A Tribe of Fear - Persuasion and feeding time at the zoo

Why am I always talking about persuasion and influence? What does it have to do with the zoo?

I have never worked at a zoo. But there are a lot of animals in the zoo we call business. The first time I decided to go down this path of persuasion was my first attempt at selling an idea to a couple of wild engineering critters at Northrop.

I lost a bid to replace about a million dollars of work with a 75 cent part. I was shot down hard by a couple of good 'o boy, about to retire, last hurrah engineers that were in charge of a 10 million dollar project to create a piece of test hardware to test the the test hardware of the guidance system of the MX (Peacekeeper) Missile. Yep you heard it right, a tester for the tester of a mulit-megaton, death from the sky, firecracker.

How could I fail? It was 75 cents verses a lot of money. I worked for 6 months to write software verses 75 cents (well really about $150 after labor costs). How can you loose an argument like that? But I lost.

I was not just humbled by it, I was slammed to the ground with little understanding of why. The 'why not' was even sillier. Quite simply there was no real counter argument worth writing about. Just a dismissive attitude. I was selling to people unwilling to save a million bucks at the cost of a question to the accuracy of their design.

Nothing better than failure to learn how to do it right the second time. That was the day I decided that no idea can stand on its own. You must sell ideas:

o Find the reason from the customer's viewpoint as to why they need to accept your idea.
o You can sell all day long, but the buyer has to want to buy.
o Sell need, desire, a reason, motivation, and a cause.
o Find the reasons for change, make it easy to change, and don't pull or push, use honey to attract the bees.
o Help the process with influence techniques like reciprocity, authority, liking, scarcity, exclusivity, etc.

Persuade! Influence!

Persuasion is not just what you say, but the context. To sell that 75 cent part successfully, I needed to understand that the engineers would have been embarrassed to no end by my wet behind the ears and thus unencumbered creative thinking. Why is it so bad? Because if they failed to see a million dollar mistake, then they have made a really big get-you-fired mistake.

Where there is one mistake, there may be more. Where there is a mistake, there is a reason to loose your job. This is basic stuff. No competence, no job, no food, no house. People and lions get all uppity and irrational when you get between them and their food.

I'd be doing worse than stealing their food in this case. These guys were close to retirement. I was stealing their early retirement to green pastures.

I should not have sold my idea as my idea or even mention the savings. It had to be their idea. It had to be based on other motivations. It had to be their win. It had to be a reason for the boss to put more food on their table. All the persuasion I could muster would just bounce off without defusing even the tiny notion of a mistake.

Good book to read on this area: Dinosaur Brains: Dealing with All THOSE Impossible People at Work. The premiss of the book is that small bit of brain associated with primal wants, needs, and desires is alive and kicking in the modern brain.

The workplace is filled with over-stressed animals. Every day you can see the grim nature of fight or flight as territory is defended and ideas and blame substitute for contributions to the heard.

Primal actions are destructive. Most of us just see anger and irrational behavior rather than the true motivators. You know it when you see it. Pull out the wild animal guidebook or watch the Discovery Channel to understand the key indicators.

For the record, before I could learn all of this great wisdom, I also submitted a design that would have saved about 8 million on the same project. I was again shot down in flames.

Funny though, the Air Force a couple years later said to loose 8 million in costs or cancel the project. Funny how the new design looked just like my unsavory proposal.

No reason to gloat over my design wining out in the end. The proposal was submitted two years before and could have saved even more of our tax dollars in a very over budget project.

Back to leading the tribe. Irrationality is everywhere. It usually comes from a fear of loosing food and shelter or membership in the tribe. Persuasion and influence is just as important to a sale as it is to keeping the tribe healthy. Do you want your tribe to make million dollar mistakes because they are being territorial animals acting on instinct rather than rational thought?

It might be time to teach your people how to set the animalistic fears and motivations aside. Especially in this economy. Imagine how dysfunctional the world is starting to get as people fear for their jobs.

I'll talk about removing fear in my next post. For now, what do you think, right now? Have you experience the animals in the workplace? Is it getting worse when the market dips? Let us know by posting a comment below.

If I could only read your mind... oh yeah, I can!

It is amazing how the internet works. I wrote an article for a software magazine a few years ago about using magic and mentalism to help create better software. Funny though that the magazine either does not exist or does not have a googlable index so the only reference from the Googleplex was this:
Magic Is Golden - Pulling Rabbits Out of Hats (Software and Magic).

Follow the link and take a look. It is pretty good stuff and could open your mind to a new way to think about human/software interactions or even the harder human/human interactions.

