Business Skills

Objection Handling
Objection Handling Jonathan Poland

Objection handling is the practice of addressing and overcoming concerns or hesitations that customers may have about making a purchase. When a customer expresses an objection, they may be seeking additional information or reassurance, or they may be trying to negotiate a better deal. The goal of objection handling is to reduce the customer’s concerns and move them closer to making a purchase. This may involve providing additional information, addressing specific concerns, or addressing underlying objections. By effectively handling objections, salespeople can help convert interested prospects into paying customers.

Anticipating objections is a strategy that involves predicting the concerns or objections that people may have to a proposal and planning a response in advance. In some cases, this strategy may involve framing a proposal in a way that is likely to generate an objection that is easy to overcome. For example, a salesperson might pitch a product or service at a high price, knowing that the customer is likely to object to the cost. The salesperson can then offer a discount or other concession to address the objection and make the customer feel like they have successfully negotiated a better deal. The goal of anticipating objections is to increase the chances of closing a sale by addressing potential concerns before they become roadblocks.

The following are common objection handling techniques.

Active Silence
Anticipating Objections
Bogey
Call To Action
Choice Architecture
Customer Motivation
Influencing
Message Framing
Nudge Theory
Overchoice
Perceived Risk
Plain Language

Daily Goals
Daily Goals Jonathan Poland

Daily goals are targets that you set for yourself to achieve on a particular day. These can include habits that you are trying to form and unique goals that you develop for that day. Daily goals are often process-oriented, meaning that they describe the actions that you will take, rather than the end result that you hope to achieve. This allows you to focus on the steps that you need to take to make progress, rather than the final outcome.

Respecting Time

Keep moving though things at a reasonable pace and avoid unproductive distractions.

Single Tasking

Focus on the task at hand to establish flow.

Quality Time

Strictly end work at 7 pm to help kids with homework and enjoy family activities.

Performance

Try to improve my 5k running time.

Networking

Be friendly, outgoing and approachable. Reach out to cultivate professional and social connections.

Communication

Reply to messages in a timely fashion.

Engagement

Push-in to conversations at work. Try to add constructively to the ideas of others but don’t be afraid to offer brave ideas and criticisms.

Learning

Listen in class and take detailed notes.

Backlog

Complete some tasks on my backlog.

Planning

Add good ideas to my backlog and drop ideas that are no longer a priority.

Self-Discipline

Avoid buying things I don’t need.

Quality of Life

Devote an hour to moderate exercise and eat healthy meals.

Sidelining

Focus on the positive and try to sideline any negativity I should encounter.

Change

Experiment with new ways of doing things.

Risk Taking

Try to expand my depth with openness to new things and a willingness to take on challenges.

Risk Management

Be careful biking to work. Be observant and expect that cars and pedestrians may do random dangerous things.

Hygiene Factors

Clean up my desk after each study session.

Character

Try to be kind and patient.

Unaffectedness

Avoid comparing myself to others. Maintain a strong sense of both confidence and humility.

Mindfulness

Try to live in the moment and see the wonder of things.

Introspection

Reflect on the day and try to identify things I could have improved.

Strategic Management
Strategic Management Jonathan Poland

Strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by a company’s top management on behalf of owners, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization competes. It involves the analysis of market opportunities and threats, the identification of the organization’s strengths and weaknesses, and the development of strategies to capitalize on its strengths and opportunities while mitigating its weaknesses and threats. In short, strategic management is the process of making and executing decisions that will determine the long-term success of an organization. The following are illustrative examples.

Market Research

The process of researching customers and markets. For example, determining customer needs and pain points with existing products.

Competitive Analysis

Competitive analysis is the process of researching your competitors to benchmark and compare against your own capabilities. The most common method for doing this is known as swot analysis whereby you list your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Goal Planning

Goal planning is the process of setting achievable goals in an environment of competition and constraint. This can apply at the organizational, department, team and individual level. For example, a sales team that sets sales goals for a year.

Business Planning

Business planning is the process of planning a new business or entry into a new market. For example, an ice cream manufacturer that develops a business plan for launching a retail location.

Strategic Planning

Strategic planning, also known as strategy planning, is the process of developing a plan to achieve goals. For example, a sales team that comes up with a camping strategy for reaching new customers to achieve quarterly sales targets.

Strategy Implementation

The development of a concrete plan to implement a strategy that includes resources and schedule. This can be managed as a program, project or as an action plan.

