A Trojan Horse

I love walking. I don't mind forgoing my morning cup of coffee, but not the half-hour of brisk walking. So when the student organiser of INSIGHT 2012 (IIMA’s marketing research fair that attracts several thousand Ahmedabadis) asked me if I could join a walkathon he was organising as part of the fair, I readily said yes. Because this year’s INSIGHT was on the last Sunday of September, it coincided with the World Heart Day, he added, and therefore the objective of the walkathon was to spread awareness about keeping the heart healthy. Excellent, I thought.

The walkathon was at an inconvenient time for me. However, I put aside other things and arrived at the venue five minutes ahead of the announced start. There was a small crowd, but hardly any IIMA students, faculty, or support staff among them although the walkathon would start from the campus.

Everyone was wearing a T-shirt that prominently displayed a local hospital’s name and logo along with IIMA’s. I was offered one. I declined. I didn't want to be a mobile hoarding for a hospital. Then placards were handed out. They also carried the hospital’s name and logo prominently along with a health tip. By now I realised that instead of a brisk walk with an element of competition thrown in, what I was going to take part in was a slow procession through a city road to raise public awareness about that particular hospital rather than about the heart and the need to keep it healthy. The strangers in promotional T-shirts appeared to be from that hospital.

About ten minutes after the walkathon was supposed to start, the chief cardiac surgeon of that hospital spoke. It was followed by a speech by a municipal corporator. At that point I excused myself and came away.

Walking home, I asked myself whether I was being too unrealistic. The hospital must have given the INSIGHT organisers several hundred thousand rupees to be the main sponsor and to have an opportunity to be seen by the thousands of Ahmedabadis who would throng the venue later in the day. The walkathon was a small part of that promotional effort. Why not? He who pays the piper calls the tune. Sponsors give money in exchange for publicity. That's what all sponsors do, right? Even the so-called Corporate Social Responsibility activities have the same objective.

I don't have any objection to organisations buying publicity. If, however, I didn't want to be a pawn in that game, why did I readily agree to take part in the walkathon? The simple answer is that the student organiser had framed the walking event as part of INSIGHT and intended to raise awareness about World Heart Day. The student didn't lie. But he gave me a partial story, the part that was attractive. It was a Trojan Horse. I can't blame the student because I should have asked questions before accepting the invitation. I realised that such framing of issues often leads us to commitments that we cannot easily get out of.

Photo Credit: http://www.istockphoto.com/

Maruti Suzuki’s sex change

Maruti Suzuki’s honchos have, after two years of repeated misdiagnoses, finally figured out what was wrong with their Manesar plant. It’s negative energy trapped inside. Well, that there was a lot of negative energy at that plant was well-known. So what’s new? The correct identification of the cause of the evil energy.

The negative energy came from the evil spirits that were angered by the razing of certain structures at the plant site a few years ago. To make matters worse, the plant did not have doors and windows at the right place for the negative energy to go out and for positive energy to come in. Fortunately, Maruti Suzuki’s leaders are blameless; the workers have nothing to do with it either. They are victims of this evil energy.

Once the cause was correctly identified, cure was simple. According to news reports, astrologer-cum-Vastu expert Deivajna K N Somayaji has already started the treatment. In three to four weeks the plant can function again without any problem.

This is a brilliant move by Maruti Suzuki’s management. You may accuse them of many things, but stupidity is not one of them. I congratulate them on this strategic decision and confidently predict absolute success.

My reason for such certainty, however, is not the correction in Vastu but the quiet sex change Maruti Suzuki will have undergone in the meanwhile. The plant that reopens will have a new management, a new set of workers, and the new location. No, I don’t mean Mamta Banerjee’s Paschim Bengal or Narendra Modi’s Gujarat. The plant will stay back at Manesar. Then what do I mean by a new location?

The environment around the plant has changed so much that it’s like a new location. The villages that supply workers to the plant have changed. The local politicians have changed. The Haryana government has changed. Within the plant, the workers have changed. The managers have changed.  The root cause of such a dramatic and widespread change is the horrible death of Maruti Suzuki’s HR manager, Awanish Kumar Dev.

Just as the self immolation of the Tunisian vegetable vendor Mohammed Bouazizi sparked the Arab spring, Dev’s murder within the plant altered everyone’s calculations fundamentally. Maruti Suzuki’s management realised that they couldn’t keep the plant open and risk another manager’s death. That would bring down the company. The workers realised that the game had gone from their hands. It was no longer a labour dispute that they could handle. They couldn’t expect support from the usual quarters. The panchayats around and the state politicians realised that the giant goose that had been laying golden eggs was in danger of dying. The public wooing from two chief ministers added a sense of urgency to everyone.

Maruti Suzuki has had a sex change. Deivajna Somayaji’s puja and architectural corrections will provide a huge fig leaf to hide it. The return of peace and productivity to the Manesar plant will be attributed to it. Our faith in the power of buildings to determine our fate will be reaffirmed. Everything will be well with Maruti Suzuki and Manesar. Everyone can go back to work pretending that they haven’t changed.

I think hiring Deivajna Somayaji was the best ever decision Maruti Suzuki took apart from the original decision to produce cars in India at a time when the only alternative Indians had were road boats called Ambassador, Padmini, and Gazelle.