The gist of it all is this: Use the information you have to both impress that you know something and further use the information to make accurate predictions about the demographics and psychographics of your coworkers/customers/tribe.

One of the important rules of persuasion is 'Liking' and found in the following book:Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. The point here is that a person that finds common ground is more apt to do a deal with you. By using mentalism techniques you can find common ground that you can leverage opportunities.

Use the clues. Don't just sit in your customer's office! Look around. Find the sports, art, books, etc. Find common ground, even if it is common ground between your customer and another customer of yours. Just knowing someone like your customer helps you seem likable because of the common thread in your shared social network.

Caildini also looks at authority as persuasion. A simple lab coat can make people do things they would never do for anyone else. you can use mentalism techniques to be the knowing doctor. This is wacky simple. Look at many drug ads. Old=disease. How fortunate that they know and understand my problem!

But Cialdini also talks about the dishonest persuader. If you trick simply to gain advantage, the lack of honest persuasion causes issues later on. The key is to truly use a technique to to help the target of persuasion. If you simply trick, then you don't get repeat business. This is clearly seen with reciprocity (exchange of gifts). The Hari Krishna are a great example where they would give an unexpectant rube a flower which caused a reaction to give a donation. But the ploy failed as there was no real benefit and people learned to avoid the followers. The Hari Krishna are now banned from many places mainly because of their less than honest techniques. Of course many of you reading this don't have any idea what a Krishna is and that is in large part their own doing causing society to bad a practice and thus also limiting the exposure so much that it is no longer as widely known.
services

Here in Bangkok (I am here 6 months out of the year) we have horribly disfigured beggars. Though there is a travesty for these poor people, they are placed by criminal gangs that reap the donations. The result is that these poor people that would have normally eked out a living are now mostly ignored. On the other hand the Buddhist temples bring in vast sums of money because their spending of the money is usually transparent. The reciprocity is in the form of both offerings and luck/fortunes and other spiritual services. The people are happy to pay for the spiritual piece of mind and it pales in comparison to the offering plate at your local church.

Back to mentalism, a less spiritual miracle of observation, statistics, choice words, and a little prestidigitation. Be honest, surprising, and appear to know things that others do not. This will help you go far if you do so honestly with the benefit of your friends, family, and tribe clearly a goal.

What is a the most important part of the tribe beyond the leader? Shaman or witch doctor and in some cases they are the leader as well.

Why are we surprised

Beware, this is a long one. But I think you will like the ride. I won't say this is a new idea, but it does have new possibilities.

Reading blogs on Discovery.com is interesting. The scientific mind often gets bent out of shape when logic seems to drift. Read this post about a nest of wasps that formed in the shape of a Buddha in Rochester MN. Not only is there the incredulusness of the idea that Buddha and wasp are related, but the people intervied in the referenced story and the author of the original article keep confusing bees for wasps.

The funny thing about Buddhism is that no matter how much it is a philosophy, it still spirals into religion. Not saying that it can't be a pure way of life, but that is not what it is in all Buddhist-based cultures (barring those in California).

The wasps (through the miracle of self-delusion actually bees) must have a 'human' explanation. The purist Buddhist philosophy would simply be that they were being wasps as is their nature - nothing more.

The trick is that Buddhism does not deny the religion that existed prior to the adoption of Buddhism before it arrived. Look at Thailand (I do for 6 months of every year) where there is never a Buddha that is not within arms reach of a creature or god from the indian-based religions. Because they were also very prone to believing in the influence of these other worldly beings, they attribute a lot of how the world works to them. The number of rituals or signs, belief in the cause and effect of the rituals is amazing. This is not necessarily peasants in the jungle. We are talking about the educated masses bowing to the Buddha as well as multi-armed Shiva and other dieties.

I'll add one more thing. No matter how you slice it, humans are the problem - not a religion or other excuse. We can make anything seem reasonable. A Buddhist will not cause damage to another living being. But a Buddhist can (and I have seen it) create a situation where pain or worse is inevitable just as long as they don't strike the death blow... or can claim it was just a reflex. A mosquito cannot be killed, but should it wander into a death trap through misadventure, that's alright.

The purist Buddhist would not do such a thing, but the non purist would argue that they were pure as well. Imagine a dictionary with only one definition for every word. Imagine a book that could not be interpreted to having different meanings (barring pure math).

The simple fact is that we are human. Murphy's law is all about the human's ability to believe something will work, that it is designed right, that it will be used as intended and the consequence of believing any of these has a shred of truth.

And now, the missing ending.

