Summary How to Change Anyone's Mind! - YouTube (Youtube) www.youtube.com
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Speaker 0 Live on linkedin, which they usually do. Okay. So we're officially live. So he'll also someone 1, welcome to another
Speaker 1 episode of the future of work with Jake Morgan. My guest today as you can see, is Jonah Berger. He's a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the best bestselling author of numerous books, including the most recent 1, which I think just came out 6 days ago called catalyst, how to change anyone's mind, and that's what we're gonna be talking about today. So Jonah, thank you for joining me.
Speaker 2 Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1 I suppose first question is, how are you holding up over there? With the whole corona situation?
Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, I think I think it's been interesting and challenging for all of us just thinking about sort of... Question how it's changed the working environment. I'm not teaching at the moment. So I'm not dealing distance learning, but just the challenges of doing that, the challenges of working from home, I think it's interesting, you know, many organizations have thought about is working from.
Speaker 2 A good idea or a bad idea. They've been forced to deal with it. And I think a lot of organizations actually probably use more working from... Home in the future than then they have in the past because they'll learn. It's not perfect, but it's also not as terrible as they might have thought.
Speaker 1 Yep. Totally agree. Home Why don't you give us a little bit of background information around what you do and why do you do the things that you do so, you've written several books, your professor. How did you get involved teaching and and writing about these types of things that you're involved in now?
Speaker 2 Yeah. So I did my Phd at the Stanford Graduate. School of business in marketing and do a lot of research on Word, social transmission, change and my products ideas and behaviors catch on I've taught the wharton school now for 13 years, teach the marketing core at the moment. But spent about half my time doing Tc research and the other half working with companies organization. So everything from the big Fortune 5 hundreds, like the Google and the Nike and the apples of the world to small startups, really helping them.
Speaker 2 Get things to catch on, change organizations and and become successful more generally.
Speaker 1 Very cool. Well, your new book that just came out is really all about it. How to change anyone's mind. And first question that I'm really curious about is obviously, we're all dealing with this pandemic that's going on out there, Do you find that during times of uncertainty or stress or chaos? Is it easier to change somebody's mind versus when things are normal and everything's okay?
Speaker 2 I mean, in some sense, it's a it's a little bit of what you're trying to change their mind about. I think what's what's interesting about the current situation, is everyone starved for news and information. You know you look at the media consumption these days, everyone's paying a lot of attention to certain things, but not to others. And so while, general uncertainty can be good in some areas. You know, I have lots of clients reaching out to me going God, you know, how do I deal with this situation, budget are slashed.
Speaker 2 You know, people aren't taking action. So in general, I think this is gonna be bad for business. But that question about uncertainty more generally is certainly 1 of the barriers a change. Right? I mean, when we think about changing minds and driving action, new stuff is always risky, and so uncertainty is 1 of the things we have to deal with.
Speaker 1 So when you talk about changing someone's mind? Maybe you can give a little bit of context, what sort of mind changing are we talking about? Are we talking about like, how do get somebody to quit smoking? How do you get my my leader to approve this great idea that I have? Are we talking about just any any subject, any topic?
Speaker 2 Yeah. So, you know, expertise is, human behavior do the things that they do. And working with the variety of clients that I work with. I noticed that everyone had something in common, which is they all had something that they wanted to change, employees wanted to change their boss's minds and and leaders often wanted to transform organizations. Folks in sales wanted to change the client's mind and folks in marketing wanted to change consumer behavior.
Speaker 2 You know, non profits want change the world and startups want to change industries. But what I noticed is that we were all trying to change minds and incite action, but it often wasn't working. People often sort of push again and again, they provide more information and more reasons. And often nothing changes. And so what the book is really about is is why?
Speaker 2 Why has changed so hard in the first place. And what can we do to to make change easier?
Speaker 1 So let's talk about that actually. Why why is changed so hard? And I suppose that a lot of what we're gonna talk about can be just as applicable in a corporate level as it is to personal level. So yeah how do I change my my spouse's I’m mind or behavior or or friend or anybody like that? Or or the leader of my company?
Speaker 1 Personal So yeah. Why do we struggle the so much?
Speaker 2 Yeah. So so I think it it helps to start with kind of what we're doing already? Why what we're doing is isn't work. And, you know, most of us when we try to change minds, whether we're trying to change the mind of a boss, a colleague or a spouse. We often resort to some version of of pushing Right?
Speaker 2 We think if we just send the boss 1 more Powerpoint deck, they'll come around. If we make 1 more presentation in a meeting, or provide more information about why we think what we're doing or suggesting is a good idea, people will change. Indeed, you know, when I interviewed hundreds of folks from a variety of different industries and ask them to write down something they wanted to change and what they had tried to do to change that thing over 98 percent of the time, people list some version of pushing. And it's kind why we think pushing will work, Right? So you know, if you look at a chair, you're sitting in a room.
Speaker 2 There's a chair in the middle of that room, you wanna move the chair, pushing that chair it's often a pretty good approach. You push that chair in the direction you want it to go, it often moves in that direction. But there's 1 problem when we apply that same notion to people, which is that people aren't chair, but when we push physical objects, they tend to go When we push people, they tend to push back. Rather than changing, they often do the exact opposite of what we want. And so the book is really about is is there a better way.
Speaker 2 Could there be a different approach? And if you look to chemistry, there actually is, there's a special set of substances and chemistry. That make change happen faster and easier. They don't do it by adding more pressure or pushing harder. They do it by removing the barriers to change.
Speaker 1 3
Speaker 2 and the substance you can probably guess or called catalysts. And so this book is all about applying that same intuition to the social world. How can we make change happen, not by pushing harder. But by figuring out what are those barriers to change and how can we mitigate them? I’m think a good analogy comes you think about a car, and that's your, you know, car parked on it.
Speaker 2 An incline, you wanna start your car, You stick your key in that ignition, you turn it, You put your foot on the gas. If the car doesn't go, we think it just needs more gas. We think we just push a little more on that gas, it'll it'll move. But often, less often, do we look over and say, well, hey, maybe we need to depress that parking break. And so with that's what this book is all about.
Speaker 2 It's really about what are those often hidden parking breaks that are often preventing change from occurring? And how can we mitigate them? How by removing those obstacles, can we make change? More likely?