***      ***      ***

The photograph was retrieved from:  http://businesstoday.intoday.in/story/maruti-suzuki-union-leaders-in-custody-over-manesar-violence/1/186913.html

How to have your cake and eat it too

When you pick up a packet of pasta for a carton of milk from the ‘organic’ section of the supermarket or from a health food shop, do you try to find out how many non-organic substances it may contain? Very unlikely. You trust the label, ‘Certified Organic.’ There must be a government-approved process that makes sure that only organic things get that coveted certificate and license to charge a hefty premium. You don't have to think. You don't have to ask. Someone else has done it for you.

Well, there is a process of certification. We also know that certification as organic allows the use of certain non-organic substances such as baking soda, without which you can’t make organic bread. In the US the list of permissible non-organic substances, however, grew from 77 in 2002 to more than 250 in 2012. How come?

According to a report (“Has ‘organic’ been oversized?” by Stephanie Strom) in the New York Times of July 7, 2012, Big Food has quietly invaded and colonised the organic foods space. Gradually they have come to dominate the National Organic Standards Board set up by the American government to determine what can be certified organic and what cannot be. Thus, instead of fresh food produced organically in small farms and consumed locally, Americans are now treated to countrywide brands such as Wholesome & Hearty, Walnut Acres, and Healthy Valley – all owned by Big Food that has been drawn there by the premium which discerning customers gladly pay. Giant agri-food corporations including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, ConAgra, General Mills, Kellogg, Heinz, and Kraft have driven out most independent organic farmers after buying their brands. Those big companies shape the average consumer’s purchase decisions through influencing the certification process .

The more than threefold increase in the number of permissible non-organic substances during the last ten years closely matches the growth of Big Food’s influence in the certification process.

Big Food has its own cheaper standard products side-by-side with organic products under a variety of pastoral-something brand names. They make money through both these channels. Consumers who are tired and scared of the business practices of Big Food may think that when they buy organic milk or pasta, they support small farms. What they buy may be safe; but they might not be willing to pay a premium for those products if they knew more about the certification process.

Companies and governments exploit our blind faith in certain processes and reluctance to ask questions. They persuade us gently to do many things that we would not want to if we knew the inside story. 


Photocredit: http://istockphoto.com/

Being lied to, and lovin’ it

We hate being lied to. Lies are supposed to make us mad. But we love them when they are along the lines we want to believe.  Then we fold our critical antennae. We close our eyes. We ask no questions. We accept them like a coin that we pick up from the street. Marketers know this very well and frame their offerings to take advantage of this.

This is no new discovery. What is interesting is the kind of evidence that emerges from time to time. I was reminded of this when I read a recent article, ‘The perils of panflation,’ in The Economist (April 7, 2012).  The writer talks about the “devaluation of everything.” What interested me most is the way women’s clothing sizes in Britain (and the US) have gradually grown bigger and bigger during the last thirty-five years while retaining the fiction that they are staying the same.

Let me give you a clearer picture. In the mid-1970s, size 10 trousers were for women whose waist was twenty-four inches. Women with a twenty-six inch waist would pick up size 12. The marketers have retained these labels but quietly increased the actual sizes by up to four inches. So in 2012, women whose waist measures 27 to 28 inches buy size 10 trousers because it fits them well. It also gives them the satisfaction that they can comfortably get into the smallest size. Similarly, women whose waist measures 35 to 36 inches now gladly pick up size 18 trousers, originally meant to be worn by women whose waist was 30 to 32 inches.

Giving women’s trousers fictional size labels such as 10, 12, and 14 rather than 24, 26, 28 that stand for the actual waist size trousers and skirts are meant for was a stroke of marketing genius. It helps women maintain the fiction that their waist is still small while it has actually grown by two or three inches.

It is interesting that men’s trousers are labelled according to the actual waist size. The reason is simple. They are not paranoid about their waist size going up. Naturally, marketers don’t waste their time creating feel-good labels that mask the real waist size. But there are other aspects of size where men look for such reassurance.

I’m also reminded of an experience I had at an Udupi restaurant in Hyderabad in the early 90s. I ordered a plate of iddlis within weeks of its inauguration. Two years later, I happened to be back at the same restaurant.  Again I ordered a plate of iddlis. There were two iddlis, as on the first occasion.  The price was the same: Rs 10. How could they hold the price in spite of inflation all around? Simple. The iddlis were smaller. I noticed the change in size immediately, but regular customers probably did not.

What matters in persuasion is not whether you receive value but whether you perceive value.

Photo credit: http://www.istockphoto.com

Chalk and cheese

Recently I was waiting in a well-known Ahmedabad bakery to buy a cake. The man ahead of me bought three cakes; the total bill came to Rs 670. He handed the sales assistant the exact amount. The assistant asked him whether he wanted a carry bag.  Being told that he wanted one, the sales assistant said, “that would be Rs 5,” put the cake boxes into a carry bag, and handed it to him. (To discourage the use of plastic bags, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has instructed shopkeepers not to give carry bags free. Customers are required to pay for them or bring their own reusable bags.) The customer pulled out a ten Rupee note from his shirt pocket and handed it to the sales assistant.

Soon the assistant realised that he didn’t have change. He asked the customer for change, but he didn’t have any either. The assistant checked with a couple of his co-workers, but no one had change for Rs 10.  As there were several people waiting in the queue, the customer helpfully asked whether he could pay Rs 5 on his next visit.  

