Persuading people is leadership work.
Changing people’s minds is very difficult. Consider the millions of Facebook posts and Tweets demonstrating the superior logic and rationale for one political party vs. another, one religion vs. another (or vs. atheism), one diet vs. another, etc. Very few people are persuaded to change their minds; most people instead find reinforcement for their preferred way of thinking.
Here is some excellent wisdom shared from an experienced man to a younger man:
And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil,correcting his opponents with gentleness. (2 Timothy 2:24-25)
One of my former bosses, Bob Merrill, used to say “Data beats no data 98% of the time.” You will run into situations where seemingly irrational conviction trumps any presentation of data. Welcome to working with human beings who overflow with sincere stupidity.
Perfectly reasonable people draw completely different conclusions from the same data. Here’s one of my favorite examples:
A psychiatrist engaged with a patient who was convinced he was a corpse. For several weeks the psychiatrist tried to convince the man that he was alive, without success. One week the psychiatrist asked his patient, “Do corpses bleed?”
“No,” said the man, “corpses do not bleed.”
The doctor produced a pin, poked the patient’s finger and squeezed out a drop of blood.
The patient saw the blood and said, “I guess corpses do bleed.”
You’ll experience at least a few examples in your leadership journey where seeing blood is not enough.
How to be more persuasive:
Choose to be kind and patient. Snarkiness and mocking has its place, but should most often be reserved for situations of confronting evil. Egotistical leaders, dictators, and emperors without clothing loathe being made fun of because it’s very effective. But you have created a rift that probably can’t be healed. Therefore, if you’re trying to persuade people you intend to be with, work with, live with — drop the snarky one-liners and jokes.
Focus on facts, not feelings. Strong emotions reinforce a point of view. Persuasive people are able to focus on facts and data, while acknowledging a whole range of emotions that might be in play. (By contrast, manipulative people focus on your feelings.) You can respectfully correct incorrect facts, but you have zero control how they feel. “How you feel is your fault” is an important truth for leaders. Build your persuasive case on facts.
Accept that not everyone will be persuaded, at least not soon. Education is by definition inefficient and time-consuming. In any sizable group there are people who are with you, some who will remain opposed to an idea, and usually the largest group is in the middle somewhere. This is not a reflection of the quality of your persuasion skills.
You do not need 100% agreement to proceed. You do need the right critical people (e.g., probably your boss, or an oversight board).
You’ll be more persuasive if you accept responsibility for the outcome. People back-pedal from situations where they think it is going to fail and they’ll be held accountable. Match your convictions with the courage to accept responsibility. Most people are more likely to accept your idea.
(Note: This was originally posted on asmithblog.com in 2015)
