Hi folks,
Last week we talked about Raoul Wallenberg and the many lessons we can learn from him.
If you haven’t read those posts first, scroll down and start with part 1.
Today I want to share one final lesson I took away:
Understanding your audience
Wallenberg understood what motivated his enemies. Militaristic fascists bent on genocide weren’t going to be swayed by humanitarian appeals or an argument coming from a perceived underdog. They would only respond to authority. Wallenberg understood this and founded his approach on the perception of authority – his status as a “diplomat”, the official-looking passports, etc.
Yes, we (hopefully) don’t have enemies like Wallenberg did. But we do have customers, and peers, and bosses, and all sorts of people we’re trying to convince on a daily basis. If we’re going to be as effective as possible, we need to understand what motivates them. For example, if you want to naturally resonate with my motivations, it’s pretty well known that you shouldn’t start a conversation with “Well, NIST tells us to…” You’re far better off explaining why an idea makes sense for the agency rather than presenting an appeal to authority.
We all have our own personal motivators, and the more we can craft our discussions in ways that align to the motivators of our audience, the more persuasive we’ll be.
Rex