To improve results and solve the most pervasive, persistent and resistant problems, leaders must influence others to behave differently. In most cases, to get people to do things differently leaders must get them to think differently. Consequently, changing minds is one of the most important leadership challenges.
The challenge is not a difficult task if the change of mind is minor or not a strongly held belief. To change people's minds around some issues, you only need a clever advertisement or a clearly worded e-mail. However, other changes of mind are very difficult indeed—like convincing the union leader that cutting jobs is the best course to follow or getting a hardened criminal to choose a different lifestyle.
When it comes to the toughest problems, there are three methods employed by leaders to change minds.
No. 1: Verbal Persuasion.
This is the method used by most leaders most of the time. And, ironically, it's also the least effective method. Verbal persuasion is using reason, logic, data and information to tell people why they should want to care. This tactic works when the change of mind is unimportant or insignificant. But when the change is profound, difficult or important, this approach doesn't perform. In fact, it usually creates boredom and indifference or worse, distance and defensiveness. It seldom changes minds.
No. 2: Actual Experience.
This is by far the most effective way to change minds. Let people learn for themselves the value of the change you are advocating. If you want to create a high-performance empowered change, send each person to work for a month on a high-performance empowered team. Let them see how an effective team works. Let them feel the excitement of achievement. Let them experience support and teamwork from their motivated co-workers. When they return, their minds will be changed about what's possible and what they desire.
But the challenge with actual experience is the cost, the time and the difficulty of arranging these experiences for everyone who should have them. For example, the best way to change the minds of healthcare workers about patient service is to put them in a hospital bed for two weeks and experience the world of a patient. They return to their job with a complete understanding of common patient frustrations and a desire to provide much better service. Of course, logistically it's just not possible to give every hospital worker that two-week experience.
No. 3: Vicarious Experience.
Sometimes you can't give folks an actual experience and you don't want to default to verbal persuasion. Can you choose an in-between strategy that's still effective? Sure. Let them have an experience with the change or the need to change vicariously through someone else.
There is a wide range of possibilities for creating vicarious experiences. Send several union leaders to visit a company using self-managing teams (Actual Experience) and have them return and report to their peers about what they learned (Vicarious Experience). Bring a customer to the manufacturing team meeting to talk about how they experienced benefit or difficulty by using the product manufactured by the team. Or, instead of dumping data and reports on your employees, share a well-told story about someone's experience to illustrate the point you're trying to make and to connect to human consequences and the personal values of the participants.
Consider a final example of the power of experience. The daughter of a close and personal friend of mine was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes. The disease required her to take four finger pricks a day to monitor and modify her condition. The parents and the doctor explained to her the importance of these tests in managing her disease (Verbal Persuasion). After two weeks of four needle pricks a day, her fingers were covered with band-aids and she found it very difficult to play the piano, a favorite activity. The parents assumed everything was going fine when six months into the routine, their daughter's friend confided that the daughter had quit doing the tests.
What are the parent's options? They could sit her on a kitchen stool and lecture her on the necessity of the four-a-day needle pricks (Verbal Persuasion). They could not give her an actual experience with the effects of the unmanaged disease, which would not manifest themselves until 40 years down the road. However, they could design a vicarious experience to help change her mind.
One Saturday morning, the parents woke their daughter and announced, "We volunteered you to be a nurse's aid today." Over her mild protests they drove her to a dialysis center. She spent the day helping the nurses treat patients in the advanced stages of diabetes. She saw patients with wounds that would not heal. She saw patients who had become blind. She saw the pain and discomfort of dialysis. She talked to patients who expressed their regret that they had not managed their disease earlier. On the long ride home the daughter said nothing. But that evening she recommitted to the regimen of four blood tests a day and has seldom missed one since.
The Persuasion of Experience
Changing minds is one of the most important leadership challenges. Where possible, give people an actual experience with the advocated change or with the negative consequences of not making that change. When actual experience is not practical or possible, use vicarious experiences to help people understand the importance of changing behavior through the experiences of others. And above all else, never resort to the old, tired, ineffective strategy of verbal persuasion.
