Guilty as Charged

This post is dedicated to a young woman who asked me a series of difficult questions in class recently. I did not answer them to her satisfaction. Or mine.

I thought I would attempt an answer through this post because her questions echo those of many people in the corporate sector. (Another reason of course is that I don't have to look into her disappointed eyes and become tongue-tied.)

Why was I promoting emotion over reason in persuasion attempts? Would this be sensible at all in the data-driven corporate world? Shouldn’t objectivity be the centrepiece of persuasion in the world of business? Wasn’t I going against the well accepted norms of corporate behaviour? She was confused, she said, because she had been brought up to respect facts, logic, and objectivity.

I am guilty as charged. But let me explain.

There is a millennia-old maxim, “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach [and loins, if I may add].” It was coined most probably by a smart woman who had observed how easy it was to manage men, even the ones who wielded enormous power.

The maxim’s creator was, possibly unwittingly, pointing to something central about humans, not just about men. Instincts and emotions are far more important than logic and reasoning in decision-making, in spite of our routine chest-thumping about being rational animals.

The heart is the seat of belief, the director of action. You don’t reach it through the head. In fact, the way to a person’s head is through the heart.

Facts, evidence, logic, and objectivity are alluring notions because they appear to be independent of and above the persuader and the target. We have convinced ourselves that in the context of an organisation, these should reign supreme, not the whims and fancies of individuals. Our beliefs and personal preferences are secondary and may be irrelevant in some cases.

But this is a myth. The head is not the heart’s boss but its handmaiden. This is as true in the world of work as at home. Nevertheless this myth thrives as triumphantly as the other myth (created most probably by shrewd women) about men being in control of the affairs of the world.

Facts don't dictate action. What matters is the interpretation of facts or the perception of the significance of those facts. This is where the heart asserts itself. This is where egos rear their heads. This is where biases colour decisions. Even in apparently emotion-free decisions, the framework is created by values and attitudes. But we are good at projecting our decisions as logical, objective, and fact-driven.

If there is a platform of shared values and beliefs, facts and logic work like a breeze. If you provoke the mind when there are no shared values, it becomes belligerent and responds with counterarguments. You may be able to silence someone with arguments, but not persuade him. As Thomas Kuhn demonstrates in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962, University of Chicago Press), even great scientists cling to their paradigm in spite of mounting evidence that makes it untenable. The whole world can see that they are wrong, but they are not convinced.

Of course, if we build our persuasion on instincts and emotions alone, we cannot go very far. We need reasoning. After all, we are rational animals. Emotions make the mind receptive. This is equally true whether you’re attempting to persuade your data-driven boss at work or your five-year-old daughter at home.