Virtual Consensus:

Audience Analysis and Adaptation.

Strategy:

The Random House Dictionary gets all the way to third in its list of definitions (Second is "Skillful use of a strategum." That oughtta clear things up!) before it gets to "a detailed plan for reaching a goal or advantage."

For our purposes though, "a detailed plan for reaching a goal or advantage" is what the audience-centered process of message formulation is all about. Hence, we need to consider Strategy big time!

Specifically, this chapter deals with how to formulate a message which motivates the audience member to move from his or her position on the given issue (previous to your presentation) to the position you want him or her to take at the end--as defined in the specific speech purpose.

The Speaker-Centered Approach:

The Speaker-Centered Approach (which, remember, we want to avoid like a cheek twisting great-aunt) generally conjures up some version of what I like to call the "Shotgun Approach." The speaker, overly-enamored as speakers who apply the speaker-centered approach are wont to be with the subject matter, will focus his or her invention process on finding elements of the subject that might be appealing to the audience members and serving them up smorgasbord style for the audience members to sample. The logic is that the more reasons we are offered to respond positively to something, the more likely we are to find one we like--and to respond accordingly.

Problems with the Shotgun Approach:

• It is insufficiently precise to provide any density of appeal. Even if a claim does resonate with the audience member, the speaker will have developed it and gone on before the listener can generate any empathy for the position (In other words, just when I realize that you and I are on the same page, you change the page . . . if not the book.).
• Chances are pretty good that by the time you finally hit on an appeal that the audience member will succumb to, he or she is no longer sufficiently involved in the speech to recognize it. If you have been reading these chapters in sequence, you have already read several times that audience members simply will not wait around for you to be effective. If you haven't scored some type of hit on the audience member's sense of self-interest by the middle of the first claim, he or she will more than likely slide off into some internal pasture for a quick and well-deserved snooze at your expense. He or she may thank you for it later, but not in person and not in the way that you would prefer.
• The biggest problem, of course, is in the very nature of speaker-centered rhetoric. It assumes a passive flock of receivers whose intent it is to ingest, digest and react to your delivered wisdom. Such, as I have gone to great lengths to explain, is simply not the case.

A "Shotgun-Approach" Sample Outline.

This outline is the spawn of countless fraternity speech files across this great land of ours. It seems clear and specific and even guardedly interesting. Its chances of success are limited, though, because of all the issues discussed above. The speaker has an interest in a subject--which is fine--but the speaker assumes that the subject matter is itself compelling, ignoring the fact that it was the coalescence at some earlier point in time of his or her wants and desires with the subject matter that made it compelling. It was that person cruising through the world with some vague notion of a plan and stumbling across the subject matter who made the connection. It was not, repeat not, made for him or her.

We all do this. The problem is that having done it we collapse into some form of selective forgetting. Having given in to the allure of our connection to the subject, we mistakenly assume that the allure exists within the thing itself--as a measurable component--and that we need only train the uninitiated eye on that allure to net a convert.

Wrong!

To be an effective persuader of others, you cannot lose sight of the process by which you persuaded yourself. The speaker must start not with the subject but with the audience member. What does he or she want and need in life at the moment that you begin to talk, and how can you connect your subject matter to those wants and needs.

The trick to persuading someone is to find the connection between what they want and what you have and to illuminate that connection for them. Note the phrase find the connection. The point is not to pander to the audience by doing what you can to convince them that you have what they want; it is to find an actual connection--one that will outlast the speaking moment--between the two.

An Audience-Centered Sample Outline.

Whereas the first sample outline says to the audience member, "Here it is. What do you think?" The second outline starts not with why you should pick this major but instead with Why did you pick the major you picked (or will you pick for the as yet undeclared). It begins with an analysis of the audience members' criteria for dealing with the broad issue of picking a major--of which the choice of this major is but a single option. In other words, it starts with the audience and moves backward to the subject.

Briefly--

1. Pick a topic--the Communication Major.
2. Pick an Objective--the audience members should declare one.
3. Ask the question from the audience member's point of view--what do I look for in a major?
4. Do your best to provide a concrete, specific answer from the audience member's point of view--I want to be able to get and keep meaningful work.
5. Create an argument that in essence says to the audience: You have the right intentions, you just may have applied them incorrectly.
6. Stick to ONE argument. The whole point of this discussion is to imbue in the reader the wisdom that one theme powerfully created and delivered almost always works better than a range of themes weakly delivered.

