Another “fact about the universe that’s disappointing to those with scientifically-inclined personalities” is this: few people make decisions logically and rationally—even those who see themselves as logical and rational. And what is one thing that most of these people value above all? Stories. Indeed, there is an interesting and curious point to be made that science itself is just a story, as classic philosophers of science like Thomas “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” Kuhn powerfully argues in a book that every history and philosophy of science grad student reads and perhaps you should, too.
You truly believe that the right course of action for your client is to do A, B, and C. No matter how right you are, the logical arguments won’t convince them of it. Of course, logical arguments are necessary. Without them, the arguments will sound fluffy and emotional, so you need them to convey seriousness. But they, in and of themselves, won’t be effective.
You need to cloak your arguments in good communication, that’s one point of this series. You also need to build up your credibility and trust with your boss or client. Without trust and credibility, you’ll never be believed (unless your stories are so good, you’re a natural showman, but let’s not count on that.) A lot of the techniques in this series help you build up your own trust and credibility, and the rest of it is about doing high quality work that builds up a ton of that credibility.
The way to truly make an argument effectively is with stories.
But not necessarily the way you’re thinking about them. I don’t mean to imply adding a fun anecdote when giving a professional presentation, no, no, no. That’s for beginners and we’re way past that. What’s most effective is telling people stories when they least expect it.
Compare the following. You want to get your client to invest in redesigning their site to be [insert website fashion of the day here: responsive? Mobile-first? Parallax?].
Giving them a presentation about it with lots of logical arguments may or may not work. Your logical argument probably argues how much money they’ll make, or they’ll save, but we all know those numbers are basically fiction, right? They know that as much as anyone.
You add in some fun stories to the presentation—it still has the same emotional result when they hear them. Nothing changes.
Now compare that to this scenario. You know that you want to get them to do a [insert website fashion of the day here] because it really, truly, definitely, unequivocally is in their best interest, of course. So, when you’re out at the team lunch this week and everyone is chatting, you throw in an offhand comment about how you just had lunch with your friend Jennifer who is a website designer at such-and-such other firm, and in the first three weeks after they added [insert website fashion of the day here], their position in the Google SEO rankings went up by 30% on average! Of course, you thought of mentioning this in the conversation because we were all talking about fun lunch places to go to, and that reminded you of the fun lunch place you went to with Jennifer, which reminded you of that story, great segue. Purely coincidental, of course. Of course!
And then you wait a week. The next week, you’re chatting with the CEO, who was at the first team lunch, and he happens to mention a competitor’s company. You casually respond that you noticed that this competitor’s website looks unique in the market space because they have a [insert website fashion of the day here] site, among some other reasons. Since you rigorously follow-up to all meetings with meeting notes, you write it up including that observation, and send it to him after the meeting. You also CC: your boss, the VP of Marketing, so he sees it too.
You then make similar comments in passing another one or two times. Then, after a total of three of four moments like these, you mention to the VP of passing, “Hey, I’ve been thinking that it may make sense to consider redoing our site so that it is [insert website fashion of the day here]. I’m working on an analysis of that, and I expect to have it ready next Thursday.” His response will always be, “okay.”
An analysis with all this build-up is exponentially more likely to be effective than just any random argument you make—even if requested by the boss or client.
In other words: a little strategy goes a very long way. As does a little planning… and a lot of priming.
There’s a more powerful version of this strategy. Don’t use just stories, use humor. This is more powerful because humor tends to make any story more effective, and more memorable.
But I mention this with caution and only in passing because humor can’t be forced—either you’re funny or have taken some improv classes and are trying to be funny—or you’re not. And humor (especially the Juvenalian-type satire) easily veers into offensive territory. So, humor is a magic super-power that you need to handle with care and above all, if you’re going to attempt humor, make sure that it isn’t humor meant to make anyone look bad, even slightly. That is often okay to do and not bad per se, but 9 times out of 10, it goes bad in one way or another. Then, unless you’re very confident in both your humor abilities and your ability to balance a fine line, it’s better to avoid it. Perhaps a follow-up series to this ought to be about how to add humor to your work effectively!
If you’re willing to risk it, the key use of humor, however, is to blunt difficult topics. I may not be able to tell my boss her clothing looks unprofessional and makes her less likely to close deals with potential clients, but I may be able to tell her, “I admire your taste in unique clothing, and your confidence to wear it. Especially your [insert crazy clothing choice] that you wore to that [insert key meeting here].” The humor here is subtle, but it is there. She’ll recognize that you’re showing disapproval, but it is both slight and funny and you’ve turned it into a compliment (lemons into lemonade) by framing her as unique, so you may be able to get away with it. However, keep in mind that humor comes with a responsibility, so handle it with care.
And with humor more broadly, it’s hard to get humor right in a work context. A common risk is that by joking too much, you look not serious and it devalues the seriousness and intensity of your work. You turn into the joker. So, if you do use humor at work, be careful not just in regard to the content, but the quantity as well.