Program Management

The process of implementing change that is ongoing. For example, a toy manufacturer that begins an ongoing program to regularly develop and launch new STEM toys.

Project Management

Project management is the process of implementing a one-time initiative that requires significant coordination and control such as an airline that plans to implement a new flight operations system.

Action Plan

An action plan is a lightweight plan to do something. This is essentially a project that doesn’t require formal processes such as an action plan to launch new content to a corporate website.

Change Management

Change management is the practice of leading change. This is the role of a program or project sponsor who is charged with communicating change, winning acceptance for plans and clearing issues.

Performance Management

Performance management is the process of setting performance objectives for each team and individual and managing performance against those objectives. For example, quickly providing feedback when performance is below expectations. This is a basic tool of strategy implementation.

Issue Management

The ongoing process of dealing with the incidents, obstacles and problems that threaten your strategy. For example, a bank with a mature incident management process for dealing with technology failures.

Operations Management

The process of managing your day-to-day business processes that generate revenue. This is inherently of strategic importance. For example, a solar panel manufacturer that seeks to reduce unit cost through improvements to operations.

Stakeholder Management

Stakeholder management is the process of managing relationships and communications to the stakeholders in a strategy. For example, an information technology project team that manages relationships with dozens of business units that have a stake in their project.

Competency Management

Competency management is the process of building up the talents and knowledge required to achieve goals. For example, if you want to sell into a new country you may require salespeople with the cultural capital to achieve this goal.

Capability Management

The process of building up the business capabilities required to achieve goals. For example, a restaurant that develops the capability to bake their own bread in order to improve food quality and reduce dependence on suppliers.

Business Transformation

Business transformation is the process of implementing high impact changes on an aggressive schedule. For example, an energy company with a strategy to break its dependence on fossil fuels within three years.

Turnaround

Turnaround the process of saving an organization that is failing such as an airline that suddenly sees revenue drop 80% such that they need to immediately reduce costs and secure funding to survive.

Team Strategy
Team Strategy Jonathan Poland

A team strategy is a plan that outlines how a team will achieve its goals. Developing and implementing a strategy is a fundamental part of team management. Team strategies may be developed as part of an annual budget and planning process, and can be updated regularly to respond to changes. Overall, a team strategy is a plan that outlines the steps a team will take to achieve its goals. The following are illustrative examples of a team strategy.

Revenue

Plans to achieve revenue goals. These are tangible steps that bring revenue closer and need not be directly revenue generating. Generate 1000 qualified leads.

Cost Control

Plans to reduce overhead or unit costs. Reduce team office space by moving to a system of booking workspaces to replace permanent desks for team members who regularly work from home.

Customer Experience

Improving things for customers in some way. Test easy to open packaging to identify variants that will improve the customer experience.

Projects

One time initiatives. Implement a system to book office workspaces and resources such as meeting rooms.

Programs

Ongoing strategies that may involve many projects, activities and tasks that evolve over time. Identify and evaluate 50 possible locations for the satellite office program.

Requirements

A common way to achieve goals is to develop requirements and sponsor a project. Deliver requirements for the marketing automation system.

Communication

Ongoing, repeated or one time communications. Contribute to weekly governance board meetings and champion information security standards, practices and initiatives. Goal: achieve acceptance of our initiatives at the board level.

Decision Making

A plan to make a decision or improve a decision making process. Develop business plans with return on investment estimates for all project proposals.

Internal Controls

Plans to implement internal controls. Develop an approval process, schedule and tracker for working from home.

Knowledge Management

Developing, capturing, preserving, controlling and communicating potentially valuable information. Present a lunch and learn session that communicates our services to the entire firm.

Stakeholder Management

Selling your value as a team and influencing your stakeholders. Create a dashboard that communicates service request throughput by business unit.

Business Processes

Measuring business processes, improving them and measuring again in repeated cycles of improvement and optimization. As a strategy, this often doesn’t mention specifically what will be done. Restructure the order fulfillment process at the Dallas fulfillment center to increase the total throughput of the facility to 1 million orders a day.

Automation

Automating toil. Develop an automatic payback calculation that pre-approves sales proposals under $250,000 if they meet standard profitability criteria.

Risk Management

The process of identifying, treating and controlling risk. Identify and manage information security risks related to work from home processes.

