The Elements of Persuasion

HEROES IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

Calling the media events happening on cable “debates” is a misnomer. They are actually serial press conference, or if you prefer, auditions for the role of national HERO. It’s all about defining your point of view.

Two candidates stood out as extremely effective on MSNBC last night.

HILLARY CLINTON was thrown a trick question by Tim Russert. He began by quoting a “hypothetical” President about using torture to stop a nuclear terrorist attack. All the candidates rejected the use of torture. Then Russert went to Hillary and revealed that it was her husband, Bill Clinton, who had made the statement. Her quick response, "Well, he's not standing here right now,” was pitch perfect. She defined herself and her POV as different from the old Clinton brand without repudiating it. Very nicely played. 

JOHN EDWARDS’ moment came in response to a question involving a cap on the social security FICA tax. Currently you stop paying that payroll tax at about $90,000 a year. If incomes above that were taxed (particularly those of the ultra rich) it would make social security much more solvent. But removing the cap would be a huge tax increase on the middle class. Most candidates dithered. Edwards had a clearly defined solution targeted at helping the middle class.  In his plan you would stop paying the payroll tax at $90,000, then start again on incomes over $200,000. His proposal was clearly focused on helping common people through the hard times that may be coming. It is a winning Point of View.

Forget national polls, it is Iowa where the rubber meets the road. Hillary and Edwards are running neck and neck there. Things are getting interesting.

Too Passionate to Stop

Max and I have talked about using the 5 elements to build successful stories. Creating a story is like making a stew. The elements need to be balanced. Too much fire and the stew is burned. Not enough fire and the stew is cold and indigestible.

When I started my coaching business FirstVoice ten years ago, I worked with authors, helping them improve their pitch stories to the media. I was invited to attend a large book fair where many authors were speaking. My intention was to pick up a few new clients by critiquing their talk. I was sure that all the authors would be dying to get my comments.

After I heard one struggling author finishing her short talk, I bolted up to the front of the room with her book in hand. She smiled up at me and reached out to sign my book. I said I’m not here for that. Instead, I gave her detail after detail of what she did wrong. Her smile turned to the look of a sad little girl. I saw her deflate yet I was too passionate to stop. She nodded meekly at my comments. I thrust my card into her hands and suggested that if she ever wanted to get better she should call.

Boy I felt great. I was filled with a religious zeal. I knew I was making an impact. Now all I had to do was wait. She would be calling soon.
She never spoke to me again. On reflection I was lucky to have left the convention without being attacked. I had passion and fire in the belly. But I forgot about listening to see if my potential client wanted to hear my story.

ARE THE ELEMENTS ONLY METAPHORES?

Marketing Guru David Berkowitz (not that David Berkowitz – and can you imagine how tired he is of saying that) wrote a very nice review of Elements of Persuasion on his blog. Check out the rest of his site. If you are in marketing – and who in business isn’t – you’ll find it well worth your time.

David says that he originally thought we were stretching a metaphor by including a fifth element – Space – in our list of elements and he’s not sure why Earth relates to Hero. Couldn’t Water relate just as well?

Good points. In the hopes of drawing him into debate (we like what he has to say so we’d like him to say some of it here) we point out two things.

1)    We didn’t add a fifth element. Pythagoras did – though he called it IDEA.  Actually, since Empedocles (from whose writing our classic Greek elements come) was a student of Pythagoras, no one added the fifth element – it was Empedocles who forgot to include one of the five on his list.

2)     We aren’t using the Greek Elements as metaphors – at least not only metaphors. They are for us – as they were for the pre Socratic Greek philosophers who originally used them – ideas in the Platonic sense of the term. In more modern terms they are psychological states. Because Story is not only what, but how we think, the elements allow us to link breakthroughs in cognitive psychology to practical story strategies and perceive those strategies holistically.

Clearly we haven’t explained this connection adequately, so in following posts we will talk more about this. Thanks David for bringing it up. We appreciate the feedback.

HILLARY RUNS THE TABLE

Hillary Clinton’s appearance on all five Sunday Political talk shows was political storytelling at its finest. It used all five of our story elements.