By Ron McMillan
The challenge is not a difficult task if the change of mind is minor or not a strongly held belief. To change people's minds around some issues, you only need a clever advertisement or a clearly worded e-mail. However, other changes of mind are very difficult indeed—like convincing the union leader that cutting jobs is the best course to follow or getting a hardened criminal to choose a different lifestyle.
When it comes to the toughest problems, there are three methods employed by leaders to change minds.
No. 1: Verbal Persuasion.
This is the method used by most leaders most of the time. And, ironically, it's also the least effective method. Verbal persuasion is using reason, logic, data and information to tell people why they should want to care. This tactic works when the change of mind is unimportant or insignificant. But when the change is profound, difficult or important, this approach doesn't perform. In fact, it usually creates boredom and indifference or worse, distance and defensiveness. It seldom changes minds.
No. 2: Actual Experience.
This is by far the most effective way to change minds. Let people learn for themselves the value of the change you are advocating. If you want to create a high-performance empowered change, send each person to work for a month on a high-performance empowered team. Let them see how an effective team works. Let them feel the excitement of achievement. Let them experience support and teamwork from their motivated co-workers. When they return, their minds will be changed about what's possible and what they desire.
But the challenge with actual experience is the cost, the time and the difficulty of arranging these experiences for everyone who should have them. For example, the best way to change the minds of healthcare workers about patient service is to put them in a hospital bed for two weeks and experience the world of a patient. They return to their job with a complete understanding of common patient frustrations and a desire to provide much better service. Of course, logistically it's just not possible to give every hospital worker that two-week experience.
No. 3: Vicarious Experience.
Sometimes you can't give folks an actual experience and you don't want to default to verbal persuasion. Can you choose an in-between strategy that's still effective? Sure. Let them have an experience with the change or the need to change vicariously through someone else.
There is a wide range of possibilities for creating vicarious experiences. Send several union leaders to visit a company using self-managing teams (Actual Experience) and have them return and report to their peers about what they learned (Vicarious Experience). Bring a customer to the manufacturing team meeting to talk about how they experienced benefit or difficulty by using the product manufactured by the team. Or, instead of dumping data and reports on your employees, share a well-told story about someone's experience to illustrate the point you're trying to make and to connect to human consequences and the personal values of the participants.
Consider a final example of the power of experience. The daughter of a close and personal friend of mine was diagnosed with Juvenile Diabetes. The disease required her to take four finger pricks a day to monitor and modify her condition. The parents and the doctor explained to her the importance of these tests in managing her disease (Verbal Persuasion). After two weeks of four needle pricks a day, her fingers were covered with band-aids and she found it very difficult to play the piano, a favorite activity. The parents assumed everything was going fine when six months into the routine, their daughter's friend confided that the daughter had quit doing the tests.
What are the parent's options? They could sit her on a kitchen stool and lecture her on the necessity of the four-a-day needle pricks (Verbal Persuasion). They could not give her an actual experience with the effects of the unmanaged disease, which would not manifest themselves until 40 years down the road. However, they could design a vicarious experience to help change her mind.
One Saturday morning, the parents woke their daughter and announced, "We volunteered you to be a nurse's aid today." Over her mild protests they drove her to a dialysis center. She spent the day helping the nurses treat patients in the advanced stages of diabetes. She saw patients with wounds that would not heal. She saw patients who had become blind. She saw the pain and discomfort of dialysis. She talked to patients who expressed their regret that they had not managed their disease earlier. On the long ride home the daughter said nothing. But that evening she recommitted to the regimen of four blood tests a day and has seldom missed one since.
The Persuasion of Experience
Changing minds is one of the most important leadership challenges. Where possible, give people an actual experience with the advocated change or with the negative consequences of not making that change. When actual experience is not practical or possible, use vicarious experiences to help people understand the importance of changing behavior through the experiences of others. And above all else, never resort to the old, tired, ineffective strategy of verbal persuasion.
By Ron McMillan
