{"id":1036549,"date":"2023-05-08T21:47:22","date_gmt":"2023-05-09T04:47:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/?p=1036549"},"modified":"2023-05-08T21:47:22","modified_gmt":"2023-05-09T04:47:22","slug":"influencers-must-change-brains-not-minds-why-information-persuasion-and-motivation-dont-cause-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/influencers-must-change-brains-not-minds-why-information-persuasion-and-motivation-dont-cause-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Influencers Must Change Brains, not Minds: why information, persuasion, and motivation don’t cause change"},"content":{"rendered":"

As an influencer, how often do say to yourself \u201cWhy doesn\u2019t she understand me?\u201d or \u201cIf he understood me better this decision would be a no-brainer.\u201d It\u2019s natural to assume Others will understand \u2013 and comply with \u2013 your suggestions. Have you ever wondered what\u2019s happening when they don\u2019t?<\/p>\n

As an influencer, part of your job is to facilitate change. But how? In general, you\u2019ve likely used\u00a0great rationale, logic, and leadership, data sharing, or just plain directives. But what if your Communication Partner\u2019s brain isn\u2019t set up to hear you accurately? What if your words are misinterpreted, or not understood?\u00a0You naturally assume your words carry the meaning you intend to convey. But do they?<\/p>\n

Sometimes\u00a0people misinterpret<\/a>\u00a0you and your audience is unintentionally restricted to only those who naturally understand your message. Sometimes people ignore you, regardless of how important your message, how engagingly you deliver it, or how badly they need it.<\/p>\n

What if \u2018changing minds\u2019 is the wrong way to think about it, and if your real job is to ‘change brains’? What if the Other’s brain, it’s neural circuitry, was in charge and your job was to\u00a0facilitate the way it went about decision making<\/a>?<\/p>\n

OUR BRAINS ARE THE CULPRIT<\/p>\n

Thinking about using any form of content-based sharing as a persuasion strategy, let me share a confounding concept: words have no meaning until our brain interprets them. According to John Colapinto in his fascinating book\u00a0This is the Voice<\/em><\/strong>,<\/p>\n

Speech is a connected flow of ever-changing, harmonically rich musical pitches determined by the rate at which the phonating chords vibrate, the complex overtone spectrum is filtered by the rapidly changing length and shape of the mouth, and lips, interspersed with bursts of noise\u2026It is our brain that turns this incoming stream of sonic air disturbances into something meaningful. (pg 54)<\/p>\n

Seems to parallel how we \u2018see\u2019 color. We don\u2019t, exactly. Light vibrations enter our eyes and get translated into color by our rods and cones. Otherwise, the world is gray! Indeed, both what we see and what we hear are largely out of our control, influencing what we notice (or not), how we decide (or not), what we think and hear and are\u00a0curious<\/a>\u00a0about (We can\u2019t be curious unless we have the circuitry to think with!).<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a greatly simplified explanation of how brains translate incoming words (or sounds, or…) as I learned when researching my\u00a0book<\/a>\u00a0<\/a>WHAT?<\/em><\/a>: Spoken words, like all sounds, are merely meaningless electrochemical vibrations that enter our ears as \u2018puffs of air\u2019, as many neuroscientists call the vibrations, that get filtered, then automatically dispatched as signals to what our brain considers a \u2018similar-enough’ circuit (one among 100 trillion) for translation. And where the signals don\u2019t match, a Listener\u2019s brain kindly discards the difference!<\/p>\n

People understand us according to how the selected circuits translate these signals, regardless of how different they are from the intended message.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In other words, people don\u2019t hear us according to what we say but by\u00a0how their historic circuitry interprets it. To me this is quite annoying and hard to address: not only does that restrict incoming content to what’s already familiar to us, there’s a chance that what we think was said is only some fraction of what was intended.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, neither the Speaker or Listener understands how far from accurate the translation is. Listeners assume their brains tell them exactly what\u2019s been said; Speakers assume they\u2019ve been heard accurately. Turns out these assumptions are both false; communication potentially ends up biased, restricted, and\u00a0subjective<\/a>.<\/p>\n

THE BRAIN\/INFORMATION PROBLEM<\/p>\n

The\u00a0misinterpretation problem<\/a>\u00a0gets exacerbated when words get sent down circuits that unwittingly incur resistance, as Others ‘hear’ something that goes against their beliefs. If my brain tells me you said ABL it\u2019s hard to convince me you said ABC. I\u2019ve lost friends and partners that way and didn\u2019t understand why until my book research. And sadly, it all takes place outside of conscious awareness.<\/p>\n

This is especially problematic when there\u2019s a new project to be completed, supervision to correct a problem, or Business Process Management to be organized. It\u2019s a problem between parents and teenagers and a curse in negotiations. As leaders, without knowing how accurately we\u2019re heard, we have no idea if our directives or information sharing is being received as we intend.<\/p>\n

This possibility of misinterpreting incoming words makes the case for providing information when it can be most accurately translated: when the Listener knows exactly what they are listening for, the brain has a more direct route to the appropriate circuits to interpret them.<\/p>\n

In other words, instead of starting with goals or solutions for Others, we need their direct buy-in first.\u00a0To invoke change, help Others figure out what they need from you\u00a0then<\/em>\u00a0supply content that will be applied accurately. In other words, instead of shooting an arrow to hit a bullseye, first shoot the arrow then draw the bullseye where the arrow lands!<\/p>\n

INFORMATION IS LAST<\/p>\n

After 60 years of studying, and developing models for, systemic\u00a0brain change and decision making<\/a>, I\u2019ve realized that offering ideas, directives, suggestions, or information is the very last thing anyone needs when considering doing something different (i.e. buying, changing habits, etc.). And yes, it goes against most conventional thinking. But hang with me.<\/p>\n

As a kid, my then-undiagnosed Asperger\u2019s caused me to act differently than people around me. I was in trouble often and never understood why.\u00a0I began reading voraciously on how to change my behaviors: how to visualize, to motivate myself, be disciplined. But they were all based on trying to fix my seemingly automatic actions, to change my behaviors. And I failed repeatedly to make any of the changes permanent.<\/p>\n

I finally acknowledged it’s not possible to\u00a0change a behavior by trying to change a behavior<\/a>,\u00a0my brain was the culprit. I then began developing neural workarounds to:<\/p>\n