Suddenly the shop-owner’s visibly old father, who was standing behind the counter, moved up and told the customer that the shop didn’t give anyone anything on credit. The customer was startled; so was I. He told the old man that he didn’t want any credit; he had already paid for the cake and for the bag. Now the shop owed him Rs 5. The old man said that the shop had no change and asked the assistant to take the bag back. 

The customer told the old man that he had just bought stuff worth Rs 670, and so perhaps they should consider giving him the bag with their compliments. The old man was bent upon taking the bag back, saying again that the shop didn’t believe in selling anything on credit.

Fortunately an employee produced a five Rupee coin, and the customer was allowed to leave with his purchase in a carry bag. “You idiot, you spoilt my day,” shouted the customer at the old man as he stormed out of the shop.

I found the old man’s behaviour incredible. How did he build up a successful business with this kind of behaviour? Or, what is it his son would built the business? Of course the stuff they sell is very good. Is that good enough to persuade customers to keep coming back to him?

In stark contrast to this was my wife’s experience of buying vegetables from a wayside cart in our part of Ahmedabad city. When told that her purchase came to Rs 55, she handed him a 100 Rupee note. The vendor returned a 50 Rupee note and asked her for Rs 5. She didn’t have any change on her. Then he suggested that she pay it the next time she bought something from him. She had never bought any vegetables from him earlier. So she truthfully told him that she wasn’t at all sure she would be coming that way again. That didn’t make any dent on his attitude. He just said, if you ever come this side, you can pay me.

My wife found this vendor incredible. Now she would like to buy vegetables from him whenever possible.

Small gestures can be very persuasive.


A friend of mine, V Ravikumar, has sent me the following link to a YouTube video of a funny exchange between a customer (played by Nana Patekar) and a sales assistant. The customer doesn't want a toffee in place of the change the store owes him: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBKSNTYD-uM 

Photo credit: http://www.istockphoto.com

The frame is the message (2)

This is a continuation of last week’s post, The frame is the message (1).

Framing is so obvious in advertisements that it is difficult to miss it. When a mosquito repellent is advertised, for example, the focus is on the joy of sleep undisturbed by mosquitoes or freedom from dreaded diseases such as malaria and dengue. The advertiser doesn’t bring into the frame any concerns about allergy the users may have to the chemicals in the repellent. Or any other side-effect, for that matter. If we ask whether it is safe, the advertiser may tell us that millions of people have been using it for years. That doesn’t mean that it will be safe for us, but the framing is such that we assume that it will be safe for us too.

Framing is the heart of persuasion. If it is attractively presented at the right time, it can alter perceptions radically and change the complexion of the discussion. The American invasion of Iraq was, for example, framed as part of the “global war on terror.” Which right thinking individual or country can refrain from supporting this holy war? That frame was guiding the discussion so powerfully that those who questioned the wisdom of invading a country without adequate evidence of wrong doing were easily brushed aside. Those who suggested that perhaps the American love for oil might be an important factor in this invasion were laughed out of op-ed pages of newspapers.

The overwhelming power of smart framing was evident in the recent protests led by Anna Hazare against corruption. The government and the Parliament lost the game completely because the issue was framed as a fight between the people of India and the corrupt government.  It captured the imagination of a large number of people, young and old, educated and uneducated, all over the country. But this is no foreign government imposing its will on an enslaved population. This government and the parliament consist of representatives duly elected by the people of this country.  They represent the masses far more authentically than a small band of self-appointed members of “civil society.” However, Hazare’s version of the Lokpal bill was framed as Jan Lokpal bill and when it was introduced in Parliament, it was declared by the media as “people’s victory.”

Major changes initiated by the leadership in some organisations fail to excite many employees because of poor or no framing.  Employees don’t do things they are asked to because they don’t see why they should. Or they comply reluctantly merely because of penalties. Poor framing is the villain.

If Anna Hazare can unite millions of Indians with wildly diverging views and goals through brilliant framing, why shouldn’t corporate leaders do so with their employees?

Photo credit: www.adsavvy.org

The frame is the message (1)

A woman approaches you. She is suffering from tuberculosis. Her husband has syphilis. They have had four children.  The first is blind, the second died, the third is deaf and dumb, and the fourth has tuberculosis. Now the woman is pregnant with her fifth child. She and her husband are willing to have an abortion. There is no way you can examine the foetus and find out if it is all right.

L Agnew of the department of Medical History, University of California, set this scene at the start of a class and asked his students:  “What advice would you give the couple?” 

Before you read on and find out what the students said, ask yourself what advice you would give the couple. Unless driven by a strong belief that  all abortions are sinful, you are likely to advise the couple to go in for an abortion. Why go through the fifth pregnancy when there is a very high chance approaching certainty that the outcome will be tragic? Is it worth taking such a big risk?

Most of the students readily advised the woman to go in for an abortion as the most reasonable course of action.  “Congratulations,” said Agnew, “You have just murdered Beethoven.”

“Oh no,” you say. We thought this was just another uneducated couple who didn’t know what was good for them and messed up their lives. This new piece of information changes the picture completely. What Agnew told us initially led us as well as the students to recommend abortion. We didn’t know if the woman and her husband came from illustrious families that had produced great composers or scientists. If they did and if we were given that information along with the list of all the problems they were suffering from, many more of us might have suggested that they should perhaps take a chance rather than abort the foetus.