Audience-Analysis:

Okay, wise one, you have convinced me that I need to analyze the audience. Now please tell me how. Specifically, how do I make any sort of informed judgment about how a large group of people (who in many cases I will never have met) migh respond to the position I plan to espouse? And given the extreme likelihood that the audience members' responses will not be uniform, how do I manage to balance aggrandizing some without antagonizing the others?

Easy, Tiger. It's not simple, but it can be done.

Gauging Success.

The first step in successfully analyzing your audience is to go into the process with a clear and realistic sense of what "successful" means. Sadly, most of us do not. We tend to think of persuasion as an either-or choice. I want you do think/do something. If you think or do it, I succeeded; if you do not, I failed.

Such either-or thinking is unrealistic for two reasons:

1. The perception of apparent success is belied by the reality that many influences go into even the simplest decision. Assuming that the audience member left the room thinkin what you wanted her to think or a few days later did what you wanted him to do, is at best an overly simplistic and at worst an arrogant assumption. Neither simplistic thinking nor arrogance is a friend to public speaking.
2. The perception of apparent failure is belied by the reality that even the most trivial alteration in an invididual's beliefs and values resonates at the deepest levels of his or her self-image. All of our attitudes and opinions are intertwined--the shallow with the deep, the basic with the tangential. Alter one, and you runt he risk of sabotaging them all. People tend to comprehend this at a deeper level than they consciously recognize. That condition may underlie one of the great ironies of humanity--that we are so adaptable a species yet so resistant to change.

A more constructive notion of success employs two dynamics of the illustration above.

Step One: We assume you have already focused your position. That done, and with the far right end of the continuum being I couldn't agree more, make an educated guess as to how many audience members fall on either side of the vertical center line. We will call this Valence, borrowing loosely from the chemistry term for the "combining power" of an atom (Hey, we had to call it something.). If you know the audience members, actually try to decide person-by-person how they might respond. If you don't, and in most cases you won't, don't worry about how many people fall on either side, just consider in general the population from which your audience will be drawn (e.g. the students in your school, middle class Americans, professional wrestling fans--in which case you will want to remember to speak slowly) and try to define the audience clusters, or groups of similar people, that have positions on this issue and how well they will be represented.

Step Two: Having decided generally how the forces are organized for and against, consider the Intensity with which those individuals or clusters hold those positions. In other words, place them along the continuum from I couldn't agree more to Whadda you, nuts? Do this by trying to figure out--and this is the real content of audience analysis--why they have the position they have. By that I mean, what values and beliefs come into play when the issue invades the self-interest of the listener.

One of the biggest mistakes speakers make when analyzing an audience is the assumption that an individual's stand on an issue is motivated by the content of that issue.

HUH???

Okay, example . . .

"I don't think women should be allowed to serve on submarines."

Here is a stated position. Let us assume that the audience is the usual college Public Speaking class.

First, tighten up the statement:

"Women should be enjoined from serving on the crews of the submarines
which comprise the American military's sea-based nuclear deterrent."

Experience tells me that almost everyone in the class will fall on the opposite side of the continuum, with most of the men gravitating toward the center but not at it and most of the women gravitating toward the extreme. There will be a couple of guys near my end of the continuum, but they will be busy whittling greek initials into their desk tops and needn't factor in to the analysis.

The real question, as pointed out above, is Why? And the answer is simply gender equality. Most women and a lot of men (especially men in the company of women) believe that women should not be enjoined from any professional activity in which men engage purely on the basis of their gender. They oppose me intensely to the extent that gender equality is for them a core value.

The point is that their interest is in gender equality not in submarines. If I give a speech stating and supporting good strong reasons why women shouldn't serve on submarines (It would be inefficient to have to surface every day at 3:00 E.S.T. to watch General Hospital.), and that speech does not centrally concern itself with gender equality, most of the audience members will refuse to engage the argument.

The speech is not about submarines; it is about equal rights. If I don't recognize that, I cannot succeed.

Step Three: On the basis of this rudimentary placement of audience clusters, generate strategy.

And do so using this definition of success.

Success in persuasion is any motion by the audience member TOWARD your position.

Having placed everyone on that continuum, think about what it would take to get them to move off of the positions they presently occupy and consider any motion in your direction success.

The audience member does not have to cross that center line. I can leave the speaking situation with an audience who still disagrees with my position but does so with less assurance and intensity than they had when I began and consider that occasion a success.

Success is relative. It is not a matter of whether they got to you but the extent to which they narrowed the distance between you.

