PAUSE A
MOMENT
THE ART OF
PERSUADING
[Hey
Look Me Over – Sounds of the Circus]
There
are times when we want other people to see something
from our viewpoint. Maybe we want someone to act or think a certain way –
or at least to see and acknowledge the validity of the way we're
thinking, seeing and/or acting.
There's an art to persuasion that begins with a
few simple groundrules.
The first comes from Paul Tillich, and it is this –
“The first Law is to Listen.” That's it. And most of us
aren't even tuned in. Rather like Paul Simon's “Boxer”, which I
played a little earlier, we “hear what we want to hear and
disregard the rest”. Fallen at the first challenge. The art of
Communicating and Persuading begins with Listening. Why? Well that's
contained in the Second Rule of Persuading..
The
second rule to persuading comes from Benjamin Franklin: "A
man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."
This would seem to be a blinding flash of the bleeding obvious, but
it gets ignored all the time, especially by pushy bullies who
arrogantly assume the Ruthless Rules of Consequences will never apply
to them (e.g. If you spit in the wind it will land in your face -- You will reap what you sow.) Think back on the times when someone persuaded you to go
along with something that you didn't really support. Years can pass,
and still you will be skeptical or resentful about being dominated or
manipulated to go along with something against your will. Pushy
people ignore this law, convinced they can get away with their
assaults, and are
genuinely bewildered when, maybe years later, they become the targets
of isolation, ostracism, and outright hostility from people who
finally find the courage to get even.
[Can
You Read My Mind? – Brassband Midden-Brabant]
There
is really only one secret to changing other people's minds, but it's
a big one: Follow practical psychology. If you heed this
advice over the years, you will get better at persuading and
influencing people. On the other hand, if you ignore or sidestep
psychology, you will find yourself with less and less influence as
time passes.
Here
are five ways to put practical psychology to work that you may have
overlooked or not known about. Each way comes with a tactic you
definitely should not try, since it's proven not to work.
1.
Be sincere and truthful. Don't be manipulative.
2.
Appeal to what someone else already believes. Don't attempt to impose
your own belief system.
3.
Be aware of the other person's blind spots. Don't assume they are
open-minded.
4.
In general, persuade through reason, but don't discount the power of emotion to open new possibilities. Remember
the salespersons' First Law – People
choose emotionally and justify their choices reasonably. Adapt your style
to the other person, not in order to manipulate them, but in order to
connect with them.
5.
Make the other person feel validated. Don't make them feel wrong.
These
are all effective ways to change someone else's mind, but the tricky
part is that if any one of them goes wrong, the others won't be of
much use. If you're a woman applying for a job and the interviewer is
dead set on hiring a man, nothing else will matter - blind spots,
prejudice, and ingrained biases are among the hardest things to
overcome, and I'll explain why in a moment. On the other hand, a
really skillful use of practical psychology might get you the job,
especially if you can make him feel right about his decision. People
do love to feel Right.
Let’s
consider each of the five points a bit further.
1.
Sincerity sucks. Be straight and truthful. Don't be manipulative.
You
can't successfully sell other people on something you don't actually
believe in. They may go along with you, either because they need to
get along with you, or just to get you out of their face. Either way,
you lose. That's why infomercials on television do everything they
can to persuade you of their honesty. Testimonials, authority
figures, before and after photos, and research data are called upon
to make you believe that they aren't simply watching a commercial,
even though they are. We shut out commercials instinctively because
we know from experience that they are manipulative. We also put up
our guard when a spruiker says, "I really believe in this
product." The upshot is that you shouldn't try to be a master
manipulator. It only works on weak-willed people, and in the end they
are fickle allies, whom you covertly despise anyway -- “I wouldn't
trust anyone who agrees with me.” Rely on your listener's
natural ability to detect truth and sincerity. If you cannot be
straight, take up some other line of work. Your own immortal soul is
at stake.
2.
Appeal to what someone else already believes. Don't even think of
trying to impose your own belief system.
People
identify with their beliefs, and they get to be right about them.
That is the nature of Belief. If you've ever slammed the door when
someone tries to offer you a religious pamphlet, or had the door
slammed in your face when you went canvassing for a political party,
you'll have felt the wall of aggression. In a different world,
beliefs would be flexible and open to change, but that world isn't at
hand. None of us has the time to test and try out every experience,
so there's a lot that we don't know that gets covered up and bridged
over by Beliefs. And we rely on our beliefs to survive our identity
and opinions, most of which were formed by Beliefs in th first place. So you need to know what someone else really, truly
believes. With that knowledge at hand, you can align your
communication with their beliefs. You can talk to them in words and
images that are relevant and meaningful to them and their version of
reality. Without that knowledge, you are throwing darts at a brick
wall. If you try instead to impose your own beliefs, the other person
will feel that you are making him wrong, and immediate shutdown
follows. If you have some power or control over them, they may
pretend to submit to your will, but never underestimate the
power and longevity of their inevitable “Won't”. Resentment can
smoulder forever, and it will ignite and come back to burn you –
sooner or later – you can bet on it.