We do know that Ludwig van Beethoven turned deaf in his 20s and died when he was fifty-seven. Of course he was so brilliant that he composed masterpieces and conducted orchestras even after he became totally deaf. We can’t be blamed for recommending abortion based on the information Agnew gave us.

This is what a frame does. It limits our vision and shapes our thinking without our noticing it. This is what all smart persuaders do. They give us a frame to see things through. Based on what we see through that frame we happily arrive at conclusions that the persuaders want us to. Often the frame appears so attractive that we don’t ask whether we need to look at things beyond what is in the frame. So with apologies to Marshall McLuhan, we can say the frame is the message.

Have you had any interesting experience of being influenced by smart framing by others?

Photo credit: istockphoto.com

The Mullaperiyar Persuasion Challenge

The 116-year-old Mullaperiyar Dam in the Idukki district of Kerala is an extraordinary feat of engineering. It is also a symbol of human ingenuity, grit, and passion. It was built in the late nineteenth century after several attempts, dating from the late eighteenth century, were abandoned as unworkable. That nearly 500 workers died of malaria during the construction of the dam (1887-95) shows the hostile environment in which the engineering feat was achieved. It made a big difference to the people of the arid Madurai region of Madras Presidency who had been starving for water. They cannot imagine life without water from Periyar.

This wonderful dam has been problematic right from the beginning. According to the Wikipedia account, it took the British who built the dam and the Maharajah of Travancore who owned the land twenty-four years of negotiations before a 999 year-lease was signed. It is alleged that it was an unfair agreement foisted on the Maharajah. We don’t know the true story.

What we do know is that that this great great human achievement  is at the heart of a complex issue with legal, technical, political, and emotional dimensions. The damn shows signs of ageing. After a few mild earthquakes in the region, people in Kerala believe it cannot withstand a big earthquake. Engineers and experts in Tamil Nadu maintaining the dam are certain that it is good enough to withstand any quake that the region is likely to experience and are willing to strengthen it. Kerala wants to decommission it and build a new quake-proof one using modern technology; Tamil Nadu is worried that this is a ploy to wrest control of water and eventually deny it. Neither side trusts the other. The intermingling of the threat to the livelihood of hundreds of thousands of people in Tamil Nadu and a potential disaster awaiting several thousand people downstream in Kerala makes it a complex issue.

Short-sighted politicians on both sides of the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border have made this issue knottier. Every day it is getting knottier. New fires are coming up in both the states, whose economies depend vitally on each other.  When Tamilians get beaten up in Kerala and Malayalee shops in Chennai get vandalised, the chances of an amicable solution virtually evaporate. 

There are no simple solutions to this complex problem. I believe a reframing of the issue is essential to bring both sides to a stage where a fair solution can be worked out.  I will give my views in a future post. In the meanwhile, I’m asking students of my course, Persuasive Communication, to study it as persuasion challenge and come out with a blueprint for a solution.

Readers, would you like to contribute your thoughts? Please don’t take a partisan view. There are plenty of people who have taken it on both sides of the border. What we need is a solution that has a reasonably good chance of being accepted by people of both the states. That can happen only through persuasion.

Photo credit: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullaperiyar_Dam

Steve Jobs, a super persuader?

Perhaps it is silly to ask if Steve Jobs was a super persuader. He came from nowhere and walked into the sunset not as a shrewd peddler of a bunch of overpriced i-products, not as the CEO of a highly successful technology company, but as a great human being who changed the world, as an extraordinary visionary who made the world a better place.

People who worked for him found him a dictator and a hard task master. He micromanaged his company like a jealous mother-in-law. He didn’t spare even a small fraction of his substantial personal fortune for philanthropy. No other person in living history, other than Princess Diana of UK, however, stole the world’s heart the way he did.

A more sensible question then is, ‘Why was Jobs a super persuader?’ To answer it let me take you to my home village in Kerala in 1991. That year, I brought back to my village a young maid (let’s call her Leela) my mother had hired to stay with me and my wife in Hyderabad and look after our young kids.

A few days later my mother came to know that Leela had taken her younger sister to the only beauty parlour in a town about ten km away and blew Rs 50 on some facial treatment. Mother was furious. Leela’s family was so poor and had so little to eat that she shouldn’t have wasted money like this. Did she think she was an apsara? Beauty parlours were for rich women who had nothing better to do.

I also found Leela’s behaviour inexplicable. What would she get from a one-off visit to a beauty parlour? Wasn’t it a senseless waste of her hard earned money? In rural Kerala twenty years ago, a visit to the beauty parlour was like air travel, a luxury reserved for the rich. But I defended her decision because she had every right to do what she wanted with her money. Of course, mother was not at all convinced because Leela’s family could have eaten well for a week if she had bought food for the money she burned at the parlour.

When I look back at that episode, what strikes me is how little we know about what really moves others. Perhaps poor Leela derived more joy from that single sitting in a beauty parlour than she would from a sumptuous meal at a fancy restaurant. Or from buying a week’s supply of food for the whole family. We don’t know.

