The Setup

Have you ever wanted to persuade someone? Have you ever been convinced? Swaying or changing someone’s mind is not simple. Sometimes, creating a scenario to induce a specific response is possible. However, in others, especially when folks are convicted of their beliefs, it can be challenging to affect their thinking. It is helpful to have a set of tools ready to meet the needs of any situation where influence plays a key role.

Additionally, understanding how to persuade others is equally helpful in noticing when others are attempting to convince you of something.

The Approach

• Change someone else’s mind by employing permission structures, motivational interviewing, and leadership storytelling.
• Note that humans are compelled to reciprocate a given action, whether positive or negative.
• Recognize how much effort is required for someone to make a change in their lives, and help them overcome that hurdle.
• Use psychological tendencies such as reciprocity, liking bias, confirmation bias, and reciprocity in concert to produce a specific response.
• Consider mediation in contentious scenarios, as trust ebbs quickly when a party feels threatened.

​The Latticework

• The power to Change Minds is to alter a given person’s perception, opinion, decision, or behavior. Instead of prosecuting someone’s thinking, please take a moment to recognize that it will only cement their current position. One needs to employ cognitive flexibility to change a listener’s mind.
• Reciprocity is where one reacts to another’s action with one of mutual benefit or harm. Reciprocity is capable of spreading love and hate in equal measure. Positive actions often receive a similar response, and negative actions yield a hostile one.
• Activation Energy is required to take the first step when completing a task. Whatever the action, a specific amount of energy is needed to overcome inertia.
• Lollapalooza Effect is where four psychological tendencies converge. These include reciprocity, liking bias, social proof, and confirmation bias. These tendencies act in concert to elicit the desired behavior.
• Mutually Assured Destruction is when two parties are in a stalemate, and neither can take action without spelling out their destruction. It was devised in military strategy to describe a nuclear arms deadlock and comes from deterrence theory.

​The Deep Dive

​Change Minds​
The idea is to persuade oneself or another person to alter their perception, opinion, decision, or behavior. There are three scenarios when changing someone’s mind: An individual is convinced of their own opinion. Individuals have a perception or behavior they want to change but cannot. A group understands and agrees on the way they currently operate. There are three approaches to these distinct scenarios: Permission structure is where one ensures the person changing their mind is offered a path to keep their integrity. Motivational interviewing is where the interviewer helps the person find the motivation within themselves to change. Leadership storytelling is where narrative delivers a pathway to influence and compel transformational change effectively.

​Reciprocity​
The concept is a practice of reacting to someone else’s positive or negative action with an action of mutual benefit or harm. Reciprocity is capable of spreading love and hate in equal measure. Positive actions often receive a similar response, and negative actions yield a hostile one. Newton’s Third Law, the action-reaction law, describes reciprocity well: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. For example, someone buys their friend lunch. There’s a strong likelihood that the person will return the favor next time. On the other hand, someone angrily shoves another person. That person will most likely push them back. Folks thrive from receiving others’ help, and one of the best ways to guarantee that necessary support is to assist others in the first place.

​Activation Energy​
When attempting to complete a task, the first step is the hardest to take. Whatever the action, a specific amount of energy is needed to overcome inertia. By perceiving how much is necessary to incite action, you can control outcomes more reliably. The principle can be used internally to introduce and keep habits or externally to motivate others’ behaviors. The smallest amount of energy required for a chemical reaction to happen. To produce a result, you need activation energy to go from an initial state, known as the minima, the smallest value of the reactants, to the final state, called the products. Say you turn on a stove to the lowest setting, then attempt to fry an egg. The egg doesn’t have a sufficient amount of heat to cause a chemical reaction. You then decide to set the dial on high, and the egg starts to cook. At the microscopic level, it’s breaking weak chemical bonds, which changes how the proteins in the egg behave — the minimum amount of energy for an egg to produce a reaction.

​Lollapalooza Effect​
Several psychological tendencies converge to elicit a desired outcome. These tendencies act in concert, feedback on one another, and can determine behavior. In this lollapalooza, you can persuade an individual to take specific actions. One famous example is a Tupperware party. The host uses several mental models, including reciprocity, liking bias, social proof, and confirmation bias, to get attendees to purchase goods before they leave. Reciprocity is the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit. When someone does something for you, it’s natural to feel obligated to reciprocate — this is reciprocation bias. Whether the original act was needed or even asked for is irrelevant, it creates a requirement to return the favor, even when you don’t want to. Liking bias is the preference to do business or say ‘yes’ to people you like, are similar to you, cooperate with you, or make you feel special. Friends and neighbors, for example, are prime candidates for this designation in your life. Social proof is where individuals are influenced and mimic what others are doing — monkey see, monkey do. That effect becomes more pronounced when you are uncertain, stressed, or confused. Confirmation bias is when a previously held belief places greater importance on any evidence that might support it in the present. As you might imagine, changing a viewpoint is harder than cementing it in the first place.

​Mutually Assured Destruction​
The moment when two parties are in a stalemate, and neither can take action without spelling their destruction. It was devised in military strategy to describe a nuclear arms deadlock and comes from deterrence theory. The threat of using a weapon against another party stops them from using the same weapon. When both parties are at a standstill, neither has an incentive to start a conflict or disarm. It can take the form of challenging competitors and utilizing destructive tactics to undercut one another. Trust ebbs when a party feels threatened. In turn, it causes them to be suspicious and ultimately provoke ill will. Avoiding, confronting, and eliminating situations where mutually assured destruction exists removes risk.