Now that we know what succes looks like, we can concentrate on how to achieve it.

Let's go back to our submarine example. My goal is get the audience member to move toward the notion that women should be enjoined from serving on nuclear submarines. My challenge is that most of the audience members perceive this issue as one of gender equality--women should be able to do whatever men can do. How do I bridge the gap?

First, avoid competition.

It will be simple, even seductive, to perceive the persuasive event as a contest between the speaker and the audience--as a challenge to "beat" them by overcoming their resistance. Bad idea. If the audience member interprets your message as such a contest (which he or she inevitably will with an untrained speaker) he or she will retreat into a defensive position (Remember, unlike the speaker, the audience member has the option simply not to play.) and refuse to engage the argument. Also, if you view the audience members as opponents, it will be difficult to see things from their point of view.

Establish a "We-position."

Instead of competing with the audience, operate from the general theme that you benefit from your point of view (or else why would you defend it?) and so could they. Position yourself as a member of the audience but one who perceives this issue differently and more beneficially for all of you.

Second, establish common ground.

From the perspective of this We-position, reassess the audience analysis.

It is a safe guess that those who oppose your position do so on the basis of their genuine interest in gender equality--not their knowledge of or interest in the subject matter (in this case submarine warfare). Hence, if they perceive you as an opponent of gender equality, it will be difficult if not impossible to move them.

To establish common ground is to establish a common center of core beliefs. To invoke persuasion is to convince the audience that while you and they share values and beliefs, they have applied them erroneously in this specific case.

With this audience, I can assume at least the following shared beliefs and values:

• Women should have the same opportunities as men.

• You don't solve a problem by creating a worse one (This value is pretty universal).

Develop a strategic theme.

At this point develop a theme that bases your conclusion in the common ground. Do not at this stage worry about how realistic the theme is.

In our case, the strategic theme is:

"In order to promote gender equality, we must enjoin women from serving on submarines."

Yeah, right pal. I'll keep the motor running.

No, really. At this point, ask yourself a slight variation of what Neustadt and May (Thinking in Time. New York: Free Press, 1986) called Alexander's Question: What would you have to say to convince the audience that your strategic theme is true?

Then say it and support it.

Then quit school and form a Cult.

But first, back to submarines.

What if I could convince the people who disagree with me that:

• We share an interest in women's rights.
• The best chance women have to establish and defend those rights is to work within the admittedly flawed system of democracy provided by a safe and secure America.
• Our submarine nuclear deterrent is essential to the security of that democracy.
• Having women on those submarine crews would cripple that deterrent.

I am not saying I could convince them that thse claims are true, but if I could would they not be at least a little more prone to accepting my position (e.g. moving toward me)?

To Whit:

I have had some success with this approach in classes. That success is based on convincing the students that treating submarine service as an exception to the general defense of women's rights would result in greater enhancement of those rights in the long term.

If you return to the sample outlines on declaring a Communication Major, you will see the same process at work. Start from the point of view of the audience member and establish common ground: When we graduate we want to be able to get and stay employed.
Then establish a strategic theme: The Communication Major is the only reliable preparation for employment in the future economy.
Then establish claims and evidence that will lead the audience member to that conclusion.

A speaker is not likely to be able to alter an audience member's basic beliefs and values in a single address, so the speaker must root his or her specific purpose in those beliefs and values if he or she hopes to succeed.

Strategic Organization.

The recipe above is general and should help the speaker in the invention process. But the capability to properly analyze an audience and exploit that analysis is a function of experience--not just in public speaking but with the psychology of why people do what they do.

Following are three standard outlines. Each is based in the psychological response of an audience to a communication situation--that is, a relationship between an audience member and an audience apart from the specific content of the issue. I will demonstrate, explain and comment on each.

Note: This obviously is not an exhaustive list. These are, again, simply examples of generic organizational patterns which can be employed.

Scientific Problem-Solving.

Scientific Problem-Solving is good way to deal with an audience the members of which will be resistent to if not hostile toward your position, because it calls for sacrifice from them.

The challenge is how to get people to be willing to accept sacrifice. The answer is rooted in the experience that all else being equal people are willing to sacrifice for:

• a worthy cause
• if they have a hand in the decision-making, and
• if the sacrifice is shared equitably (which means "fairly" as opposed to equally, which means . . .well . . . equally).

The Scientific Problem-Solving pattern seeks to create these conditions by leading the audience member through an apparently "objective" process of decision-making and showing that the outcome (the sacrifice they are being asked to make) is either inevitable, given conditions, or the least objectionable option.

