Here’s an interesting WSJ article that looks at American health care delivery and divides it into two well known camps: Best Practices or Market Forces. The Best Practices approach argues that experts should acquire scientific knowledge, evaluate its quality, then define Best Practices that should be delivered throughout the system for both providers and people. Market Forces argues instead that delivery should be based on what people want and will pay for with providers who decide what they want to give and at what price.

You can see metaphorically the two approaches to persuasion in this case. Persuasion can take either a Source or a Receiver orientation. With the Source approach everything depends upon how the Source thinks and acts, the process and the outcome flow from Source creativity and action. The Receiver orientation is just my Rule, It’s about the Other Guy, Stupid. It doesn’t matter what you do, it matter whether the Other Guy changes.

The Best Practices approach to health is that Source orientation. The Source is the expert and drives everything else. By contrast, Market Forces hit that Receiver orientation and the emphasis upon the Other Guys.

Sure, it takes two to tango and you always have Source and Receiver mixed in every persuasion play if only because we’re talking about communication and those parts must always play. This isn’t Either-Or. It is emphasis.

My bias from both experience and research is on that Receiver, Other Guy orientation. I was never smart enough and could not find enough smart enough partners to get close to the Queen of Tomorrow solution where a bunch of us experts Made It Happen. As long as I kept my own supreme intelligence and efficacy in a straightjacket and maintained a laser beam focus on Other Guys, I could occasionally find success.

Given the size of the persuasion problem here with over 300 million Americans and a couple of million providers of various types, I don’t see how any expert or group of experts can possibly arrive at a solution that actually works. Sure, you can pretend like the Obama Administration does with their health and safety interventions, assuming, of course, you can get them past a court – whodda thought persuasion had to be legal? But even when legal, they don’t produce much Change in Other Guys.

And, isn’t that the TACT?

Coming soon.

WANTED: Highly motivated, sincere, and passionate Institute seeks Persuasion Professional with skill and experience in changing public opinion and voting behavior on health and safety legislation. We want to pass the first State law that bans Driving with Dogs, DwD. When we achieve this vision we then will pivot into the National scene to obtain Federal legislation. Qualified candidates must work with talented amateurs, small budgets that encourage innovative thinking, and persistence past constant external derision, internal civil war, and outcome failure. Pay with benefits, an air-conditioned corner office, access to liberated version of Photoshop, and a stack of tested Warning Labels are only a small part of this attractive, compelling, and unique opportunity at a job with lifetime tenure regardless of performance. We seek passionate people of color or pale people who glow when inspired. Text or tweet your application if you Like us on Facebook.

Coming later.

Seeking: Registered (currently) lobbyist group seeks stone cold maven to wreak havoc on Dog Hating activists. Must die like Iago if things go badly. Large budget, no office, and access to teams of professionals in deep cover. Only those without fingerprints need apply. Must pass for any ethnic, racial, language, or gender group. Evade normal application and security processes to secure an interview.

Look to persuasion on animal issues as the next New New Thing in Lifestyle legislation. Lots of persuasion opportunities on all sides.

Seriously. I remember a number of years ago working with a talented group of tobacco control mavens just as the Master Settlement was being negotiated. One of them related that as soon as the lawsuit was in place, everyone should get ready for the Food Police. We all scoffed. Food is like tobacco?!?

Robert Caro publishes his fourth volume on Lyndon Baines Johnson. This book covers Johnson’s final years as master of the Senate through becoming President following the assassination of John Kennedy. The reviewer, former President Bill Clinton, offers a sharp, concise, and smart summary of LBJ’s skills.

If you were a partisan, he’d call on your patriotism; if a traditionalist, he’d make his proposal seem to be the Establishment choice. His flattery was minutely detailed, finely tuned and perfectly modulated. So was his bombast — whatever worked. L.B.J. didn’t kiss Sam Rayburn’s ring, but his lips did press against his bald head. Harry Byrd received deference and attention. When L.B.J. became president, he finally had the power to match his political skills.

Most people hated Johnson for a wide variety of reasons ranging from Left to Right: Viet Nam and Civil Rights to name two big ones. Johnson accomplished more legislatively than most Presidents and it came from his knowledge of the Senate and his persuasion skills. You feel the tension and the glory of this in Bill Clinton’s book review.

See the mix of Arguments and Cues. See how Johnson made his Box and Play fit each unique person.

More importantly, see the Rules.

It’s about the Other Guy, Stupid.

You Can Get Farther with a Kind Word and a Gun Than You Can with Either Alone.

But, if you know the rest of the story: Power Corrupts Persuasion.

P.S. Excellent book review from Clinton. He fails to fail as many reviewers do and avoids those clumsy nuances a smart reviewer intrudes upon either the book writer or the book topic. Clinton reviews the book well. He also admits his respect for Johnson, providing another reason why so many progressives hate Clinton like they hated Johnson. And, as good as Clinton was as a persuasive President, Johnson still leaves him in the shade. If you like Big Government, you need to study the Great Society.

Now, we’re getting serious.

SAN ANTONIO, April 26 (Reuters) – U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood called on Thursday for a federal law to ban talking on a cell phone or texting while driving any type of vehicle on any road in the country.

This is a US Federal Government Cabinet Secretary here, not some Cool Table academic at Charlie Rose U. Of course, laws specifically banning cell phone use while driving have no, none, nada impact on accident, injury, or mortality rates, but those kind of numbers don’t count. What counts is the politics and the self concept, baby.

Is this an election year or what?

Seriously. This is an election year and such persuasion follies are haute cuisine for the Obama base. Implicit in LaHood’s charge is the thought that as long as Obama is President, we might actually get legislation like this. No Obama, No Hope!

Of course, even with Obama, Hope, but alas, No Change.

Must be lots of Dissonance Reduction served at the Table of Brother-and-SisterHood. Mmmmm, these Warning Labels sure taste good!

You recall Al Armendariz and his Crucifixion Persuasion Play™. Serving as an Obama-appointee regional administrator for the EPA, Armendariz stole a page from the Roman playbook. That Imperial State got greater compliance from Other Guys simply by grabbing a few of them at random and publicly crucifying them. Law and order ensued. Armendariz applied that to the Other Guys from his jurisdiction, mainly oil and gas guys in Texas. How’d that work out?

The EPA regional administrator who suggested the agency was out to “crucify” lawbreaking oil and gas companies has resigned. Al Armendariz said he regrets his comments and doesn’t wish to be a distraction for the agency, he wrote in a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on Sunday.

Mavens note the nuance. The Crucifixion Persuasion Play™ itself is not a distraction requiring resignation. Videotaping an instructional video on the Crucifixion Persuasion Play™ that then surfaces two years later is the distraction requiring resignation. Mr. Armendariz would still be gathering the considerable and proven benefits of a random schedule of punishment if he simply did the play rather than explain the play.

Hey. Why Nudge when you can Crucify?

Just don’t videotape it . . . or write a book about it. Hey. I’m a persuasion expert. Give me this megaphone so I can tell everyone how I do it.