So beyond making people more open to our ideas,
we might also want them to learn and actually understand the ideas.I know it's crazy.
But I mean, it just means that part of what we're
talking about when you pitch is, it may charismatic.
Do I have a look and feel but then there's
another element of what are they going to remember later.
Are they going to remember me,
are they going to remember vaguely liking
an idea or are they going to remember the idea, right.
It is my goal to actually get them to understand the idea.
Change their perspective.
And that will be challenging in and of itself.
So we have to help them work through that process as well.
Right. So how can we get the person we're
pitching to go through that perspective change process?
"We can send a message around the world in one-seventh of a second,
but it can take years to drive an idea through a quarter-inch of human skull".
It's a great quote from Charles Kettering who is the head
of GM research in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.
Appreciating a new idea,
a creative idea, generated by other people,
can be really hard.
Other people may not understand the idea,
they may have no sense of what it is you're talking about.
Other people may not see the potential in the idea,
they get it but they don't see why it would matter,
and where it would take them.
Finally, other people may see an idea is failing on the very criteria they tend to use.
It just doesn't sound good.
It sounds like it won't work.
It's not as good as what we already have.
And this is why we need to find ways to get other people to
understand and appreciate the ideas that we are pitching to them.
So, what does it mean to get someone to understand and appreciate our ideas?
By now the answer I'm going to give you probably won't be surprising.
It means we have to encourage other people to change their perspectives.
Communicating is not just handing facts from one person to another.
We want them to learn to come to see the world differently.
So they can recognize the value that we see and an idea for themselves.
And that means our task as communicators,
is to help others learn to change their perspectives.
Well, how do we change our perspectives?
Well we've talked about this.
So who are we trying to pitch, right?
So think about our audience.
What are the pages of their perspective.
What are the parts, actions,
goals, events, self-concept, that they might have.
Who is our audience.
What role will they put themselves in.
What event do they think they are in.
What goals do they already have.
What actions and parts are they already thinking about as being relevant,
and important, and obvious.
Now, which of those pages might need to change.
What aspects of pages could be different for your audience and they are right now.
Right so how is their perspective going to have to change.
Is it a goal change?
Is it an event change? Is it a self-concept change?
Maybe just a part change.
What is it that, they're going to have to change their perspectives about,
in order for them to appreciate the idea that we have.
Next, once we have a sense of the kind of change we want them to go through,
then we can think about what cues might trigger
them to start making that change to their perspectives.
We've talked about a variety of cues,
but the three most relevant and communication are surprise, dissatisfaction, and impasse.
Can we say something to someone else that they
won't expect and that they didn't see coming.
That might surprise them gather their attention
and therefore make them interested in hearing what we have to say next.
Can we point out something that they should be dissatisfied with,
so that they're willing to undergo the effort to think a
little differently and be open to a new possibility.
Can we tell them that we're at an impasse, that we're stuck,
we've gone as far as we can go,
and there's no point continuing.
We have to change course and head in a different direction.
Which cue can you use to prompt them to want to
change their perspective or at least be open to the possibility.
Finally, what tools do we have to make them change their perspective.
Can we offer them an analogy.
Can we offer them a way to recategorize something.
Can we form a novel combination that encourages them to see the world in a different way,
than they had seen it previously.
So for example, maybe we have a new idea and we want somebody to do something different.
So we then can think about what cues can I use,
what tools can I offer.
So I can guide them to make a change to their own perspective some aspect of their pages.
And as a result,
arrive at a new understanding by which the idea makes sense,
has value, seems relevant,
and seems valuable, and important, and useful.
That might be a little indirect.
So there's a wonderful quote from Antonie de Saint-Exupery,
the famous author of The Little Prince who talked about it this way,
"If you want to build a ship,
don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them to tasks and to work,
but rather teach them to long for the immensity of the sea"
So let's try an example pitch.
Here we go, situation, right?
Your hotel has gotten complaints about noise,
you just upgraded the sound proofing.
Your larger goal though is to enable guest to feel as if they had done more than travel,
they have truly gotten away.
What can you say to employees,
so that this goal will guide their actions.
So, you could just tell them,
"Hi everyone, we spent all this money on soundproofing.
We want people to appreciate how quiet it is.
We want to take great care of people." Okay.
Yeah, I'm going to remember that.
I practically fell asleep.
So those are the pitches we often hear.
They're incredibly boring, they're incredibly abstract.
It's just raw information.
Memorable.
Yeah, I mean it's better than after focused ethnographic exploration.
We developed empathic connections,
with our core users and curated a collection of innovators. I mean.
That sounds like a professor giving a seminar,
no one is going to remember that. That's terrible.
So no matter how well intentioned and maybe the actions are fabulous,
it's just noise as a communication.
It's not a story.
Right. So you could tell them alternatively, "Hi everyone,
we want you to take great care of people in our new quieter hotel.
For every guest note of thanks and appreciation for your efforts.
We will pay you $20."
So often, you think people are motivated by incentives, right?
And then we try to create simple financial incentives to align behavior.
And then we spend lots of time making sure they are
genuine about it and not just gaming the system.