The pattern:

Define the Problem

In this stage, explain why the problem is a problem, why it demands attention and what are its possible consequences.

Account for the Problem

Explain how the situation which demands a response came to exist. What are its root cause, conditions and influences.

Criteria

Establish a set of guidelines which can later be used for the orderly comparing and contrasting of alternative solutions.

Alternatives

Discuss a variety of potential courses of action.

Analysis

Compare and Contrast the alternatives using the criteria established in step three.

Consensus

Arrive at a decision about which is the best alternative in the range.

Implementation

Discuss the formative steps of putting the decision into practice.

Discussion:

The purpose of this pattern, again, is to move the audience members through a series of controlled steps outlining for them the sensibility of the decision arrived at. While the audience members are not part of the decision-making process (see above), they are at least invited to believe that had they been, the would have arrived at the same conclusion.

The Scientific Problem-Solving pattern is actually used with great success by problem-solving groups, but remember that this is a strategically designed appropriation of that process. In other words, you are using the pattern to (for lack of a better term) sell the apparent objectivity of the conclusion. Each of the steps is designed by the speaker to enhance the positive portrayal of the "alternative" the whole design is being used to promote. To that end, let us go through the steps again.

Define the Problem\Account for the Problem

While these are separate steps, the advice regarding them is the same. Make sure the problem is defined in such a way that your alternative has best chance to appropriately respond to it. Such is not to say that you should employ lies of omission or other sinister devices, but you want to highlight the consequences which most effectively visit the audience and the causes and influences best manipulated by your proposed course of action.

Criteria

Getting an audience who is about to compare and contrast to let you contribute the criteria according to which that action will take place is like getting the lottery commission to let you paint the numbers on the ping pong balls after you've bought your ticket. If you come away empty, you have no one to blame but yourself. Obviously, the criteria must reflect what the audience members already know and must learn about the subject, but within that range, the speaker has ample latitude to promote the desired plan of action.

Alternatives

You have to be subtle about this. The whole psychology reduces to the perception of fairness, and overt deck-stacking will cost you. The audience members have to feel as though a realistic analysis has been carried out--that the alteratives presented are done so sincerely. Avoid clay pigeons, alternatives which are only provided to be shot down, and avoid whenever possible creating a false dichotomy, the appearance of a simplistic either-or choice in the place of a flexible range of options. Special Note: The audience members may be aware of or even actively support an alternative that is not the one you are there to promote. In that case, you are almost always strategically bound to include that alternative and make a compelling case for the superiority of yours. Not to do so will invite, justifiably, perceptions of disingenuity and dishonesty.

Analysis\Consensus

Once you have strategically fashioned the criteria and the list of alternatives, you pretty much have to leave these steps to themselves. About the only flexibility you have here is to arrange the order of criteria so that the ones on which your alternative scores the best are prominent, and burying it in the middle of criteria where it does not fair as well. To that end, you are generally better off arranging the contrast phase according to criteria--state a criterion and apply the alternatives to it one at a time--rather than introducing an alternative and applying the criteria to it one at a time. And whatever you do, endeavor to keep this section clear, concrete and simple.

Implementation

Why bother to discuss the early steps of implementation, when your goal was to get consensus? It is simply because you want the audience members to leave the speaking situation looking forward instead of fixating on the decision making process. I guess it is a form of diversion, but you are better off riveting attention, positive or negative, on what will be done than allowing too much second guess about what might be done.

The Downside.

As effective as this pattern is, it does have two potential weak spots.

1. It eats time. To go through all of these steps with even the slightest concern for completeness takes oceans of time. The average Public Speaking student should understand that any ONE of these steps should take at least the five minutes an assigned class speech usually has. This device is best employed when there are loose or no time restrictions.
2. It is complicated. Of course all of the time to which I just alluded is spent adding information--often intricate, subtle information. Hence, extra attention (and, you guessed it, extra time) must be given to the organizational concerns of transition, summary, etc. discussed earlier. In addition, visual aids, documentation and other peripherals may be needed to make sure the audience is able to comprehend and retain the information.

State-the-Case-and-Prove-It.

Go ahead, take a wild guess at the strategy invoked here.

If you guessed "Subtley insinuate yourself and your agenda into the consciousness of the audience." You were wrong. If you guessed "State your case, then endeavor to prove it." Take anything from the top shelf!

