure our clients that our proposed solution was good for them.
A few years later, I became an entrepreneur making software products. It was obvious that designing and building great products was only half the battle. We had to convince prospects that our products were worth paying for. Even in making the products, we had to persuade programmers and business analysts to share our values. For example, we believed products should look good and be user-friendly. Many programmers didn’t agree — sometimes it seemed they went out of their way to design the ugliest, most unfriendly interface possible. This couldn’t be fixed by coercion; it took patient, long-term persuasion.
My ten years as a software product entrepreneur were filled with persuasion — convincing clients to buy, convincing employees we were good to work with, and convincing them that quality mattered.
I would be surprised if any business professional thought persuasion wasn’t critical. Here is Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI:
Persuasion is vital even in highly scientific jobs. William Pao, MD, PhD, writes in Break Through:
“To me, innovation is coming up with something that has not been done before, showing that it’s possible, and having the courage to convince others that it’s worth doing.”
Notice the last part: “convince others that it is worth doing.” This comes from a basic scientist and a leader in the pharmaceutical industry.
Why don’t business schools teach persuasion?
The first reason is simple: persuasion is a skill, and business schools usually teach concepts, not skills.
Persuasion is a skill
Educational institutions often find skills harder to teach than theory. Class size is one reason. Very few institutes have fewer than 50 students per class. At that size, it’s hard for a professor to focus on individuals, whose needs can differ greatly. One student may struggle to structure his thoughts; another may find eye contact difficult. A power point that tells both to “structure your thoughts” and “make eye contact” helps neither.
Another challenge is faculty preference and incentives. Many professors naturally prefer teaching theory over skills. Institutional structures and prestige reinforce this — professors are rewarded for publishing papers, not for practicing what they teach.
Rankings also push schools toward theory. Business school rankings rarely measure skill quality. For example, look at the data submitted by Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM Ahmedabad). From the number of PhD students to executive education programs, the focus is on countable metrics. To be fair, skill quality is hard to measure from outside.
This difficulty is faced by students too. They cannot judge the quality of teaching in an institution. How does one choose between IIM A and IIM C, or between IIM Shillong and BITS School of Management? Most students use a simple strategy: follow the money.
Show me the money!
In the movie Jerry Maguire, sports agent Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) realizes that his firm cares more about money than athletes. Fired for saying so, he tries to persuade athletes to join him — only Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.) agrees, famously demanding: “Show me the money!”
That’s what MBA students say to business schools: don’t tell us about your professors or curriculum — tell us what salaries your graduates earn. They’re not wrong.
Students face an information asymmetry. They can’t know what they should be taught or how well an institute teaches it. Reviews from alumni vary wildly. Placement results are the only widely trusted, objective measure.
This creates a self-fulfilling loop: schools with the best placements attract the highest CAT scorers; top-paying companies hire from those schools; and few students dare choose a lower-ranked institute just for the curriculum.
In business school, students focus narrowly on landing a job. Doing well in exams helps. Learning extra-curricular skills like persuasion is rarely a priority. Placements depend more on school rank and student rank than on specific skills — a low-level equilibrium trap. The students have another challenge: persuasion is associated with unethical behaviour in many minds.
The distinct feel of snake oil
Many people see sales as shady — pushy people selling what you don’t need, smooth talkers with shaky ethics. Examples abound: souvenir sellers at tourist sites, water purifier companies pushing overpriced maintenance contracts, distant relatives recruiting you for multi-level marketing scams.
Persuasion is broader than sales, but it inherits sales’ bad reputation. Politicians promise change that never comes; companies tell you how to live. Unethical persuasion is common.
Added to this, most top MBA students haven’t had to persuade much before. Their success came from acing entrance tests, passing exams, and clearing the CAT — not from winning people over. Apart from an interview or two, persuasion wasn’t part of their journey.
So what can a young professional do?
I won’t recommend many resources. Not because they’re bad, but because it’s easy to read books and blogs and never practice. Still, here’s a blog listing good books. But don’t treat them as substitutes for real-world practice. You will be best served by following these four steps
Be aware: Persuasion is a skill. It is a very important skill.
Observe: Persuasion is everywhere. Watch your dad with his friends — who’s most persuasive, and why? Do the same with your mom’s friend group, and with your own.
Is the most persuasive person the one with the best arguments? Or are they persuasive even when wrong? If so, why? Is it confidence? Seniority? Bullying? Mockery? Ask why.
Politicians are master persuaders, but political observation is tricky — bias clouds judgment. Try to go beyond “obvious” answers like “their supporters are idiots / uneducated / bigots / sexists / casteists / racists / transphobes / Nazis.”
Understand ethics: In my ten years as a cofounder of a software product company, I was always comfortable with our persuasion. If we persuaded clients to buy, we delivered what we promised. If we persuaded employees to care about quality, we led by example.
If persuasion feels like a con, that’s because it often can be — but it does not need to be. There is a lot of ethical persuasion.
Practice: Start small — convince friends to agree with your restaurant choice. Then, persuade someone you’re attracted to be your life partner. Aim higher — persuade someone to change their political opinion. If you can do that, you’re unstoppable.
AI is cracking the IIT Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) now. Of course it is. At the end of day, JEE questions are puzzles: well defined problems with unique solutions and AI will have an edge there. In the AI world, you need to Go beyond Puzzle solving
“How to spot a bad expert” in this series has received a lot of attention.
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