Her goal was to parlay the interest in her health care plan (an issue people feel enough PASSION about to actually tune in early Sunday Morning) into a lasting home-field advantage in the Primaries. To do that she needed to address one remaining issue – could she (or any woman) be truly “Presidential?” (ie. our national HERO) 

To prove herself, she turned to her true political base  – the Washington Puntocracy. Underlining the message that she owned the territory (as we say in Elements of Persuasion Hero=Earth=Territory and Brand) she actually gave all five interviews from her own home in New York. It was a masterful touch. Not only did it allow her to appear completely at ease, but it also subconsciously linked her performance to the fireside chats of FDR – always a good branding move for Dems.

Her answer to the question “Isn’t your new plan socialized medicine,” won the day. On all five shows her response was essentially the same - the most charming of laughs. Totally beguiling. It dismissed the question with a sly and unstated “Come on, we both know that isn’t what it is, and it is so nice of you to fall into my trap by asking.” It is how we all wish we could handle an ANTAGONIST - with easy good humor. She followed with a series of concise talking points that quickly provided the AWARENESS we needed to see things her way and presto-chango Hillary was TRANSFORMED from A candidate to THE candidate. It is a very hard act for her opponents to follow. 

ROPE-A-DOPE

Defining your Antagonist is key to making your story a winner. In the clubby world of the U S Senate that’s easier said than done. What if your Antagonist won’t come out and fight fair? According to McClatchy, the Repubs are on track to block up or down votes on 153 bills by the end of the session – almost three times as many as the next closest year. Why bother? If they allowed the votes Bush would easily veto these bills before they became law anyway. Where is the harm?

In the headlines! Now they read “Democrats fall short of votes,” (the losers). A veto might read. “President Bush refuses health care to the little babies!” (the big meany). Getting their version into the headlines will require the Dems to use some strong story strategy. 

As things stand now the Dems are like George Foreman fighting Ali in Zaire – throwing lots of punches, landing none. They may be trying to lay the groundwork for a revamped “do nothing congress” charge like that used by Harry Truman, but you need to be the President to make that charge stick. What they should be doing is finding their antagonists sweet spot - that one issue their opponents are irrationally compelled to defend loudly even when they know how lame they sound. Every time I hear Bush or the the Reepub Senate Leadership say “socialized medicine” I think that may be just what the doctor ordered. It is SO last century.

ELEMENTS AND MORAL PRINCIPLES

One question Bob and I are often asked about Elements of Persuasion is “Aren’t you worried that by teaching the psychological underpinnings of the five story elements that you are helping advertisers manipulate people?”

Leaving aside the fact that manipulative advertisers are doing just fine without our help, we generally say that story elements are value neutral – a story can serve the common good (like biblical parables), or be used to promote the worst kinds of evil (like Hitler’s propaganda posters), but the structure of the successful story remains the same. That answer is not totally satisfying. If story is the root of culture (and it is) then it MUST link to morality and ethics, which are the glue that hold a culture together.

In his book The Happiness Hypothesis, psychologist Jonathan Haidt provides us with one missing link. As part of his research, he identifies five components of morality that extend across all cultures. Not surprisingly his five moral principles relate to our five story elements. They are:

1.    Loyalty to the group: Like our story element Passion, his principle Loyalty is the irreducible core of morality. Without loyalty no shared moral code is possible. Ask any teenager about the intensely sexual nature of the peer pressure that Piaget discusses as the first stage in internalizing a moral system and you’ll see the connection between Loyalty to the group, and Passion.

2.     Do as you would have done unto you: The same empathy that allows us to see a story through the Hero’s eyes is the basis for this “golden rule” element that Haidt finds in all moral systems. It’s why Heroes act like Heroes.

3.    Do no physical harm: Haidt stresses that social moral systems all involve protecting others, especially family members. Protecting them from what? The Antagonist, of course.

4.    Respect for authority: Unless an individual is Aware of the social structure they are living in, there is no way that this principle can function. But we are all aware of it. We all know that with age comes wisdom, and with authority, responsibility. When someone says the right thing, sees the way past the obstacle, or the way to achieve victory, we know it like a flash and follow his or her lead.

5.    Purity and Sanctity:  This is like our story element Transformation in that it literally translates into space – in this case, the sacred space in which common rituals – like story telling – bring the society together and make it unique and different from any other (while still being essentially the same).

Yesterday, the NYT ran a great piece about Haidt, check it out here.

