The Catalyst

The author employed mnemonic technique to help in memorising content. REDUCE-Reactance, Endowment, Distance, Uncertainty, Corroborating Evidence. This is very high school, yet very effective. REDUCE serves as a backbone of the book. Each letter represents a word that is a topic of a chapter. That particular word branches out into two or three themes discussed in a chapter. It concluded with a real life case study highlighting the technique discussed in a chapter.

Simple sentence structure was used through out the book. It’s a very easy and enjoyable read, absolutely no jargon. Reading this book felt like watching thriller TV series, where every episode ended in cliff-hanger. Every chapter ended with a brief preview of the next chapter and why it’s important to keep on reading. The author is a marketing expert, he uses his well-honed skills in his book too.

Reactance-barriers to change

Guided choices: people like to be in control. If we could give choices that are all acceptable to us to people, when they choose from guided choices they feel like they are in control and feel better about that choice. 

Don’t: broccoli is good for you, eat broccoli. Do: what would you like to eat first; broccoli or chicken?

Ask, don’t tell: people like autonomy. Ask people questions so they think for themselves and see the facts themselves instead of we making statements laying out the facts, which would trigger anti-persuasion radar and people would start to poke around for holes in a statement and refuse to change their minds.

Start with understanding: put ourselves in their shoes. Understand why they do what they do, think what they think. We are their partner in this journey. We are in this together. We don’t tell them what to do. People who feel understood are more malleable to change.

Endowment, inertia

It’s natural for people not to change and stay the course. Strategies to reduce inertia are suggested.

Surface the costs of inaction: People value loss twice as much as gain (loss averse bias). Appeal to loss, make it concrete and tangible. 

Burn the ship: take away the possibility of doing nothing. Or more gently, you can do nothing if you so choose, but it will cost you so and so. Make it costly to do nothing.

Distance

Imagine people position as they stand in a field. Acceptable zone is an area where people are willing to accept different point of views and may willing to shift their views, beyond which is a rejection zone. It is an area where the differences are far too great for people to accept. Whatever the proposal lands in this zone triggers strong scrutiny leading to refusal/rejection.

Find the movable middle: the key is not to change everyone, but only the ones more inclined to change. As their positions and the new positions are perhaps in an acceptable zone. After they change their minds, they may become advocates for the cause.

Ask for less: big asks fall in rejection zone; people will reject it outright. Ask for less, they are more likely to accept it. If they shift their positions, so does the zone of acceptance around them. It is, therefore, easier to shift their positions again as the zone of acceptance has been shifted. Baby steps that is.

Switching field, find unsticking point (agreement): find common ground (less likely that anti-persuasion radar is in operation) and then pivot.

Uncertainty

People don’t like uncertainty. Changes incur uncertainty. To induce changes, uncertainty must be reduced.  Try before you buy is a way to reduce uncertainty because upfront cost is zero.  There’s nothing to lose from trying it out. Free return is another strategy. If you don’t like it you can send it back for free. Again reducing uncertainty. There’s interesting research findings about this strategy. Several companies try to save cost by eliminating or shortening return policy. As return goods are costly to freight back, relabel, reshelf and resell. The longer return policies, however, are more profitable than shorter ones. The longer the products are with the customers, the less likely they get sent back.

Corroborating evidence

Changes need convincing. Big changes need strong evidence from multiple sources.  One person may not be enough to induce change. Recruiting more advocates or change agents may be beneficial. Small changes may not need that much evidence.