Strangely, people don’t know their inner motives well enough to tell us even if we ask them earnestly and they are willing to open up. That is why extensive market research often fails to identify what customers really want and what makes them truly happy. We tend to judge others by our norms, our values. We may be broadly right, but rarely do we hit the bull’s-eye. If they have no choice, they may buy our products. We think we have persuaded them. But we are wrong.

Steve Jobs figured out what really moved people. He didn’t have any faith in market research. He wondered how people could talk about something they had not experienced or they didn’t even know was possible. Jobs could touch a spot somewhere in us that was inaccessible to research, to logic, to articulation. Once he touched that spot, we couldn’t resist him. It was almost like turning the ignition key of a car. The engine hidden under the hood can’t help roaring into action.

We knew his prices were atrocious; but we justified to ourselves that they were worth it. We would queue up to buy his products. We may explain our behaviour by saying that Jobs had style, taste, and an extraordinary sense of design. The fact is that we fell for him when there were other products which would do nearly everything that his i-products did for a much smaller investment.

Steve Jobs was a super persuader because he could touch a spot that we ourselves didn’t know we had somewhere in us. He was intuitively persuasive. Perhaps there won’t be another Steve Jobs because what he did was not born of education or reasoning.  

Photo credit Steve Jobs by Robert Galbraith/Reuters; Young woman after beauty treatment - http://www.istockphoto.com/

Vinod Mehta’s Googly

Vinod Mehta, Editor-in-chief of Outlook recalls (Delhi Diary, October 17, 2011) how he managed to get a full-length interview with Mansur Ali  Khan Pataudi - Tiger Pataudi - in 1974. It has some interesting lessons in persuasion.

Mehta had just taken over the fledgling men’s magazine Debonair as its editor-in-chief.  He was desperate to get a Playboy-type interview that would make the centrepiece of his launch issue. He knocked on many doors; none opened.

He tried to telephone Tiger Pataudi.  But the folks around the star cricketer wouldn’t put him through. Desperate, Mehta “wrote him a begging letter.” What made the begging persuasive was his admiring reference to Pataudi’s extraordinary performance on the cricket field. Mehta wrote that he had seen him score a century in both the innings against Yorkshire. He pointedly referred to the way Pataudi had battered Fred Trueman.

Photo credit: http://photogallery.outlookindia.com

The letter was magical. Mehta got an immediate reply and an invitation to Pataudi’s flat in Mumbai.

The story doesn’t end there. Mehta knew that Pataudi was fond of 555 cigarettes.  Mehta also knew that for someone like Tiger Pataudi, getting 555 was no big deal even in the Socialist 1970s. Still, Mehta “carried a tin” of Tiger’s favourite cigarettes.

Once he had a full-length interview with the cricketing great, Mehta says he had “much less difficulty persuading the great and the good to cooperate.”

Let’s look at the lessons.

First, no one is above persuasion. Heroes who are idolised by millions of people are human beings. They have human feelings. Even those who easily detect flattery and detest it have difficulty resisting the power of genuine admiration. If we study our targets well and frame our proposals appropriately, we should be able to persuade them. But we often give up even before trying. Or we use a frame that is convenient for us rather than appropriate for the target.

Second, gestures touch us. Mehta knew the value of maintaining relationships. The gift of 555 cigarettes after the interview is a testimony to the editor’s ability in this department. A great deal of persuasion is born out of relationships. Maintain them through gestures that touch the heart of the targets.

Third, Mehta used his big catch to persuade others, who were earlier unwilling to do anything for his venture.

None of the techniques of persuasion Mehta employed were extraordinary. What is extraordinary is the way he used ordinary techniques to persuade a star.

The King and I

I am sorry to disappoint you if you thought I was Deborah Kerr playing Anna Leonowens with Yul Brynner as the King of Siam. I am an ordinary rabbit. Let me tell you my story although  Aesop has already brought it  to you.

Years ago, there was an arrogant and capricious lion in our forest. He was called King Leo. He would kill all kinds of animals for food. That is quite understandable. After all, Kings and other members of the upper class thrive on the flesh and blood of ordinary folks.

But King Leo would kill mindlessly even when he wasn't hungry. When his atrocities crossed all limits, my brothers and sisters got together to find a way to stop him. Some of hot-blooded youngsters suggested that we kill the wretched predator. The older and wiser ones rubbished such plans.  They said it was easier to catch a cloud than kill a lion.

Finally, we worked out a solution. It was simple. We would send an animal every morning without fail to King Leo's court provided he stopped hunting us mindlessly. This was painful, but there appeared to be no other way to survive. King Leo agreed.

I told my brothers and sisters that this was ridiculous. I'm not surprised that nobody took me seriously. Not even tortoises take rabbits seriously any more.

Finally, it was my turn. I was young and dreaming of raising my own family. I didn't want to be gobbled up. But the elders had given their word. They insisted that I go.

That is when I really thought hard about getting rid of this menace. It was not possible to kill him. I wondered if I could persuade him to kill himself. I analysed King Leo's strengths and weaknesses. He had tremendous power and speed, and the supreme confidence that comes from being King.

He wanted everyone to accept him as King. He wouldn’t tolerate any rivals. I decided to play on it. I sat under a tree for quite some time and arrived late at King Leo's court. He was furiously pacing up and down. Obviously he didn't like to be kept waiting. I ran towards him and pretended to be panting.