Speaker 1 Why did you actually even write the book to begin with? Did did something happen in your personal professional life where you were having a hard time driving change or were you seeing a lot of your your clients experiencing this? What what was the impetus for?
Speaker 2 Yeah. You know, so in 2013, I came out with my first book We've was called contagious, why things catch on was all about word mouth, really sort of positioned in in the marketing space. And it you opened up a lot of opportunities which I got a chance to work with a variety of clients, everything from, you know, big brands you've heard of, to small brands you've never heard of. And I tried a certain set of approaches that often worked. Me some of those approaches worked, but some of them didn't always take hold.
Speaker 2 And I started wondering well why did certain things work and others not work. And I started kinda digging into the academic literature. I started conducting more research myself. I started trying out some of these approaches with different clients. And I started just interviewing a broad set of people.
Speaker 2 You know, everything from great leaders that had transformed organizations to regular Joe's and James who had changed their boss's mind. And talked to folks like hostage negotiators to figure out how they get people to come out with their hands up and substance use counselors to figure out how they get people to quit. And again, and again, I started to see some pattern. And so I try to pull those patterns together just sort of a framework, and that's exactly what the book is. It's it's a framework, sort of the 5 key barriers that often prevent change from happening.
Speaker 2 What those barriers are and how we can mitigate them.
Speaker 1 So let's jump into some of those. So the 5 barriers react, endowment distance certainty and cor evidence. Maybe what we can do is spend our time just quickly we'll we'll go over each 1 of them and what they are, certainty and maybe some tips that people can apply, and I think that'll be a a perfect way for people to kind of learn about all these different types of things. So let's start off with the first 1 react. What is react is a barrier to driving change and how do we overcome that?
Speaker 2 Sure. Yeah. So I think an interesting way to think about react is to examine something had happened to tide a few years ago. So your listeners may be familiar with tide pods. They're are these things that you drop in the laundry to help make doing laundry faster and easier.
Speaker 1 Or you can eat them.
Speaker 2 Or... Well, that's actually where we're going. So yeah. So so, you know, a few years ago, you as you noted, Tide had a problem which is people were eating these things. Now imagine you're a tight executive in that situation.
Speaker 2 You're sitting there going, What do you mean? People are eating detergent, or why in the world would people exactly have
Speaker 1 dumbass that is for a minute. What? Man. I. Wait.
Speaker 1 What is going on in the world? Where people are eating tide pods, man.
Speaker 2 Yeah. I’m I agree with you. And so, you know, as the called the Tide pod challenge, mostly young people, though some older folks as well, we're challenging folks online to eat tide pods. And so you're a tied executive. I’m imagine sit in this situation or meeting going what do we do?
Speaker 2 And so they put out these and don't eat tide pods, they harsh celebrities like Rob G to tell people not to and they released all these messages saying, don't do it, and that's exactly when all hell breaks loose. So, you know, the number of people searching for tide pods goes up 4 fold online. Always it's a poison control golf as well. In the next 2 weeks, you know, more than 2 times the number that had come in the past 2 years, show up at poison control sort of having some of these issues. And so essentially a a warning had become a.
Speaker 2 Telling people not to do something had had me to do it. And so 1 question is is why? Why why did this happen in general? And why did the Why did the warning have backfire. So the is second part of a a broader?
Speaker 1 1 1 quick question really quick before you get that... Why did this even happen to begin with? And I suppose maybe this is something that you talked about in your previous book contagious. But did you look at why this tide pod thing even happen? Like, I mean, how does this pop into somebody's mind to eat tide pods?
Speaker 1 And why does this become such a viral? I mean, obviously, it's not good for you to eat the urgent. Yeah. I mean, these are not... You know, yeah.
Speaker 1 People.
Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, you know, unfortunately today, we live in a culture where stream things get more attention, Right? Because we have access to more and more information, more people, more ideas than we've ever had before. It tough to cut through the clutter. And 1 way to cut through the clutter is to be extreme.
Speaker 2 Extremely positive, extremely negative, extremely unusual, And so this was definitely something that most people want whoa, what is that thing? And is it a way that I can become famous. By doing something like this. Right? Can I get more attention for myself by doing something that most other people wouldn't wouldn't do?
Speaker 2 And so I talk in contagious about this idea of social currency where a lot of reasons people share things is reflects on them. I'm gonna do things that reflect positively on me. And unfortunately, at least in this case, eating tide pods with 1 way people could look
Speaker 1 good. You Insane. Alright. Sorry. Got back to your original point talking executives.
Speaker 2 So you're asking about about react. And and so this is an example of what's called react. Right? People like to feel like they have freedom and control over their lives. Like they make the choices and they do the actions they do because they chose 2.
Speaker 2 Be either in the driver's seat. But whenever we try to influence them, we try to get them to do something. Now we stem their ability to feel like they're in control, Now they're not sure of they're in control or wear in control. And because of that they put. Right?
Speaker 2 So whether we're tied telling people not eat tide pods, whether we're telling our boss, hey, we should fund this new initiative or trying to get a colleague to do something. The mere fact that we're encouraging them to do it, makes them less like do it because it makes them feel like they don't have control. I think a good way to think about it is people almost have like an anti persuasion radar think about it like a spidey sense that, you know, when you feel like someone's trying to persuade you, your defenses go up and you do a lot of things to try to avoid being persuaded. So you avoid the message, you ignore it or even worse you counter argue. You think about all the reasons that that message idea is wrong.
Speaker 2 And so just pushing people is not gonna work.
Speaker 1 Makes sense. So what do you do instead? I’m mean, I I know I've certainly fallen into this trap many times whether it's with family members or with friends, We have disagreements on something, and I'm just kinda like, what do you mean? You know, I try to present more facts and more data and, you know, more stories and it's just, like butting heads, nobody moves. So what do you do instead?
Speaker 2 Yeah. So, you know, I talk about 4 ways in the book. But I think the core idea is really how do you allow for agency? How feel like they have some sense of control or freedom. So I'll give you I'll give you 1 example.