In this case it is all about the sloppiness of belief. A Buddhist can cheat, lie, make mistakes, and do silly things as easily as a Christian or Islamist. Just as an engineer can put in a part backwards (the source of the Murphy tale) people easily can reverse/twist/expand a belief or embelish liberally to support the initial position of their belief or action. Even stranger is how beliefs and their supporting arguments are easily picked up by others. This is acually a bit less surprising because it is simple to go with the flow.

Back to philosophical Wasps building Buddha-shaped nests in Buddhist temples (we call them Watts in Thailand). What stuck me funny as I have said is the bashing of the very science-based blogger of people that are... well, being people. On the one end, Mr Wizard. On the other end, Mr Wizard with prejudice of religion rather than understanding that the human condition easily mistakes a wasp from a bee and gets bent out of shape when deities show up built by insects.

Where is this going? The referenced blog seems to say these folks are stupid. Stupid isn't about being educated or facts. Stupid is is a state of mind that got there through human experience and the way the mind works. Stupid, ten to one, is nothing more than a belief that is wrong. Stupid comes from lack of Critical Thinking
, perhaps education, and even our parents - but it is something that is always there in some amount in all of us.

So, here we are in Triiibes. What does this have to deal with leading? People are not stupid. Note: Not talking about IQ. Lots of smart people belong to cults. Lots of people do stupid things. Stupidity is sometimes fleeting, but I am talking about a persistent stupid. How do you lead stupid?

First, drop the 'stupid' moniker. Treat stupidity as a belief. Find what led to a problem that you have with a co-worker, client, targeted customers, and the rest of the world. Remember that belief is hard to change. Most beliefs exist even in that face of evidence, so don't expect a belief to change.

A variation of what we often label with 'stupid' is related to skills. I want to call this out separately because the English language sucks (it is a human invention and ha a lot of flaws). Good book to read is The Myth of Laziness
. Spelling, the ability to write, speaking skills, fine motor skills are all are related to how the brain is wired. You can't do a lot about that. Worse lots of kids with developing brains or adults that are not quite wired perfectly are labeled as lazy which is closely related to and often called 'stupid'. You get the same issues leading these folks. In addition they have additional beliefs caused by not being perfect and what that entails.

Full disclosure, can't spell, handwriting from hell, and until I learned to juggle, I could not lay on the ground while chewing gum without tripping. But, I use a spell checker, I type, and I now have motor skills thanks to learning to juggle when I was about 35 (balls, knives, flaming torches and toilet plungers in their order of danger to my self and audience). Juggling rewired a brain stuck at age 13 because my beliefs kept me tied to avoiding improvements in my motor skills. The rest are just coping skills that work quite well in modern society.

The trick to leading most beliefs or handicaps of all kinds is to first accept them. Suspending belief should be the game. I became a writer when I realized that nobody really cared as long as I used a spell checker (at a guess I have used the spell checker on about 30 words in this blog entry so far). I also became a writer because I had a goal where the writing was only a small part of reaching the goal. Juggling too was just a means to a really good joke rather than being able to own glassware rather than high impact plastic.

So, here are my steps for curing stupidity caused by beliefs:

1) Accept the belief. If possible, find the source and acknowledge that this makes the belief true given the evidence.

2) Suspend a belief with a different reality or conditions where another belief can be possible. Alternately, ask that a belief take a little time off and try another belief and have the subject see how it works out with their own observations. Goals that are related, but not the focus of the belief are very useful.

3) Follow up and if possible confirm a change or at least progress in loosening the grip of an old belief

There are pitfalls to consider:

Inertia - If you are not dead, the belief has not really affected you that badly. If it is not life threatening, it is hard for the brain to find a reason to change. It takes a lot of effort to change direction in a car or a mind.

Self-limiting beliefs - Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of being seen as inferior, fear of mediocrity and others will help support a belief. These can be teated as stated above, but they are deeply held beliefs that likely caused the belief. My favorite book on such limiting beliefs: The Luck Factor: The Four Essential Principles

Energy - The brain uses a lot of energy when rewiring itself. Nature likes to conserve energy. A closed mind is a low energy mind. Changing the energy level through the effort of changing a belief is not something the brain likes to do. That is why having other goals are important. The need needs to be sweeter than the effort so that the effort pays big or such that the effort isn't even noticed against the greater need to reach the goal.

All of this applies to groups as well. Think about Microsoft and Apple. In the minds of Apple fans they have beliefs with inertia, the fear of failure by being wrong, and all the baggage of understanding how to use the products. Microsoft might call these people stupid and Apple plays the same game with Mr Hodgman. Microsoft is playing on the need to be part of a group with their new adverts which is also a deep belief.

