Mindstuck with Michael McQueen

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Roger Dooley [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Brainfluence. I’m Roger Dooley. Today’s guest joins us from Sydney, Australia, the other side of the planet from Austin. Michael McQueen is a keynote speaker and the author of nine books. He’s been named Australia’s keynote speaker of the year and has been inducted into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame. From Fortune 500 brands to government agencies and not for profits, Michael helps clients navigate disruption and stay one step ahead of change. Michael’s new book is Mindstuck, Mastering the Art of Changing Minds. Welcome to the show, Michael.

Michael McQueen [00:00:35]:
Thank you so much. Lovely to spend some time speaking with you.

Roger Dooley [00:00:37]:
Now, Michael, you opened with a story for the book that unexpectedly resonated with me. I was in a convenience store literally a week ago, and I wanted to buy a bottle of know, just drinking water, not a giant one, just sort of personal sized drinking water. And I find one that appears to be about the right size, not really paying too much attention. I grab it off a shelf and I look at it, and it says, recycled water. And my immediate reaction was, well, maybe I will put that back on the shelf and grab another one, which I did, even though the rational part of my mind was saying, well, I’m sure it’s perfectly fine. It’s on the shelf there. But there was that hesitation that said, okay, I’m not even going to think about this. I’m going to pick one that doesn’t say recycled on it, just says spring water or something.

Roger Dooley [00:01:27]:
And you begin the book with a story about that. Explain.

Michael McQueen [00:01:30]:
Yes. So looking at this whole theme, because this has become a theme in lots of parts of the world where water scarcity is like, it’s a real deal. And so obviously, different cities and government agencies are trying to find ways around that. And something that’s been pretty reliable scientifically for a lot of years is the recycling of wastewater into purified drinking water. And we’ve seen lots of parts of the world that have done this for a long time. But in the last few years, a few key areas there in the states, and they’ve made for really good case studies, have had huge resistance to it. So San Diego probably is top of the list. So, San Diego, when the government tried to push through a change to make some of their drinking water, recycled water, massive pushback.

Michael McQueen [00:02:12]:
Now, the interesting irony in that, of course, is that for years, they’d piped water from the Colorado river, where it was essentially recycled drinking water. Because anytime anyone lives on an inland river system that you are drinking recycled drinking water generally, because, in fact, the saying in the industry is that every drop of water goes through seven sets of kidneys from when it falls as rain to when it gets evaporated. Reevaporated. So this happens anyway as part of the natural cycle. But the moment you tell people you’re doing it scientifically, they arc up. There was this huge resistance to it. And so one of the case studies I look at in the start of the book is how San Diego changed that. How do they address that sense of irrational disgust and actually get people to the point where everyone was actually like, this is a great thing, and we’re all for it.

Michael McQueen [00:02:57]:
We see why it’s a good idea now. And it’s one of those great examples of changing people’s very fixed and rigid views about an issue by addressing often the irrational parts of their brain, the things that made them not want to change, even though the change made perfect, logical sense. So your experience is pretty standard. And so a lot of the book looks at, how do you address that and hopefully get people to change their minds?

Roger Dooley [00:03:18]:
Right? Maybe not branded as recycled water to begin with would be one way, but no, actually, this is an irrational thing, Michael, but I think it’s human nature. There is other research that showed that simply putting a disgusting product in a shopping cart, such as kitty litter or hygiene products or something next to cookies, made the cookies taste worse. I mean, their perception that the cookies were not as good as ones that hadn’t been placed next to that. And it even made a difference in this experiment, whether the container was opaque or transparent, being transparent, letting the cooties through from the other thing more effectively. And it’s obviously not rational at all. Everything’s all sealed up there. There’s nothing that’s going to transmit from one product to the next. But still, that changes people’s behavior.

Roger Dooley [00:04:12]:
Well, explain, how do you change that behavior? How did they change that perception of recycled water?