Speaker 2 So often when we try to persuade people, We give them 1 option. So we're in a meeting, we're presenting to the boss and maybe our colleagues. We're saying, here's what I think we should do. Now, everyone's sitting in the meeting, looking like they're listening, but really what they're doing and thinking about all the reasons wrong with what you suggested. This will cost too much.
Speaker 2 This won't really be feasible. How will this fit in with the other projects we're doing. Right? They're sitting there. They're persuasion radars going up.
Speaker 2 They're sort of shooting holes or poking holes, in whatever you're presenting. And so what really good change as often do is they don't present 1 option. They present multiple. They present 2 or maybe even 3 options And 1 thing that does is it shut shifts the role of the listener. Right?
Speaker 2 Before the listener sitting there and think about all wrong with what you're suggesting. But once you give them a couple options, now they have a different job. Right? Now they're sitting there going well, which of these options do I like better. And because they're focused on which of the options they like better.
Speaker 2 They're much more likely to pick 1 at the end of the meeting. Think about the same thing with your spouse or the friend. Right? When they ask, hey, you know, what do you wanna do this weekend? Well, when we give them 1 option and we say, hey, let's go to the movies, they haven't but it's gonna be so nice out or shouldn't we go out to dinner.
Speaker 2 But if you give them 2 options or 3 options. Now they're sitting there going well which of those do I like better. And so it's essentially guiding Notice it's not infinite choices. Right? Notice it's not 15 options, 20 options or 30 options.
Speaker 2 It's a limited set of choices that guides that journey. Not telling them what to do, but allowing them to have choice within a restrained restrained situation. And so that's just 1 way. I'm happy to talk about others if it's useful, But that's just 1 way to combat this. Right?
Speaker 2 Rather than pushing or telling people what to do, give them some sense of choice or control over that situation.
Speaker 1 And it sounds like this is just as applicable in something like sales as it is trying to get, and I think this is the example you used in your book, trying to get your kids to eat their vegetables. And I've actually been doing this, I have AA3 year old while she's 3 and some change. Yeah. Okay. You know, when she doesn't wanna eat something, we base...
Speaker 1 Sick, like broccoli. And I think this is the exact example you given in your book. And so instead of saying each your Broccoli, we say, well, you can have broccoli, basically or you can have chicken. You know, we'd usually give, like, 3 options. They're all healthy.
Speaker 1 And it's like, you which hell the option you want,
Speaker 2 Yeah. And notice, right, you're choosing the choice set, but you're letting her choose from within that choice. Yeah. And I have a 2 and a half year old. So it sounds like we're going through similar things.
Speaker 1 Yeah.
Speaker 2 But same thing. Right? It's like, which you wanna put on first, your pants or your shirt. Right? Now, now, he's not sitting there going, okay, what I'd rather do is throw these things on the ground?
Speaker 2 Do because he's sitting there going Which 1 of those do I wanna do first. Right? And in sometimes by allowing them to participate, you've given them a job which is a different job than think about why they don't like what you're suggesting. And because they've participated because they've picked it, they're much less likely to not do it, later. Right?
Speaker 2 And sometimes they've committed to the conclusion. They've said what they like and so it's harder for them not to follow up doing it later on.
Speaker 1 Yeah. No. That makes lot of sense. And I you said you have 4 for this man. Maybe we can just briefly do 1 more before we jump to some of the other ones.
Speaker 2 Sure. Yeah. And and I totally understand we're probably not gonna be able to get through all 5 barriers. And depth. They I think it's often or 2 or 3.
Speaker 2 So people can understand them, but but happy to give another example of of react here in You know, 1 thing I’m I really like an organizational context is something I call highlighting a gap. And so a good way to think about this is attitudes and their actions to line up. Right? So if I say I care about the environment, and I think I care about the environment, I probably need to recycle or at least think about recycling. If I say, I care about, you know, tax reform.
Speaker 2 I need to do things like sign petitions and do stuff that fits along. With that. And so 1 way to get people to do something is not telling them what to do, not trying to persuade them, but let them persuade themselves by pointing out a gap between their attitudes and their actions with or a gap between what they're doing and what they might recommend for for others. So you know think about a a project at the office, for example, It's an it's an old project. It's know, lost money year after year, it should be shutter, but no 1 wants to get rid of it.
Speaker 2 Right? Someone attached to it, someone has that status quo bias. It's their project. You you know, they have a inertia, they don't wanna give it up. Now if they started that project today, they might not have wanted to start it.
Speaker 2 But because they're already doing it. It's hard for them to to let go. So you could tell them, hey, let, this project don't do it, but they're gonna be re to do it. So so 1 way to switch it a little bit is to say, not about them, but someone else say, hey, imagine we had a colleague in another division, where there's a friend of yours at a different company, that was thinking about starting a project like this. Knowing what you know now would you suggest that they start this project.
Speaker 2 And most sitting in their prod probably go, well no, Right? Knowing what I know now, I know it's not such a good idea. I probably wouldn't start that project. I wouldn't recommend they start it. But then you can say, well, why are we still doing it.
Speaker 2 Right? If you wouldn't recommend someone else starting it, why are you still you still doing it And what it does, it points out a gap between what they're doing, Thinking and what they would recommend for someone else and encourages them to resolve that gap. Right? It creates what's dissonance and encourages them to do a little bit of the work. Right?
Speaker 2 Again, you're not pushing them. You're not selling them. You're encouraging them to buy in and make that choice themselves.
Speaker 1 I like that approach a lot. I think that makes a lot of sense is let people kind of come to their own conclusion by, you know, subtly planting the seed in their mind and letting them kind of get to it on their own, which I I've certainly tried to do as well in my personal lives too.
Speaker 2 Yeah. And we can even think of that things like, you know questions versus statements. Right? So, you know, I'm was talking to about a leader who's trying to get employees to work harder or stay after work on the weekend. You tell people to stay after, they're gonna say no thanks.
Speaker 2 Said he had a meeting where he said hey, what do we wanna be? You want be a good company or a great company? Everyone knows how people answer that question? We wanna be a great company. Okay, Well, then what do we need to do to be a great company?
Speaker 2 Right? And now you're asking people their opinion. They're more than happy to give you their opinion. And then later if you suggest we do something that's consistent with their opinion. They're gonna have to do it because they came up with it.
