Introduction

How do you change someone’s mind?

In 2009, voters in Maine rejected legislature to allow same-sex marriage by 53 per cent to 47 per cent. In November 2012, those same voters changed their mind and this time the law was passed by the same margin of 53 per cent to 47 per cent. How did that happen?

Well, that’s what this book is all about – persuading people to change their mind. And, moreover, does so in a way that wins friends, doesn’t lose them.

Whether you’re for same-sex marriage or against, you will want to change the mind of the person on the other side of the table. Whether you’re Republican or Democrat, Labour or Tory, a Brexiteer or a Remainer, a vaxxer or an anti-vaxxer, if you’re for Black Lives Matter or against, if you’re for #MeToo or against, you will want to change the mind of the person on the other side of the table.

And, of course, it’s not just politics – it’s at work too. If you want that pay-rise you deserve, you will need to persuade your boss (and probably their boss and HR and the Finance Director too); if you want the client to buy your product, you need to persuade them it’s worth their while; if you want the supplier to give you a good deal, that’s persuasion; if you want to take a day off work in a busy period, persuasion too.

And if you want your lounge to be tidy, you need to persuade your kids to pick up their toys; if you want to go out with someone, you need to persuade them you’re a great catch; if you want your partner to take Kevin as part of the divorce settlement and let you keep the dog, while they are arguing strongly for the opposite, it’s all about persuasion.

Whether we are talking the boardroom or the bedroom, whether we are talking persuasion, influence or negotiation, it is all about changing minds. We even need to change our own mind at times: maybe it is about time I started saving a little money for when I’m older; maybe I should say sorry to my ex after all.

There are a lot of minds out there that need changing.

Persuasion isn’t easy

Getting someone to change their mind isn’t easy. If you’ve ever been on Facebook or Twitter, you’ll know. Of all the political arguments you’ll see there, you can scroll down as many pages as you like and never in the history of social media has anyone ever said, ‘Oh yeah, you’re right. I’ve changed my mind’.

Doesn’t happen.

Why is this? Because we go about persuading the wrong way.

We persuade ourselves of the merits of our case and then assume the same argument will persuade the other person. We take it for granted they will see the situation exactly the same way we do.

But they don’t and our argument lands on deaf ears and we’re left with kids’ toys all over the lounge, no pay-rise and friends who vote for the other party. Our world seems to be full of people who are either stupid or being deliberately difficult.

There is good news

In my day job, I run workshops on influencing and I often start by telling my delegates there is bad news and good news about the topic. The bad news is that there are nearly 8 billion people in the world and they are all different. So how on earth do you know how to persuade that given individual sitting in front of you?

The good news is that they tell you.

Of course they don’t tell you explicitly, but all the time they leak the information you need to know – ask poker players. It is just a question of being able to tune into it.

So, shooting from the lip, going straight in with your suggestion or request, simply doesn’t work. Instead, there is set-up work you need to do first and what would normally be seen as the persuasion process itself needs to come last.

Six steps to persuade anyone anytime

So, what is this set-up work? In this book, we’re going to lay out six simple steps for you to successfully change ­anyone’s mind.

1. Know what you want and aim high

If you are unclear about your outcome, you can’t expect to get it. If you say, ‘Guys, follow me’ and they say, ‘Yeah, where to?’ and you reply ‘Hmm, not sure, I’ll get back to you’, it’s not going to work.

In a complex world, human beings are attracted to certainty, so the more you’ve thought your outcome through, the clearer you can communicate it and the more likely you will get it. In Chapter 1, we’ll tell you how to do this and we’ll encourage you to be ambitious. Great outcomes are out there to be had!

2. Do your preparation

Don’t take the persuasion situation for granted. Just like anything of importance, we need to prepare.

You’ve got to know your stuff, know their stuff, know how your stuff impacts their stuff and brings them benefit. Know how they think, how they make their decisions, how they will feel.

In Chapter 2, we will show you the research you need to do before you make your request and this will massively improve your chances of success.

3. Become a world-class listener

Persuasion is ultimately built on listening, listening deeply, listening behind the words, listening between the words, listening for what is not said. And this is how we gather the information we need to be successful.

We all listen and we can all listen so much better. Quite simply the best listeners are the best influencers. Chapter 3 will tell you exactly what to do and exactly what you should be listening for.

4. Be strong, it will make them more collaborative

In Chapter 4, we will stress strength. Why? Is it so you can force your view through? No, not at all. We will argue a very ethical collaborative approach. We will argue that power should not be a factor at all.

However, sadly, in the reality of our species’ current state of evolution, it does still need to be considered.

Put simply, it’s amazing how collaborative the other person will be if you have a bigger army than them. So we will argue to build your strength, not so you use it but precisely so you don’t have to use it.

5. Create the solution together

The solution does not exist with one person, it exists with you both.

You have a request, but they have a legitimate pushback. Or you have a solution but they prefer another. Or you have information that suggests one route forward but they have different information that suggests another.

There is an answer that will suit both people but you have to work together to find it. Chapter 5 will show exactly how to find the right solution that everyone can support.