Michael McQueen [00:04:19]:
The first things to realize is which part of people’s minds are they using to arrive at these judgments? And that’s one of the key things in the book, is I look at this notion, and we often say that I’m of two minds about a decision or an idea. And when you actually unpack that, there’s something fundamentally true about it. And it’s not just that you’re of two minds in that you’re indecisive, you’re actually of two minds in that we operate with two very different minds at any given moment. And so when you’re trying to change someone’s mind, as they did in San Diego with the recycled water. The key question is, which mind are you trying to change? And so if you look at the two different minds and how they function, the inquiring mind is the frontal lobe, logical, linear, rational part of our brain that we’d love to think, we use to make decisions and arrive at judgments. And the rest of it. The truth is, we only use that for about five to 10% of all of our decisions and judgments. The other 90, 95% of our opinions and judgments are formed in our instinctive mind.

Michael McQueen [00:05:14]:
And the instinctive mind is more related to the limbic system. It is emotion driven. It is narrative driven. It looks for patterns. Pattern formation is really key, but it’s also part of that fight and flight mechanism. And so the moment you perceive anything to be a threat, your instinctive mind instantly jumps to conclusions. It’s very reactive and impulsive. And so if you’re trying to change someone’s impulsive mind or their instinctive mind, you need to actually start with, what are the things that are making it arrive at the conclusions that it is.

Michael McQueen [00:05:42]:
And so in the case of recycled water, one of the key things was actually to change the language. So instead of talking about recycled water, it became purified drinking water. And so these are just even the slightest things you could do. They also changed the sort of metaphors around water. For instance, they produced a beer that was produced using recycled or purified drinking water. So they made a product that seemed fun and interesting, and they also really dialed up the science of it so you could go and have experiences, experience centers where scientists dressed in white lab coats that have made it very clear that this was all a very clean process, and this was ways of unconsciously and often emotionally addressing what was causing that reaction of disgust. So that whole notion of understanding which mind you’re trying to impact, that’s really the core of the issue. Most of us.

Michael McQueen [00:06:29]:
The mistake we make is we’re trying to change people’s minds by appealing to the wrong mind. So we give them the logic and the evidence and all the reasonable ideas, what they should adopt, a perspective not realizing, that’s essentially appealing to the wrong mind.

Roger Dooley [00:06:41]:
And I would guess that plays into things like politics as well, where lately it seems there’s been tremendous polarization in the United States and other countries. I don’t know how polarized Australia has become, but where it’s simply very difficult when people have a belief of some kind, even if that particular belief isn’t rational, isn’t backed up by facts or evidence, trying to persuade them with facts or evidence, is impossible. What do you do then?

Michael McQueen [00:07:11]:
The first thing is, and to your very point, we’re seeing in so many countries now, there is that sense of tribalism and polarization that has become, sadly, it’s become the norm. And so we’re seeing at the moment, in fact, there’s a significant vote happening in four days time here in Australia. And the level of toxicity has been extraordinary. Like, just that, us versus them, left versus right, the culture wars are well and truly happening. So we’re seeing that happen in so many countries right now. And I think the challenging thing is to realize that what’s going on in your instinctive mind when you’re arriving at judgments and processing information is that because your instinctive mind is driven by the fight and flight mechanisms, and they’re really good at keeping us safe from physical threats. The challenge is it responds to a psychological threat the same way it responds to a physical threat. And so the moment you present ideas or evidence that can be perceived as threatening or confronting or unfamiliar, the instinctive mind, the impulsive reaction, is not to open up, but to double down and to dig your heels in and to fight back.

Michael McQueen [00:08:14]:
Even if. And I think we’ve all experienced this, even if deep down you’re like, I think there’s something to. I think you might be onto something. I think you might be right. But it’s almost. I can’t bring myself to accept that, because in order to do so, I’ve got to give up something of myself and my tribe and what I’ve always believed to be true. And so looking at what happens in people’s minds when they have that reaction is actually part of the starting point. To realize that if you want to change people’s minds, the first thing you’ve got to do is allow them to feel safe in the process of change, that asking them to change isn’t going to require them to have to admit they’re an idiot or they’re a fool.