Service Delivery

Improvements to the delivery of a service. This includes services to internal stakeholders. Automate fulfillment of common desktop requests such as setting users up for the sales system.

Work Quality

Increasing the quality of your deliverables. Improve the quality of site inspection reports by designing a new report template that addresses stakeholder needs.

Compliance

Complying with laws, regulations, industry and internal standards. Implement multi-factor authentication process for all team members accessing the network over VPN from remote locations.

Recruiting

Recruiting and related strategies such as onboarding. Conduct lunch and learn sessions to pitch job openings to internal candidates.

Team Culture

Team culture are the intangible elements of your work such as norms and expectations. Develop a culture of in-depth preparation for sales meetings by regularly evaluating account reps for the depth of their client and product knowledge and overall professionalism.

Team Manager
Team Manager Jonathan Poland

A team manager is responsible for directing and controlling an organizational unit. This leadership role involves authority and accountability for projects, processes, assets, performance, and compliance. As the face of their team, a team manager is responsible for securing resources, collaborating with other teams and stakeholders, and managing relationships with senior managers. Overall, a team manager is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the activities of a team in order to achieve its goals and objectives. The following are common job responsibilities of a team manager.

  • Assigning Work
  • Budget Control
  • Budget Process
  • Business Alignment
  • Clearing Issues
  • Client Relationships
  • Client Satisfaction
  • Coaching
  • Compliance
  • Cost Control
  • Decision Making
  • Delegating Responsibility
  • Employee Satisfaction
  • Feedback
  • Goal Setting
  • Governance
  • Influencing Knowledge
  • Management
  • Lessons Learned
  • Managing Commitments
  • Managing Expectations
  • Meeting Commitments
  • Mentoring
  • Metrics & Reporting
  • Operational Processes
  • Organization
  • Partner Management
  • Performance Management
  • Performance Monitoring
  • Pitching Strategy
  • Planning
  • Problem Solving
  • Process Improvement
  • Progress Monitoring
  • Recognizing Team Members
  • Recruiting
  • Relationship Building
  • Requirements Management
  • Resolving Conflict
  • Resource Utilization
  • Return on Investment
  • Risk Management
  • Scheduling
  • Setting Deadlines
  • Setting Expectations
  • Setting Priorities
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Standards
  • Strategic Planning
  • Supervision
  • Tactical Execution
  • Team Communications
  • Team Culture
  • Team Direction
  • Team Engagement
  • Team Motivation
  • Team Productivity
  • Team Strategy
  • Team Structure
  • Team Transparency
  • Work Estimates
  • Work Quality

Team Management
Team Management Jonathan Poland

Team management involves directing and controlling an organizational unit. Some common team management functions include setting goals and objectives, assigning tasks and responsibilities, providing support and resources, and evaluating performance. For example, a team manager might set goals for a project, assign tasks to team members, provide support and resources to help them complete their tasks, and evaluate their performance to ensure that the project is on track. Overall, team management involves coordinating and overseeing the activities of a team in order to achieve the unit’s goals and objectives.

Recruiting

Recruiting team members. Performed more than 70 interviews to successfully recruit three team members who were in high demand.

Onboarding

Onboarding new team members to ensure they are quickly productive. Developed onboarding materials and delivered a series of information sessions and welcome events for new team members.

Strategy

Developing a strategy to achieve a team’s mission and goals. Developed a strategy to cut costs related to legacy systems by 18%.

Goal Setting

Developing team objectives and negotiating individual performance objectives with each member of your team. Developed annual team objectives and gained acceptance for these goals from stakeholders on the executive team. Set goals with each member of the team that aligned to team objectives and the career aspirations of each individual contributor.

Performance Management

Managing the performance of a team including regular feedback and formal performance reviews. Managed the performance review and feedback process for a team of 19 software developers.

Training & Development

Developing the talents of your team. Developed the talents of team members with challenging assignments, training and mentoring. This allowed 5 junior developers to progress to senior roles and 2 senior members to progress to management roles.

Leadership

Getting a team moving in the same direction toward a common purpose. Communicated the urgent need for change to motivate team and influence stakeholders.

Managing Expectations

Managing the expectations of stakeholders for what you will and will not deliver. Managed communications to stakeholders to deliver to commitments.

Setting Expectations

Setting expectations for work outputs, quality and timelines with your team. Set clear expectations and monitored progress to quickly manage delivery issues.

