The Human Element

10 Overcoming Reactance: How to Help Your Audience Persuade Themselves

We recently gave people the words influence and persuasion and asked them to write down the first words that came to mind. The top three words were: manipulate, convince, and sell. People instinctively associate the act of influence with imposing their ideas onto others. But masters of influence know something that the rest of us don't. Pushing rarely works. The greater the push, the greater the Friction.

The secret to overcoming Reactance is to stop pushing for change. Rather than attempting to persuade others, we should help them to persuade themselves. We call this approach to influence and innovation, self‐persuasion. Self‐persuasion occurs when the arguments and insights for change come from within.

The Power of Self‐Persuasion

The evidence for self‐persuasion is clear and compelling. In one simple study, a group of smokers were divided into two conditions: speakers and listeners. Speakers were asked to read aloud an anti‐smoking article to another smoker. Listeners heard the identical message, but it had been spoken to them by another smoker. Keep in mind that for both groups, the message was the same. For the speakers, at least in a superficial sense, the message came from them. They didn't write the words in the message but they were nevertheless speaking the message. For the listeners, the message ...