At this month’s Leaders’ Forum, KnowledgeBrief clients were joined by Dr James Garvey, from the Royal Institute of Philosophy, to explore the hidden story of persuasion and those in the business of changing our minds.
When people reflect on the morality of persuasion, the discussion is focussed on whether or not there’s deception involved, and how bad that is. However, sometimes the consequences of persuasion can be for the better good, such as when reaping for charity or nudging for organ donations.
We might say there are “best practices” when it comes to effective persuasion – but it is about far more than just argument and counter-argument, and key skills vary from communication to reasoning, assertiveness, interpersonal, interaction, or design.
As an organisation, understanding what specific skills are essential to your company’s objectives will go a long way in ensuring that your company is in good shape to influence and persuade appropriately.
A few key components of persuasion discussed at this month’s Leaders’ Forum include:
- Public Relations: Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support between an organisation and the public, and influencing opinion and behaviour. However, ‘understanding’ is a two-way process. To be effective, an organisation needs to listen to the opinions of those with whom they deal with and not solely provide information. Issuing a barrage of propaganda is not enough in today’s open society.
- Framing: Figurative language, language metaphors and framing clearly plays a role in persuasion. Framing is our native tongue, transformed into a sophisticated method of judicious miscommunication through the use of careful word choice and the artful rephrasing and reframing of familiar terms. It all comes down to making yourself sound better, or your opponent sound worse, or both. For instance, you want to “enhance revenues” and your opponent wants to “raise taxes”.
- Design: Which colour or font you use in your company logo might attract one segment of clients while having the opposite effect on others. Nothing is to be left to coincidence when it comes to design. Persuasive design identifies potential barriers and emotional triggers to elicit the desired actions of your clients, customers, or citizens. You need to know the rational thinking of your customer, and you need to understand their sub-conscious and emotional decision making processes.
- Lobbying: Lobbying has become a global industry which thrives wherever democracy is established. From trying to stop plain packaging on cigarettes, to opening the countryside to fracking, big business employs lobbying companies to persuade governments to meet their interests. Effective lobbyists perform trades, such as steering conversations away from those that can’t win and on to those that can, knowing when to use the press and when to avoid it, engineering a critical mass of voices singing to the companies tune, or making authentic, seemingly independent people to carry their message for them.
Next month, clients – including South East CSU, DHL and Cafcass – will explore how to innovate from the bottom-up in their organisation. For more information, please view the Innovation Day page.