Internal Controls

Implementing controls to manage business processes and resources. Implemented controls and monitoring for a team budget of $11 million.

Measurement

Measuring objectives and goals using techniques such as management accounting. Developed a metric that captured the throughput of key business processes.

Improvement

The process of measuring, implementing change and measuring again. Improved the throughput of order provisioning by 7% by eliminating bottlenecks and inefficiencies.

Communication

Communication such as influencing stakeholders. Developed a quality control dashboard that was widely used by the executive team to monitor key manufacturing processes.

Knowledge Management

Developing, securing and using knowledge. Maintained a secure repository of project documents to provide traceability for all decisions, budget items, requirements and project artifacts.

Planning

Developing plans such as action plans, business plans, operations plans and project plans. Developed an action plan that quickly resolved a major information security incident.

Organization

Orchestrating processes and events. Organized productive morning team meetings. Improved the management of these meetings to reduce their duration to 20 minutes a day from an hour.

Supervision

Business processes that require constant monitoring by a manager. Managed the front desk of the hotel to execute key operational processes and ensure a high level of customer service.

Business Processes

Managing business processes. Managed a production line with 99.99% uptime and a throughput of 1.6 million units a month.

Team Culture

Team culture is the set of norms, expectations and traditions that define your team. Developed a positive team culture where contributors openly shared their bravest ideas.

Team Leadership
Team Leadership Jonathan Poland

Team leadership involves guiding and representing a team, using influence rather than authority. In many cases, a team leader is delegated authority by a team manager who remains accountable. Effective team leadership requires strong communication and social skills, as well as expertise in the relevant domain. For example, a team leader who is not knowledgeable about coding would have difficulty leading a team of software developers. To earn the respect of their team, a leader must be skilled and knowledgeable in their field. The following are common team leadership skills.

  • Advocating
  • Bias For Action
  • Building Camaraderie
  • Building Trust
  • Clearing Issues
  • Coaching
  • Collaborating
  • Constructive Criticism
  • Creativity
  • Cultivating Talent
  • Cultural Capital
  • Decision Making
  • Delegation
  • Difficult Conversations
  • Domain Knowledge
  • Domain Talent
  • Driving Productivity
  • Emotional Intelligence
  • Feedback
  • Goal Setting
  • Improvising
  • Influencing
  • Leading by Example
  • Listening
  • Managing Constraints
  • Managing Up
  • Mentoring
  • Message Framing
  • Monitoring Work
  • Motivating
  • Negotiation
  • Networking
  • Organization
  • Personal Resilience
  • Planning
  • Politeness
  • Presentations
  • Problem Solving
  • Public Speaking
  • Recovering From Failure
  • Relational Capital
  • Reporting Progress
  • Risk Management
  • Self-direction
  • Setting Expectations
  • Setting Priorities
  • Shaping Team Culture
  • Social Intelligence
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Strategy
  • Team Building
  • Team Communications
  • Team Structure
  • Time Management
  • Training
  • Verbal Communication
  • Visual Communication
  • Win-win Thinking

Boss Archetypes
Boss Archetypes Jonathan Poland

A boss is a person who manages and oversees the work of an organization, department, or team. The term “boss” can have different meanings in different contexts, but it generally refers to someone who has the authority and responsibility to direct the work of others.

It is common for bosses to be perceived as difficult by the people who work for them. This is often due to the nature of the boss’s role, which requires them to push and motivate their teams in order to achieve productivity and professionalism. This can be a challenging task, and bosses may develop a variety of styles and strategies in order to meet their objectives and advance within their organization.

Overall, a boss is a person who has the authority and responsibility to manage and oversee the work of an organization, department, or team. While the role of a boss can be challenging, it is also an important one, as it involves directing and controlling the work of others in order to achieve organizational goals.

Leader Boss

A boss who is a true leader such that they are good at setting direction, managing people, developing a positive team culture and acting as a inspirational example for team members.

Martyr Boss

An individual who has risen to their management position because they work harder than anyone else and are prepared to make every sacrifice for the company. They get respect and are an order of magnitude more productive than anyone on your team. A martyr boss may be a little disappointed every time you prioritize your life over work and tends to make everyone feel guilty, whether intentional or not.

Servant Boss

The servant boss has risen to their position by supporting everyone and generally being a useful and authentic person.

Pragmatic Boss

The boss who just wants to win and is completely flexible, energetic and realistic. The pragmatic boss is prone to criticizing, sidelining and firing mediocre employees but is supportive of performers.

