TheRedArchive

~ archived since 2018 ~

How do you get people to support your goals?

Eric Barker
January 19, 2013

 

People want to feel that they’re a part of something.

They want to feel a thing is theirs, that they contributed, and that they have some ownership of it.

These may seem like platitudes but research is showing just how important these feelings are to leadership, influence and motivation.

Duke University behavioral economist Dan Ariely discusses this in his book:  The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home.

Years ago, Pillsbury noticed that their cake mixes had poor sales. They theorized the buyers didn’t feel the cakes were “theirs.” By removing a few of the ingredients and requiring users to do more, sales increased:

One theory was that the cake mixes simplified the process to such an extent that the women did not feel as though the cakes they made were âtheirs.â At the time, a psychologist and marketing expert by the name of Ernest Dichter speculated that leaving out some of the ingredients and allowing women to add them to the mix might resolve the issue. This idea became known as the âegg theory.â Sure enough, once Pillsbury left out the dried eggs and required women to add fresh ones, along with milk and oil, to the mix, sales took off.

Dan Pink, author of To Sell is Human, discussed a very similar phenomenon in sales research when I interviewed him:

Basically, these two scholars, they started studying Hollywood pitching. They did a very exhaustive study. Basically what they found, which you know, Iâm sure, from your screenwriting days, is that pitching isnât about convincing somebody, pitching is essentially about inviting them in.

Thatâs essentially their view. That changed my view on it a little bit. I think pitching is like, âAre you with me?â and actually thatâs not the way to do it. The way to do it is, âHereâs the pitch. Whatâs your contribution?â When the other side contributes, it actually builds something, and itâs usually a little bit better, but also the other side is more invested in it and so forth. The idea of pitching is to begin an engagement with somebody, not to necessarily convince them right there. Then I outlined the six successors to the elevator pitch which are all I think really interesting, backed by some of the social science.

What’s really interesting is, it doesn’t take much.

Just like adding eggs was enough to give a feeling of ownership over a cake, relatively minor adjustments like reordering words increased feelings of ownership and warmth toward ideas and solutions:

Via The Upside of Irrationality:

â¦we concluded that once we feel that we have created something, we feel an increased sense of ownershipâand we begin to overvalue the usefulness and the importance of âourâ ideas⦠Would the simple act of reordering the words to form the solution be enough to make people think the idea was theirs and consequently overvalue it? â¦even reordering the words was sufficient for our participants to feel ownership and like the ideas better than the ones given to them.

So how can you leverage this?

Lectures, rants, pitches and direct orders need to become conversations if you want the support of others.

Incorporating even their smallest contribution can help people feel a part of something and join your cause.

TheRedArchive is an archive of Red Pill content, including various subreddits and blogs. This post has been archived from the blog bakadesuyo.

bakadesuyo archive

Download the post

Want to save the post for offline use on your device? Choose one of the download options below:

Post Information
Title How do you get people to support your goals?
Author Eric Barker
Date January 19, 2013 4:54 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Blog bakadesuyo
Archive Link https://theredarchive.com/blog/bakadesuyo/how-do-you-get-people-to-support-your-goals.13586
https://theredarchive.com/blog/13586
Original Link https://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/01/people-support-goals/
Red Pill terms in post
You can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea.

© TheRedArchive 2024. All rights reserved.
created by /u/dream-hunter