6. Find the right way to put your message across

Lastly, Chapter 6 explains the best way to communicate your message – what will work for one person won’t for another.

And the fact it is last does need to be stressed – very few people bother to go through the other steps first and this is exactly why they fail. To find the right words in Chapter 6, you have to do the pre-work in Chapters 1–5 first. But if you have done all that work beforehand, you will be surprised how smoothly it goes.

Multi-billion-dollar negotiations become nice conversations; airlines refund your cancelled flight; husbands volunteer to do the dishes. No, really.

Does this method actually work?

Let’s go back to Maine in 2009. The LGBT community had a very clear idea of what they wanted: it was what the heterosexual community already had – that, all of that and no more than that. Equality, didn’t seem like too much to ask.

But it didn’t work, so they needed to find another approach. Now, they knew many people would never be persuaded and, equally, many were already on their side, so their job was to find those persuadable voters and find out what exactly would change their mind.

And that’s what they did. Using focus groups and other market research methods, they spoke to 250,000 people who had voted against them but were most likely to change their minds. And they listened to what they had to say and began to get a better understanding of their views.

This is how they learnt why their original approach had failed and what they needed to do instead.

The 2009 campaign had been about demanding equal rights, and the demands were often put quite aggressively. But when they listened to these potential swing voters, they discovered that for them marriage wasn’t about rights and equality at all – it was about love and commitment and family.

So they changed their modus operandi and launched a new website that captured this: www.whymarriagematters.org. If someone visited the homepage, the first words they saw were ‘Love. Commitment. Family.’ next to a picture of a heart and a home. Then, the question in big letters, ‘Why Marriage?’ followed by the answer, ‘Because marriage says “We are family” in a way that no other word does’.

They had listened to the community and they were telling them they understood and agreed.

There was more. At the top of the page was a short video of four couples sharing their views on marriage. There was a black straight couple who had been married 31 years, a white straight couple, a lesbian couple and two men who were celebrating their 57th anniversary together the following month.

And the views? As schmaltzy and apple pie as you could get: ‘I would just say that love is love, it belongs to everybody’, and so on. Another video was of an elderly couple who went to their priest when their daughter came out; the priest’s advice was ‘She is the same person that you loved yesterday’.

You get the picture. This website was the basis for their new campaign which was all about the values of the voters rather than the demands of the LGBT community. Framing their message this way enabled them to achieve their goals. Three years after the first vote, there was a second – and this time they won.

The same campaign continued elsewhere until there were enough voters, state and federal judges, mayors, senators and even presidents on their side and finally on 26 June 2015 the Supreme Court decided that marriage was a fundamental right for same-sex couples across the country.

So it turns out you can change people’s minds.

And, in actual fact, in the book we’re going to look at professionals who work in the very toughest of situations. Not just persuading people who voted against LGBT rights to vote for them, which is hard enough in its own right, but we’re also going to look at hostage negotiators, interrogators and forensic interviewers, and counsellors who work with addicts and repeat offenders. These are extreme cases.

And, interestingly, we will see that each of these fields independently developed remarkably similar methods that prove successful even in such extreme circumstances.

But aren’t we being manipulative?

Do no harm.

Influencing is something we do all the time: when I ask you to pass me the salt, I am influencing your behaviour. So, as with everything, do it to the best of your ability, do it the way that works. I’m a believer in using good persuasion methods for ethical ends: if you are persuading them to do the right thing, the good thing, then persuade them as well as you possibly can.

But it is true that influencing is a tool and, as such, is inherently neutral but can be used towards good ends or bad. And you can bet the bad guys are going to use the best practice, so why shouldn’t the good guys?

But how can we be sure we aren’t being manipulative? How does it differ from:

• ■A tobacco advert creating a need in you that you didn’t have before, a need based on a lie of the beautiful lifestyle in the advert?
• ■A political party framing a self-serving policy in terms of helping the poor?
• ■A website luring you towards a purchase you don’t really need?

Dictionary definitions of manipulation usually include influencing to your advantage (with no reference to the other person’s advantage), often without the other person knowing and often dishonestly.

So a good starting point is intention. If your intention is for the best for the other person, then we are on the right track. But who is to judge? Maybe, in his own mind, Hitler felt he had good intentions? This by itself is not enough, it is just too easy to fool ourselves. We need to check our methods more diligently.

The more of these we tick, the more comfortable we can feel our methods are fair and not manipulative. And if it ever becomes complicated, refer to the following:

Do no harm.

The really good news

My mother is Irish Catholic and my dad was English Protestant. I grew up in the 1970s and every time there was a bomb in Northern Ireland (or, for that matter, the mainland), the civil war was fought at our dining table.

Even at the age of 10, I thought there must be a better way.

I’m writing this book because there is. A better way to solve political disputes than throwing bombs and killing people and a better way to resolve differences of opinions in the family than shouting and name-calling.

This is the really good news. The approach outlined in this book is going to get you much better results in your life and get you much better relationships. And, more than that, one conversation at a time, it will make the world a better place.

So let’s do it.