Speaker 2 Now you can allow them to participate, have a role in that process, the more bought and they're gonna be to that outcome.
Speaker 1 Okay. I love that advice. I think that makes a lot of sense. So the next 1 after react is endowment. Is...
Speaker 1 A roadblock for why we can't make change happen. Let's talk about that 1.
Speaker 2 Sure. Yeah. So the basic idea of endowment. Is is this notion of the status c bias. Right?
Speaker 2 And so maybe I'll talk for a couple of minutes about the problem in the first place then we can talk about some of the potential solutions. We're basically attached to stuff that we're doing already. Right? Whether there are products, whether they're ideas, whether they're are programs, whether they're initiatives, we like the stuff that we're doing and we're wary of the stuff that we're not doing already. Loss version means we're attached to the stuff we're already doing, sort of losses feel bad.
Speaker 2 We can't cut or get rid of the old things. There's some great studies on something called the endowment effect for example, where they say, hey, Here's a mug, you know, imagine a white mug mug, Let's say with a wharton logo on the front. You know, and they ask some set of people, how much would you pay for this mug. You don't have it already. How much would you pay to buy the mug?
Speaker 2 And they say on, I know, 2, maybe 3 dollars. And then they ask a second. Okay. I’m. It's yours.
Speaker 2 How much money would you be willing to accept to get rid of it? How much money would someone else have to pay you for you to sell it to them? Now The mug is the mug, whether you're buying the mug or selling the mug, it's the same, you know, white morton coffee mug, whatever it might be. And so those valuation should be the same, but they're not. If you already have that mug, if it's something you're already doing, you value it sometimes 2 even 3 times higher than the folks that aren't doing it already.
Speaker 2 You have it. You down with it. And so it's harder to give it give it up. And so 1 of the challenges then is that how do we get people to let go of the stuff that they're doing already, You know, even even homeowners owners, for example, you're selling a home, the longer you've lived in that home, the more you value it above and beyond market price. It's yours and so you can't imagine giving it up.
Speaker 1 So what what's the solution there? Because I imagine that I'm lost? I mean, thinking about this? This is true for so many things, whether you're even talking about being in a relationship that is not a good relationship or whether it's a leader who won't give up a project or... I mean, this is applicable in so many different aspect of our personal and professional lives.
Speaker 1 And I guess it's understandable because we get these types of attachments to things. So what what do we do? Of
Speaker 2 Yeah. So so 1 strategy I talk a bit about is something I called highlighting the an action. And so 1 of the challenges is, you know, we don't... Think that the status quo is costly. We're already doing it.
Speaker 2 Right? And so we think new things are costly and maybe in a couple minutes, we'll talk about uncertainty how new things are risky, people avoid them, But people like the old stuff is safe. Right? I'm already doing it, even though it's not perfect, it must be safe. But 1 thing you have to do is point out there's actually a lot of cost.
Speaker 2 To doing nothing. So there's a great great study that was not in a medical context, but I think it applies more broadly as well. Where they ask people look, which do you think causes you more pain? A minor injury or a major injury. So a minor injury being something like spraying a finger, you know, sp your knee, twisting your ankles, something along those lines.
Speaker 2 Or a major injury, something like breaking a finger, breaking a knee cap or or something else. And obviously, most people say, well, of course, a major injury is more pain Right? It hurts a lot more when you break your knee cap or you break your finger than if you just spraying 1 1 of those other things. But if you actually look and you talk to people who have these injuries, you find out something interesting, which is minor injuries end up being more painful. So say, well, hold on how how is that possible.
Speaker 2 Well, the reason that happens is because major injuries, we do a lot of work to get them fixed. Right? They're above the threshold that we can't just nothing. We can't ignore them. We have to go out and get them fixed.
Speaker 2 And so we do. We go to a doctor, we get that finger set. We get a cast put on our leg, whatever it might be. Minor injuries are below that threshold. But because they're below that threshold, they never end up getting fixed.
Speaker 2 A And over time, they cause us a lot more pain. And I think this is true all the time at the office. Right? Where there's something we're doing that isn't that costly in the moment. But add up that cost over continuing to do that things for months or years, and it actually ends up being quite caught.
Speaker 2 So 1 thing we have to do is highlight that cost in action. How can we make people realize, look, every day this isn't that costly, but over time it is. And so I’m tell an example in the book where Was talking cousin of mine, his name is Charles. Now and every time he would write an email, at the bottom, he would write something like, you know, best Charles at the end and and send the email. And I was like, well, why don't you just add that to your email signature.
Speaker 2 Right? The words best Charles, and every time you write an email, it'll show up at the bottom. And he was like, oh, you know, I don't know how to use email signatures and it'll take me a while to learn, and you know, it doesn't cost me that much every time I write this is only a couple of seconds. Right? So if you think about it for him, that's a minor injury.
Speaker 2 It'll not a major 1. Right? It's not worth doing the work to fix because the work to fix, it seems worse than the cost of of doing nothing. And so I I tried various ways to get them to change. They weren't working So Like, I tried a different approach I said, hey, you know, how many emails do you write every day?
Speaker 2 He was like, I’m you know, I don't know 50 emails? And I’m said, okay, how many emails do you write? A week thing and he said, I don't know 304 hundred emails. And I say, how long does it take you to for each 1 of these emails. And he stops to think about it for a moment.
Speaker 2 And then he opens up, you know, his web browser and types in, how to automate an email signature. Because what that did was it... Showed him that, yes, each individual time wasn't that costly, but in aggregate, it was really costly. It highlights that cost of doing nothing might seem really low, showed But how do we make people rise actually above that threshold, so it's worth doing something. Right?
Speaker 2 If a minor injury don't need to take care of it, but if it suddenly seems like a major 1, then we'll do the work to get it fixed.
Speaker 1 So let's say I'm an employee an organization and maybe there's an outdated workplace practice. Maybe something like a flexible work program. Or, you know, this there's so many outdated work workplace practices these days whether it's how budgets get allocated, whether it's trying to get approval for something, whether it's a flexible work program. And, you I’m, I'm trying to talk to 1 of my leaders and they just say, you know, no, no, no No. This is how we've always been doing it?