Michael McQueen [00:08:51]:
And so often I think we do that, we enter arguments and debates with the idea that if we really peel it back, our goal is that they would go, oh, my goodness, you are right. I’ve never considered it. You are spot on. I’ve changed my view. And how rarely does that actually happen? And the reason that so rarely happens is because change is a process. And also you’ve got to give people dignity, agency, autonomy, to be in charge of that change process themselves. The moment there’s even the remote sense that you’re forcing them or that they feel coerced or bullied or shamed or that they’re losing power, they will double down, even if deep down, they know they really should consider what it is you’re saying. I think that’s the key thing in the book, is that the truth is our instinctive minds would rather feel right than be right.

Michael McQueen [00:09:34]:
And so what is it that goes in that sense of feeling like I’m on the right side of history, I’m the right side of information. And truly, a lot of that has nothing to do with logic. It’s got to do with our backstory, our tribe, what makes us feel safe in community. We’ve got to allow that if we’re going to get people to change their perspective.

Roger Dooley [00:09:53]:
Well, I think you alluded to something there, too. Some call it the backfire effect, but when you present facts, even in a neutral way, not implying that the other person is stupid or that you’re going to prove that they’re a jerk or an idiot, but simply giving people contrary information can have the opposite effect of hardening the original belief, which is very counterintuitive. But there’s plenty of research on that, correct?

Michael McQueen [00:10:19]:
Yeah. And I know you pick up on this in your book, and I loved your book, looking at some of those, the notion of how do you apply this stuff to marketing? And that’s so much of the game for a lot of us. And if you’re not marketing a product, you’re marketing an idea, you’re marketing a perspective. We’re all to. Dan Pink’s using his language. Everyone is selling to sell is human. We’re all doing that. And so the importance of using emotion and empathy, unlocking empathy, is really important, because often what we do is when things are vague or nebulous, it’s really hard to actually get a message through.

Michael McQueen [00:10:55]:
So any messages that try and appeal to people’s sense of what’s right or what’s virtuous, if it’s vague, it’s like that. They can’t latch onto that. And so people will generally invent their own story. That’s what our instinctive minds do. They form narratives. If there’s no detail, they fill the detail in, and they tend to fill the detail in based on what they’ve already decided is true. And so if you want to get through to someone, often one of the ways to speak to that instinctive mind isn’t to use logic and evidence, but to make them feel your message, to give them that sense of empathy, not for an issue, but for an individual. And, of course, what we’ve seen over the years is that empathy doesn’t scale.

Michael McQueen [00:11:31]:
Don’t tell the macro story, tell the micro story. The one person, their experience through their eyes, from their perspective. And ideally, you want to get that person to feel what that other individual’s experience is like. That’s often when people can start to consider different ideas or perspectives rather than approaching with logic. How do you make them feel it? And ideally also, you want to frame a message or an idea in terms of something they’ve already decided is true, find a common ground, something you share in common, and start there. Many of us start with what we have at odds with each other, what we don’t agree on. Whereas the reality is, in most cases, there are things we do agree on, start there because it diffuses that reaction to want to fight back or to resist or to dig our heels mean.

Roger Dooley [00:12:15]:
I guess an example of that might be, Michael, if you were having a political argument with somebody where one person wants to cut massive government subsidies for individuals and whatnot, and you could probably both start from the same point that, well, we can agree that the government spends too much money because probably 100% of the people in the country believe that, but then sort of drill down from there. Would that be what you’re talking about?

Michael McQueen [00:12:39]:
It would be, yeah. And so some of the work I found most interesting in this regard is Jonathan Hayde’s work on the notion of implicit motivation. So what is it that actually motivates different people based on their ideology? And so he looks at, for instance, for someone who is a left leaning individual, things like fairness actually really matter. So if you frame a message in terms of whether something is fair or not, whether it provides greater equity or not, that’s going to be more likely to resonate. Whereas someone who’s, say, right, learning or conservative will tend to be more motivated by things like national pride and purity, that sense of what’s right, even heritage. And so this stuff is called the moral foundations framework. And so his stuff is really good. Looking at Echo, you can take the same issue, whether it’s a social or a political or an economic issue.

