The art and science of making better decisions: Lesson 6

Welcome to the final week of 'The art and science of making better decisions' boot camp!

Last week we pored over practical ways to improve our decision making and heard from Professor Steven Pinker in a one-on-one interview. After five intensive weeks of introspection, theory and practical tips we are now in a greatly improved position to make decisions in our personal and professional lives.

However, sometimes making the call is not up to us. In fact, most of us are embedded into organizations that abound with strictly established hierarchies and clear-cut reporting lines where someone else will have the final say. The same goes for our private lives where we often share the responsibility and authority over daily decisions.

Now that we’ve helped ourselves improve our decision-making, it’s time to learn how we can use persuasion to help those around us.

Required

Read this week's lesson: How to persuade others to make the right call (7 min)

Know and respect your audience

Aristotle has been quoted teaching that success in public persuasion depends first and foremost on the audience. In particular, the audience’s view of you and their mood are factors that are often far more important than what you actually have to say.

The above is most certainly devastating news to those who value objectivity and knowledge on their own merits, but all is not lost. On the contrary, knowing what you’re up against is the first step towards victory, and while we can’t change who we are on the spot, there’s much we can do to give others an opportunity to improve their views about us.

The easiest way to earn respect is first to give it others. Approaching even the most difficult audience with respect and making genuine attempts to understand their positions and views are wonderful starting points that can lead to being heard in return.

Tailor your message to the context you’ll present it in, and make sure you answer the what, why so and so what’s that the audience are bound to go through. Knowing what your audience deems relevant is the firs step towards connecting with them on the same level. From there, you can begin building rapport by using We-centered language and examples while avoiding the more alienating I and Them.

Finally, pay close attention to Grice’s maxims of communication of quantity, quality, relation and manner by:

1. Being as informative as possible without giving too little or too much
2. Being as truthful as possible and avoid giving information that is false or not supported by evidence
3. Keeping your message relevant to the topic of discussion
4. Being clear, brief, orderly and avoiding obscurity and ambiquity

Help others find better arguments

Earlier in this course we examined the various facets of our personalities and came to accept that as decision-makers we are often fallible and prone to biases. These lessons are good to keep in mind when approaching others, and likewise, it is critical to acknowledge that even the most venerated leaders are just as likely to face the same challenges as we are.

Guiding others through our shared biases and blind spots is a muscle that grows as it is exercised. Take every opportunity to present data, information and your arguments in a way that steers clear from the intellectual landmines that lay in ambush.

As we’ve learnt in this class, don’t give too many choices when fewer will do. Side-step ego-depletion by asking for decisions at a time when resources to make them exist. Remind others that peer conformity and loss aversion are scientifically proven phenomena that hamper our attempts at making optimal choices.

You must also be prepared to face difficult personalities and tough crowds on which even the best of advice might not stick.

Experts such as Adam Grant have shown that preaching, prosecuting and interrogating your audience is likely to backfire. In fact, attacking another’s deeply held position is likely to dig them deeper into the trenches. This is particularly so with the stubborn and narcissist counterparts that many of us face in our daily lives.

Instead of arguing harder or louder, pivot towards a technique called motivational interviewing.

The technique has you guide your counterpart to find an internal source of motivation to change their opinions and beliefs by means of asking open-ended questions about the topic at hand. Getting started is easy - you can begin by jointly exploring the foundations of their beliefs and opinions. From there, build a bridge towards other options and views by gently probing for reasons that are holding them back from thinking differently about things at the moment.

When faced with someone who has strong views on how things are, try asking them to explain things in even more detail. Quite often you may find that even the most overconfident counterparts will become more tractable once you’ve together established the difficulties in explaining complex phenomena.

Finally, remember that none of us are the same exact person in all contexts. Instead, all of us have different ‘personality software’ which we apply to different situations. This is why we shouldn’t expect our boss to be open risky project ideas when in a meeting with our auditors, and it is the main reason we need to carefully consider when and where we communicate our message to begin with.

Don’t dilute your message

The last tip we’ll share is important enough to be accompanied by its own video. In this TED Talk, Organizational psychologist Niro Sivanathan explains how the ‘dilution effect’ can jeopardize even the best of arguments and why brevity and clarity are so critical for getting our point effectively across.

As opposed to what makes intuitive sense, presenting fewer strong arguments is far better than presenting the same arguments with additional, but weaker, supplements. What this means is that we are much better off presenting the main benefits of a project proposal than listing out all of the potential favorable outcomes.

The reason behind this is simple: our brains do not add up positive features of risky proposals, we average them out. As a result, each additional piece of information that presents more threats or fewer benefits than what was presented before will detract from the whole instead of adding to it.

Less is truly more, and when it comes to presenting our arguments for or against a specific decision we should bring out only the A-team and leave the benchers in reserve.

Reflect on how to influence others to make the right decision (5 min)

For the boot camp’s final activity, reflect on what you learned this week about persuading others to make the right call.

Think about a time when you tried to persuade someone else to make a decision. How did it go? What went well? What would you differently, taking into account what you've learned this week?

Submit your answers through this link, or record them on a piece of paper.

Take your learning further

Read a book on persuasion and on how to improve our thinking

Adam Grant’s Think Again is a wonderful resources for everyone interested in this week’s topic. You’ll find his latest book a great entry-point to persuasion and better thinking all around.

Picture credit: Unsplash