Episode #279: Inspiring People To Embrace Change

Today we are going to look at inspiring people to embrace change. Not grumbling and finally accepting change. Not resisting change, until the bitter end. We are talking about “embracing” change. This is a big task. We may have all done that exercise where we fold our arms across our chest, but with the bottom arm on top this time. It is a simple change, but instinctively we don’t like the change. If we can’t deal with such a simple change, how hard is it going to be to get people to accept big changes.

How can we persuade people to go for the changes we are recommending? Here is how we design the talk.

1. We start with clearly defining what it is we want to change. We have to make sure this is crystal clear to ourselves and everyone else involved. If you have ever designed a questionnaire or a survey and haven’t been clear enough on the question, about what you want, then you know it throws the whole effort out of kilter and you can’t use the results. So, the change has to be communicated to people and that means we have to be concise and clear about what the outcome is that we want.

2. This isn’t the order we present the talk in, but for design clarity purposes we start at the end. We need to design two closes. We have to decide how we are going to close the talk before we open up for questions. The second close is for after the Q&A. The latter is particularly important. We don’t want some random, off topic question hijacking our audience’s attention and have them forgetting the key point we were making.

Remember we want our recommendation to be ringing in the ears of the audience once the talk is over. So the second close is the last thing they will hear from us and we have to dominate their memory banks with our messaging.

3. We should be anticipating likely questions we will get. We don’t want to be surprised by a question we are not prepared for. We can see our own credibility and the credibility of our suggestion about the needed changes crash and burn, if we cannot properly handle the questions thrown at us.

4. We have to justify the reason for the change. This has two parts, one being the statement of why we need the change. We have to be clear about asking for the change so that there is no doubt about what we say we need. The other part is an example why we need the change. This example has to be clear and compelling.

5. Now we need to come up with three quite viable solutions for fixing the problem we have specified. We can’t have two ludicrous solutions and one which looks like the perfect idea. This type of approach will come across as an attempt to manipulate the result and our credibility will be damaged.

6. To demonstrate balance, we need to nominate the pros and cons for each of the three suggestions. Having chosen legitimate alternatives, there will be real pros and cons and we need to outline what these are in detail. We want the audience to feel we are being objective in our approach.

7. We purposely make the third suggestion the one we prefer. We know that recency means that the listeners will best remember the last thing they heard. It has to be the strongest of three strong alternatives.

8. We need to specify that we are recommending option number three and then provide convincing evidence of why we are recommending that solution. We have to make sure the audience feels the other two options could work and that this last one is clearly the best option.

9. Lastly, we design the Opening. As always, the opening has one main task and that is to break through all of the distractions going on in the minds of our audience. People today are so preoccupied with their phones and social media, that we have a gargantuan struggle ahead of us to pry their phones out of their hands and have them give us their full attention. This is the hardest time in history to be a public speaker, so we need to be up to the task.

So the order of delivery is as follows: 1. Opening, 2. Statement of Need, 3. Example of the Need, 4. Solution One – pros and cons, 5. Solution Two – pros and cons, 6. Solution Three – pros and cons, 7. Our recommendation that we choose Solution Three and why, 8. Close number One, 9. Q&A, 10, Final Close

If we follow this structure, then we have a much better chance of people adopting our suggested course of action. Getting people to make changes is extremely difficult. Getting them to make the changes willingly is even more difficult, so we need this type of special preparation in order to be successful.