Why Your Arguments Fail to Win Hearts and Minds
I listen to people “trying” to be persuasive all the time. In politics, the democrats and republicans try to prove that the other person is wrong using the same rhetoric. They both use the same words to define why the other is wrong in so many cases.
“He voted for this 94 times.”
“Oh yeah, well he voted for that 123 times.”
When they don’t claim victory on the same topics, they argue their point as though it is natural to assume that everyone agrees.
“You’re American so you know that I must be right!”
Liberals try to convince the world they are right by spouting liberal logic and conservatives try to convince the world the same using conservative logic.
This doesn’t work because they never try to come to a common point of interest. They don’t try to illustrate where they agree and use the logic of the person they are talking to in order to sway public opinion.
Do you see the problem yet? Do you understand yet why your argument doesn’t win hearts and minds?
So often when people try to argue their point, they are making their case for the choir and not for the new members in the congregation.
Let’s look at some non-partisan examples.
“Stop using paper because of all the trees that are being cut down.” What if I am smart enough to realize that most paper comes from trees grown for that purpose?
“We need to fix Global Warming now or the polar bears will die.” What if I don’t believe that Global Warming exists from a man made perspective?
“We need more laws to allow people to have healthcare insurance so that our healthcare system will be fixed.” What if I think that healthcare insurance is the problem and that getting people off insurance will do more good than the opposite?
You see, with each of the three arguments above, the assumption is made that I would naturally agree with the premise. If I don’t agree with the premise, the conclusion is meaningless to me.
If I don’t agree that deforestation exists because of paper use, I won’t care about using too much paper.
If I don’t agree that Global Warming is man made, I won’t be moved to care about the polar bears.
If I don’t think that insurance is good for the healthcare system, I won’t want to help people get more insurance.
Framing your argument is key to winning hearts and minds. If you use the rhetoric to rally your base of support on those that don’t agree with your premise, then you will never change people’s minds.
Corey Smith is the president of Tribute Media a web development firm providing high performing, industry specific websites. He is a businessman, writer, technology fanatic, graphic designer and web developer. His greatest passion is teaching, consulting and speaking.
You can find him on Twitter, FaceBook, FriendFeed, and LinkedIn.
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here here
This subject can go on and on and on...
and I know I do not need to persuade you ...
the debate is very heated, and to me, the less an indivdual knows about his argumetn, the more emotional the argument becomes...
products of public education just makes me shake my head...
re: here here
Emotion is the foundation of just about any decision. Even if we claim to be impartial or have our emotions in check, we still make decisions based on what we feel. We simply can't have enough information to do otherwise.
As sales people, we need to understand that if we are tying to help people understand that our product solves their business problems.
That helps our clients to feel emotionally connected to what we have to offer.
Corey