State-the-Case-and-Prove-It is a design best employed by a speaker in one of the following situations:

1. a situation in which the speaker has little time to prepare.
2. a situation in which the audience is waiting relatively passively to have an issue explained to them.
3. a situation in which the audience is overtly hostile to the speaker and his or her position.

"Hold on!" I hear you say. "It is appropriate for both the passive audience and the hostile audience?"

You bet.Take your hand off that italics ket and I'll tell you why.

The STCAPI design is best employed to portray for the audience a context in which adapting to the audience is considered unnecessary and/or inappropriate. There would only be three standard reasons for that to be the case:

1. a situation in which time constraints do not allow the luxury of strategic thinking--when the object is to lay the issue out as clearly and as quickly as possible.
2. (have you spotted trend here?) a situation in which the interests of the audience and the speaker are so clearly parallel than adaptation to the audience can be safely assumed.
3. a situation in which the speaker's best option is to say to the audience "I don't care who you are or what you think, here is my position!" and hope that his or her sheer force of will and commitment provides sufficient credibility to overcome the audience members' objections.

In all of those cases your hope is that the audience's perception of your unusual commitment to and competent management of the subject matter will so enhance your ethos (the audience member's perception of your credibility) that it will overcome their resistance. Of course, engaging this scenario demands an extraordinary display of confidence on the speaker's part, and that is the primary downside for the inexperienced.

The Motivated Sequence.

In dark pedagogical caves that dot the mystical landscape of the academe, the shamans tout the magic power of the Motivated Sequence. They speak in awe of its capability to adapt to any speaking situation. They meditate on the profundity of its haiku-like simplicity.

They may need a nap.

The motivated sequence is a useful tool in some situations, but it is not sliced bread. The beginning public speaker would do well to add a few additional arrows to the quiver.

That said, here is a brief discussion of its utility.

Attitude Follows Action.

There is some merit to that axiom. Sometimes (in fact, many times) we act for reasons that are morally ambiguous and not always clearly motivated, then we engage in a process of rationalization to justify those acts. Therefore a speaker can sometimes best promote changes in audience members' beliefs and values by getting them to perform some action--however symbolic--then aiding them in the process of justification. The Motivated Sequence is a good strategy for developing the Speech to Actuate, or the promotion of such a symbolic act.

The Motivated Sequence.

Remember, the key to the motivated sequence is the connections between inaction and action and bad and good outcomes. First those outcomes need to be clearly and concretely visualized. Then the action needed to insure the positive outcome must be clearly defined and made directly available to the audience member. All else being equal, the shorter the span of time between the end of the speech and the engagement of the action the better are the speaker's chances of success.

A Few Closing Words About Strategy.

Remember, the object of strategy is to create competing worlds--the imperfect one in which your audience member lives and the preferable one in which the audience member could live with only minor alterations to the content and/or organization of his or her beliefs, values and actions. In order to maximize strategy the speech must:

• clearly define the benefits accruable to the audience member who responds in the proper way.
• clearly define the costs of failing or refusing to do so.
• frame the issue in a way that complements the speaker's position and body of evidence and motivates the listener to question his or her habitual presumptions about the subject matter.
• does not ask the audience member to reject or even significantly alter basic beliefs and values. There is too much at stake for the audience member to do so.

Also remember that strategy is not an option. It is a necessity. People do not accept or reject propositions because of the number of available reasons to do so. Simply listing potential claims will have only minimal and potential effects. The speaker needs to be more proactive than that. You must commit to direct and focused steps.

Adding Urgency to the Speech.

It goes without saying that . . .

Sorry, but I've always wanted to do that. And it was not completely gratuitous, because it doesn illustrate a point. We generally aren't bothered when someone starts "It goes without saying" then says what goes without saying, because we aren't really paying sufficient attention to notice the contradiction. There exist any number of reasons why we fail to listen intently, but they all reduce to one assumption--that the immediate consequences of inattention are too trivial to justify that attention.

You may have gotten the idea in our discussion of strategy that the worst public speaking situation you will ever face is a hostile audience. That is, however, not the case. The worst public speaking situation is the one in which the audience member simply feels insufficiently motivated to engage the message. My strategy can affect you even if you refuse to "allow" it to do so, but no strategy can affect a listener who fails or refuses to even perceive the message.

Apathy.

To the lack of energy to engage the issue we usually assign the term Apathy. Apathy, according to the dictionary, is:

"a want of feeling" . . . "privation of passion, emotion, or excitement."