King Leo was livid. His dinner was delayed. And that dinner was a tiny rabbit. He would need to eat at least five rabbits to bring down his hunger. He was about to strike me when I cried out tremblingly, “I’m sorry I’m late, but It's not my fault, it's not my fault!” Fortunately, he waited for a moment. Using that little opening, I continued: “There were six of us coming to you; but another big lion stopped us and ate my brothers. I'm the only one that escaped.”

“Don't be silly,” growled King Leo. “I am the Almighty King of this forest. There can't be any King but me.”

“That is what I also thought, your Majesty,” I said. “But this big lion not only ate my brothers up but also said that you were a doddering old impostor.”

“Take me to that b-----d right away,” he roared. I led him to a deep well with a lot of water at the bottom. I told him his rival was in the well. King Leo peered into the well, and he was shocked. He let out a huge roar to frighten the other lion. But he got back a roar that appeared a little louder. He couldn't stand it any longer. He decided to teach his rival a lesson. He jumped into the well. He never got out of it.

I don’t know if King Leo or his ‘rival’ learned any lesson. But I learned something: smart persuasion with brilliant framing can overcome many hurdles that appear insurmountable.

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. 

She strikes while the iron is hot (I)

We don’t know if Ruth was pretty.  We do know that she was bold and risk-taking. She, a Moabite, married a young man from a Jewish family hat had migrated to Moab to escape the drought at Bethlehem, Judah. In a few years tragedy struck. First her father-in-law died and then her own husband, followed by his brother. Difficult to pull on, Naomi, her mother-in-law, decided to return to her own people in Bethlehem.

Poor and unable to give her a good life, Naomi suggested that Ruth go back to her parents, marry again, and live happily.  She flatly refused. She said, “Wherever you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your god my God.” She wanted to accompany Naomi although the future looked bleak.

That’s how Ruth arrived in Bethlehem. Fortunately it was harvest time. As they had to find food, Ruth offered to go and glean some barley fields. It was a custom among the Jews to allow poor people to pick up leftover grains after the reapers had harvested the crop.

Ruth seems to have stood out from the crowd of women in the field she entered because the farm’s owner, Boaz, noticed her and took an instant liking to her. Discreet enquiries with his supervisors revealed that she was a widow, a foreigner, who had chosen to serve Naomi, her old and widowed mother-in-law, rather than stay back in her country and marry again. Boaz realised that he was related to Naomi’s husband. Anyway he became protective towards her. Apart from gifting her extra grains, he asked his workers not to lay a hand on her. He also invited her to eat and drink with the regular workers.

This went on till the end of the harvesting season. That’s when Naomi felt that Ruth should try to marry Boaz. Although middle-aged, he appeared to be an excellent choice because he was rich, decent, and generous.

Like many other tribes and communities, the Jews practised Levirate marriage when a married man died without an heir. The dead man’s brother was expected to be a go’el (kinsman-redeemer), marry the widow, and raise children in the name of the dead man. The dead man’s property also would go to the children of this new union. If there was no brother willing or available to take on this responsibility, the nearest male relative could be asked. Naomi felt that this was the route Ruth should explore although Boaz was not really the nearest male relative.

One evening Naomi told Ruth to wash and perfume herself and put on her best clothes. She added: “I’d like Boaz to be your go’el and marry you. Tonight he will be sleeping on the threshing floor guarding the barley that has been winnowed. Wait until he finishes eating and drinking. Once he’s asleep, quietly crawl under his blanket and lie next to him. Then let him take it forward.”

Ruth did exactly as her mother-in-law asked her to. In the middle of the night Boaz was startled to find a young woman lying next to him. She revealed her identity and whispered, “I am Ruth. Please put your cloak over me as you are my go’el. In plain words, ‘be my man and marry me.’

Boaz instantly agreed. The circumstances were such that perhaps he had little choice. Then he realised that there was a hurdle. There was another man who was more closely related to Naomi’s dead husband. Boaz assured her that he would sort that out the following day. He asked her to lie under the blanket until morning and leave before anyone saw her. The Bible (The Book of Ruth), from which this story is taken, is silent on whether there was anything more than a warm, hushed conversation between the two during the wee hours.

In the morning, Boaz fulfilled his promise. He met the other male relative in the presence of some elders, and presented Ruth’s case in such a way that he got the ‘rival’ out of the way. He married Ruth with the blessings of the community.

Ruth holds a special place in Jewish genealogy because King David was her great grandson.

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The story of Ruth is probably three millennia old. It illustrates many strategies of smart persuasion. Would you like to identify and comment on them? If you wish to read the original book of Ruth in a modern translation, here is the link.

Blessed are the thick-skinned

Once there was an unjust judge who didn't care about what the public thought of him. He wasn't afraid of God either. He did what he pleased. 

In his city there was a widow. She approached the nasty judge, complained to him about a man who was ill-treating her, and asked for justice. The judge just ignored her. She kept going back to him with the same plea and the judge kept turning her away. Finally, he said to himself, “I am tired of this woman. Even though I don't care about God or public opinion, I will see that she gets justice. I want to stop her from being a nuisance.” The widow gets what she wants.

After narrating this story (chapter 18:1-8, Gospel according to Saint Luke), Jesus asks his audience, “If this is what an unjust judge does, won’t God give justice to his children who cry out to him day and night?” 