Michael McQueen [00:13:26]:
But if you frame it in terms of language or ideas that resonate with what that person already perceives to be true, they’re far more likely to consider it. And so the reality is you can take most issues and frame them in one way or another. But often what we do is we lack the ability to literally step into someone else’s shoes and go, okay, how are they seeing the world? And am I communicating this message in a way that’s compelling to them rather than what makes sense to me. Because the challenge, of course, we need to realize is that everything everyone believes makes perfect sense to them. And just to stop on that for a moment, it’s important, because the reality is, even when you engage with someone, you think, what a crazy way of seeing. How could you possibly think x, y or z? I can think of, like, right now, three or four people who. That is, like, front of mine. I look at them and think, how do you possibly arrive at that conclusion? Right? But the moment we stop there and we rush to judgment, it’s really hard to engage, because we haven’t taken the time to listen, to try and really get in their shoes, even if we think they’re a bit of a lunatic for thinking what they do.

Michael McQueen [00:14:27]:
Have you stopped long enough to try and understand things from their perspective and then frame your argument or your perspective in a way that makes sense to them? And this is what deep empathy is about. And it’s really hard, particularly when you’re engaging with an issue where if you’re talking to someone who’s basically gone down the rabbit hole of conspiracy belief, and you’re like, it’s just crazy stuff. How could you possibly believe that to be true? The challenge is, how do we stop long enough, humble ourselves, try and step into their shoes and go, what’s actually underneath this idea or this paradigm? And often what’s underneath it is fear. It’s not about the idea at all. It’s the fear of. The fear of being left behind by modernism, the fear of not being accepted and seen by society, the fear that change is happening and I’m not in control. And I think for a lot of us, we need to realize, I’ve said this myself for years. We have this notion that humans are afraid of change, and they’re not.

Michael McQueen [00:15:20]:
The most recent research would indicate that we’re not afraid of change. We’re afraid of loss. And so rather than trying to sell the upside of changing people’s perspective or way of doing things, address the sense of loss that’s involved in change, because that’s typically where stubbornness kicks in. A loss of confidence, a loss of certainty, a loss of dignity, a loss of power. If what you’re trying to get people to change or change their mind about has even the whiff of coming at the cost of those things, if there’s a sense of loss involved, they’ll dig their heels in, even if they know what you’re saying is really smart and probably right. How do you start with lessening the loss, rather than trying to upsell the benefits or the logic or even the good ideas of changing Michael.

Roger Dooley [00:15:59]:
That ties in actually with the ideas of Matt Dixon, who was on the show not too long ago, talking about his book the Jolt effect, and how in a sales process, often it’s not that someone else has a better solution or that the current solution is better, but there is a tendency to simply make no decision. And why do people make no decision? It’s not because you’re not persuasive enough about the benefits of whatever your change would be, but it’s because they fear what the loss could be if they make that decision. It’s, gee, if we buy this new software package, what if it doesn’t work out? What if our business doesn’t get more productive? It gets less productive. What if training becomes difficult? What if we can’t service our customers properly? What’s that going to mean for me, for my career? That indecision is driven simply by fear, and trying to be more persuasive doesn’t work. Pointing out your benefits again and again doesn’t work. So it seems like that’s pretty much on the same track that you’re talking about. And that sometimes indecision is a huge factor in why people don’t change.

Michael McQueen [00:17:13]:
Definitely. And I think that sense of fear, of the uncertainty, if I change, I know this, I know the way we do things here. I know how I’m incentivized. I know what the commission structure is for our business. I know this. If you ask me to change to something where there’s a little bit of uncertainty of what it’s going to look like, that’s terrifying, because there’s the chance I might fail and I’ll be embarrassed and I’ll lose income, I’ll lose status. And so sometimes what we need to realize is, what are those things that people are afraid of losing? And sometimes it’s the straw man. It’s irrelevant.

