Rondeau's Business Brainwork

The Magnetic Middle

How can you get people to listen to the facts?  What can move them to action?  Previous blog posts showed why some resist or ignore factual evidence that contradicts their viewpoint and gave some ways to combat that tendency.  Once you’ve opened the minds of colleagues, team members, customers and prospects, how can you best present the facts and gain their buy-in?  This has been the subject of considerable research and a number of effective methods have emerged.  One important communication strategy is:  recognize and make good use of the power of the “Magnetic Middle.”

When the Magnetic Middle works against you

The Sherif study at Columbia University found that when the facts were unclear and groups of people had to make a judgment call, they quickly arrived at a compromise position and then stuck to that opinion, even when asked individually a year later.  Participants actually substituted the group’s judgment for their own.  This and similar studies led researchers to coin the phrase, “the Magnetic Middle.”

This would be no problem if a board or committee was deciding where to go to lunch. We would hope when an important matter is on the table, people would study it carefully and form knowledgeable opinions.  Thankfully, that often occurs.  But studies cited by eminent social psychologist Dr. Elliot Aronson and others revealed that the more important the decision, the more likely we humans are to rely on the judgments of others. 

One researcher asked each member of a group to publicly state the answers to a series of questions. Several members of the group had secretly agreed beforehand to give the same wrong answers.  When the stakes were low actual subjects, who were not in on the subterfuge, agreed with the group’s incorrect responses to 35% of the questions.  When the stakes were high they substituted the crowd’s bad judgment for their own 51% of the time.

Thus, when presenting unfamiliar facts on an important issue to a board or committee, an executive will often find individual members eager to stick to their established beliefs (confirmation bias).  Additionally, the group opinion, once expressed, will be very hard to change.

Making the Magnetic Middle work for you

While people’s tendency to follow the group can go against you, it can work for you as well.  For instance, a VP of IT may find it easier to gain approval for a major software purchase if he/she points out, not only the reasons for selecting it, but a list of similar companies who have already done so. 

Rather than relying on an expert to convince staff members of the need and benefit of implementing a new procedure, communications psychology expert Robert Cialdini, PhD recommends that wise managers employ the strong influence of a coworker who has already used this method in another situation.  As their fellow worker and colleague, he or she can often sway their opinions in ways an outsider could not.

Showing affiliates, like independent insurance agents, that others just like them already participate in a new program can greatly increase their willingness to adopt it themselves.  One major pharmaceutical company’s head of training asked trainees to write down one thing they really liked about the workshop they attended.  He then printed many of these testimonials on large posters and asked new participants to review them to see what their colleagues had said about the program.  According to Dr. Cialdini and his coauthors, this trainer wrote:

I was a little skeptical at first about whether such a simple thing would work, but the impact was incredible…What was interesting was that this catalog of testimonials also helped me to influence senior managers to support future projects I was leading.

The urge to join our colleagues and friends in the Magnetic Middle can be powerful.  Wise executives and marketers can use it to great advantage in moving others to take needed action.

The Allied Group offers full service fulfillment programs as well as one to one communications and other marketing communications strategies and marketing support to the insurance, benefits and healthcare industries.

“Why Won’t People Listen to Good Ideas?” discussed research showing that those with strongly ingrained views won't mentally process sound evidence presented by the other side. Is there anything we can do to encourage our colleagues to consider solid facts we raise?

First, it’s important to understand why many won’t listen. One reason became apparent in a series of studies starting in 1959. Eminent social psychologist Dr. Elliot Aronson explains that research began in a southern town deeply divided over racial segregation. Most today clearly recognize the evils of apartheid, but in 1959 it was a burning issue, particularly in the South. Researchers selected people with strong feelings for or against segregation. Then they presented a series of arguments on both sides of the issue. Some were plausible, others were lame.  A survey on the points each recalled was telling. People remembered the logical arguments supporting their position and the illogical arguments that backed the opposing view. 

A number of follow up studies produced similar results. The answer was clear.  People ignored or quickly forgot points that might prove their opinion wrong. They focused on the opposition’s lame arguments because these strengthened their position.  This phenomenon is called Confirmation Bias. Seeking the right answer took a back seat to proving they were right. The highly respected Dr. Aronson explains:

During the past half-century, social psychologists have discovered that one of the most powerful determinants of human behavior stems from our need to preserve a stable, positive self-image.  Most of us want to believe that we are reasonable, decent folks who make wise decisions, do not behave immorally and have integrity. 

Thus, when confronted with factual information that might show us mistaken or foolish, we automatically tend to ignore or dismiss it, focusing instead on any piece of data that might prove us right. 

One study found smokers who tried but failed to quit were least likely to recognize the dangers of smoking. Clearly, dismissing inconvenient facts can prove destructive to individuals and businesses. It’s important, then, to recognize that while those on the opposite side of an issue may ignore sound evidence, we too are fully capable of making that mistake.

