Why the urge to persuade can undermine your idea for change

Every good salesperson knows the 7-step process in which you identify and qualify a prospect to understand their needs, then present your offer, overcome objections, close the sale and follow up. It’s proven so consistently effective that its concepts have been the standard for training salespeople for decades.

Many business leaders come up through sales and marketing, so it shouldn’t be surprising that they try to use similar persuasion techniques for large-scale change. They work to understand the needs of their target market, craft a powerful message, overcome any objections and then follow-through on execution.

Unfortunately, that’s a terrible strategy. The truth is that the urge to persuade is often a red flag. It means you either have the wrong people or the wrong idea. Effective change strategy focuses on collective dynamics. Rather than trying to shape opinions, you’re much better off empowering people who are already enthusiastic about the idea and working to shape networks.

The power of persuasion

Experts have a lot of ideas about persuasion. Some suggest leveraging social proof, to show that people have adopted the idea and had a positive experience. Others emphasize the importance of building trust and using emotional rather than analytical arguments. Still others insist on creating a unified value proposition.

For 35 years, psychologist Robert Cialdini researched which types of communication were effective and which were not. He found that influence is based on six key principles: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity. More recently, Wharton Professor Jonah Berger has used data analysis to come up with his SPEACC framework. 

In recent years, a number of conversation-based practices, such as Deep Canvassing, Street Epistemology, and the Change Conversation Pyramid, have emerged that focus on a method called technique rebuttal. These focus on listening empathetically to build rapport and identifying common ground, then encouraging the target to engage in metacognition to examine how they arrived at their own conclusions. 

These all are, for the most part, worthwhile and can be effective. However, it’s also important to remember that the first two steps in the sales process are identifying and qualifying prospects so that when you are presenting your offer, it is to people who are eager, or at least open, to what you’re trying to sell. Nobody would recommend wasting time and effort on trying to sell to those who have no interest in buying. 

Yet with large-scale change, that’s not an option. Your environment will include the entire spectrum, from active supporters to active resistors. That means that for a significant portion of people, persuasive techniques will not be effective. 

The limits of communication

We like to think that our minds work like computers, taking in evidence through our five senses and then processing that information in our brains to arrive at conclusions. Persuasion techniques tend to focus on glitches in that machinery in the form of cognitive biases, in order to get us to see things in another light. 

Yet we are wired to be social creatures. As we engage in collective action with others, we form group identities and seek to build status amongst our own tribe. Part of achieving the status we desire is showing loyalty and adherence to collective principles, so we take steps to signal to others that we remain loyal members in good standing and expect the same of them. 

That’s why we are greatly shaped by the people around us. Decades of studies indicate that we tend to conform to the opinions and behaviors of those around us and this effect extends out to three degrees of relationships. So not only do our friends’ friends influence us deeply, but their friends too—people that we don’t even know—affect what we think.

That’s why communication strategies will always be limited. We can carefully craft messages to align with the influence techniques of Cialdini and Berger, listen with empathy and employ the methods of technique rebuttal to successfully persuade someone to come to our way of thinking. But when they go back and get embedded in their social networks once again, they’re very likely to return to their earlier way of thinking. 

To wit, when David McRaney, while researching his book How Minds Change, sought out people who left cults or turned their backs on conspiracy theories he found that, invariably, the change in their opinion was preceded by a significant change in their social networks. 

Why incentives backfire 

Another common persuasion tactic is the use of incentives, based on the belief that changing incentives will automatically change behaviors. However, incentives frequently fall short and can even backfire dramatically. Sometimes this is due to the same identity and dignity issue that make people resistant to influence techniques, but also because people often act in unpredictable ways that aren’t immediately obvious.

Consider what happened in an experiment where daycare centers imposed fines for parents who were late picking up their children. Instead of cutting down on late pickups, they increased. As it turned out, parents saw the fine as a fee for convenience which they were happy to pay. 

There is also significant evidence that extrinsic incentives crowd out intrinsic and reputational motivations. For example, in an experiment in which subjects were asked to solve a puzzle, those who were paid a flat fee were much more likely to continue to work during free time than those who were paid for each puzzle solved. 

Yet there is one kind of incentive that does seem to work consistently and it taps into the same forces of group identity that make people resistant to other forms of influence. It’s called prosocial behavior.  We are more likely to perform when we understand and identify with who our work benefits than when they are given financial incentives or fed some slogan. 

In a study by Adam Grant, the performance of call center employees more than doubled when they had regular conversations with people who benefited from their work. Lisa Earle McLeod and Elizabeth Lotardo report in an article in Harvard Business Review that similar results have been found in studies of lifeguards, hospital workers, and sales teams.  

Going to where the energy is

Transformation efforts often center on communication, aiming to build awareness, desire, and knowledge about change, while building a sense of urgency and excitement. So leaders craft persuasive messages and broadcast them widely. Yet, after months of happy talk, they often find their efforts not only fell on deaf ears but also provoked deep, intense resistance.

The truth is that change isn’t about persuasion, but collective dynamics. Decades of research has shown that change spreads through peer networks rather than communication campaigns. Or, as network science pioneer Duncan Watts once put it to me, ideas propagate through “easily influenced people influencing other easily influenced people.”

That’s why you need to be wary about the urge to persuade. You want to go where the energy already is, not try and create and maintain it yourself. Find people who are already enthusiastic, empower them to succeed and they can bring in others, who can bring in others still. As Watts’ research has found, even a small initial shift can cascade into massive transformation. 

The evidence is clear: You don’t need to win over everyone at once. If you find yourself spending most of your energy trying to convince the skeptical or overpowering resistance, you are either focusing on the wrong people or you have the wrong idea. Instead of trying to push through, you need to regroup, reassess and identify where your efforts can be better placed. 

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