Michael McQueen [00:17:44]:
It doesn’t even make sense, and it’s not even going to happen. And trying to step people through that and give them enough information that you can satiate, get their mind to a point where they’re like, okay, I can see I’m safe. And this ties into the whole notion of psychological safety. People will not engage wholeheartedly in anything unless they feel safe to do so. And so I think that’s the case in so many things we do, but particularly when it comes to getting people to consider different ideas, because they think about this notion of you getting to someone to change their perspective, there’s often this deep seated fear, what’s often referred to as the unraveling effect. If I change my mind about this one thing, it’s like pulling that thread out. What else is going to collapse in on itself? And so just helping people realize that changing one thing doesn’t mean they have to change everything, and that you accept that what they believe and how they live and how they operate is mostly fine. You just ask them to change a few things and make it very clear that that’s the case.

Michael McQueen [00:18:39]:
That gives people that sense of safety and confidence, being willing to change. And I think for a leader, that’s so often the challenge is you put in place a really great change initiative and you upsell the benefits. But if you don’t address those perceived losses, particularly around uncertainty or a loss of dignity, people will dig their heels in, even though surely they can see it’s a great idea, it’ll work well. And part of the way you can do that, too, is by giving the person you’re trying to persuade options, put them in the driver’s seat, that sense of the moment. People have agency or choice, they feel far less powerless. And so simply giving people a choice about how they’d like to respond, how they’d like to engage, and it might be guided choices. Like Jonah Berger talks about, it’s only two or three choices, and ideally two or three choices that are still going to arrive at the point you need people to get to, but they have the choice about how they get there. And I think we’ve got to be so careful of trying to preserve people’s agency and dignity in the process of change, because if we don’t, the best logic and the best evidence will have no impact at all.

Roger Dooley [00:19:38]:
Michael, something that we both mentioned in our books is priming, and mine was written some years back. And since then, some of the more out there. Priming research has not replicated all that well, but a lot of it has. And so explain how priming can help you be more persuasive. How do you get started with that?

Michael McQueen [00:20:00]:
Well, priming can be. Yeah, it can be so many things, can’t it? So you can use numerical priming or language priming. You can even use questions as a primer. In fact, one of the examples I found interesting was a group of college students were asked two different questions in different orders. So they were asked the question of how happy are you? And then how often are you dating? Or how’s your dating life? And so what, interestingly, is when they were asked the how happy are you? Question. First, they reflected and said they were quite happy life was good when they were asked the dating question. Second, they’re often be great if dating life was better. But when they flipped the results and when they flipped the order of the questions and the sequence was how often are you dating? And then they were encouraged to answer that question, and then how happy are you? The general response to the how happy are you? Was a lower answer.

Michael McQueen [00:20:45]:
Just the sequence that you asked the questions had an brainfluence over how people responded. So there are so many different ways you can prime people. And priming, a bit like painting a wall, really priming, is preparing the way for something else. It’s preparing the way for a message or a perspective. And I think that the interesting thing you can do when it comes to priming people is recall is very powerful. And so even if you get to ask people to recall one or two or three times, they have been open minded, flexible, audacious, courageous. Interestingly, when you then follow that up with what you’re asking them to consider, which may require them to be flexible and audacious, they’ll be far more likely to do it, because it’s almost like they’ve just reminded themselves that they are those things. And so you’ve got to obviously keep that list short.

Michael McQueen [00:21:30]:
If you ask for ten times or even five times, sometimes the fact that they struggle to come up with a list that long will actually become evidence in their own mind that tips the scales the other way, that actually, maybe they’re not audacious or courageous or open minded after all. But just even simple things like getting people to think about times they have been the very thing that you’re wanting them to be or consider being can pave the way for persuasion or at least openness to a message. So there’s all sorts of ways you can do this. One of my favorite techniques, and it’s in some ways a priming approach, but in other ways, it’s actually a way that you use questions to unlock thinking. There was a thing called motivational interviewing by a guy named Michael Pantalon, who’s based at Yale. And Michael’s done the most interesting work around this stuff. And what he’ll use is essentially a two hit question, two barrel question. So the first question is, it’s a rate and reflect sort of process.