Removing the blinders

First, we must realize that every party in a discussion, including us, may display confirmation bias. How can we combat it? One way is to remind ourselves that our willingness to honestly consider all evidence takes moral courage and strength, highly admirable traits. That realization may help us past the tendency to protect our ego by defending a position. Researcher Dr. David Myers recommends that senior managers require their staff members who present arguments to give one good reason why they could be wrong.

To help others avoid ignoring valid evidence, we can try a psychological technique called “labeling.” We could begin a discussion by praising our associates for the open-mindedness and fairness they’ve previously shown. This technique was used to great advantage by former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. Communications psychology expert Robert Cialdini, PhD relates,

Before international negotiations began, Sadat would assure his bargaining opponents that they and the citizens of their country were widely known for their cooperativeness and fairness.

Did his technique work? Despite the notoriously entrenched positions in the Middle East, Sadat and former hard-liner Menachem Begin negotiated the only modern peace treaty between an Arab nation and Israel.  I rest my case.

The Allied Group is a marketing communications company providing marketing, marketing support and full service fulfillment services to the insurance, benefits administration and financial services industries.

Executives frequently have to persuade others to agree and act on their point of view. At times that can prove extremely difficult. Senior managers may want to include an important new initiative in the organization’s priorities for the coming year. IT executives have to agree on the most efficient way to manage company data as well as evaluate, purchase, implement and customize software that will run day to day operations.  Senior marketers are required to come up with marketing strategies to achieve company goals and evaluate plans for individual campaigns. 

In each case, the key players involved must agree. But at times that can be extremely hard to achieve. Sometimes it seems that people just won’t listen to good ideas. Researchers have carefully studied this phenomenon using controlled scientific experiments. The results may surprise you.

Why can’t they see the point?

Social psychologist Lee Ross’ research led him to conclude that people often express what he calls “naive realism.” Each person assumes that they perceive events as they really are. Eminent social psychologist Dr. Elliot Aronson explains that since we are sure we recognize reality, our tendency is to assume that others who are reasonable should be able to see things our way. If they don’t, we assume that they aren’t reasonable. But are we ourselves always able to see the facts clearly?

NBC news reported on a study done on “seeing the facts” in the political arena. During the 2004 presidential race between George W. Bush and John Kerry, Drew Westen, Director of Clinical Psychology at Emory University conducted a study using functional MRI (fMRI) equipment. This machine allows researchers to monitor blood flow to different parts of the brain, revealing how people’s minds react to various situations.  One study found, for example, that the brain area normally involved in reading did not activate when those coping with dyslexia attempted to read. Another neural region tried to do the job for which it was not equipped (like star quarterbacks Tom Brady or Drew Brees playing nose tackle).

In Dr. Westen’s study, staunch Republicans and Democrats heard contradictory statements  released by Bush or Kerry on important issues while monitored by the fMRI equipment. When hearing their own candidate’s points, supporters’ brain regions involved in reasoning and emotion lit up. They paid close attention and liked what they heard. But when listening to the opposing candidate, the reaction was quite different. "We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," the researcher reported. People paid little attention to a viewpoint that contradicted their own. According to NBC, “The test subjects on both sides of the political aisle reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted, Westen and his colleagues say…The study points to a total lack of reason in political decision-making.”

That’s a scary finding. And if people whose minds are made up can discount or ignore inconvenient facts in a crucial matter like national leadership, what hope do we have of winning colleagues to our point of view on company initiatives, enterprise software or marketing strategies? Fortunately, research has not only revealed human biases, but some helpful approaches for overcoming them as well. Stay tuned.

The Allied Group is a full service fulfillment and marketing communications company that provides marketing and marketing support as well as transactional document programs to companies in the insurance, benefits administration and financial services sectors.

As today’s slow economic recovery continues, insurers look for ways to increase sales. New technologies can be applied in creative ways to do just that.

Location-Based Marketing

One example can be found in location-based marketing. This type of campaign allow companies to present information that a consumer needs in just the right place, at just the right time. The growing number of those who have just purchased homes, for instance, will need to insure them. What better time could there be to offer new homebuyers a homeowners policy than when they’ve just made their purchase? Some insurers may have arranged compensation programs for real estate agents who refer business to them.

The problem has always been, once the new homeowner leaves the realtor’s presence, applying for a homeowners policy goes onto their mental “to do” list. When they finally get around to it, your company’s offer may have gone from option #1 to option #4. That could mean never even getting an opportunity, let alone the business.

How can insurers avoid this situation and “strike while the iron is hot?” By equipping cooperating real estate agents with printed insurance brochures containing a QR Code. If homebuyers use any one of the many free apps available for smartphones, they can just take a picture of the code with their phone and the app will automatically bring them to the appropriate website. That website can promote the carrier, take their application and prepare them for a call and quote from the company call center or a local agent. Research shows that the act of entering their information into a website can predispose prospects to buy.

NFC

Apple, Google and others are actively pursuing an even more exciting technology – Near Field Communication (NFC). This will allow consumers to buy goods or even make a payment just by tapping their smartphone onto a section of a “smart poster” with an NFC tag. NFC tags can communicate with any properly equipped device that comes within two to four inches of them. This technology is widely used in Europe. 