Speaker 1 I need to be able to see you. How would you even start to approach something like that. So let's say I was your leader and you wanted to get me to change something. How you even begin that conversation.
Speaker 2 Yeah. So so I think a lot of what I talk about in the book is exactly what you just said. Right? So we talked about a strategy, highlighting the cost of an action But before we even get to that strategy, we kinda have to understand what what the problem is. And I think this is 1 of the biggest issues I noticed.
Speaker 2 Whether it's changing mind or trying to change behavior. We often are not aware of the barriers. We're often blind to why someone doesn't wanna do something. Take that boss, you just talked about, know, you have a workplace program you're trying to change. The boss doesn't wanna change it, you often actually don't even know why they don't wanna change it.
Speaker 1 Yeah.
Speaker 2 And if you don't know why they wanna change it. You it's gonna be really hard to change. Right? Imagine you're a doctor, let's say. Right?
Speaker 2 If you don't know what the issue someone has is, you can't prescribe the right medication. Right? You don't know whether to prescribe 1 thing or another. You gotta do a diagnostic first to figure out what the boom is. And so I think about this a lot, I have a not a issue jar, but a decently sized yard, and so moved into this house recently have spent more time weeding than I ever thought I would.
Speaker 2 First the first time I weed. I just pulled off the top of the weeds su because that was the easiest thing to do, but then they grew back. Right? They grew they grew again because they hadn't found the root. Right?
Speaker 2 And so whether it's a weed or a boss, you've got figure out what's the root of that problem? You gotta figure out what's that underlying cause for why they're not doing what you're hoping they do and then figure out what what the solution is. And so in the case of the boss you're talking about here, you know, I would really start with a set of questions they get to the core of the problem. I was talking to hostage negotiator. And I’m talk a lot of M chapter and some of the strategies he uses and he starts talking, well, hey, I don't start with the change I want to achieve.
Speaker 2 I start with the person I'm trying to change. And I start by understanding them. Right? You know, why is this person hold up in a bank with hostage. Why does this person want commit suicide?
Speaker 2 I start by understanding why that person is doing what they're doing, and then I can figure out the best solution. And so with that boss, I'd start by sitting down asking them, okay. I totally understand and respect that you don't want to change this program. Can I understand a bit more about why? Right?
Speaker 2 And once you understand more about why, then you can figure out, well, oh is this an endowment problem or a react problem or a distance problem. But until you understand the problem, you can't really prescribe the right solution.
Speaker 1 Oh Perfect. Okay. I think that's that's wonderful. Yeah. I mean, I’m oftentimes we don't understand the problem.
Speaker 1 I’m fallen victim to this many times back when I used to work for organizations as well. And we tend to just get very frustrated because we ask for something and we want change to happen, We just get told no, but we really have no idea why we're being told no. I mean, maybe the leader is scared. For what this means for them. Maybe they don't know what to do.
Speaker 1 So... Yeah. I’m understanding that room problem is essential.
Speaker 2 Yeah. But notice even as you're just if they're scared then fears the problem that you need to address. If you think it's gonna cost too much, that's a very different problem that requires a very different solution. And if you don't understand the problem, you can't you can't figure out the solution.
Speaker 1 Got it. So I have a totally random question for you from somebody who's watching live. Yeah. From Cheryl, she says, can you tell the puppy story that you told last night. I’m I literally have no idea what that means because
Speaker 2 told I feel like I’m gonna call and show or something. This is great. Okay. So I'm I'm happy to share that that story. So let me give you a little backstory and then I'll share the puppy story.
Speaker 2 It also feels like, I don't know you ever go to AAA show with a musician and someone's like you. Play this particular obscure song of yours. And so I will I will tell the puppy story. I’m more than happy, Cheryl. So in the uncertainty chapter, I talk a lot about how ease uncertainty to make people more comfortable doing something they they don't.
Speaker 2 Do. And so the puppy story is actually a story for my personal life. I love dogs and have always loved dogs.
Speaker 1 2 dogs hear, but you might hear barking.
Speaker 2 Wanna Oh, 0, fantastic. Mine is not mine is not barking. She's too far downstairs and doesn't bark very much. But I will I will let you know she said, hi. But I always wanted a dog, had 1 growing up family had dogs.
Speaker 2 But as I sort of started living on my own, after college, graduates. School, I was never... For a dog. Oh if I wasn't trying I to give a long enough walk. I wasn't trying new enough to take care of a dog.
Speaker 2 And so I would go and visit animal shelters once in a while and you know, think about dogs, but I I never had really gotten 1. And so a few years ago, I was up in North Philadelphia, going out to dinner, walked by this animal shelter called street tails, animal rescue. Great place. They do wonderful work there. So this very cute puppy in the window.
Speaker 2 Inside, you know, played with this puppy for a couple of minutes. She was a little black hip mix with sort of a tuxedo coat. So black with sort of white down the middle. Really cute doc. And I really enjoyed playing with her, but I started set her down and and started to walk out to go to dinner.
Speaker 2 And 1 of the volunteers Said, oh, you know, you look like you really like the dog. And I said, yeah, you know, I do. But I'm just not sure I'm ready for for the dog. And she says, okay, but we have a 2 week trial period. And so interestingly now, that dog, named Zoe is is downstairs as we speak, now she's 8 years old.
Speaker 2 She's a wonderful member of our family. But she never would have gotten here if it wasn't for that 2 week trial period. 2 trial period did, it didn't make in any cheaper on the front end I’m start to buy food and a cage and all those other wonderful things that a puppy needs. But what it made me feel like was worst case if it didn't work out, I could bring her back. And of course, no 1 would ever do that because puppies are wonderful.
Speaker 2 But it made me feel like, hey, this is gonna help me resolve my uncertainty. And so whether it's on the front end, and we can talk a little about in a couple minutes sort of lowering the barrier to trial even on the back end, make it reversible, things like trial periods, money back guarantees. They don't just make things less costly in terms of money. They really solve that uncertainty problem? Because at the core, that was my question, am I gonna be a good home for a dog and what that 2 week trial period did is it it let me figure that out.
Speaker 1 Okay. Another question for you from Claire. She says, do you think that people are struggling with change when the change brings them into a zone of discomfort. In other words, too far from their comfort zone, And so do you have any advice for how to get over that?