True Believer

A boss who adopts the mantras of your firm with a dogmatic zeal such that they view criticism of the firm as irreverent. This boss values loyalty and a positive attitude and has risen in your organization with these traits.

Gloomy Boss

Believes that your organization is fundamentally malevolent or absurd. Views the struggles and politics of a firm with a sense of amusement and detachment. Executes well and is reasonably professional. Has a tendency to embrace outcasts, risk takers and wild independent thinkers. Dislikes true believers (above) and mediocrity.

Gritty Boss

A boss with grit who is both productive and able to take on political challenges by the most fearsome contenders in your organization. People naturally follow and respect the gritty boss.

Machiavellian Boss

The machiavellian boss views work as a grand political drama where winning has nothing to do with ethics or productivity. They live to be tricky and generally stress everyone out.

Narcissistic Boss

The narcissistic boss has an inflated ego and need for constant attention and admiration. They are prone to bullying others and surround themselves with enablers who feed them with attention and praise.

Passive Aggressive

A boss who aggressively attacks others in a way that is technically not against the rules. For example, gossiping about your negative performance and traits behind your back.

Bully Boss

An individual who has risen in an organization through intimidation. Often collects followers and may spare you if you are perceived as on their side and loyal.

Paranoid Boss

A variant of the bully boss who is also paranoid about disloyalty such that they need constant assurances that you’re with them.

Visionary Boss

A big thinker who rarely adds immediate value. Delights executives and other stakeholders such as investors, media and customers with storytelling. Is uninterested in the details of managing people and will easily give everyone high performance reviews but provides no support.

Buzzword Boss

A distant simulation of the visionary boss who tries to be inspiring by using buzzwords they don’t actually understand. Not nearly as successful as the visionary boss with the difference being that the latter is authentic and understands their industry and the art of storytelling.

Witty Boss

An individual who establishes social dominance based on their wit and intelligence. May use a cruel wit as a political tool. Tends to gather large numbers of both followers and foes.

Authoritarian Boss

Uses authority to achieve a sense of personal power. Uses processes, rules and norms to criticise others and establish a sense of social superiority. Gets a thrill from admonishing others. The authoritarian boss is disliked but feared. Often adds value in teams that require high attention to detail such as accounting.

Kingdom Builder

A boss who tries to grow their power by aggressively battling with other teams. Demands noncooperation with other teams.

Ivory Tower

A pompous elitist who views themselves as fundamentally above most people. They avoid any interaction with anyone below them. Completely detached from the realities of an organization. Provides no support, little feedback but harsh performance reviews.

Lone Wolf

A productive employee who doesn’t really want to be a manager but accepted the promotion because it’s the thing to do. Often helpful if you are able to corner them. An easy boss that will give you space and generous performance reviews.

Crony Boss

A boss who got their position from a friend, who isn’t fired because of friends and who will only promote friends. Views the resources of an organization as their personal privilege. Can only be influenced by friends and friends of their friends. May hire unqualified friends with inflated job titles and salaries creating a bozo explosion.

Eccentric Boss

A boss with a slightly odd personal presence, habits and management style. Not to be underestimated based on their idiosyncrasies.

Teflon Boss

Often fails but avoids accountability and responsibility with great skill. Likely to blame you for things that are beyond your control. A variant of the machiavellian boss.

Fearmonger Boss

A boss who would like to be machiavellian but isn’t very imaginative such that they use a basic unethical strategy of trying to instill fear. For example, firing employees once in a while to create an environment of uncertainty and fear that supports their power.

Mushroom Boss

A boss who treats a team like mushrooms by keeping them in the dark and throwing manure on them once in a while. Assigns vague action items and often doesn’t follow up on them. However, once in a while they get upset that an action item wasn’t completed to their unstated expectations.

Micromanager

A perfectionist who requires everyone to follow their working style and preferences such that they control every aspect of work items. In some cases, these managers are extremely valuable to a firm as they produce high quality work.

Seagull Boss

A boss who gives you freedom until there is an issue at which time they swoop in to clear things up. This is actually a reasonable way to manage some teams that is known as management by exception.

Time Burglar

A boss who consumes everyone’s time on pointless pursuits such as inefficient meetings, documentation, emails, processes, training and events. Believes that looking busy equals high performance.

