Frank: “I thought when I got the title, everyone would listen to me. But I’ve never been so frustrated in all my life.”

Frank is a Fellow in one of Silicon Valley’s largest high-tech companies.  “Fellow” is an extremely prestigious and the most senior title one can achieve in a scientific or engineering career.  It’s awarded to the very rare individuals whose brilliance has produced the new technologies which catapult an organization to the very top in their industry in both revenue and reputation.  Fellows are the geniuses behind the inventions we all enjoy. 

So far, Frank’s scientific and engineering breakthroughs had made his organization over $42 billion as new products he dreamed into existence rolled out to eager customers around the world.  He should have been someone everyone listened to.

The problem Frank was having, however, was happening full blown in frustrating meetings with the senior leadership team. No one was listening to him. Led by a new CEO, the company was now going in a direction that Frank saw was never going to be viable. They were talking about sinking hundreds of millions of dollars in a technology that Frank could see in advance would fail.

Frank: “The company is going off a cliff.”

The problem was, the people making the decisions did not have the technological expertise to understand why they were headed for a disaster. The new CEO got his technical advice from The Wall Street Journal. If it wasn’t in his morning paper, he dismissed it.

Frank’s problem was that he was SO smart, and knew so much, he was at a complete loss for how to explain complex technology principles to people who didn’t even understand the basics.

What made it worse was that Frank knew the technology advance that would save them and lead the company rather quickly into a new realm of innovation, consumer joy and market leadership. This is where they needed to invest the hundreds of millions. But when Frank tried to explain it all to the senior leadership team, their eyes glazed over. They told him, “No time, no budget, and very risky.”

Being the smartest guy in the room was excruciatingly painful.

Frank reached out to me with the question: “How do I get them to see the stupidity of the decisions they’re making?  And how do I get them to see the urgency of getting on the right path? Persuasion isn’t working.”

Frank was feeling what so many people feel – frustration as they try to “persuade” others to their point of view.

Why is “persuasion” so frustrating?

People make the mistake of thinking persuasion is what changes a person’s mind - that’s why so many books are written on the topic. It doesn’t.  At best, it’s entertaining and they’ll call you “passionate”. But when you review the history of the world, it’s clear that too many attempts at persuasion are unsuccessful. Or they take WAY too long and are often “too late”.

And here’s why. 

What Frank was facing is what everyone faces, what we all face, when we try to change someone’s mind. We see something they don’t see.

Getting others to see something they don’t see is NOT a matter of persuasion.  It’s a matter of AWARENESS. If they don’t see it, they don’t see it.

If I try to talk you into sitting down on a chair that you don’t see, NO amount of persuasion is going to get you to do it … until you actually SEE a chair there. Would you sit down on a chair you don’t see?  Even if I was very charming?  Or passionate?  Trying to get you to sit down on a chair you don’t see is stupid. Getting you to SEE the chair is not.

Do you see the difference?

Raising awareness and getting someone to see something is called enlightenment. It’s not persuasion. 

Enlighten means “to illuminate, to shed light on, to enable to see more clearly, to give light to, to give clearer views, to enable to see or comprehend truth, as to enlighten the mind or understanding.”

Another word for it is educate.

Most people think educate means lecturing.  No, don’t lecture people.  That’s not education.

Good education raises awareness.  Good education is what changes minds.  And powerful communicators do not view themselves as persuaders, they view themselves as educators. They excel at solving the universal problem of how to educate the masses.  They know this is the fastest way to get others, whether large groups or one person, on board and activated.

Great communicators are expert in raising awareness, in the process of enlightenment. This is the essential process for getting others to see it. It’s a process that has very definite steps and stages. It’s a process that’s well worth mastering. 

“Persuasion” gets in the way of enlightenment and people resent someone trying to persuade them when they just don’t see it. Even more if the person is “passionate”.

And while people hate having someone talk to them with a “I need to persuade you” approach, they do love a really good educator. They love and admire and listen to someone who can raise awareness.  They love seeing things they didn’t see before.  They’re grateful to the person who made it happen.

Frank was playing a losing game trying to persuade a poorly educated leadership team led by a mis-educated CEO. There was no way he could win.

During the Beyond Persuasion program, Frank switched gears from persuading to educating. He created a completely different strategy than he’d been using and it resulted in a completely different conversation.

He wrote me:

“At first they just couldn’t see it. I used to get mad and yell at them when they couldn’t see it, but this time I just kept acknowledging their concerns and continued enlightening them.  Then I saw the light bulbs going off.  Slow, then all at once. When I got them all to see it, they could really SEE it.  And then they couldn’t unsee it.  And at that point they saw that what I was saying was the only way.  We never got into a ‘right-wrong’ discussion, there was no conflict.  There was a lot of confusion at first, but I was totally prepared for it.  Then as we kept going, the light bulbs went off.  When they all could see it, they started telling me what we need to do … and it was exactly what I’d been trying to tell them.  I had to keep from laughing.  The outcome was HUGE.”

Frank is still the smartest person in the room.  But happily, it’s no longer a liability but a tremendous asset. He’s not only the smartest technologically, he’s also become their brilliant educator.  And this wonderful geeky, crazy-smart engineer loves that.  He’s discovered the profound joy of being an educator.

Don’t fixate on how they’re not doing what you want them to do.  Instead, ask yourself this question, “What is it they don’t see?”  Becoming a great educator is how you become a master of changing hearts and minds.

Be the cause!