To fully see how the story elements relate to these moral principles you really need to go the philosophical nature of the elements as states of consciousness as developed in the writings of contemporary philosopher Oscar Ichazo. As we said in our book, our understanding of the elements is based on Ichazo’s work. We will be talking more about Ichazo and our debt to him in coming posts. For now it is enough to say our book was dedicated to Professor Ichazo for a very good reason.   

HUCKABEE’S VALUE VOTERS

A few days ago we said that with brand disintegration - a growing problem for the Rs - we might see Mike Huckabee begin to move into the top tier. According to Michael Luo, blogging over at the NYT, that is just what seemed to be happening in a straw poll taken after the recent Value Voters Debate. Huckabee got 64% of the vote while current leaders lagged far behind: Thompson (4%), Giuliani  (1%) and Romney (0% - that’s right 0%). In their defense the top tier all skipped the debate citing “scheduling conflicts”. Given who was asking the questions – a stellar panel of Republican Activists – it makes you wonder what base these guys are actually campaigning for. Read the whole piece here.

STORIES THAT HEAL

One of the great things about having a book out is getting emails that remind you of things you knew but didn’t talk about that much in print (and probably should have.) This is from Cherie – a mother and educator from San Diego. Speaking of Elements of Persuasion she says:

“The GENIUS of this book is that it lays open the obvious...we all love stories.  Stories engage us as nothing else, they work in our psyches and change our behaviors.  You can witness this power with young children.  You might know that in Waldorf education stories are told to children to correct behavior issues, different fairy tales are known to have certain curative effects, this specific tale for that specific problem and so on.  You have a misbehaving child causing a ruckus in class, then the teacher tells the tale...a true Waldorf teacher memorizes the story, never reads it.  You can witness the healing effect of the story on the problematic child and thus the group.“

Sometimes we forget just how long our relationship with story has been, and in how many ways stories have molded each of us. It’s good to be reminded. Thanks.

HITOTUSE NOUCHI – WINNING WITH ONE BLOW

In Elements of Persuasion, we suggest that if you want to polish your public speaking, you watch the experts. With the coming of campaign season it is easy to catch a world-class stump speech at a location near you. Check them out.

Or tune into CSPAN. This weekend I caught all the Dems in one sitting at the Tom Harkin Steak Fry. What I was looking for in each speech was what the samurai master Miyamoto Mushashi called “hitotuse nouchi” – “winning with one blow.” The single sentence that fires up the faithful and sends them to get out the vote. 

Hillary played it beautifully. Speaking softly she told of Mothers who brought their young daughters up to shake her hand and told them, “See, honey, you can grow up to be anything you want,” and a of ninety year old woman who said, “I was born when women couldn’t vote and I will live to see the first woman president!” Inspiring identity politics. I was moved.

Edwards speaking in a clipped populist cadence promised health care to every American. “And unlike other candidates I’ll tell where I’ll pay for it. It won’t be cheap. But I’ll get the money rolling back the Bush tax cuts for people making over $200,000 a year!” The crowd cheered back on cue.  It was unabashed class warfare. William Jennings Bryant would be proud. It is three days later and Hillary has now scheduled a major address on her health care plan. Clearly Edwards drew blood. 

Holding Opposites

We love stories that reinforce our view of reality. Once our brains have gone to the trouble of committing tens of millions of neuro transmitters to learning a story, we like to keep it going. We have a bias for keeping our old stories in tact even when they no longer reflect reality.  We believe that people who tell similar stories are smart and attractive, while those who tell opposing stories are suspect or worse.

We don't like stories that vary too much from our own, and this can get us into a heap of trouble in the dynamic world we inhabit. How can we learn to hold two seemingly opposing stories in our head without jumping to the one that is closest to the story we already know? In 5 element terms, how can we increase our awareness without shutting out difference?

Sami Adwan, a Palestinian born near Hebron and Dan Bar-On, a social psychologist at Ben Gurion University has developed a powerful tool that increases awareness. The university has produced a series of booklets for both Arab and Israeli students, forcing each side to confront a contradictory story of history. Each booklet is divided into three sections: the Palestinian and Israeli narratives and a third section left blank for the student to fill in. Adwan says that the point is not to accept the opposing stories but to recognize that each side sees the same historical event differently.

Learning that people can see the same external event very differently increases awareness. And awareness is the essential element that allows a more complete transformation. In this case a transformation from violence to peace.