Leader Levers to Change a Mind
Professor Howard Gardner, a lifelong researcher and expert on the mind, has identified seven levers that leaders must employ to change minds:
- Reason: When we try to persuade others, reason plays a pivotal role. Most businesses rely on analysis and logical processes when making decisions: identifying relevant factors, weighing each in turn, and making an overall assessment.
- Research: The scientific approach collects relevant data and analyzes it in a systematic manner (often statistical) to verify or cast doubt on promising trends. (Note: Research needn’t always be as formal.)
- Resonance: Appealing to one’s feelings — and thus creating “emotional resonance” — is a powerful way to change minds. While one may hear reason and research arguments, change may occur on an unconscious level as one develops a connection to the mind-changer.
- Representational Redescriptions: A change of mind may rely upon utilizing several different modes that reinforce each other. For example, a PowerPoint presentation may present the same concept using percentages, bar graphs, and other graphic images, all of which explain the same key concept in distinct ways.
- Resources and Rewards: Mind-changing is sometimes more likely to occur when resources and rewards are made available (positive reinforcement). Ultimately, however, unless the new course of thought is congruent with reason, resonance, and research, it is unlikely to last beyond the provision of rewards.
- Real-World Events: Wars, terrorists, natural disasters, and economic depressions can influence mind-changing. On the positive side, so can prosperity and peace. It is easier to convince a nation to go to war after a terrorist attack, even when the facts are lacking.
- Resistances: It is unrealistic to assume that you won’t encounter resistance—the strong force that negatively affects mind change. Research demonstrates that changing minds becomes more difficult with age; we develop strong views that are resistant to change. Any effort to understand the process of changing minds must take resistance into account.
A mind change is most likely to occur when the first six factors operate in concert, and when resistance is relatively weak. Conversely, a change of mind is unlikely to occur when resistances are strong and the other factors fail to point strongly in one direction.
