Do you agree with the student? I think she’s partially right — arguing with people seldom works if one is just using facts and logic. Listening to and connecting with the person comes first. Books and articles about persuasive writing or speaking say it’s important to acknowledge both sides of an issue and establish the author/speaker as a trustworthy source. Just doing research and taking a lecturing attitude that we are right and the other person is wrong does make people harden their positions.
It reminds me of Aesop’s fable about the wind and the sun:
The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveler coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveler to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin.” So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveler. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveler wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair. Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveler, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.
“KINDNESS EFFECTS MORE THAN SEVERITY.”
I still remember being impressed by that story when I was in grammar school, but I think Stephen Convey says it better with his “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”:
The early Greeks had a magnificent philosophy which is embodied in three sequentially arranged words: ethos, pathos, and logos. I suggest these three words contain the essence of seeking first to understand and making effective presentations.
Ethos is your personal credibility, the faith people have in your integrity and competency. It’s the trust that you inspire, your Emotional Bank Account. Pathos is the empathic side–it’s the feeling. It means that you are in alignment with the emotional thrust of another person’s communication. Logos is the logic, the reasoning part of the presentation.
Notice the sequence: ethos, pathos, logos–your character, and your relationships, and then the logic of your presentation. This represents another major paradigm shift. Most people, in making presentations, go straight to the logos, the left brain logic, of their ideas. They try to convince other people of their validity of that logic without first taking ethos and pathos into consideration.
So I think the student is wrong saying it’s a waste of time to learn this. What do you think? Has someone else ever persuaded you of something, or have you persuaded someone else? What happened to make it work?
February 26, 2019
I’m pretty sure we have all (maybe inadvertently) persuaded someone – something based on facts and figures…
However, I’ve been on the receiving end a lot of those other people with apparently far superior knowledge than me… sometimes they are citing information about my past life or similar knowing that I know I made some type of mistake…(etc) and now it’s time to remind me!
Just yesterday, Dan said similar things on the blower…Dan is from my past as well, we rarely see one another, he is so involved in his chronic health issues…(nuff said)
Particularly now, although it’s funny because I’ve been single early the 90s – people are forever “thinking I’m all wrong…”
Not much of it works, these last themes…I take in some of what is said, I usually try to terminate the chat (change the subject) or I just do it anyway, my way 🙂
I thought of you and those people as I wrote this post. It’s amazing how many people think they’re an authority on other people’s lives.
and it’s even funnier when one considers there is no one else here 24/7 – somehow I manage to feed myself, keep my house relatively clean, organise stuff & get out and catch a bus/walk to somewhere …
Yesterday when I was advising the older lad next door about my trip away – he reminded me not leave the outside light on! Because you see when I went to hospital in a hurry last year – I had the outside light on all week…fun because I hadn’t expected to go to hospital that evening, but I didn’t want to be fumbling in the dark when I came home…
And “no, I won’t be leaving the light on…K…” kind of sad that people get on some assumed bandwagon in respect of this lady who although old, isn’t really old and actually manages 24/7 to be relatively “normal” 🙂
How rude of that lad! Wishing you a happy trip would have been more friendly and appropriate. 🙁
I agree, simply making a rational point seldom convinces anyone. People are more likely to respond on the basis of emotions or aspirations or just their personal experience. Certainly trying to persuade someone too forcefully usually backfires, as they resent what they see as being told what to think.
Yes, sometimes it’s better to keep our mouths shut or maybe do a lot of listening and trying to understand them if they’re not completely ranting or being hateful is a better approach.
I think that it’s far too early in the morning for me to wrap my mind around this and give an intelligent answer. Maybe after I’ve got more coffee in me.
It doesn’t matter. Thanks for coming by!
I’m going to print out this post, if you don’t mind. It’s truly inspired because we had such a “discussion” yesterday at work during a staff meeting, and this posts says why emotions ran high on both sides. One particular co-worker insists and goes totally by the rules and regulations on the most trivial of things, instead of listening to what’s practically done and still gets the same exact results. But she says “we” (okay me) it’s all wrong, and it just makes me boil over. Argh… I’m worked up all over again just thinking about it. And I probably should have not driven home right away afterwards! 🙂
I have to add to this, that this particular co-worker only works in our office once a week. She barely acknowledges or speaks to any of us, and this post totally explains why “we” not just “me” feel the way we do about her.
Thank you for this post!! Enjoy your Wednesday!!
Thank you! I’m glad you liked the post.
My husband and I could persuade one another to their point of view using facts and logic. We had in depth conversations all the time and never held on to our own point of view if the facts didn’t hold up. It always shocks me how often people hold on to their misinformation when the facts don’t back them up. Stubbornness at the expense of of logic. They’re an art to debating without using heat in your voice and that can make a big difference and, yes, listening is an important component.
Andy is vehemently anti-government and I’m a liberal, so we don’t debate much about politics — that’s more a matter of values than of facts, but we’re both open to changing our minds about what we perceive if we can check it with facts.
An emotional argument based on facts once worked amazingly well for me. I had to write an article of persuasion for an English composition class. At the time I had given up trying to persuade my daughter’s dentist to pull her “fangs”. So I wrote an article entitled “Vampire or Toothless” listing all the ways we had tried and failed to get our daughter to brush her teeth thus making braces not be a good solution. Then, with my writing instructor’s encouragement to give it to the dentist, she pulled the fangs.
How neat that you could convince him. 🙂