We generally translate that to mean "I don't care." But to do so is not only incorrect, it is counterproductive to the rhetorical objective.

Take a moment to do the following:

Rank Between 1 (highest) and 5 (lowest) the order in which you "care about" the individuals and/or institutions listed beow.

Now, let us assume that it is the end of the month and time to play America's favorite game show...

Who Do We Stiff?

That's right, folks! It's time to play "Who Do We Stiff?" The game where somebody doesn't get paid. The game is simple. You look at your bills, you look at your bank account. You notice that you don't have enough in the account pile to pay everyone in the bill pile.

Now, in order from 1 to 4, who do you pay? "But wait!" You say. "There are five boxes, and you said from one to four?"

That's right! Somebody doesn't get paid. Who is it going to be?

Your local utility or power company.

Your church, synagogue, mosque or other religious place or institution.

Your cable television provider.

Your rent.

Your parents.

Claim Your Prize!

You love your parents. You CARE about your parents. You hate your cable operator and your electric utility. Yet when it came time to meet your obligations who did you stiff? If you are like most of us, it had nothing to do with who you cared about the most. IT had to do with your perception of the Urgency of the competing claims. It is not a matter of whether you want to pay them, it is a matter of the consequences of not paying them Now!

If you understand this point, you understand the true nature of apathy. Apathy is not "I don't care." Apathy is a lack of Urgency--a lack of motivation to attend to the issue immediately.

This is not merely a semantic distinction. If you attempt to overcome an audience member's apathy by convincing him or her to CARE, you will fail, because he or she is convinced that he or she already does care.

Instead, you have to convince the audience member to put aside other issues about which he or she cares to attend to concentrate on this one.

Apathy is about altering the priority of one's existing concerns,
not necessarily about creating a new one.

Apathy is founded in two primary dynamics:

1. Powerlessness, and
2. Lack of Consequence.

Powerlessness:

How can I feel anything north of despair. The rainforests, after all, are being deforested at a rate of 50 acres per minute . . . Per Minute!

Well, I could do a little math and arrive at the somewhat comforting conclusion that IF NOTHING IS DONE THE ENTIRE GLOBAL RAINFOREST WILL CEASE TO EXIST in around 288 years.

But I very likely won't do the math. Instead I will arrive at the conclusion that the problem is simply too big for me to tackle. I will cement in my mind the first verse of the apathy mantra:

There is nothing I can do!

Lack of Consequence:

Consequence is the significant outcome of a decision. When was the last time someone actually held a moral choice against you? Did it come as a surprise? Or did you expect it? For the most part, we are all secure in the knowledge of our limits. We know that there are things that in the abstract we should do, responsibilities to which we should attend. But we also know that for which we will be held accountable. I know that as a college professor I should have experienced La Boheme, and I know that tomorrow at breakfast my friends will ask me if I watched the Yankees' game. The point is that I will skip La Boheme, even if I recognize the abstract importance of experiencing culture, because tomorrow no one will hold it against me if I don't.

Likewise, nobody holds it against you if you don't give blood. You know in front of whom you should buckle your seatbelt and in front of whom you need not. We are less inclined, in other words, to determine our priorities according to anything like an abstract standard of responsibility than to determine them according to what price we will have to pay for non-compliance in the morning.

When we combine

There is nothing I can do.

with

I suffer no consequence if I do nothing.

the result is a powerful social inertia--an intense dedication to do nothing!

That social inertia--the strong tendency toward inaction--is apathy. And it is that social inertia--not the audience members' lack of concern for the issue--that the speaker must overcome.

An Effective Assault on Apathy.

An effective assault on apathy begins with the understanding that the forces of powerlessness and lack of consequence are not unlike a large, strong man with his feet tied together. He is formidable if confronted, but once you get him to tip he is easy to get around.

Step one is to understand the concept of linkages.

Linkages are psychological connections between barely related or unrelated phenomena.

Do you need to have a clean desk before you can start to study?
Do you always put your shoes and socks on in exactly the same order?
Do you believe in any of the common superstitions?
Do you NEED that first cup of coffee in the morning?

If so, your behavior at least in part dictated by linkages. And even though those linkages were invented by you and exist only in your mind, they are as real to you as any physical object that you are likely to encounter. They will affect your behavior, and once they are recognized, they can be used to predict--and even exploit--that behavior.

Are you Superstitious?