With NFC, those who buy a car can apply for auto coverage at the dealership when they sign the purchase agreement and, when approved, make their first payment with their smartphone when they take delivery. This would also work for those who purchase motorcycles or boats.

Can consumers freely access this technology?

iStockAnalyst reports, “According to Fitch Ratings' latest telecomm special report released today, postpaid smartphone penetration increased to 46.8% in third-quarter 2011.” It could hit 50% by the end of this month.  Soon the majority of consumers will be able to use QR Codes to access carrier’s microsites when they need to buy insurance. Widespread NFC adoption won’t lag far behind.

Other key applications not mentioned here could increase insurance sales and retention. Could this technology impact your company’s top and bottom lines in the future?

The Allied Group is a marketing communications company offering Location-Based Marketing and other marketing and sales support programs along with full service fulfillment to the insurance, financial services and benefits administration companies.

Technological advances are changing our lives at a dizzying pace. Things that did not exist a few years back now play significant roles. The Internet, invented in 1990, is now indispensable.  Google, an invaluable research tool, only came online in 1998. Facebook arrived on the scene less than eight years ago. It now has so many members (800 million) that if it were a nation, it would have the third largest population in the world.

Technological revolution calls for changes in thinking. Business strategies that were based on how people act in the real world must now be modified – people behave differently online. Executives must plan for the coming year knowing that they cannot accurately forecast part of their revenue stream. IT professionals constantly have to take people’s Internet behavior patterns into account. Marketers need to adapt their messages to a multitude of communications channels. Unfortunately, most people - including senior managers - find that changing thinking patterns is far from easy. 

Why it’s so hard to “teach an old dog new tricks”

This challenge is only made more difficult by the fact that, as research shows, a large percentage of senior managers’ foundation beliefs were established when they were in college or shortly after graduation – often a number of years ago. The familiar axiom about learning “new tricks” is backed by science. Respected social psychologist and textbook author Dr. David Myers writes, “The teens and early twenties are important formative years (Krosnick & Alwin, 1989). Attitudes are changeable during that time and the attitudes formed then tend to stabilize through middle adulthood.” Research beside that quoted here by Dr. Myers bears this out. For although some adults clearly change their opinions and beliefs, convictions formed during the college years have proved remarkably resilient.

Researcher James Davis (2004) combed through the National Opinion Research Center archives and found, for instance, that Americans who reached age 16 during the 1960s became more politically liberal than average and maintained that view for many years.

This validates a groundbreaking study conducted with students from Bennington College. During the 1930s and early 1940s, Bennington students were primarily women from wealthier, more conservative families. The young professors who taught them leaned toward leftist political views. Their influence was strong and its effects long-lasting. Bennington women back then became much more liberal than others from similar backgrounds. Some fifty years later, in the 1984 presidential election, while college-educated women in their 70s voted Republican by a 3 to 1 margin, 75% of Bennington alumnae of the same age voted Democratic. Dr. Myers noted, “Their views embraced at an impressionable time had survived a lifetime of wider experience.”

Should your convictions go on trial?

Decisions executives must make affect many – coworkers, stockholders and customers alike. It’s important to ask ourselves if a belief we’re sure of really is true – or carries more weight because we learned it at an impressionable age.  Sometimes it pays to question our convictions.  Many have enduring power that can stand up to testing. But others may no longer apply as they once did. We benefit from checking our opinions against objective research. As Matt Round, then a Director at Amazon.com put it, “Data trumps intuition.”

The Allied Group offers full service fulfillment programs as well as one to one communications and other marketing communications strategies and execution to the insurance, benefits and healthcare industries.

Research released this year shows the importance of the work done by marketers and IT professionals in driving prospects to your website and converting them into customers. A large number of studies as well as actual experience reveal a way to increase conversion rates and sales with those who visit your site. This method involves good marketing communication strategies and skillful IT work.

Commitment is the Key

Well over 1,000 studies by social scientists have established the fact that the commitments we make can actually change how we feel. One outstanding example was reported by renowned influence expert Robert Cialdini, PhD and his coauthors. Social psychologists Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser had a research assistant call a number of homeowners to ask them to participate in a remarkably intrusive survey. Here’s what he said:

The survey will involve five or six men from our staff coming into your home some morning for about 2 hours to enumerate and classify all the household products that you have. They will have to have full freedom in your house to go through the cupboards and storage places. Then all this information will be used in the writing of the reports for our public service publication, “The Guide.”

It’s incredible that anyone agreed to this marketing equivalent of a search warrant, but 22% actually did. But researchers got a far bigger response with a second group by using a different strategy. First, the assistant called representing “The Guide” and asked householders to answer a few questions about which products they preferred. Most agreed to participate. Three days later he called back asking them to consent to the “marketing search warrant.” Amazingly, 53% agreed!

An abundance of research has documented what psychologists now call The Foot-in-the-Door effect. If we make a small commitment to a cause or shopping alternative, we often tend to justify it by feeling a greater attraction to that cause or alternative. 

