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“I think; therefore I am right.”

That’s the sentiment we see in many public discussions where opinions are the premise rather than the result of a thinking process.

“I am right!” is a sentiment that you often find in people who believe that “being wrong” is a sign of weakness. Also in people who fear change and the consequences of not being right.

In the most extreme cases, it’s almost as if these people feel entitled to owning the truth. So that the truth would have to bend according to their opinion rather than the other way around.

“I think; therefore I am right.” is a huge stretch from Descartes’ famous original insight “I think; therefore I am”. Ironically, it was based on the insight that there’s really not much that he could be certain about.

It’s the doubt that opens up new ways and shows us new solutions to old problems. That’s why a better stance would be:

I think therefore I get it right.

8 million

Each year, more than 8 million children die due to poverty (source).

That’s a huge number. But how large is it, really? The human mind has no easy way to “see” that number. For our brain, it doesn’t make much difference whether it’s 8 million or 80 thousand. Both is basically “a lot”.

Things change when we translate the numbers into dimensions we can relate to. 8 million per year means that every 4 seconds a child dies due to poverty.

Basically, during the time it takes you to read this sentence, a child dies due to poverty.

4 seconds is an easy to grasp value. 4 seconds is easy to experience. It has a clear meaning in our everyday life and therefore, it makes the abstract specific. It’s still the same information, but it’s much more tangible – even more so when you support it with a finger snap.

It’s hard to see 8 million children, but it’s easy to imagine one – which is precisely what most of us do when we hear that finger snap. With each finger snap we see a child.

Translating difficult numbers into values that make sense in our everyday life also makes it a lot easier for our audiences to understand what the numbers mean. It makes it a lot easier to relate to the info we’re trying to convey.

If marketing was a bakery

We would probably hate cake.

As a baker, when your cake doesn’t taste great, the best thing you can do is to learn to bake a better tasting cake.

The default approach of many marketers is different. They will take the cake and decorate it beautifully. Invent a story about how the recipe is an ancient and long forgotten secret of someone’s grandmother. Throw some incentives in so you can get three if you buy two (although you might not even want one). And have a celebrity, who never tasted the cake, tell us how delicious it is.

And then, when you’ve tricked the customer into buying that piece of cake, trust erodes as the experience falls short of the expectation.

The first bite is with the eye. But sooner or later, the customer gets to experience the actual taste. If the actual bite isn’t great, that first impression will quickly be forgotten.

The default approach to marketing is prone to deception: Give me what you have and I will make it appear attractive and find ways to persuade a customer to buy it.

Lighting the path is different because it starts with a great cake. You decorate a great cake not as a means to hide a weakness but because it makes a great cake even greater. You don’t invent a story about the recipe to make it appear cooler, you tell the actual story because it’s fascinating, let’s say due to the breathtaking attention to detail in making the cake.

Now, when the actual bite confirms the eye’s bite, it builds trust. And we might fall in love with the cake. And buy a second one even without any incentive.

Avoiding your audience’s autopilot

Our audiences have a lot of bad (or good?) habits that affect us.

When they read a boring headline, the scroll-further habit kicks in.

When they see a PowerPoint deck, the boring-PowerPoint-lets-check-Instagram habit kicks in.

When they read a generic first paragraph of a blog post, the this-is-irrelevant-lets-just-skim-over-it habit kicks in (or maybe even the lets-check-my-phone-and-get-lost-in-social-media-instead routine).

Habits are a big deal because they take over our audience’s brains (more or less) automatically. Once someone experiences a trigger (e.g. the boring headline), the habit kicks in.

The most effective way to avoid this behaviour is to avoid the trigger. And that’s why it matters to a) find trust in your own voice and b) understand what matters to your audience.

If you speak about what matters to your audience in your own distinctive voice, the just-like-everything-else trigger doesn’t fire and so your audience’s attention remains with you.

Don’t persuade harder, resonate stronger!

Traditionally, marketing is about getting the audience to do something. Marketers use all sorts of subtle techniques to gently (or not so gently) push or pull their audience in the direction they want them to go.

If the customer doesn’t buy, well, we’ve got to try harder and incentivise the purchase. Decorate the packaging a little better. Pay a celebrity to endorse the product.

Lighting the path is different. It trusts the audience with the decision to follow your advice. Because it turns out that people above the age of one prefer not to be pushed or pulled. They prefer to walk on their own (and are so much more loyal when they do).