Apple is winning market share as much from the new inertia of converts that bring in others simply because nobody dies from buying Apple and they do seem a bit happier. The energy of changing your mind is easier if you observe others succeeding - why waste energy when all the thinking has been done for you?

How many Republicans call Democrats stupid and hear their words mirrored back? How did Obama win? My guess is that he put the goal of change in the air until it overcame many beliefs that were held by Republicans and non-voting youths that had found no reason to vote before. McCain mostly spoke to the beliefs of other Republicans rather than a new belief that would sway youth or existing Democrats.

You can now start to see a new strategy. Don't push against stupidity. Stupidity is just a belief. Change beliefs. You are already changing your mind a little and that has its own inertia.

Let us know what you are thinking. The fear of commenting in public is not a belief we have here :o)

Why the car industry is in trouble? It's just a bad story they tell themselves.

Why is the car industry in trouble? It is sort of simple if you think about it. They have made a model of customizing looks, high-end performance, and amenities, but not more important things like fuel economy or even ways to green out the car.

Why? Because for the most part it is easier to tack on a new plastic part or high-end brakes. It is not as easy to swap an engine or drop 3 or 4 thousand pounds off the weight to reduce the need for power.

If automakers would prioritize concepts like swapping engines based on the market of gas rather than the demand of SUV's, we would not be in this mess. If I could buy a wimpy powered SUV today, but swap in a few cylinders when gas is low again, why not?

Here is the problem: Car companies sell cars, not engines. Somebody else sells engines to the car companies. More profit for the bigger item I guess. But this does not imply that it would not work, just a story these folks tell themselves which prevents them from seeing a different truth.

Anything is possible. But people get in the way. Silliest thing I heard at the peak of high gas prices was that Americans would not buy a 50+ mile per gallon diesel because Americans don't like diesel...

Sorry, but that is just plain silly. How are Americans different from the rest of the world? The sillier fact is that this is coming from the same car company. Owned but the same stockholders, with the same management. They just keep telling the same stories to themselves and believing their own fairy tails.

In Seth's book, All Marketers are Liars, he talked a lot about such stories for marketing. It is a good concept, but it works both sides. There are stories that stifle and smother innovation.

We need new stories.

Think of a current story that would create a petrified forest and make one that would create the Amazon. When someone sings the blues, stop it in its tracks. Change the tune, change the story, look for opportunity, not reasons for inaction.

My idea to save the world? An add-on device that would turn off an engine when stopped at a stoplight or in traffic. What about air conditioning? Stop whining. An electric compressor can be added too if you live in the hot west or an electric heater in the chilly places. More important, an override button. When gas is $5 a gallon, you switch that puppy on and save some cash.

How do I know this is a good idea? What do you think a hybrid is? It saves most of the fuel by just being off when you are not moving. It is a good idea. There are a few things to do, like automating the start process, but that too was solved with hybrids.

See how easy that was? It is just an option, but it is an economy option.

What is your idea? What is the new story? What is your comeback line to the doubting Thomas?

FYI this is a version of a blog moved from a limited membership blog site at http://www.triiibes.com/. I am moving many of those blog entries here for your entertainment and enlightenment.

Marketing truths of fear, guilt, paranoids, and the lonely.

Wouldn't it be nice to decrease the psychological foibles in the world? If you are not selling anti-anxiety drugs you still need to think about what motivates decisions.

Fear motivates, but avoiding a fearful encounter is more powerful. Fear is usually temporary. Avoiding fear is much easier and easier to believe.

Guilt is not as good a tool as a fear of guilt. If you are already guilty, why bother? With fear of guilt, you have a chance at redemption without the messiness of sin.

There are those that avoid pain and those that prevent pain. It is two sides of the same coin but very different approaches. Avoiding pain is about fear and never confronting pain. Preventing pain is a planed activity that includes things that might normally have come with the pain.

Want to know where most pain management is practiced? In hospital management, not patient management. Overheard: "Let's not buy that new hospital IT system. It would be too painful to train our people."

People without fear are really adrenalin junkies. One is simply more powerful than the other.

Being paranoid is a hobby. You always have something to think about.

There are things you do for your self to feel good and then there are things you do so that you can talk about yourself to others so that you can feel good.

The brain is a messy place. It is difficult for some to look at these as part of marketing. The fact is that this is all real. Avoiding these motivators is sometimes bad for your marketing. People like their problems, needs, and fears addressed. In fact they get turned off when you don't.

Our motivations are a resource that you should use. Be careful not to abuse or exaggerate! Use the truth. People will exaggerate the problem far more by themselves than you could anyway. It's just how you phrase the truth that matters.