Speaker 2 Yeah. So this is really the distance chapter of the book. This is exactly what you're sort of talking about too far from your comfort zone? And I think a good analogy is to think about people as a rate on a football field. It's easiest to think about this in politics, but you can think about it in any sort of area of life.
Speaker 2 Know, in politics, they're Republicans on 1 end, Democrats on another, and they're sort of those the end zones, but they're grad nations in between, you Right? Exactly in the middle, sitting on the 50 yard line or the moderates, you know, somewhere on the 20 yard line of each side or, you know, moderate Republicans or moderate Democrats and it goes more stream from there. You can think about the same thing with a workplace situation. Right? Someone's really pro and someone's really against.
Speaker 2 Someone's really supports 1 thing and something does a port something else. And so it turns out people have a range around their position on the field that's called their zone of acceptance. Sure they have a position on the field you may be a, you know, a moderate Democrat or, you know, extreme liberal or a moderate conservative and so on. But you wanted to consider some things that are a couple your hearts in either direction. Things are in that zone of acceptance, you'll sure you might not believe them now, but your least willing to consider that information.
Speaker 2 But if it's you are at the moment? Say the other side of that football field, they're 40 yards down the field, it falls in what's called the region of rejection. Right? Not only does it get ignored, but it often backfire. And leads us to do the exact opposite of what someone wants.
Speaker 2 There's a great study that looked at this in the political domain, for example, where they found that exposing people to information that the other side in politics. So, you know, give Democrats information about Republicans and vice versa, actually polarized people rather than making them more moderate. I’m leave them to to sort of see the other side and move towards the middle because that information was so far from where they were at the moment, it actually pushed them in the in the opposite direction. And so how do how do we deal with that. What 1 way I talk about in the book is to do what I call asking for less.
Speaker 2 And I think there's a good example of this with a doctor, but we can think about it more broadly in in any context. But I was talking with a doctor who is trying to get an obese person. Stop drinking so much soda. So as a truck driver. This guy was drinking 3 liters of Mountain Dew.
Speaker 2 He was morbid obese. Drinking because it's easy to have in the cab. This truck, you know, would down them as he was driving down the road. And so the tenancy in that situation, I like the tenancy in the office is to want big change right away. I want everyone to adopt my proposal I’m want everyone to switch the way they're they're doing things.
Speaker 2 But the doctor realized well, that's probably not gonna work. That's probably gonna fall in that region of rejection be too far and backfire. Said she started by asking for less? She said, hey, I know you're drinking 3 meters of mountain Dew. Would you mind trying to drink 2 for a week too and you know, have another 1 you can fill up with water along the way Guy Gru didn't wanna do it but eventually was able to do 2.
Speaker 2 So next time he came back. She said, okay, now can you try going to 1? He gru and he didn't wanna do it, but went to 1. And then eventually when he came back, she said, okay, now, can you go to to 0. And so eventually Guy lost over 25 pounds.
Speaker 2 Because what she did is she didn't ask that big thing right away. What she did is she broke up or asks. She started by asking for less, but then she asked for more. Right? And what she did is really, she chunk...
Speaker 2 Change consumption. She took a big change. And it's uncomfortable because it's so different from what people are used to and broke it up into more manageable chunks, product designers often describe this as stepping stones. I’m you think about forwarding a river. Right?
Speaker 2 There yet, big, it's wide you don't wanna to cross it. But if there are some hops you can make along the way. It feels much safer. And so same thing at the office. Right?
Speaker 2 When you're trying to get someone to do something big and new, you ask right away, it might be too scary. I mean I’m uncomfortable because it's very different from what they're used to. Think about working from home. Now, many of us are working from home. But yeah.
Speaker 2 Imagine 2 months ago, when you might have asked your boss, hey, I wanna work from home. Your boss probably said, no, you can't work from home. But if you said, hey, can I work from them 1 day a week and let's, you know, in 2 months, let's stop and see how it's going and, you know, let's look at my performance? That's asking for less and if 1 day week work, Days a week and if 2 days work, then you can go to 3. And so thinking about kind of taking a big change that might seem scary, and make it not seem so scary by breaking it down into smaller increments.
Speaker 1 Sort like that joke, how do you eat an elephant? And so 1 bite at a time?
Speaker 2 But I think I think it's a great joke. Right? And and very apt in this case. Yeah. Make it make it feel more manageable.
Speaker 1 Okay. So ask for small things before you try to do big things. And I’m think this is very, very applicable for leaders as well. And I love the flexible work example. Start with 1 day a week, see how that goes, and then kind of try to try to extend a little bit more from there as opposed to just saying, hey, I wanna be working from home full time.
Speaker 1 Always see you later, because that probably won't won't work right off of the bat.
Speaker 2 Yeah. And I think as a leader, you know, you can think about the same thing. I I can't tell you how many conferences I've gone to. Where someone says, you know, we need to be more innovative. You know, we need to take bigger risks, and that might seem really risky.
Speaker 2 And so instead say, hey, you no, let's pick 1 con create small thing that we can do that moves in that direction. And then once you get people move in, then you ask them for another small 1, Later you've eventually got them where you want them to go.
Speaker 1 Okay. So here's another question, and I was actually gonna ask you this 1 a little bit later. It's from S. And he says change demands having an adaptable mindset. And so what can we do ourselves to be more adapt.
Speaker 1 So which I kind of read is, how do we change our own mind because... Yeah. Sometimes it's not just about other people, it's, you know, convincing ourselves to do something
Speaker 2 Yeah. I think that's a great question. And and that's 1 thing I thought about a lot when writing this book. You know? Some people ask, oh, this is...
Speaker 2 Is this about how you change yourself. And my first dance was no. It's a changing other's book? You know, how to change anyone's mind? But then I was like, These same principles are equally useful when you're trying to change yourself.
Speaker 2 So I think the first thing I would say is the same thing we said a few minutes ago, which is figure out what those barriers are. Right? Be honest with yourself about you're not willing to change. Is it that you're scared of the new thing? Is it that you're attached to the old thing?
Speaker 2 Is that that thing is too expensive? Is that thing too far from what you're doing at the moment? Do you not have enough evidence that it's actually gonna work? You know, start by figuring out what those barriers are? And then, you know, then begin to think as we talked about before about about how to mitigate them.
