Gary Cole’s Bill Lumbergh in the film, Office Space
When there are differences of opinion, the richest forms of communication still allow those with contrasting views to walk away, without penalties.
The word “persuasion” is the preferred term to identify moments when one individual or group attempts to alter the beliefs or behaviors of another. But the word is frequently misused, especially if one “persuader” has used extra-verbal inducements to get what he or she wants.It’s interesting that when Aristotle wrote his own study of persuasion 2500 years ago, he noted that the use of knives and torture counted as “inartistic” forms of influence. He didn’t miss much. He would no doubt marvel at the additional bludgeons we moderns use to threaten physical or psychological harm. The modern equivalent of torture might be the denial of fair compensation, extortion, the possibility of a bad job review. The ways we can cow each other are nearly endless.
Properly used, “Persuasion” occurs when an individual freely assents to what another asks. No coercion. No risk of retribution. No organizational advantage has figured in the outcome. Everything else that may look like persuasion is really what could be called “compliance-gaining,” as when a boss “asks” an employee to work late.
This is not just an academic distinction with little real-world application. The difference actually matters. To fully understand persuasion we need to know who or what is actually doing the heavy lifting. The use of threats, power or position are all coercive, a fact that takes away a receiver’s opportunity to truly exercise their own judgment.
As a student of this subject, I’m not especially interested in the idea of compliance. In communication terms there’s not that much going on. There’s no grace in using force or a power advantage. In such cases the unequal distribution of power does most of the work. It’s like shooting animals within a fenced game reserve. It’s easily done, but not very sporting.
What is interesting is how we manage to perpetuate the delusion of free choice. My impression is that managers often see themselves as having a knack for engaging with employees, as with the smarmy Bill Lumbergh in the iconic film, Office Space (1999). The soul-destroying demands made by Gary Cole’s character are covered in a sticky syrup of forced collegiality. Lumbergh may believe he has the pulse of the office, but the film knows better. As this clip from U-tube shows, he doesn’t have a clue.
By contrast, there’s real pleasure in participating in communication where every side retains the right to walk away with no penalties. That fulfills our faith in a democratic values, especially another person’s right to their opinion. That’s why democracies are called “open societies.”
The problem is the indiscriminate mixing of persuasion and compliance-gaining as more or less the same thing . For example, journalist Steven Greenhouse misses the point when he notes in a recent Atlantic article that Wal-Mart “persuades” its employees to be anti-union. What his otherwise useful reporting actually describes is pure coercion. Try and unionize and you are simply out of a job, or your unit is shut down. Similarly, courses and texts in “leadership” often trade heavily in the language of equal-to-equal communication, ignoring explicit organizational hierarchies. All of this is represented in phrases like “team-building” and “group problem-solving:” the kinds of things we are likely to hear from faux-egalitarians like Lumbergh.
No one wants to be the apparent autocrat issuing orders. Most of us would like to be seen as good listeners open to the ideas of others. But openness needs to be earned by accepting the right of an audience member to say no, without penalties.
Racquetball is more than a sport. It’s a good model for the unanticipated associations, meanings and slights that are possible every time we open our mouths.
A number of years of writing and teaching persuasion have forced me to be a student of the unexpected ricochet. That’s pretty much the whole game if you are playing racquetball, and it has a lot of relevance to communication.
The actual court for the game is simply a room-sized shoe box that functions as a playing surface for a hard rubber ball and several players. It’s typically smashed so hard against the playing wall that it comes back at speeds and angles even a supercomputer couldn’t predict. Those who have escaped the sting of that small missile can be thankful. It hurts. the word“ricochet” must have been coined by a bruised French player. But it also evokes the unanticipated associations, meanings, slights, and bogus significations possible every time we open our mouths. More than most kinds of human endeavor, persuasion is fraught with effects that are unforeseen. No wonder it is so difficult.
Try the different analogy of competitive running. Our inability to anticipate effects usually means that a person’s resistance to change is pretty much on its last lap before the possibility of personal transformation has even left the blocks. From a number of meta-studies we know that the odds of getting someone to alter their attitudes even after a flurry of good reasons have been presented is—on the best days—no better than one in ten. After explaining this theory of “minimal effects” in a recent class, a student glumly asked, “What’s the point? Why bother? The challenge hardly seems worth the effort.”
The short answer is that we have no choice. Gaining assent from others is why we are mostly social rather than isolated creatures. We are hard-wired to connect. And, by the way, who says that convincing another person to give up an attitude or a cherished behavior should be easy? We’ve worked hard to put our lives together in some sort of coherent way.
The point is how functional it actually is to be ready for the worst.
In persuasion theory, unexpected effects are called “boomerangs.” Even well-planned campaigns to change others’ behaviors can easily veer off course. I teach this logic, and encourage my students to wear their newly acquired skepticism as a badge of honor. Having a healthy level of doubt about predicted effects is a life skill.
Consider some cases, all mostly true:
You show up to give an invited presentation to a group and (a) there is no screen for the PowerPoints you counted on, (b) there is nowhere to plug in your video projector, (c) there is no podium for your notes and (d) and a crew of ten men and nine machines are busy re-paving the parking lot next door. Under these circumstances, how effective do you think will can be?
Your advertising agency has prepared a gay-friendly ad campaign that tested well and is now running in three national media outlets. Everyone on the creative team basks in their certain rewards of their progressive messages. But a respected leader in the LGBT community condemns the ads for “promoting old stereotypes.” Condemnation of the ads is getting more attention than the ads themselves.
At a business lunch with a potential client you innocently praise the good service you once got from a large national retailer, only to be chided for supporting a chain whose owners are “political reactionaries.”
You meet a new set of Michigan in-laws for the first time, not realizing that for this family of General Motors employees, your new Ford visible to all in their front driveway might as well be a load of manure.
You are Bridget Jones at a literary party in the midst of introducing the work of a hack you oversell as the author of “the greatest book of our time.” This happens just as you catch a look of dismay cross the faces of Jeffrey Archer and Salman Rushdie, just a few feet away.
There’s a saying that “even paranoids have enemies.” When it comes to communication, some of us need the prerogative to worry about everything, to be the pessimist who is certain that life will not work out as planned.