Few of us get through the day without the assistance of a few healthy Superstitions. I am personally superstition-free, but most of you are probably burdened by them. I, of course, am mentally and spiritually superior to you and hence am not bothered by such contrivances of the mind as fear of walking under a ladder, lighting three cigarettes off of the same match or . . . .

aarrrggghhhhh!

All right. I admit it. I am possessed, as are most of us, by one irrational fear . . .

the sudden appearance of Cheesy webpage graphics!!!!!

The point is that superstitions are clear examples of Linkages. There exists in the superstitious mind a connect between the occurance of some act (spilling salt, bouncing the basketball exactly the same amount of time before shooting a free throw, etc) and some good or bad outcome. If the likage is strong enough, it can actually create the outcome expected. That is commonly called a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the phenomenon is directly related to apathy. Powerlessness and Lack of Consequence are linkages--that is, they will be felt as a result of the expectation that they should be felt, not as a result of an serious study of the issue.

In order to overcome the effects of these linkages, the speaker must replace them with new, more amenable ones--linkages between the audience member's active participation and some positive outcome.

Note: As much as we would like to believe otherwise, the linkage needs to define a positive outcome for the audience member, not just for the target group with which the issue deals. I must benefit from my contribution to world hunger. Were I sufficiently motivated by the plight of the hungry, I would have made that contribution already.

The two proactive linkages you need to create are:

The We-Linkage--the belief in the audience members that their and the speaker's interests are mutually served (As I benefit, you benefit and vica versa.), and

The P² Linkage--P² stands for Pain-Pleasure. Many people believe we are primarily motivated by two broad desires, the avoidance of pain and the enhancement of pleasure. All of us succumb to each, but most of us can view our total personality as biased toward one or the other--we tend to risk potential pain to maximize potential pleasure, or we routinely deny ourselves potentially heightened levels of pleasure in order to avoid pain. Think Richie Cunningham crossing his family's traditional political lines, because all of the "cute girls" work for Stevenson. Think about how many times you have balanced the minutes of unparalleled freedom of skydiving against the potential split second at the end of the trip. The P² linkage exploits the pain-pleasure tendency by linking the action taken by the audience member to some direct enhancement of pleasure or avoidance of pain--again enhancement of the audience member's pleasure and avoidance of the audience member's pain. People who stage raffles to get union members to attend meetings of the local understand this. Guys who appreciate the subtle charm of NOT taking blind dates to exhibitions of jello-wrestling understand this. Once novice public speakers begin to think in these terms, their capability to overcome apathy will increase many fold.

Let us consider these linkages--and how to create them--in greater detail.

Hey, you guys in the Frat! It's time to stop thinking of jello-wrestling and get back to the subject at hand.

I mean it!

Okay.

We-Linkages.

Republican advocates of the free market often say "A rising tide lifts all boats." Of course, the Republicans who say that often fail to realize that most of us have had to forgo the pleasure of owning a boat so as to not have to subsist on cat food. But that is beside the point--the point being that the "rising tide" metaphor is a good, visual description of the We-Linkage at work. The speaker in effect says to the audience member "We are in this together. As you benefit so do I; as I benefit so do you." (Come on, guys, you didn't think I'd put it this soon did you?)

The We-Linkage depends on the speaker's ability to create some sense of unity with the audience--a one-of-us comaradarie.
The best ways to do so are to:

1. Demonstrate to the audience Your Own commitment to the issue at hand.

   Few if any audience members will be motivated to become committed to a position unless the speaker can demonstrate that her or she is at least as committed to what is now being asked of them!

   The first way to demonstrate one's own commitment is to provide evidence of its existence within the context of the speech. If you have taken some action, belong to some related organization, or have demonstrated your commitment in some other way, you should get that evidence into your speech as soon as you fluidly can.

   Evidence, though, will only get you about 10% of the way there. The most dynamic way to communicate your commitment is--sorry--in the dynamism with which you deliver the speech. The most secure common ground on which a speaker and her audience stand is that of knowing how hard it is to get up in front of others and give a speech. For you to do so--to undergo all of the stresses, expend all of the efforts of research and rehearsal--so that you can promote the cause in which you have invested yourself and in which you are asking your audience to invest conveys a more powerful message of commitment than anything else you can do. So get up and do your best to say to the audience, "There is nowhere I'd rather be right now than here, talking to you about this!" That, more than anything else will provide evidence that you should be taken seriously.