Wimp Boss

A boss who is valued by an organization for being a pushover such that they accept any and all action items and deadlines. This leads to a great deal of failure, chaos and overwork.

Aloof Boss

A boss who is disconnected from work realities. For example, a boss who is non-communicative or who prefers to talk and think about non-work related topics. Generous with performance reviews to hide their disconnection from what you are doing. Puts a team in a weak position.

Tragically Productive

Managers that are effective at getting a team moving aggressively in the wrong direction. Pushes through actions and strategies that everyone views as absurd, illogical or counterproductive. Succeeds at launching things that make things worse. Is concerned with deadlines and unconcerned with end-results.

Inconsistent Boss

Aggressively pushes forward ideas and initiatives. Often drops things and reprioritizes such that nothing actually gets launched. This makes the boss look busy, commanding and creative without actually adding value.

Command & Control

A boss who issues precise orders and expects them to be immediately executed. Is consistent with discipline should orders not be followed with precision. Command and control bosses are potentially valuable to an organization as they get things done and don’t cause much drama. Unfortunately, they are often incompetent due to their mechanical and unthinking style of execution. These bosses thrive where processes are standard without many exceptions or creative elements.

Sidelining Boss

Feels threatened by ability and tends to avoid hiring talented or ambitious individuals. Likely to sideline rising talent in their team or set them up to fail.

Dismissive Boss

Uses a dismissive attitude as a form of one-upmanship. For example, not answering a question because you probably wouldn’t understand the answer anyway. This has limited power such that the dismissive boss can’t compete with the likes of the witty boss, gritty boss or machiavellian boss.

Defender of the Status Quo

Does things the way that they have always been done in the past and resists change. Believes in gradual improvement and group harmony. Likely to sideline or fire employees who disrupt harmony or challenge assumptions.

Mediocre Boss

A common type of boss who embraces mediocrity. Depends on the organization for survival and fears being let go. Nevertheless, the mediocre boss will do the minimum possible to not get fired. Fears and punishes risk takers. Clings to others and is prone to groupthink, cowardice and sycophancy.

Examples of an Argument
Examples of an Argument Jonathan Poland

An argument is a series of statements or reasons that support a particular position or viewpoint. This position can be an opinion, policy, decision, or strategy, and it is typically put forth in the context of a conversation or debate. In an argument, the person making the argument presents their reasons for supporting their position, and the other person(s) involved in the conversation may challenge or respond to those reasons.

For example, if you are having a debate with someone about whether the government should raise taxes to fund education, you might make the argument that higher taxes are necessary to improve the quality of education and provide more opportunities for children. Your opponent might then challenge your argument by pointing out that higher taxes could hurt the economy and make it harder for people to afford basic necessities.

Overall, an argument is a way of presenting a position or viewpoint in a structured, logical manner, and it is an important part of many different types of conversations and debates. By presenting reasons and evidence to support your position, you can make a stronger case for your viewpoint and persuade others to see things your way. The following are some illustrative examples.

Poor Arguments
Poor arguments are self-centered, emotionally driven or flawed such that they are unlikely to generate support. I want a raise because I have 25 years experience.

Persuasion
Persuasion attempts to influence an audience by considering their motivations and needs as opposed to stating what you want. I closed that 25 million dollar deal by leveraging my relationships in the industry and can continue to detect, pursue and close large deals. However, my compensation is below market for this level of results.

Anticipating Objections
Anticipating objections such that you think about possible perceived weaknesses in your argument and handle these up front.
You may be thinking — how much will all this cost? I’m happy to tell you that we can get the pilot done for about $50,000, which is less than 1% of our quarterly IT budget.

Argument from Authority
Argument from authority, or ethos, is a reference to a high status institution or person. This is often structured as a fallacy whereby you suggest that someone who isn’t an authority doesn’t deserve a voice. Parents should leave education to the experts and stay out of it.

Weasel Words
Weasel words is the common practice of referencing an anonymous authority to support your argument by suggesting that you are simply representing their opinion.

  • According to the science …
  • Science says ….
  • Doctors believe …
  • Experts say …
  • Economists know …
  • Americans want …
  • Scientists tell me …
  • Studies show …
  • Structural engineers will tell you …
  • People say …

Numerical Evidence
People like numbers. Giving numbers tends to boost people’s confidence in your argument. This is true even where the numbers don’t do anything to directly support your position. Education is important. 17% of teenagers in our state drop out of high school before graduating. If spending on education is cut, this number is only likely to increase.