This is a major reason why marketers are always told to include a call to action in every campaign. If it’s done right, answering such a call can increase prospective clients’ interest in your product or service. One example of this comes from the The Allied Group’s work in lead generation methods used by colleges. Quinnipiac University found that students who requested a customized brochure on their website, revealing their contact information and interests (a commitment), were 69% more likely to apply and some 50% more likely to enroll than similar prospects who had not. A few years ago, Franklin University found that a full 48% of adult learners (a much tougher audience) who requested an eBrochure with a similar commitment applied to the school. Typically, some 75-80% of adults who apply will enroll.

Commercial websites that help visitors easily find what they want make it more likely they will return. But those that ask for the right kind of commitment will increase the chances that they will buy.

Insurance companies who must fight for market share with giants got some good news from a study published this spring. The report, from business researcher Global Reviews, highlights the critical roles IT and marketing professionals play in winning sales when prospects are searching online.

Marketing’s crucial role in creating demand

Marketing's role is especially important with the growing cadre of new customers who search the web. Internet marketing expert Dave Chaffey reports that research conducted on 10,000 households found that for some products, like airline tickets, the average prospect visited no more than two websites before making a purchase. This may be due, in part, to their preference for well-known brands. Global Reviews’ study on insurance buyers found that 36% already had a company in mind when they began their search.

This seems to give an advantage to well-known companies like Allstate, Aflac, State Farm, Prudential, Aetna, GEICO and Progressive. Worthy but less advertised carriers could win a place on insureds’ short lists by stepping up their integrated marketing communications programs. Studies have shown that pleasant familiarity alone can make a person or organization more attractive to consumers. Without the skilled efforts of insurance marketers using an array of media including broadcast, direct mail and the Internet, high quality companies or their agents may never get a chance to make their case. Effective Internet advertising can be crucial in attracting the 64% of insurance buyers in the study who began their web search without a particular company in mind.

IT’s work stimulates conversion

Global Review’s research showed the important part IT plays in actually converting the leads that good marketing drives to the company website. Their investigation revealed that even when prospects already had a company in mind, only 65% bought insurance from a firm on their short list. That means a full 35% got their coverage from a company from whom they hadn't planned to buy when they started. Some websites apparently did a poor job in conversion. According to CEO Greg Muller, their investigation showed that once prospects arrive at your site, “a better customer experience from a lesser known brand can often win out.” Well-designed sites can create that experience if they:

• provide easy access to information that insurance buyers want (in logical sequence)
• feature engaging graphics
• include high quality content
• encourage interaction
• entice visitors into making commitments, large or small

The first four points may seem obvious. The last is taken from years of research in social psychology. A multitude of studies reveals the power of the “foot-in-the-door technique,” under the right conditions, to turn small commitments into substantial agreements. The Allied Group, a marketing communications company that offers marketing, marketing support and full-service fulfillment programs to the insurance industry (and others) has achieved excellent conversion rates using this technique. How? Look for more in my next post.

Being in the right circumstances can make a big difference when asking your boss for a salary increase or presenting a case to a client. In “You’re Judged by the Company You Keep” we briefly discussed research that showed how a person’s positive or negative experience with one thing can rub off on anything associated with it. Thus, weathermen get blamed for storms that ruin vacations and customers condemn companies for mistakes made by their vendors. A New England insurer’s fulfillment partner averaged two client communications errors per week. One can only imagine how that made the company* look to their insureds.

Research used by colleges from Oxford University to the University of Utah shows that tasty food stimulates the brain’s pleasure center. We truly enjoy a good meal. Those good feelings can radiate to anyone or anything in close proximity. Since beauty produces a similar effect on the brain, we can easily understand why in one study outlined in the last post, men rated a new car more favorably when its advertising included a beautiful model. But most of us don’t have such a creature available to accompany us when meeting with a client or our boss. But we all have restaurants nearby. These can prove to be important allies in presenting our case.

Distinguished Columbia University psychologist Dr. Gregory Razran showed just how powerful good food can be in swaying opinions. In 1940, according to influence expert Robert Cialdini, PhD, Razran published research in which he asked people to indicate whether they approved or disapproved of certain political slogans. Then all were invited to a luncheon. At the luncheon the same statements were presented and then rated by the experiment’s subjects. Razran found that some slogans had increased their approval rating – those presented when people were eating.

This explains why, in the political arena, everyone from lobbyists to Presidents likes to present their case to legislators over a meal. Their arguments sound more logical and reasonable to congressman when the pleasure centers of their brains are stimulated by good food. So, if you have something to present to your boss or a client, why not gain the same advantage? And if the waitstaff is good-looking, your case will look even better.

* The insurer reduced errors by 99.2% after switching to The Allied Group, a full service fulfillment provider.