I don’t know enough about God’s ways to answer this question with any certainty. But I do know that persistence pays with folks on earth. In fact, a thick skin is often more persuasive than an eloquent tongue when you have no power over your target.

If you want to be persuasive, you need some kind of power to bolster your persuasion attempts. The power could be that of muscle or money. Good looks can be as powerful as fertile brains. If you have popularity, tradition, or the law or on your side, that gives you power, too. If you have no power of any kind over your target, you cannot persuade him because he has nothing to lose by not complying.

In such contexts, a thick skin is the best bet. If we are thin-skinned, there are many disadvantages. First of all, we will hold ourselves back from making many potentially successful persuasion attempts. We are so worried about possible failures that we don’t even want to try. If we pick up enough courage to make a feeble attempt, we give it up as soon as we sense a snub. There are millions of men and women who would have been happy boyfriends and girlfriends or even devoted husbands and wives if they hadn’t taken their first rebuff too seriously and abandoned their wooing efforts.

There are two reasons why persistence backed by a thick skin is persuasive even when we have no power over the target. First, the target would like to avoid the embarrassment or nuisance that persistence generates. The unjust judge didn’t care about what happened to the widow or about what the public thought of him, but he didn’t want her to keep coming to him. He wanted to get rid of that nuisance.

Second, a persuader’s persistence is usually a sign of deep conviction and passion. Even if the target is unwilling to invest time and effort to examine whether the request is reasonable, he may readily come to the conclusion that if the persuader is so persistent, so convinced, and so passionate, he must be right and his request must be accepted.

Perhaps a thin skin is hurting many of us. The good news is that with a little bit of determined practice we can make it thicker. 

Rape vs Seduction

On August 15 Iraqis endured a record forty-two ‘terrorist’ attacks within a span of a few hours. On that day, the deadliest of the year, nearly a hundred innocent people lost their lives and three times as many were seriously wounded. As I read the news story, a simple question crops up in my mind. In the eight years since they invaded Iraq, what mission have the all-powerful Americans accomplished? Several hundred American soldiers and mercenaries who flew in to shoot have returned home in coffins. Several thousand Iraqis including women and children have been carried to their graves long before their time. Thousands of buildings have been razed to the ground. A once strong oil business is limping. The Americans are said to have burned over $250 billion.

The objective of this holy war, as announced George W Bush, was to make Iraq safe for democracy. If this was indeed the objective, the eight-year adventure has been a disaster. Iraq is no safer in 2011 than in 2003. Certainly not for democracy.

The story of Afghanistan is no different. There is the additional complication there of a sulking Pakistan, the most reluctant but key ally in America’s so-called war on terrorism.

If the American objective in going to war is to create jobs in the US by promoting their arms and ancillary industries, let me pat them on their back for a job well done. They need a place far away from home for the fireworks. Iraq is as good as any. When they get bored with one stage, they can move the show to another stage. Libya and Syria appear to beckon. There will, of course, be some collateral damage; but that is inevitable whether you build a dam or drop a bomb. This shouldn’t hold anyone back because human fodder is plentiful.

If, however, the true American objective is to grow democracy and uphold the dignity of human lives, war appears to be as inappropriate a tool as a butcher’s knife in a neurosurgeon’s hands.

But why criticise the Americans? If we look at ourselves in the mirror, we see the same animal, although on a much smaller scale. When we have power, we want to use coercion to get things done. Just like animals. It doesn’t matter whether we are individuals, organisations, or countries. We learn nothing from history. We believe our use of force is just; it’s different from the way all those other foolish countries, companies, and individuals use power to suppress dissent and to carry on their agenda.

Of course brute power works. Rape is the best example of this win-lose approach to the use of one’s raw power. The trouble is that it is inherently unjust. Therefore one also has to be constantly prepared for retaliation. One doesn’t know when and how it comes. But it will come. Isn’t seduction a much better option even when one has the power to force oneself on others? The flip side is that it takes long. It can test your patience. You may have to think out of the box. It is tough. But isn’t a win-win solution superior to a win-lose solution in the long run?

Full-bellied Persuasion

In a recent Washington Post opinion piece, ‘Fewer dinners mean meaner politics,’ author Lea Berman, a former White House social secretary, says, “Washington doesn’t go to dinner much anymore, and it’s bad for the country.” She observes that politicians from both sides cite their busy schedules as the excuse for not attending get-togethers that transcend party lines. Whatever the excuse, it’s not good for governance.

What happens when we break bread together? How does attending an iftar party or a networking dinner enhance our persuasive power? If eating together leads to enhanced persuasive power, persuading members of one’s family should be as simple as swimming downstream. But we know that it is just the opposite - nearly always.

Eating together does not on its own work any miracles. It is the socialising and getting to know one another as persons around the pleasant experience of eating a good, leisurely meal that does the trick. For many of us persuasion targets are specimens of generally unfavourable stereotypes rather than people who are made of flesh and blood just like us. When we deal with an enemy, we don’t have any difficulty working towards a win-lose outcome, and we don’t mind investing our time, effort, and other resources in pursuing it. It is difficult to take such an unfair and unreasonable attitude when we deal with a Rahul or a Rahim that we have broken bread with.

Even when we have to persuade a target we know very well and have interacted with, food and drinks are an excellent accompaniment. The sense of satisfaction that we get during a good meal may gently dull our critical faculties and soften our stand; this may be the reason why many successful negotiators like to soften their counterparts over a meal in a good restaurant.