Michael McQueen [00:22:19]:
The first question is rate. So let’s say from one to ten. How willing would you be to x, y, or z? How willing would you be to consider or would you be willing to change whatever it is you asked them to consider from one to ten how likely they would be or how willing they would be. The second question, though, is this, why didn’t you choose a lower number? And it’s amazing how that flips the conversation instantly, because all of a sudden you flip your focus from being all the reasons why you wouldn’t want to change. I only gave a four out of ten or even a two out of ten. But then the question becomes, why didn’t you choose a lower number? Well, I gave a two or a four, so there are some reasons I might consider changing. And if you start there and then you have the conversation about what part of you actually does see that there’s value in considering this or changing or adopting a new approach, and then you start to work because that becomes the common ground. So these are all just different ways to ask questions or approach conversations, using tools to just open people up.

Michael McQueen [00:23:14]:
I mean, you can’t be manipulative in them. You don’t want to use them in a way that backs people into a corner. Otherwise the end result is the backfire effect kicks in. They’ll dig their heels in the moment they feel there’s a play here, but it’s got to be just a genuine, open, organic way of having a conversation that allows people to be as open minded as possible so they can think as clearly as possible.

Roger Dooley [00:23:35]:
I love that two question approach. To me, that seems like a fantastic way to let the other person sort of make some of your arguments for you, why I don’t want to change, but. Well, there are some reasons why I might want to change or I need to change. That’s really, I think, a key takeaway from all this. And another thing I wasn’t familiar with, you have in the book a sort of, I guess, a hierarchy of disagreement. Can you explain that just a little bit?

Michael McQueen [00:24:04]:
Yeah. So it actually comes from where y combinator, the founder of Y Combinator, Paul Grahams, talked about this idea of, do we actually engage with conversations to disagree, or are we merely being disagreeable? And so he talks about the different levels of disagreeing with people. The highest level in the hierarchy is engaging. We’re actually engaging with the issues and the ideas faithfully. But some of the other levels in that five level hierarchy are things like characterization, misrepresentation, just contradicting someone, just essentially saying, well, you would say that because you’re a labor party person or you’re a Republican, and so you label the person rather than actually engaging with their issues because they’re just easier to put them in a box. Or perhaps you say, as a mother or a father of two, I am blah, blah, blah. And so you’re not actually engaging with the issue. You’re hiding behind labels.

Michael McQueen [00:24:54]:
You’re boxing people in. And there’s also a sense that you can really easily argue at a tangent. So they’ll present an issue, and you present, like, maybe a portion of that issue in your argument response, and you end up arguing about very different things. And so it becomes a battle rather than a constructive exercise. And so the idea in all of this is, how do we make sure we don’t? There’s lower levels of argument, which typically are being pretty objectionable and disagreeable, what we often see our political leaders doing, because it’s about point scoring. In the moment, it might seem like you’ve won the upper hand, but actually no one’s mind was changed. And I think we’ve got to be so careful that when we enter debates or discussions, firstly, are we entering to win or to arrive at truth? And that’s the first question we’ve got to ask, because if you’re going into that discussion to win at all costs, very rarely will things end well. I mean, in any relationship, when one person wins, the relationship loses.

Michael McQueen [00:25:47]:
And so we’ve got to go in with that genuine sense of openness and being willing to even change our own minds in that process. But also, are we engaging faithfully and honestly with the issue at hand, or are we, to use the old term, playing the man versus the ball? And so I think it’s a really good way of just, for all of us, making sure we stay humble enough to be open minded and just engaging fairly in conversations rather than going into that point scoring.

Roger Dooley [00:26:11]:
You know, I guess it seems like there are some people, Michael, prominent politicians, who don’t follow any of this advice and still manage to persuade a large number of people. I think Donald Trump comes to mind as somebody who does not generally have an open mind. He dismisses the opinions of anybody who disagrees with him as foolish or worse. And you mentioned vulnerability in the book as one key to being persuasive is showing vulnerability. And it seems that Trump has made, really, a career out of not showing vulnerability, never admitting to an error, even an obvious one, and never apologizing, even where an apology would be appropriate. And, in fact, I’ve certainly seen many leaders apologize where the fault might not have been completely theirs. But I think it puts the other person at ease or the other side at ease by them accepting part of the blame. Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the greatest us president, was brilliant about that.