I first learned what “the company you keep” can do to a business from a phone call I received from my contact at a New England insurer. It was regarding a shipment of material we had printed and stored for them at The Allied Group, a full service fulfillment company that also provides marketing and sales support. Everything looked great. The shipment was delivered on time to the right location. But the common carrier truck driver had exchanged angry words in the parking lot with a company Vice President. “We know it’s not your fault,” my contact told me. “But if you ever send that trucker here again, I know there’s going to be trouble.” 

Because of the bad conduct of their driver, not only would the trucking company lose business, but I was scrambling to maintain my own good relationship with a major client. Even when people intellectually know a problem has nothing to do with you or your firm, the bad feelings generated by such a situation can stick to everyone connected to it. Organizations truly are judged by the company they keep.

Marketers and advertisers have long recognized the power of association to shape opinions. Communications psychology expert Robert Cialdini, PhD outlined a classic marketing study that compared men’s impressions of a new car based on two versions of a print ad. One ad showed a seductive model with the automobile, the other just displayed the vehicle. Men who viewed the ad with the beautiful woman rated the car as faster, more appealing, more expensive-looking and better designed than those who saw the ad without the model. When surveyed after the study, these men refused to believe that the woman’s presence had anything to do with their assessment. 

Other controlled research found that young adults seated in a room with a MasterCard insignia on display were willing to spend an average of 29% more to order items from a catalog than those who perused it in a room with no credit card logo. A comparable study showed that twenty-somethings were 260% more likely to contribute to a charity when in the presence of the MasterCard logo. But credit cards were not accepted in either case. Merely seeing their symbols encouraged people to spend more cash.

Similarly, clients and their employees can form positive or negative impressions that can affect your business based on their dealings with people just remotely connected to it. Executives, brokers and administrators are treated like the weatherman. Cialdini quotes Indianapolis TV meteorologist Bob Gregory: “I had one guy call and tell me that if it snowed over Christmas, I wouldn’t live to see New Year’s.”

When you’ve got something important to say, getting others to listen and do something about it can be a daunting task. Whether you’re an executive with an important initiative or a marketer trying to attract the attention of potential customers living in a message-dense environment, the ability to consistently get a listening ear - and generate action - can be a crucial skill. 

Australian researchers Barry Marshall and Robin Warren discovered that stomach ulcers are usually caused by bacterial infections, not stress or spicy foods as commonly thought. Most doctors refused to believe them. Ulcer patients had to endure ten long years of constant pain before physicians finally accepted the facts and prescribed the antibiotics that brought them relief. 

When and how we pay attention

Clearly effective communicators need more than just an important message that deserves consideration. Peer-reviewed scientific research has uncovered a number of proven factors than can encourage others to pay attention, evaluate, and act on persuasive messages. That research shows that there are two factors involved in how we decide of which messages to take note and which to ignore:

• Personal relevance

• Our ability to pay attention

Clearly if someone tells us something that we recognize as vital, we will carefully consider what they have to say. That is – if we have the time and ability to focus on it. If we feel swamped, burdened or tired we are less able to pay attention. And when we’re not truly motivated or able to pay attention we will often use decision shortcuts called heuristics.  The term “heuristic” is familiar to many I.T. professionals, indicating a quick way of evaluating a computer file.  Heuristic decision shortcuts allow us to quickly decide what merits our attention. 

Message Availability can make or break communication effectiveness

Research reveals that one shortcut that greatly impacts whether or not people act on what you tell them is message availability.  This one factor can render ineffective the most persuasive message. University of Minnesota researchers Snyder and Swann found that people’s actions matched their beliefs only when those thoughts quickly came to mind. Executives may convince their department members that a particular procedure is right. But those department members will only implement that procedure if they remember it when the time comes.

Marketers have long been told that it takes anywhere from 6 to 10 “touches” to get prospects to respond to advertising.  Persuasive communication campaigns may convince them that your product is the best. But they’ll actively consider or buy it only if they can quickly recall its advantages when it’s time to make a purchase. So, vivid messaging and creative repetition are critical. Repeating the key thought in different ways can keep your message current and the recipients from nodding off. But repeat it you must if you want to have any chance of your audience taking action.

The Allied Group is a leading provider of innovative marketing communication strategies, one to one communications campaigns and full service fulfillment programs.

The companies that emerge the strongest from the recession and today’s slow recovery will be those who have built and maintained a reputation for really caring about their customers’ concerns. It’s no surprise that people like to do business with organizations that make them feel that their interests, needs and priorities are important. Longtime clients will readily walk away from companies who make it evident that, once paid, they do not really care what their customers think. 

“A reputation for a thousand years may depend upon the conduct of a single moment,” wrote Ernest Bramah. The people with whom your clients come in contact can have a positive or devastatingly negative impact on their feelings about your company. Client irritation may soon reach critical mass if one bad interaction is followed by another – and no caring employee steps in to save the day.

A recent experience helped to reinforce this point. After years of passable performance, our Ford Windstar minivan suddenly stalled in traffic while my wife was driving home one day. The steering wheel immediately locked.  Fortunately she was able to avoid an accident and get home. I took it to the Ford dealer from whom we purchased it. Their Service Department examined the van and also checked on a new recall for a defect that could cause a serious accident. Ford declared our Windstar unsafe to drive and tendered a generous offer to buy it back. I immediately accepted.

