Persuasion and priorities

People are much more persuaded by their own logic and reasons than ours, no matter how clever we like to think we are, so rather than banging our heads against a wall of their logic.  There is a better way.  If I push, they will push back (interestingly, this is not just confirmed Newton with his third law of motion, but is a key principle of Aikido.)  So, try this; ask the person where this thing sits on their personal priority scale, using a scale of 1-10.  Imagine you have asked your teenage child to tidy their room or a work colleague to look at something for you.  Assuming they don’t rate it as 1, rather than asking them to tell why they think it is that unimportant, ask them why they haven’t rated it lower.  It is counter-intuitive but this forces them to explain why it has some value.  You are now both on the same side of the fence and just debating how valuable it might be rather than whether it has a value.  It is far easier to move someone when you are travelling in the same direction than when you oppose them.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 12th, 2015 at 08:00 and is filed under Communication, Hints, Tips & Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.