Roger Dooley [00:27:19]:
One of his underlings would do something bad and he would take the blame for it, which I think is one reason why he ended up being so successful. But nevertheless, to flip it back to somebody like Trump, you have to admit that he has been very successful. So how would that play out, do you think? Why does that work for him?

Michael McQueen [00:27:40]:
There’s lots of reasons. It works. Firstly, it works for a period of time and for a group of people. You can be a manipulator or you can be a bully, and those things will get you power and they will get your attention. But in terms of, you take a really long arc of history, it only works for so long. And at the moment, it feels like it’s very effective, because it seems to be attracting a lot of people who are disaffected, who feel they don’t have a voice, who aren’t being listened to. And he becomes the person who becomes the savior, the one who can stand up for their rights, the sense they’re not listened to. And so I think that, sadly, there’s a genuine need in people that he is meeting.

Michael McQueen [00:28:18]:
The problem is he’s meeting in a way that isn’t. There’s not a humility or an openness to it. Generally, there is that sense of wanting to dominate and control and typically appealing to fear. And fear is a great motivator in the short term, but it brings out the worst in human beings over the long term. And so in the short term, you can rally the troops in fear for an election, or to join a party, or to be excited. But you take that over the course of ten years or 15 years, you’ll very rarely find a leader who is looked back upon in the annals of history, who just ruled by getting people to be afraid, getting them to be furious, furious at the enemy, whatever the enemy is, even if the enemy is essentially a fabric of a figment of their imagination. And yet the reality is that can work for a short term, but it doesn’t work in the long term, and it doesn’t bring out the best in people. And I think that’s what we’re seeing right now, is it doesn’t bring out the best in people because it doesn’t allow you to actually engage and listen to each other and learn from each other.

Michael McQueen [00:29:17]:
It tears at our democracies, because it means we can’t come together and discuss. We lob ideological hand grenades at each other and both sides, to an extent, are doing this, but we just see one side of politics typically being far more muscular in their approach and far more bullish in their approach to doing this. So it does work. I think the distinction we’ve always got to ask ourselves is, are the tools you’re using to get your way, what you’d like your kids to use? Would you want your kids to replicate what you’re doing? I think this is the question we’ve all got to ask. And so in the book, I really try and distinguish between persuasion and manipulation. And manipulation. Typically, you can get the same response and even use the same tools. I mean, even reading through your book, anyone could read your book and use those same techniques for ill or for good.

Michael McQueen [00:30:03]:
And the techniques themselves are very powerful, but they’re essentially neutral. It’s the motivation you come to them with. And so, so much what we’re talking about in, when it comes to persuading and influencing others, you can use it one way or the other. So I try and look at how do you use these constructively, so that people can arrive at points of change in a way that they feel they’ve had ownership over, that there’s not coercion, that there’s not manipulation, pressure or control. But you certainly could use some of these tools and do that if you wanted to. So I think some of that we’ve got to own for ourselves. How do you want to influence others? Do you want to do it in a way that you’d be proud of and that your kids, you’d like your kids to do? But also that question of, do you want to have long term impact or short term? Because if you want to have short term, by all means appeal to fear, be a bully, try and take power, and great, gather people around the sense that you can be their savior, but that you can only retain that for so long. And I think that’s the thing, is, if you want lasting change, typically you want to work with human nature and the good parts of human nature rather than appeal to the darker sides.

Roger Dooley [00:31:02]:
I think if Bob Cialdini was in on this call, or BJ Fogg, they would both say these are powerful tools, use them in an ethical way, so that whatever the result is, it is good for the other person, doesn’t manipulate them into something that is worse for them. Michael, how can people find you?

Michael McQueen [00:31:22]:
Probably the best way would be to look at. So the website we’ve set up for this book is mindstuck.net. And so that’s got all the information on me and the book, and how to get copies of it and all the rest, so mindstuck.net would be the best place to look.

Roger Dooley [00:31:36]:
Great. Well, we will post that link on the show notes page at rogerdooley.com/podcast. Michael, thanks so much for being on the show.

Michael McQueen [00:31:44]:
My pleasure. Lovely to speak with you.