I was at one of The Allied Group's offices and needed a way to get home. When I called the dealer’s service writer, he informed me that Ford had made a good offer and would provide no rental car for me. My protest that they had left me stranded accomplished nothing. He said, “We can’t afford rental cars for every customer who’s involved in this recall. You’re free to drive your (unsafe) car home.” Besides, he claimed, the nationwide auto rental company on the premises had no cars available – there were “none in the entire region.”

I, of course, found a car from the same nationwide rent-a-car company just 15 minutes away. And when I arrived at the dealer to sign Ford’s buyback offer, I found that it clearly stated that Ford would provide a rental for a limited period of time. After he finally read that, my service writer suddenly became very accommodating, but the damage was done. My previous conversation with him had made it clearly evident that he cared little, if at all, about my predicament.

A week later, after two phone calls to Ford there was still no news about my check. Their representative said the dealer would provide it.  One of dealership owners offered to do that – but only if I bought another Ford from him. Otherwise I would have to wait a month for my money. 

There was never an ounce of concern or sympathy for my quandary. This dealer would have gladly left me stranded, miles from home.  And now they planned to hold my money hostage to force me to buy another car from them. I declined. The attitude they showed when the chips were down convinced me to never buy from them again. 

A company can have great products or marketing integration / marketing communications strategies. Still, consumers today have too many options to treat them in a cavalier manner. Are your employees’ customer contacts enhancing your reputation - or destroying it?

Blog Series Outline

1. Understanding a powerful motivator – the Consensus Principle
2. How Consensus can influence fellow executives and staff
3. Some ways marketers can use Consensus to influence consumers

Part One – The Persuasive Power of Social Proof

At some point in their professional lives, everyone needs to persuade someone.  Senior managers need buy-in and support for important initiatives.  Marketing professionals need to persuade their own company’s senior management about marketing programs while convincing consumers to buy their products.

Research in persuasion has uncovered a powerful motivator:  the desire to blend in with one’s peers.  Social psychologists refer to this influencing factor as Social Proof or, as persuasion expert Robert Cialdini, PhD terms it, the Consensus Principle. The effect of peer pressure on teenagers is well known.  Highly trained and experienced senior managers may wonder if one’s peers have much effect on adults, to say nothing of fellow executives.  They may find an answer in some of Dr. Cialdini’s research.  

As reported in the NY Times, electric utilities from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Sacramento, California have adopted his method for encouraging customers, all of whom are adults, to reduce their electrical consumption.  Electric bills from those utilities now include a graph showing how that individual household’s electrical consumption compares with the average amount consumed by neighbors.

This has had quite an effect.  In “Nudging People to Combat Climate Change,” author Peter Aldhous reported an unexpected consequence of telling consumers how their electrical usage stacked up against the average.  One utility was encouraged to see that those who consumed more than average reduced their electrical consumption.  But those who used less than average actually increased their electrical usage. Clearly, few would do this consciously – it happens automatically.  Social psychologists refer to the “magnetic middle,” the tendency for humans to unconsciously seek consensus with their peers.

It is evident that the unconscious desire to blend in with one’s peers does not disappear once teens become adults.  People will always be influenced by what others around them are doing.  Recognizing this tendency can help executives in all fields become more effective in persuading others to adopt their point of view and implement their plans.  How?  This will be covered in Part Two of this series, How Social Proof Can Motivate Members of Your Team.

Larry Rondeau is Senior Director of Research and Business Development at The Allied Group, a marketing communications company and full service fulfillment provider.

In Part One we discussed how cultivating a spirit of liking or respect for a challenging colleague can pay dividends in increasing his or her willingness to cooperate.  We saw how a strategy that once served Ben Franklin well can warm relations with colleagues today.  Research reveals some further communication strategies that can help you turn difficult associates into allies.

At times, executives at odds try to catch each other doing something wrong, hoping to find usable leverage.  Often, a more effective strategy is to try to catch a contentious colleague doing something right and immediately commend him or her for it.  This will not only reinforce desirable behavior but allows you to label them as a helpful ally.  Why would you want to attach such a label to a person who may have withheld their cooperation in the past?  Eminent psychologist Elliot Aronson, PhD and his coauthor answer:

One of social psychology’s best documented phenomena is the self-fulfilling prophecy – the tendency for a definition of a situation to evoke behavior that makes the definition come true.  Dozens of experiments have shown that students who are randomly labeled “smarter” tend to act smarter…and women who are labeled “beautiful” behave as if they are beautiful.”

In one experiment outlined by persuasion expert Robert Cialdini, PhD and his coauthors, researchers interviewed a large number of registered voters and told half of them that their responses showed they were “above average citizens likely to vote and participate in political events.”  The others were told that they were average in this area.  Those labeled as good citizens proved 15% more likely to vote in the election held one week later.  In another study, New Haven residents who were told they were generous later contributed significantly more than others to a worthy cause.