3.
Be aware of the other person's blind spots. Don't assume other people
are as open-minded as you may be. In fact, assume they probably aren't, at least in
the area you're working in.
A
blind spot is a fixed opinion that is so strong, the person shuts out
any and every input to the contrary. It's simply NOT THERE, and you pointing it out isn't going to enlighten the other person one iota. It's a supreme example of rigid thinking.
Blind spots are a real problem for us, because they are positions we
take on something, and we all have them. Now, here's where it gets really interesting... whenever we take a position on anything, we also take the opposite
position (opposition) – hold the opposite view – but we won't
admit to it right now. So when you're dealing with a blind spot –
yours or someone else's – you're dealing with a half-truth, a denial, a lie. If
you attack somebody's blind spot, you'd better be prepared for a
dirty fight, a fight in which you will both switch sides without
impunity if it suits your purposes in the moment.
Your head should be
spinning about now.
If
you are self-aware, you know that you have your own blind spots, and you'll know exactly what they are - certain things you simply can't stand or that bring
out your most stubborn reactions. There are also positive blind
spots, as when a mother feels that her beloved child can do no wrong.
No one, other than someone like me, announces their blind spots so, when dealing with others,
you have to feel them out. Is the other person balking, contradicting
you, trying to change the subject, crossing his arms over his chest,
steepling his fingers, clearing the throat, or agreeing with you just
a little too sincerely? Look for sure signs of shutting down,
counter-attack or resistance, and you will generally be hitting close
to another person's blind spots. It seems discouraging that almost no
one has an open mind, but it's a fact of practical psychology that
must be taken into account. Your task is to sensitively navigate
through touchy topics and to appeal to the part of your listener that
wants to agree with you.
4.
In general, persuade through reason, not emotion. Don't assume that
emotions aren't in play, however.
One
of the most confusing aspects of persuasion has to do with being
reasonable. Everyone thinks “I'm a reasonable person”, and
decision-making is supposed to be rational. Yet psychological
research has shown time and again that emotions are not separated
from the choices we make, and no-one I'm aware of can do it. It helps
me to sort this out by assuming that life Choices are made
emotionally, while day-to-day Decisions are made rationally. It's not
an absolute truth -- nowhere near it, but it helps to open up some space and sift through the tangle of
naivety, pretence and deceit.
Should you appeal to someone else's emotions? Unless the interaction is already emotionally charged and you have a
personal relationship, the answer is generally no. You risk insulting
their intelligence or coming off as being as manipulative as a used
car salesman. To be persuasive, I always monitor the emotional
atmosphere and argue rationally to help the other person justify
his/her emotional choices. (It's worth noting too that competitive
personalities regard a show of emotion as a sign of weakness - with
them, you must muster all the rational reasons you can.) Some people
can be persuaded by a show of emotion, but if you look a bit deeper,
in those cases they either wanted to be persuaded, or agreed with you
in the first place - think of the cheers at political rallies for a
speech that would be greeted coldly if it was delivered to the other
political party.
5.
Make the other person feel understood. Don't make them feel wrong.
This
point might win the prize for what gets ignored most often. Any time
you bully somebody, lord it over them, use your position of
authority, or act superior, you are making that person feel either
inferior, excluded or downright wrong. Outside of an unhealthy
Parent/Child relationship, no-one likes to feel put down. We all feel
invalidated when we are judged against. Whether people agree with is
or disagree with us, we feel validated when we are accepted,
understood, appreciated, and approved of. (I've known at least three
hugely successful politicians who built the success of their entire
careers on making other people feel that they were the most important
person in the room at that moment.) If you can make someone else feel
accepted, you have established a genuine bond, at which point they
will lower their defenses. If you push someone away instead // by
making them feel wrong, their defenses will turn twice as strong.
These five points are really just elaborations on Ben Franklin's aphorism, "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still," but they are worth learning and testing out if you want to be successful at getting others to change their minds.
Finally,
I'm going to add a Sixth point you might want to contemplate if you aspire to successfully managing people. I
learned it from my farming father and grandfather, men who – before
the days of tractors - worked with horses and oxen. Efficiency and
satisfaction is about putting together teams of individuals with
differing strengths and skills, placing each of them where their
particular strengths contribute most to the overall success of the
job at hand.
The
day of the Lone Ranger – It's my way or the highway – is
dead. Thank God. But a few dinosaurs are still roaming the dark wilds of Ignorance. Be aware....
Here's
a lesson I learned one remarkable night by torchlight on a visit to Zimbabwe. Every person in a tribe, and every tribe in the Zulu nation,
has its own song. Rather than forsake individual songs to sing a unison
anthem, how much richer is the experience of finding ways to meld and
merge our songs into a new song in which everyone's voice, everyone's tempo and rhythm, everyone's language is merged into a new nd richer
harmony....
[Southland
Concerto – Hans Zimmer]
Have
I changed your mind in some way? What have you got from the last
20-30 minutes?
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