Having difficulty drumming up support for your ideas at work? Here’s a tip from Harvard’s Howard Gardner, one of the world’s leading authorities on education and communication.
Keep at it.
Gardner argues that an idea must be communicated many times and in many ways — with humor, by embedding it in a story, via PowerPoint slides — to reinforce it with people who are less likely to be open to new things the older they become.
The more formats you use, the better the chance to break through, he says.
He calls this representational re-description, and you can read an excellent account of Gardner’s communications theory in this Harvard Management Update reprint, Tactics for Changing Minds, by Lauren Keller Johnson. She writes:
How might you use representational re-descriptions to persuade managers in your organization to consider the technology? Gardner advises against simply cobbling together a blend of statistics, stories, and other formats. Instead, frame your mix of message formats in neutral terms that help your audience ease into evaluating a legitimate, familiar problem objectively. For instance, say something like, “Remember how we lost those three customers last quarter because of order-processing errors? I have some insights about how that may have happened.” Then tell the story of what went wrong.
Can you tell us a story about how you persuade people at work?