Speaker 2 I think, you know, the uncertainty chapter, I told the story of the dog, you know, that happens to me in spade all the time. I am someone who's very, you know, very risk ave versus many of us are. And both in my personal and professional lives. And so I'm not always willing to make changes because they feel uncertain. But then the question is well, okay, how can I make them feel more certain, you know, how can I, you know, reduce the risk?
Speaker 2 How can I d risk that process a little bit? How can I lower the barrier and make it easy to experience what something is? So I... I figure out whether it might be actually much better than I thought.
Speaker 1 Okay. That makes a lot of sense. So the same the same approach that you would take for leaders or for somebody else. Kind of identifying that root cause is what you would also do for yourself. So why why are you struggling making this change?
Speaker 1 Why are you struggling doing XYZ, really trying to get to the root of that? It sounds like is the same approach that you would take.
Speaker 2 Yeah. And I think the only thing I would add is sometimes we don't incite into our own behavior. Right? So we wish we do and we think we should, but sometimes the people close to us, have better insight into our behavior sometimes than we do. That person might be a spouse.
Speaker 2 It might be a best friend. It might be a colleague at the office. And so not just intros about your own kind of barriers, but asking some people around, you know, why do you think I’m so ave versed to doing this? What do you think, you know, here are these common barriers? Which of these do you think I fall most.
Speaker 2 Pray to. Yeah. That might provide some useful insights as well.
Speaker 1 So good good self awareness exercise, I think.
Speaker 2 Yeah. Mh
Speaker 1 So another question for you, this 1 comes from Lisa, and it's again something that I wanted to ask you a little bit later. A lot of people tend to make decisions, especially in this current environment that we're dealing with based on fear instead of logic. And, you know, we see this in the stock market, for example, Right? People panic, they read all their money whereas the best course of advice is to just kind of that leave things and, you know, stay the course. Do you have any advice for how to get people to move from making decisions based on fear, to getting them to be a little bit more more logical, because I would imagine that this is something that you probably see an experience quite a bit.
Speaker 2 Yeah. I think my answer to this is gonna be different than what she might have expected or I might have expected, which is I don't know if you're going to be able to get people to not make decisions based on fear. I’m I'm a behavioral scientist. I spent God now. Sort of 20 years or so ish being a behavioral scientist.
Speaker 2 And what I've learned is that people don't always make the best decisions or do things rationally, And so often the better way to solve or lead people to good outcomes is not to try to make them make decisions rationally but understand what those irrational processes are and designed for them. Right? So so it's almost like, you know, imagine you're building a system, you know the people that are gonna operate that system are imperfect. Right? They always make a certain type of error.
Speaker 2 Well, you can try to fix people, say, no person don't make this type of error, and where you can design a system says, hey, I know you're gonna make this type of error, but given you make this type of error, how can I solve for it? So, you know and and when we talk about, you know, people have say, oh, well, people share, you know, they don't share the right information. They don't share the best of. Yeah, People should eat more vegetable. People you know, they don't eat always eat vegetables Sometimes they junk food.
Speaker 2 But if we cook vegetables a little more differently. They'll get the same nutrition, you know, cook brussels sprouts differently. They taste better and so people are more likely to eat them. And so we're rather saying, hey, don't eat junk foods, say, how can we cook those brussels sprouts better. You so Would say the same thing here.
Speaker 2 I'd say, great, okay. People tend to make decisions based on fear, I can either try to force them to make logical decisions, which I may be able to do. And or I can say great. People tend to make decisions based on fear. How can I lead them to make better decisions by using fear rather?
Speaker 2 Something else. So I'll give you 1 example. You mentioned sort of financial markets. I was talking to someone on 1 of my exact courses. And I can't I think I share the story in the, but I'm not sure who had a client, their financial advisor had a client who's keeping too much money in savings.
Speaker 2 So this person saying god, you know, I'm so scared of the market. You know, maybe it'll go down, has recently. But, you know, I should keep all my money in savings. Now at the moment, that's a decent idea in general, that's a terrible idea. Right?
Speaker 2 And so how could she get the guy to put more money into the market. And so she tried sort of sewing him different graphs, various things, but he wasn't doing it. And so eventually, she just said, look, I'm going gonna create a counter over time that shows you how much money you would have had had you invested in. And in the stock market. Rather than keeping that money in savings.
Speaker 2 And so, you know, first, it showed a couple of dollars. And it showed a couple of hundred dollars and it showed a couple thousand dollars And the guy said, what do you mean how am I losing money. Right? I’m I'm making money. Right?
Speaker 2 My savings account is growing. She's, yes, it's growing, but not compared to this other thing you could have been doing. And she didn't say, hey, you know, don't make decisions based on fear. Said, okay, your risk ave verse. Let me show you that actually this other thing you're losing money doing what you're doing compared to something else, which encourage them to put more money in the market.
Speaker 2 And so I think that notion kinda of designing for users, rather than hoping users will. Will completely change. It's often a better approach.
Speaker 1 It's funny thinking of designing for users, it makes me think of the matrix. Yeah. I don't know if you've seen like the... There's that scene with the architect, where he's basically like, you know, we know that Neo is the anomaly and we've designed for that. By creating, like, the Oracle that's in there that will steer the decisions that you make.
Speaker 1 So it's... It really makes me think of that like, you know that somebody's gonna take a certain path and you put in these controls to kind of deal with it when they go down that path instead of being, like, you, trying to force them and push them the other way.
Speaker 2 Yeah. And I think what's tough is, you know, we have the notion that some of these things over controlling people. We're manipulating people isn't isn't that bad. You But if you're helping people make better choices, it's not terrible. Right?
Speaker 2 So think about it a buffet line. Right? There's some nice research shows, you know, if we put the vegetable, at the front of the for buffet line, rather than the end, people take more vegetables. Now you could sit there and going, oh, my God. We're manipulating people Yeah.
Speaker 2 But we're encouraged them to eat healthier there. Isn't that a better thing.
Speaker 1 Yeah.
Speaker 2 So I think as long as we're using these tools for good, you know, subtle shifts... And things that get behavior to change can often be useful.
