Our brains perceive a challenge to our belief system in the same way as a physical threat. This is why marketers tend to avoid direct challenges when they want you to change your behaviour.
Marketing empathy
Here’s a classic structure for a sales message: the five Fs.
- Fascination – grab attention.
- Fears and Frustrations – align with customer’s challenges.
- For and Against – What does the business stand for, and how does this help with fears and frustrations?
- Future – inspire with larger aims and ambitions.
- First Steps – call to action.
This structure forces you to start from your audience’s perspective and to bring them into your world. The design is intended to get around the problem of rejection.
Bank teller
In 1996, Stephen Denning of the World Bank found himself unexpectedly put in charge of knowledge management. He had always believed in being direct, “Why not hit the listeners between the eyes?” was his disposition. However, his experience led him to understand that people tend to respond to that approach by fighting back. If you make an argument, you’re implicitly asking your audience to evaluate your argument, judge it, debate it, and criticise it. And then argue back.
Denning accidentally discovered that when he used story to spread his message his stories were re-told by others and claimed as their own. His idea had become their idea. Stories had a viral effect.
Story defuses the analytic part of the brain. Numerous fMRI studies have shown empathy with a story’s protagonist to be revealed in brain activity. Experiencing a story is emotionally very similar to actually experiencing the events featured in the story.
The world of learning
In the workplace, some messages land better than others. The hard stuff to get across includes:
- Challenges to the accepted ways of doing things
- Rules that people feel are overzealous
- Principles that govern autonomous behaviour
- Directives that step close to the line between professional and personal
Let’s break those down a bit.
Challenging the status quo
Mergers and acquisitions usually bring new ways of doing things. A workforce that has always done something in one way is suddenly required to change what they do for what feels like an arbitrary reason. Of course, there is going to be resistance.
Story can allow employees from the legacy company to become sympathetic to the new way of doing business.
Overzealous regs
I was on a film shoot once at a client’s premises. We wanted to move a table from one side of the room to another. The juggernaut of cast, crew and kit was held up for 30 minutes while we waited for the qualified dudes to arrive and move the table. And when they did so, we realised the table was on wheels!
Maybe that was a sensible policy, but it certainly didn’t feel like one. And until people can feel the sense of something, compliance will be elusive.
Autonomy
Right now, I’m working with bus drivers who have significant autonomy. They must make tricky decisions like who to let on the bus when their payment method fails. One response is to be generous and let the person on because it will make them feel good about the bus company. Another response is to believe that the person is faking it and to refuse them travel. And these decisions must be made with the pressure of the other passengers looking on and the need to stick to a timetable.
Training for these kinds of challenges is always best done with a discussion. Stories are invaluable in helping drivers empathise with passengers and maintain good service levels.
Grey areas
Some directives concerning personal conduct, such as guidelines around potentially sexist behaviour, usually feel threatening to someone. It’s common for white men to feel threatened by DEI initiatives.
This is to be expected if the message isn’t delivered in a very empathic way. Telling someone they might be insensitive is a tough sell.
Such a touchy subject must be approached by establishing empathy as the first principle.
Drama for Change
You’ll be familiar with how I go about these problems: Drama for Change. We talk to our audience and find out where their heads are before we work out how to design a story that will speak to them.
The story must embody the conflicts at the heart of the issue. Conflict is what makes drama watchable and enjoyable. That conflict, of course, should embody the problem you are trying to solve. The way to solve this is to invite a discussion about the story you have shared.
We share our stories as short drama videos. The video starts a conversation, and a campaign keeps it going. The conversation is the change.
Telling off
In summary, if you want to get buy-in for behaviour change, immerse your subjects in the conflict at the heart of your challenge and ask them to solve it for you.
What challenges can you think of that would benefit from this approach?
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