Challenging Assumptions
Challenging assumptions is the process of identifying the things that your opponent has assumed without any proof and pointing this out. Why do you imagine there is a relationship between education spending and drop-out rate? Did you just make this up or do you have data? The high drop-out rate indicates the money that we are spending is going to waste. We can do things more efficiently and creatively as opposed to throwing more money at a failing system.

Proof by Example
Stating a statistically insignificant example as proof of something that has been studied in far more detail such that your example is a comparatively weak form of evidence. This is essentially a fallacy but people may find this convincing nonetheless.
My friend took that treatment and got sick. It’s not good.

Meaningful Examples
Examples are meaningful to many arguments where they are relevant or serve as an analogy. He is trustworthy. He worked for me for years and was always candid and straightforward. Once I accidentally overpaid him and he pointed out my mistake.

Argument From Ignorance
Argument from ignorance is the practice of shifting the burden of proof from where it belongs.

  • If you are innocent, prove it.
  • Where is your evidence that this treatment doesn’t work.
  • You can’t prove that green aliens don’t control the music industry. Therefore they must.

Logical Argument
A logical argument, or logos, gives reasons that support your argument. Just because something is logical doesn’t mean it’s correct as logic is garbage in, garbage out. However, it is very common for people to support arguments they perceive as logical.
42% of tax payers regularly use a bicycle but 99.8% of the city’s transportation budget goes to car infrastructure. This makes no sense.

Rational Argument
A rational argument is an argument that most people would view as reasonable. This goes beyond logic to incorporate human ways of thinking such as values, culture and beliefs. Youth need a venue for calculated risk taking, exercise and social interaction, skateparks provide these things.

Analogy
People commonly reason with analogies whereby you consider if things that are similar in one way are also similar in some other ways. This can be quite persuasive and memorable. Richard Nixon said… If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

Appeal to Emotion
An appeal to emotion, or ethos, is designed to generate emotions in the audience that support your argument. Think of your children. They deserve a future. It is simply not fair to load them up with debt.

Active Silence
The strategic use of silence such as a dramatic pause. This can include leaving long awkward silences where it is to your advantage, such as after your opponent says something thoroughly unconvincing.

A: So you represent all of science?
B: Yes, I do.
A: [silence] … wow

Nudges
A nudge is a gentle suggestion such as a rhetorical question that can be shaped to try to get the audience to feel that your position is their idea.
Is there a way to make streets safer for bicycles? Is this important?

Red Herring
A red herring is an argument that is used as a distraction. For example, attacking the person instead of their argument.

A: How can the government award such a large contract without an open and transparent competitive bidding process?
B: What are you an accountant? I don’t think so.

Not Even Wrong
Not even wrong is the practice of saying things that are nonsensical that are difficult to counter. This can involve the use of obscure academic or domain language.

A: How can the government award such a large contract without an open and transparent competitive bidding process?
B: There are systems that are used for these processes that interface with the processes themselves.

Dichotomy / False Dichotomy
A dichotomy presents things as necessary and unavoidable tradeoffs. These are usually false dichotomies whereby other possibilities exist but are disregarded.

  • You’re either with us or against us.
  • Freedom vs security/safety
  • Environment vs economic growth
  • We can’t save the planet without changing our diet.

Straw-man
A straw-man is a misrepresentation of your opponent’s argument that is easier to counter.

A: We should raise taxes on the wealthy.

B: I already pay close to 35% in income tax and I am certainly not wealthy. You think that the government is entitled to more of my salary! Where does it end 50%? 90%?

Steelman
Making your opponent’s argument stronger before countering. This is done where your opponent’s argument is too easy to counter such that making it stronger benefits your argument.

Son: I am going to quit school and become a famous business person.

Father: So you want freedom, you want to go into business some day. I can really understand these things but I want you to come up with a more realistic plan than quitting school in grade 7.

Analytical Skills
Analytical Skills Jonathan Poland

Analytical skills are the abilities, knowledge, and experience related to the gathering, processing, organizing, and interpreting of information. These skills are important for many different jobs and activities, as they allow individuals to collect and analyze information in order to make informed decisions and solve complex problems.

For example, if you are a business analyst, you might use your analytical skills to collect and analyze data about market trends, customer behavior, and competitor activity in order to help your company make strategic decisions. Alternatively, if you are a research scientist, you might use your analytical skills to collect and analyze data from experiments and observations in order to test hypotheses and advance our understanding of the natural world.