Speaker 1 So I think we've covered react endowment. We did distance and we covered a little bit of uncertainty as well, I think. The last 1 we haven't touched on yet is cor evidence. So can we touch on that 1 a little bit unless you have anything that you wanna add to the other 4 if you don't think we covered them.
Speaker 2 Yeah. I think we only have a couple of minutes left. So I would, I would say a couple things more about uncertainty and then maybe we can we can wrap up. I just think we got into part of uncertainty, but I didn't kinda unpack the other part. I think that other part is key, which is kind of, you know, how can you allow people to experience.
Speaker 2 The thing that you're suggesting to them. So think about freemium, for example where we have a free version of product and a and a premium version of a product, I think about test drives of a car where, you know, you want people to buy a car. They don't ask you to do it, put your money upfront. They say, hey, come check it out. And if you like it, then you'll wanna buy it.
Speaker 2 And so to me, the same thing applies at the office, right? I’m we're asking people to change there's a switching cost, things cost money, things take time, things take effort, we're scared of new things. They're often risky, and we don't know how they're gonna pan out. And so 1 way to make people more comfortable is to lower those upfront costs. Figure out a way to allow them to experience the outcome that that you want them to.
Speaker 2 So I was talking to a guy who worked at a bank, was trying to change his boss's mind. He was trying to get his boss to sort of adopt this new initiative where they would care more about the customer experience. They would, you know, greet people by name, they would remember customers birthdays do all these different things. And the boss was saying, you know, we're a bank. You know, we're not a hotel.
Speaker 2 We're not a customer service industry. We're not a warm fuzzy group, you know, we shouldn't do this. And so Guy makes presentation effort presentation, hire some consultants, gets the consultants that come in, but the boss won't budge. And so eventually, what he does, he takes a slightly different approach. Rather sort of trying to change the boss's mind.
Speaker 2 He actually allows the boss to experience what he's offering. So he collects information about all the members the management team, their birthdays or anniversaries, how long they've worked on with the company, and he starts celebrating those things. He starts, you know, having people send birthday cards. Members of the management team when it's their birthday when they're going on a long hike, someone knit them hat when someone's child gets sick, They raise money for them on Facebook. They kinda do all these things that would be part of that customer experience if initiative.
Speaker 2 Sort of building the relationship. And then a couple months ago go by and then he has another meeting where he brings this up. And now he doesn't have to change their mind because they've been experiencing it, sort Right? They've been spending the past couple months, you know, being celebrated, having more deeper relationships, building an emotional connection with the firm. And so they've seen the value of that, Now they're much more likely to say, let's do that for our customers as well.
Speaker 2 And so I think the question there is really, whatever you wanna change, how can you allow someone to ex experience. How can give them in some sense an appetizer, a little way, not the full sense, but a little sense of what you're hoping they'll do, a lower cost way to experience it themselves. So rather than trying to push them, let them say, okay, how does this thing work? And if it ends up working for them, they're gonna be much more likely to roll it out more generally.
Speaker 1 I love that approach. The taste test. Yeah. Mh. Alright.
Speaker 1 So we have... I think, like, 2 or 3 minutes left, can you just maybe say 1 or 2 sentences about... Cor evidence just so we cover all of them.
Speaker 2 Okay. I think I would say that the key insight from grabbing evidence is when 1 person says you have a tail, you laugh, but when 5 people say you have a tale, you turn around to take a look. And so sometimes 1 person is not enough. Sometimes 1 person saying something or doing something doesn't provide enough proof to change others. And so corroborate evidence is all about how you get multiple sources, which sources are right, how you disperse them over time to drive action to
Speaker 1 Got it. Okay. Fair enough. Well, since we have 2 minutes left, maybe we can just end on any any last... Parting words of wisdom that you have, and then I'll ask you where people can connect with you and and grab the book.
Speaker 1 But from all the things that we've been talking about, for these serious roadblocks, barriers. Are there maybe 1 or 2 common ones that people will experience more often or do you recommend that we focus some any 1 of these more than the other?
Speaker 2 Yeah. I’m I would say the 2 things I would I would take away the 2 next steps as I begin to apply these ideas. Outside of, you know, think about the frameworks and understanding how they work. I think the first thing is just to start by finding those those barriers. Identify those roadblocks, those parking breaks, you know, we tend to have barrier blindness.
Speaker 2 We tend to ignore them. But in cases we don't know what they are. We can't we can't solve them. And so really start by being more aware of what they are. And discovering them.
Speaker 2 And only then once we've discovered them, then can then can we solve them. Right? I talk about 5 ones in the book, I think those the 5 ones that come up again and again and again. But there are others, You know, in different situations, people may experience others. And so I would start by understanding those 5 and and then look for others in your own situate.
Speaker 1 Got it. And it sounds like part of this you need to have a little bit of empathy too.
Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. I talk a lot about empathy in in the react chapter. Right? Really understanding where others are are coming from.
Speaker 1 Yeah. Need to have that emotional intelligence. Well, perfect, Jonah, thank you for joining me. Why don't you mention where he again can go to you or grab the book. Anything that you wanna mention, please feel free to do.
Speaker 1 Sure.
Speaker 2 Yeah. So best place to find me is just my website. That's jonah, J0NAH, berger, BERGER dot com. There are links to the book, interviews, information. There's also a bunch of free resources, guide on how to change your boss's mind, how to change your client's mind, 1 pager with some sort of tips and tricks that your listeners can download to get a to get a start while they wait for the book to come in the mail.
Speaker 2 The book is available wherever books are sold. Certainly, Amazon, though I know there's some delays in getting books from Amazon. Unfortunately. Barnes and Noble, you know, Audible is definitely a great place to get an audio book a moment. And so, you know, anywhere where books are sold, and then they can find me on Linkedin, we're at j 1 berger on Twitter.
Speaker 1 Very cool. Well, thank you again for the for joining me. And thanks everyone for tuning in, who's listening to the podcast and those of you who are live. My guest, again has been Jonah Berger. Check out his brand new book catalyst for how to change anyone's mind, and I will see you very soon.
Speaker 1 Jonah. Thank you again for sharing your ideas and insights today.
Speaker 2 Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1