Want to Change Someone's Mind? Lead with Emotion

Millennials rock! When I talk to my millennial friends, one of their common themes is change, and change for the better. Social change. Political change. Environmental change. And, since they are college graduates, spare change. After all, they have tons of student debt and are underemployed in the soul-sucking exploitation machine called “the gig economy.” 

In their pursuit of changing the world, they’re just like Thomas, Europa’s 16-year-old cybernetic son with an IQ of 420. He’s the smartest person in the room. Always. He always has the right answer, right away. He and his high school robotics team are starting their own company to build autonomous surgical robotic teddy bears. They envision a glorious future when the streets are full of scalpel-wielding teddy bears, marching forth to…to…to remove appendixes, I guess.

Thomas wants them to build in strong privacy controls, but they’re refusing. They say it will take too long and be too expensive. And besides, the First Robotics Championships don’t grade the competitors on privacy.

Thomas groans and goes back to his bedroom to sulk. And he never persuades anyone of anything, even though he’s right. Because what he hasn’t yet realized is that being right has nothing to do with being taken seriously.

Don’t Start by Being Right

If you want to be taken seriously, don’t start off trying to prove you’re right. No one cares. No, really. No one cares. When someone on the internet argues with you and tries to prove they’re right, do you care? Of course not. In fact, if you disagree, you don’t care that they’re right. You only care that you’re right and they’re wrong. Welcome to the Human Brain: once we believe something, when our belief is challenged, we try to discredit the challenger. We don’t care if the challenger is right.

If you’re the challenger and you're trying to change people’s minds, being right is wrong.

Don’t Be Righteous

“But my concerns are more important!” cries Thomas, with a degree of angst possible only for a 420-IQ teenager. “They don’t understand the deep implications for democracy of autonomous surgical teddys unaccompanied by strict privacy protocols. That makes them bad, while I am committed to the forces of good, and am the only one trying to do right.”

OMG, Thomas, do not say that to your group. If being right is wrong, being righteous is deadly. If you want to damage your case beyond repair, just get righteous about it. Saying “I’m right!” challenges beliefs. But being righteous challenges their...

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