Recent research by Professor Shai Danziger of Ben Gurion University of the Negev (Israel) establishes a link between food and judges’ decisions. When hungry, judges tend to be less sympathetic to the defendant than after a food-break. Perhaps this is a reiteration of the conventional wisdom captured well by Voltaire, “nous sommes tous meilleurs quand nous avons le ventre plein” (“we’re all better when our stomach is full”).

When we set out to do a tough persuasion task, it is perhaps a good idea to see if delicious food of the target’s choice can be given a supporting role. Chances are that it will more than pay for itself!       

A Glove Story

In The Heart of Change, John P. Kotter and Dan S. Cohen reproduce a story (‘Gloves on the Boardroom Table’) told by Jon Stegner, most probably the CEO of his company. He was concerned about the wasteful purchase practices he had observed in his company with several plants in multiple locations in the US. He was convinced that reforming the purchase procedures would save something like $1 billion in five years. He was also certain that this would not happen unless a large number of people, especially those at the top of the organization, changed their mind set.

But he didn’t give up. Instead of making PowerPoint presentations about the wasteful purchase practices in the company, he quietly asked one of his summer interns to study how many different kinds of gloves the company was buying and how much it was paying for each. This was one item that all the company’s factories were using in large numbers.

The student did a thorough job. She found that all the factories put together were buying 424 different kinds of gloves. She collected a sample each and put on it a tag that displayed the price the factory was paying to its supplier for it. When the project was over, it was discovered that one factory would pay as little as $5 for a pair of gloves and another factory as much as $17 for the same kind of gloves.

One day, Stegner had the 424 pairs of gloves sorted by which factory they came from, and displayed along with the price tags in the company’s boardroom. Then he invited all the division presidents to visit the boardroom. They couldn’t believe their eyes. They walked around the large table shaking their heads. They looked again and again at the gloves from their own factory. They could see for themselves the wide variation in the prices they were paying for the same gloves.

Stegner adds that it’s one rare event when no one had anything to say. They just bought the idea that the purchase procedures in the company had to be revamped.

Stegner followed this up with the travelling roadshow featuring the display of these gloves. It was sent to every division and every plant. With this he persuaded a large number of managers in his company to rethink radically the way they were buying not just gloves but other things too.

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Words are no doubt powerful in the game of persuasion. Clever use of words can frame proposals in a way that overcomes the target’s resistance. But words can rarely match the power of action, of demonstration, to wow the target. We need to ask ourselves if don’t often take the easy route of talk rather than action and demonstration when we are faced with challenging persuasion tasks. If we try smart, we may be able to come up with something dramatic even in apparently hopeless situations.

Advice for the desperate

Let me retell a delightful animal story. It’s a folk tale, probably from Akbar’s court. I’ll be surprised if you haven’t heard it as a child.

Once upon a time there were two good friends, a fox and a turtle. One day, while they were chatting on the bank of a river, a leopard suddenly appeared in front of them. The fox fled the scene like and arrow. But the turtle was very slow, and naturally the leopard caught it easily. Unable to do confront the agile attacker, the turtle drew himself deep into the shell.

The leopard tried his best to get at the turtle’s flesh, but the shell was so hard that he couldn’t crack it open. While he was struggling with the turtle shell and getting frustrated, the fox returned to the scene to find out what happened to his friend. From a safe distance he called out to the leopard and said, “Hey, you want to crack that shell? It’s simple. Just throw it into the river. You can easily rip it open once water makes it soft.”

The leopard was grateful to the fox for giving him such a valuable and timely piece of advice. He kicked the turtle into the river. Of course, the turtle quickly swam away, leaving the leopard hungry and fuming. The friendly fox also vanished from the scene.

The leopard didn’t ask why the fox was giving him advice. The leopard didn’t ask what made the fox an expert at shell-cracking. The leopard didn’t ask anything, didn’t think anything. He was so fed up with his failure to get at the turtle’s flesh, he just followed the fox’s advice.

This is an excellent illustration of the way many of us get persuaded by assorted ‘experts’ to do various things. When we become frustrated with our failures and buffeted by our insecurities, we turn to quacks and charlatans who oblige us. Their agents spread yarns that create an aura around them and confirm their power. We become willing putty in their hands. We stop being critical in certain departments of our life.

From time to time we hear about perfectly intelligent and highly knowledgeable people doing silly things for no better reason than their guru’s advice. Unfortunately, we are all among those perfectly intelligent and highly knowledgeable people. We can laugh at the leopard throwing away succulent turtle flesh by blindly following a wily fox’s advice. But we are unable to look at ourselves and see the leopard in us.

We may suppress a smirk when we see a highly successful doctor hanging half a dozen mirrors in his garden to ward off cosmic evil influences and any bad vibes coming from the neighbourhood. Seldom do we realise that we behave along the same lines when we are desperate. We may not hang mirrors, we may not sacrifice virgins, but if we look within our cupboard we are almost certain to find bottles of snake oil that we have bought with great faith.

There’s a saying that a drowning man will clutch even at a blade of grass. Persuasion works effortlessly when the target is desperate. And despair can come as easily from pimples or a few strands of grey hair as from a malignant tumour in the brain.