A word of caution:  Using the labeling technique insincerely could easily backfire. Praising someone for a desirable trait he or she hasn’t displayed could be readily seen as an overt attempt to manipulate. 

But even the most unhelpful associate will usually assist someone.  Be alert for occasions when they do and commend them for their accommodating actions.  Let them know that this shows the kind of helpful person they are.  This was a favorite negotiating tactic of former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.  As Dr. Cialdini put it:

Before international negotiations began, Sadat would assure his bargaining opponents that they and the citizens of their country were widely known for their cooperativeness and fairness...  According to master-negotiator Henry Kissinger (1982), Sadat was successful because he got others to act in his interests by giving them a reputation to uphold.

You can turn challenging colleagues into allies using a similar strategy:

1. Warm up your own feelings by thinking about their good qualities.  
2. Put Ben Franklin’s strategy to work by asking them for a favor and, when they grant it, letting them know how much they helped you. 
3. Commend their helpful acts, giving them a good reputation to live up to. 

Cooperation between colleagues can be vital to your company’s success.  Unfortunately, in a world of competing priorities and agendas, that cooperation isn’t always easy to obtain.  Fellow executives want to promote their own projects.  Some associates may be stubborn and difficult to work with.  Others may be more focused on advancing their careers than on furthering important initiatives started by other senior managers. How can you develop a beneficial alliance with a colleague who doesn’t want to cooperate?

Set the Stage for a Mutually Supportive Relationship

Before trying to persuade a difficult person it’s important to prepare your mind. Persuasion expert and bestselling author Robert Cialdini, PhD makes this recommendation:  ‘First, think of qualities and traits of this person that you can like and admire. Reflecting on these will cause you to like that person (at least a little bit). Studies show that people can instinctively sense when others like them, and when they don’t. We tend to like those who like us,’ so if your colleague senses that you appreciate him or her, they will be inclined to like you in return. Cialdini concludes, ‘We are much more easily persuaded by those we like.’

Next, Get your “Foot in the Door”

Now that you’ve set the stage you’re ready to take the next step in getting your colleague on your side. In order to get cooperation, people will often argue with those who block their efforts or make obvious attempts to “butter them up.” This can backfire and leave you in a worse position.

If the one you’re trying to influence is stubborn or resistant, you may need to take another step first. The Foot-in-the-Door technique can effectively warm up relations – and a spirit of collaboration with colleagues and coworkers. Benjamin Franklin discovered this when America was still a British colony. His experience was analyzed by Dr. Elliot Aronson, a social psychologist voted to the list of The 100 Most Influential Psychologists of the Twentieth Century and coauthor Carol Tavris, PhD. They wrote:  “While serving in the Pennsylvania legislature, Franklin was disturbed by the opposition and animosity of a fellow legislator. So he set out to win him over.  He didn’t do it, he wrote, “by paying any servile respect to him” – that is, by doing the other man a favor – but by inducing his target to do a favor for him – loaning him a rare book from his library” In Franklin’s own words:   (read more here)…

 Continued...

"He sent it immediately and I returned it in about a week with another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favor.  When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which he had never done before), and with great civility; and he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all occasions, so that we became great friends, and our friendship continued to his death.  This is another instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, which says, “He that has once done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another than he whom you yourself have obliged."

As Franklin’s experience illustrates, the fact that a difficult colleague has done you a favor conflicts with any negative feelings about you he or she may have. Minds don’t rest until such conflicts are resolved. Controlled experiments have replicated Franklin’s experience and found that those who do a favor for another usually justify their actions by feeling that the recipient deserved their generosity. As Dr. Aronson and his coauthor observed, “In effect, after doing the favor, they ask themselves, “Why would I do something nice for a jerk? Therefore, he’s not as big a jerk as I thought he was – as a matter of fact, he’s a pretty nice guy who deserves a break.” People’s tendency to rationalize their behavior can work in your favor here, warming things up considerably.

Use Ben Franklin’s strategy to jumpstart a spirit of partnership

So, to get a difficult colleague to stop blocking your efforts and start cooperating with you, why not use a communication strategy endorsed by luminaries like Ben Franklin and Elliot Aronson? Start by asking him or her to accommodate you in some small way. Make it a request that would be hard to refuse. Then, once they’ve done what you asked, be sure to warmly thank them for helping you out.  This is one of the marketing communication strategies used by airlines when they say, “We know that you have a lot of airlines to choose from, so we want to thank you for choosing us.”  Like Franklin’s fellow legislator, we all tend to think that if we’ve chosen to do something, it must be a good idea. So, getting a truculent associate to assist you in some way will often warm him or her up to helping you in the future. It can at least get the ball rolling in the right direction.

What further creative steps can you take to forge beneficial partnerships with fellow executives and coworkers? You’ll find the answer in “Turning Challenging Colleagues into Allies - Part Two.” Stay tuned.

In "Defeating "Digs" and Personal Attacks" we spoke how critics will sometimes use subtle "digs" or verbally attack our work or character in order to make themselves look better by making us look worse.

