The Persuasion Box and a Cartoon Metaphor
22nd January 2011
One simple approach to practical persuasion is to combine Persuasion Boxes with Persuasion Plays. A Persuasion Box is a designed and built situation, context, or script that predisposes people to react in a preferred way. Arrange chairs so either: 1) folks face each other or, 2) they cannot even see one another. That’s a Persuasion Box. Or build a Standard Complaint Department or a Standard one plus smells of hot brewing coffee and pastries in the air. That’s a Persuasion Box. You construct a scene the Other Guy will enter and then . . .
. . . you deliver you persuasion play. Central or Peripheral Route. Args or Cues. Pick your CLARCCS. Maybe something hotter with Inoculation or Dissonance. Maybe something primitive and simple like Ding-Dong or For Me? And, sure, you design your Persuasion Boxes with the Plays in mind and think about the Plays with the Boxes in mind. Do you see?
Now, of course, there is a learning curve.
Persuasion Mavens learn where to stand in relation to the Persuasion Box, the Play, and the Other Guy. Not only do you write and direct the thing, but you do perform in it, too.
It’s about the Other Guy, Stupid.
If You Can’t Succeed, Don’t Try.
All Bad Persuasion Is Sincere.
All Persuasion Is Local.
Persuasion Is Strategic or It Is Not.
P.S. Here’s a much earlier post with the same idea, but the clever handle of Persuasion Box had not quite occurred to me then.