Unfortunately, that approach often backfires. Unlike marbles, people don’t just roll with it when you try to push them. They push back. Rather than saying yes, the client stops returning our calls. Rather than going along, the boss says they’ll think about it, which is a nice way of saying “Thanks, but no way.” Rather than coming out with their hands up, a suspect holes up and starts shooting.
So if pushing people doesn’t work, what does?
A Better Way to Change Minds
To answer this question, it helps to look to a completely different domain: chemistry.
Left to itself, chemical change can take eons. Algae and plankton turning into oil, or carbon being gradually squeezed into diamonds. For reactions to occur, molecules must break the bonds between their atoms and form new ones. It’s a slow and painstaking process that happens over thousands if not millions of years.
To facilitate change, chemists often use a special set of substances. These unsung heroes clean the exhaust in your car and the grime on your contact lenses. They turn air into fertilizer and petroleum into bike helmets. They speed change, enabling molecules that might take years to interact to do so in seconds.
Most intriguing, though, is the way these substances generate change.
Chemical reactions usually require a certain amount of energy. Turning nitrogen gas into fertilizer, for example, usually requires heating things up to over 1000°C. Adding enough energy, through temperature and pressure, to force a reaction.
Special substances speed up the process. But rather than upping the heat or adding more pressure, they provide an alternate route, reducing the amount of energy required for reactions to occur.
At first glance, this seems impossible. Like magic. How can faster change happen with less energy? It seems to violate the very laws of thermodynamics.
But special substances take a different approach. Rather than pushing, they lower the barriers to change.
And these substances are called catalysts.I
* * *
Catalysts have revolutionized chemistry. Their discovery generated multiple Nobel Prizes, kept billions of people from starving, and spawned some of the greatest inventions of the last few centuries.
But their underlying approach is equally powerful in the social world. Because there is a better way to generate change. It’s not about pushing harder. And it’s not about being more convincing or a better persuader. These tactics might work once in a while, but more often than not they just lead people to up their defenses.
Instead, it’s about being a catalyst—changing minds by removing roadblocks and lowering the barriers that keep people from taking action.
That’s exactly what hostage negotiators do. Anyone faced with a SWAT team bearing down on them is bound to feel trapped. Whether they’re a Russian mobster or a would-be bank robber holding three hostages at gunpoint. Push them too hard and they’ll snap. Tell them what to do and they’re unlikely to listen.
Good hostage negotiators take a different tack. They start by listening and building trust. They encourage the suspect to talk through their fears and motivations and who’s waiting for them back home. Even talking about pets in the middle of a tense stand-off, if that is what’s required.
Because the hostage negotiators’ aim is to ease the pressure, rather than banging down the door. Gradually lowering the suspect’s fear, uncertainty, and hostility, until they look at their situation and realize that the best option is likely the one that seemed unthinkable at the start: coming out with their hands up.
Great hostage negotiators don’t push harder. Or up the heat in an already tense situation. Instead, they identify what’s preventing change from happening and remove that barrier. Allowing change to happen with less energy, not more.
Just like a catalyst.
Catalyzing Change
I started studying catalysts because I was stuck.
A Fortune 500 company had asked for help launching a revolutionary new product, but traditional approaches weren’t working. They’d tried advertising, push messaging, and all the usual tactics, without much luck.
So I dug into the literature.
In my day job, as a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, I’ve spent more than two decades studying the science of social influence, word of mouth, and why things become popular. With a set of amazing colleagues, I’ve conducted hundreds of experiments on everything from why people buy to what drives decision-making and choice. I’ve had the pleasure of teaching tens of thousands of students and executives, and helped hundreds of companies like Apple, Google, Nike, and GE change minds, behaviors, and actions. I’ve helped Facebook launch new hardware, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation sharpen messaging, and small start-ups, political campaigns, and nonprofit organizations get their products, services, and ideas to catch on.
But as I read more and more, I realized that most perspectives out there took the same traditional approach. Coax, convince, and encourage. Push, push, push. And if that doesn’t work, rinse and repeat. Step on the gas and push harder.
And they weren’t working.
I started wondering if there might be a better way. I interviewed start-up founders to learn how they drive adoption of new products and services. I talked with CEOs and managers to discover how great leaders transform organizations. I spoke to superstar salespeople to learn how they convince the toughest clients. And I consulted with public health officials to find out how they change behavior and speed diffusion of important medical innovations.
Slowly, a different method emerged. An alternate approach to changing minds.
We tried a rough version with the client and it got a little traction. We revised it and were even more successful. Emboldened by these early wins, we tried extending the approach to a different company. They found it useful, and soon I was trying this technique on all my consulting projects. Driving product adoption, changing behavior, and shifting organizational culture.
One day a potential client asked if I had something written up that I could share. Something that documented our strategy and approach.
I culled slides from different PowerPoint decks but realized that wasn’t enough. There needed to be one place where all the information was pulled together in an easy-to-read package.
This is that place.
Find the Parking Brakes
This book takes a different approach to change.
Unfortunately, when it comes to trying to create change, people rarely think about removing roadblocks. When asked how to change someone’s mind, 99 percent of the answers focus on some version of pushing. “Present facts and evidence,” “Explain my reasons,” and “Convince them” are common refrains.
We are so focused on our desired outcome that we’re consumed with how we can push people in that direction. But along the way, we tend to forget about the person whose mind we’re trying to change. And what’s stopping them.
Because rather than asking what might convince someone to change, catalysts start with a more basic question: Why hasn’t that person changed already? What is blocking them?
That’s what this book is all about: how to overcome inertia, incite action, and change minds—not by being more persuasive, or pushing harder, but by being a catalyst. By removing the barriers to change.