The key, then, to defeating this behavior is to use your detractor’s need for a positive self-image to make him stop his verbal aggression.  According to Dr. Aronson and coauthor Carol Tavris, PhD in Mistakes Were Made (but not by me), “When you do anything that harms someone else – get them in trouble, verbally abuse them or punch them out – a powerful new factor comes into play:  the need to justify what you did.”

So, the one making an oral onslaught (however small or large) has to justify it in order to continue to feel good about himself. If he* cannot justify his behavior, he may experience significant cognitive dissonance (a form of emotional uneasiness).   And according to Dr. Aronson and his coauthors, “Dissonance produces mental discomfort, ranging from minor pangs to deep anguish; people don’t rest easy until they find a way to reduce it.” 

That’s another reason why retaliating doesn’t work. If you respond with a cutting remark or point out his flaws, your adversary will ignore his own unkind words and focus completely on what you said.  Your reply will give him the justification he seeks.  You will have let him off the emotional hook. He may, in fact, come to feel that you deserved his attack and will be more inclined towards another verbal assault in the future.

You can avoid all this by making it difficult or impossible for your opponent to justify what he did.  How can you prevent a critic from justifying his negative words?  A great way to do that was revealed by wise King Solomon, who wrote:

If the one hating you is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.  For coals are what you are raking together upon his head…

Solomon here refers to early smelting techniques.  Ancient metal workers would build a fire and then put iron ore on the hot coals, hoping to melt down the metal within.  That procedure often worked.  But if the iron was deep within the ore, more would be required.  They would rake hot coals on top of the ore.  The tremendous heat from above and below would usually melt the stubborn metal.

In the same way, if you respond to cutting remarks with kindness, you make it very hard for your adversary to justify his unkind words.  He may feel significant dissonance or mental discomfort.  His conscience may begin to bother him.  His only way to get relief is to stop attacking you, soften his stance, or even apologize.  Like an ancient metalworker, you will melt down his opposition.  In addition, you will display great emotional strength.  Bosses, coworkers, clients, friends and critics alike have to admire strength.

Changing a critic into a supporter

In fact, psychologists have found that people feel a strong need to repay the kindness shown them with thoughtfulness of their own. We learn from youth that favors must be appropriately reimbursed.  When someone goes out of their way to do or say something nice, we often find ourselves compelled to do the same to them.  Kind words and deeds beget more kind words and deeds. 

This is where the human tendency to justify behavior can work in our favor.  Researchers have often found that people validate their benevolent acts by increasing their liking for the recipient of their kindness.  “After all, if an intelligent person like me did something nice for Jim, he must be a pretty good guy.” So, when our colleague appropriately repays our kindness, he will often come to like us more.  Our humane words and actions can create what Drs. Aronson and Tavris call a “cycle of benevolence” that fosters good will and camaraderie with our peers and partners. If we consistently speak graciously with others, regardless of how they speak to us, we will often  come to receive respect and kindness in return.  Our work environment can become more enjoyable and productive, which will lead to greater rewards for all.

* While we speak of verbal aggressors as “he,” the principles here work well for anyone with a working conscience, male or female

It can occur in any organization, but especially in teams made up of a number of capable businesspeople. It can happen when you’re one-on-one or in a group.  It can be as small as a subtle “dig” or an outright assault on your capabilities or character.  It is a personal attack. But no matter when it happens, it can bring consequences.  Now, you might well wonder why someone from The Allied Group, a company that specializes in effective marketing communications strategies and full service fulfillment services would tackle a subject like this. But this is a problem that nearly every man or woman in business has to deal with on an all-too-regular basis. Personal attacks can make you feel badly and can make you look bad in front of your colleagues, your friends or even your boss. But just as there are effective techniques to stop a physical assault, there is a way to successfully neutralize a verbal attack that can leave you looking and feeling good.  It can dissuade your opponent from doing it again – and help you gain respect.  How can you do it?

A little psychology can go a long way

When under attack, our natural response is to retaliate or retreat.  Neither course will get us the result we want here.  Instead, understanding and applying some sound psychology can dramatically improve the situation.

Eminent social psychologist Elliot Aronson, PhD is the only man in history to win each of the American Psychological Association’s top awards for research, teaching and writing. It’s considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize. Dr. Aronson and coauthors Timothy Wilson and Robin Akert wrote, “During the past half-century social psychologists have discovered that one of the most powerful determinants of human behavior stems from our need to preserve a stable, positive self-image.”

This fact shows why, when under attack, we must resist the urge to retaliate. A cutting remark may embarrass our attacker and temporarily halt a verbal assault, but it will only prolong the war. As the research shows, we all need to view ourselves as good, intelligent, rational people.  Retaliation, then, only brings further attacks since one must defend his or her self-image.  But running away from a bully is not a good idea either.  It marks us as an easy target for future aggression.  Critics want to make themselves look and feel better by making us look and feel worse.  But there are ways to stop a critic in his tracks.  Please read on to "How to Stop a Harsh Critic in his Tracks."