Overall, analytical skills are valuable talents that are essential for many different jobs and activities. By helping individuals collect, process, and interpret information, these skills can be used to make better decisions and solve complex problems. The following are some illustrative examples.

Strategic Planning
The process of developing strategies to achieve goals in the face of constraints and competition. Developed a strategy to expand our product line that increased revenue by $17 million.

Business Analysis
Business analysis is the process of developing documentation and communications for a business. Developed a competitive analysis that estimated the unit costs of our competitors across 12 product categories.

Business Planning
The development of a business plan or business case that recommends an investment in a business. Developed a plan to invest in a data center expansion that was approved by the executive team with a budget of $12 million.

Requirements Gathering
The process of gathering and refining requirements from the stakeholders in a project. Delivered the requirements for a $12 million data center expansion project.

Estimates
Estimating the cost and duration of projects, activities and tasks. Developed formal cost estimates for a $7 million software development project.

Financial Analysis
Analysis of financial proposals, performance and conditions. Developed return on investment estimates for a $250,000 product development initiative.

Forecasts
Developing reasonable predictions of the future. Developed a quarterly sales forecast for a product with revenue of $45 million that was used to plan marketing, sales and production.

Goal Planning
Goal Planning is the process of establishing goals for an organization, team and individual. This is part of the performance management process. Managed the performance goal setting process for a team of 42 software developers.

Problem Solving
Using a process of analysis to solve problems. Examined more than 3,000 product reviews to determine the reasons a product was receiving low scores. Used this information to drive design and quality improvements to the product.

Decision Making
Using analysis to make decisions. Developed an analysis of the risks and opportunities associated with 130 cost cutting proposals to determine a strategy that reduced opex costs by $240,000 per quarter.

Critical Thinking
Thinking that challenges or validates the assumptions, positions and assertions of others. Note: choosing examples that produced value as merely criticizing others without doing anything useful can be perceived negatively. Challenged the assumption that a legacy system was too critical to retire. Sponsored a project to retire the system that saved $930,000 in annual maintenance and support costs.

Market Research
Market research is the process of understanding customers and competition. Conducted market research to identify how customers perceive the quality of snowboard gear.

Data Analysis
Data analysis is the use of data science techniques and tools to develop knowledge, make decisions and solve problems. Performed an exploratory data analysis to identify optimal price points for a range of ice cream products.

Statistical Analysis
The analysis of probability distributions and other statistical models. Developed a probability distribution that was used to predict the effect of price increases on demand for a line of packaged food goods.

Quantification
Quantification is the process of measuring things. Measured customer satisfaction with the meal service on the London to Shanghai route.

Benchmarking
Comparing your results to your industry or competitors. Benchmarked our revenue per employee against our industry and closest competitors.

Management Accounting
Management accounting is the practice of measuring things that management needs to know. Measured the throughput of a production line by workstation.

Business Process Analysis
The analysis of business processes. Performed an analysis of a quote-to-cash process to develop recommendations to shorten the process by 23% with more parallel steps.

Gap Analysis
A gap analysis identifies the difference between where you are and where you want to be. Delivered a gap analysis for the goal to improve customer perceived quality by 70%.

Voice of the Customer
Engaging with customers to understand things like customer needs, quality and pricing. Established a network of lead users who recommended designs and improvements that generated $4.2 million in new product revenue.

Systems Analysis
The analysis of IT systems, architecture, design, operations and infrastructure. Performed a product evaluation for network infrastructure such as routers and recommended products for a data center design.

Capacity Planning
Determining future resource requirements and planning to meet demand. Forecast the storage capacity required for a cloud service with 1.2 million users and delivered an infrastructure plan to meet demand.

MECE
A common management consulting approach to analysis that produces information that is mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. Delivered recommendations for an acquisitions strategy that listed all possible targets with a risk, opportunity and feasibility assessment for each.

SWOT Analysis
A popular analysis technique that involves evaluating your current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in a competitive environment. Developed a SWOT analysis for a GovCloud platform.

Operations Analysis
Analysis of the core operations processes of an organization. Delivered an analysis of a production process that identified efficiency bottlenecks and opportunities for quality improvement.

Metrics & Reporting
Developing measurements that are communicated to stakeholders. Developed a labor productivity metric that was reported monthly to the executive team.

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