This can only work when you start with empathy. When you deeply care for what matters to your customers. Then you’re going to build products that truly change things for the better. You’re going to understand their struggles and know what they strive for. And you’re going to speak their language.

Guess what happens when you solve someone’s struggle and explain it to them in their own language? They’re going to resonate. No need to push or pull.

Don’t persuade harder, resonate stronger!

Sometimes, a smile is all we need

Can I ask you a favor?

Could you send a smile to someone who you think needs one today?

It might be as simple as just an emoji. Or you shoot a selfie of you smiling. If you feel like it, why don’t you record a video and say a few nice words?

Do it in private or even publicly.

Whatever you choose, trust me: Your smile will make today a better day.

New information

“Have you heard the news about David?”
“Oh, yeah, yet another proof for how selfish he is.”

When new information becomes available, we immediately relate it to what we already know. If there’s a matching story, we fit the data into the story.

Rather than adapt the story to the data.

Because when we look closer, we discover that saying “no” to your support request for the project was for a good reason. He’s going through a rather difficult time and is uncomfortable speaking about it at work.

It’s actually a choice: When new information becomes available then either the narrative has to be adapted to the new information or the new information has to be integrated into the narrative. We either need to change the story so it’s consistent with the data or we interpret the data so that it confirms what we already believe.

The problem is that rewriting a story takes effort and it seems that the more effort it takes to adapt the narrative to the new information, the less likely it is that we actually do it. If it’s easier to interpret new information in a way that supports what we already believe, then that’s what will happen.

Keep that in mind when you try to convince someone. There’s no guarantee that they will interpret your data the same way you do.

The perfect job reference

Job references are issued at the end of a work relationship, sometimes in between, in regular intervals.

They are usually a judgement of how well an employee has performed during the period after the work has been done. You are the judge. You evaluate their work and you write your verdict up in a reference. It makes it seem like the responsibility for an employee’s performance would be totally theirs, not the leaders.

This relationship changes dramatically when you write a job reference at the beginning of your relationship and keep it in your drawer.

How would you like the employee to perform? What would the ideal job reference for that employee look like if it turned out to become a perfect relationship?

Really, write your employee the best reference you can think of – in advance!

Here’s the crux: Make it your responsibility that they live up to it, not theirs.

Provide them with the environment and the support they need to thrive. Don’t blame them if they don’t deliver the results, ask yourself how you can support them better.

It forces you to be more considerate about whom you hire. But more importantly, it forces you to do everything you can to get the optimum out of your relationship.

And in that sense, when you finally write the real reference, the one that gets handed over, it’s much more a verdict about your performance as a leader as it is about their performance.

The not-so-rational argument

Fact: The glass is half full.
Which is the same as half empty.

The more relevant question is what conclusions do we draw from the fact?

These can be rather different depending on your take regarding half empty or half full, e.g. because they imply a different sense of urgency.

The thing is that arguing rationally based on facts can be just as frustrating as arguing emotionally when we don’t agree on the meaning of the facts. Even more so … because everyone is so deeply convinced that their take is right. After all, the facts prove them right. It really is a factual argument: “But the glass is half empty! You can’t deny that!”

Why then does the other party, based on the facts, arrive at a different conclusion? And how come they are just as convinced of their conclusion?

The problem is that facts are just facts and the argument is not about the facts. It’s about what the facts mean. It’s informed by our experiences and expectations. It’s influenced by our values and principles.

And this means, that it only masks as a rational discussion unless we agree on these things. It’s a rational discussion relative to our values and principles. Only when we agree about these will a rational argument lead to the same conclusion for all participants.

Are you clear about the values that influence the meaning of a fact to you?

Playing around

When you’re testing a new approach, are you really testing it or are you just playing around?

When we play around, we don’t expect to get anywhere meaningful. We just try out this or that and see where it leads us. Some things work, some don’t, which is ok because we’re just, well, playing around.

Testing is different. Testing requires a rigorous approach by clarifying the assumptions, specifying the variables that are to be tested and a measure to evaluate the outcome so that we can later determine whether the test was successful or not and what the best parameters are for the task.

Playing around is most useful when you’re in a creative process, looking for new ideas not knowing, yet, what answer you’re looking for exactly.

Testing is most useful when you have a specific answer in mind that you want verified from the test and (usually) when you have a timeframe within which you want the result.

When you say “Let’s try this out!”, are you playing around or are you testing? Both have their place but it’s good to be intentional about which one you need for the task at hand.

Spread the Word

Dr. Michael Gerharz

Dr. Michael Gerharz