I watch mixed martial arts, so maybe you can call it “patting on the back and kicking in the shins” if you work with me. 🙂

And that’s the hard part with politicians. Most of them are so ham-handed and obvious about it that they come across as, well… politicians.

It happens all the time. We teach people how to do this in media training. If done poorly, it does come across as you’re lying or spinning the truth. The point of it is to teach interviewees how to stay on agenda and not let journalists define what it is they’re going to talk about. This is very important in highly regulated industries and when an executive is under fire. It’s why you see it so often with politicians: They don’t want to talk about anything but their own agendas.

I bet Gini probably has an opinion, as it is a significant technique in media coaching (for better or worse).

I think one of the keys with pivots is to prepare for the things you typically run into and prepare ahead of time for how you would pivot away from them and what you would pivot towards. That way, you have comfort in the answer and don’t come across as uncomfortable. I think great salespeople (I’m not one, for the record) use every sales technique in the book, but they know how to do it so smoothly that it doesn’t feel “salesy.”

Let me know how it goes.

You make a good point Roger. Not everyone can do it well. It’s sort of like sales. Some people are naturals, some people can be good with the right training, and some people just shouldn’t do it. People who can’t learn to pivot well probably shouldn’t be in customer facing positions. That being said, it does take practice and experience for even pros to get good at it.

Thanks for joining the conversation!

It’s a good thing, you know who in your family should make those calls. 🙂

My wife came back from work yesterday and said — hey, I used your pivot thing today. So, that was cool. It really is an effective technique if done well.

Great tip. I will consciously give this a go and see if it works. 🙂