2. Create a common enemy.

   "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Some say the origin of this adage is in the Middle East. I'm pretty sure it's Klingon. The point is that one of the best ways to create in an audience the perception that they and you share interests is to convince them that they and you share enemies. The speaker is, of course, ethically enjoined from creating a Straw Man--that is, an enemy who does not really exist (witness the parachuting Cubans in Red Dawn, for instance.) , but where a commonality of potential loss can be demonstrated the concommitant (Dictionary!) commonality of interests will surely follow.

Pain-Pleasure Linkages:

There are probably a lot of ways to demonstrate to an audience member that he or she does stand to gain from action and suffer if he or she fails to act, but at the Basic Public Speaking level four tactics seem especially suited to the task:

1. New Information.

Sometimes, the reason people don't comprehend the consequences of inaction is that they simply lack information about the issue. Far too many people say education when they mean propaganda, but in reality sometimes basic information can save the day.

Sources like the following can provide, not only helpful date for the support of claims, but help in selecting a topic.

Eye-Opening Nutrition Facts.

Little Known Facts.

Dispelling Vaccination Myths.

The Child Labor Resource Guide.

No Sweat--a Department of Labor Sweatshop Page (No Sweat! Don't you love it when the government gets cute!)..

Of course, you have to be careful to confirm your information (get it from more than one reliable source), but sometimes all it takes is a clear and organized dissertation of the status quo to make people want to change it.

 

2. Short term vs. Long term Costs and Benefits.

That credit card in your wallet. The one with the $5,000 credit limit and the 15% A.P.R. If you max it out, cut it up, and pay it off at the monthly minimum, how long zero?

The answer? According to the Seattle Times, the answer is 32 years and a little over $15,000. But hey, the sweater was 20% off!

If you add just $10 dollars a month to that minimum payment, however, you save 16 years and almost $4,000!

This certainly qualifies as new information for most of us, but it also works in another way--by contrasting short term and long term costs and benefits.

This is a pretty tough argument to make these days. As Carrie Fisher once wrote, "Instant gratification takes too long." We judge our worth with quarterly earnings, six-week grades and "Will he call me in the morning?" In fact, one of the reasons that the apathy trap is so easy to fall into is that perceptions of powerlessness and lack of consequence are easy to generate in the short term. Ask Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike, how powerless individuals can be. Who really thought that a few do-gooders harping about the working conditions of people thousands of miles awat could humble one of the richest, most recognized corporations in the world? Ask Grant Hill and Peyton Manning why they stayed in school when millions of dollars tempted them to leave. The appeal is used effectively by insurance agents and investment counsellors. If the speaker can trivialize the immediate "gain" and visualize both the long term harm of inaction (e.g. continuing to tan) and the long term benefit of disciplined action (e.g. mutual fund or 401K investments), the huge gap between short term conveniences and accumulated benefit almost always strikes a chord.

 

3. Second Generation Costs and Benefits.

   Ronald Reagan used to say that "we are writing checks that our grandchildren will have to cash."

   I say: Hey, it's the least they can do! But those of you who take a more sympathetic view of things might recognize the power of saying to an audience member:

   Maybe you stand to gain or lose nothing if you fail to commit, but those who depend on you stand to gain and/or suffer a lot!

   That sentiment is the basis of the second generation appeal. For the appeal to work, the audience member must entertain a sense of responsiblity for the well-being of the population in question. There exist, therefore, two versions of this argument:

   1. You feel responsible for this group, and they are in peril. Reagan's quote is an example of this. He is speaking figuratively, but his individual audience member will generate in his or her mind a more specific, personal image.

   2. This group is in peril, and YOU should feel responsible for them. Obviously, this is the more difficult of the two. Like the first, it depends on the specificity and clarity of the image the speaker's words create in the minds of the audience members. Consider the plight of starving children all over the world and how given that issue is to feelings of helplessness and lack of consequence. Now hit the following links to see how Save the Children and other charities respond to the rhetorical challenge.

      It would be difficult to avoid becoming cynical about such appeals were they not feeding people who would otherwise possibly fail to survive?

      Do the kids share their good fortune with their not-yet-adopted friends?
      What about the not-likely-to-be-adopted adults?
      Does someone in so much daily misery need to be subjected to a photo shoot? Much less write letters (Maybe the first step on the road to western hegemony is the institution of a global ethic of thank-you cards.)?
      How much does the "fragile self-esteem of a poverty-stricken child" really improve with the knowledge that someone from the land where they shoot hotdogs out of cannons at minor league baseball games finances the bowl of food that the actual real live volunteer hands him every day?

      Clearly the adoption of disadvantaged kids is a commercial fiction designed to overcome the audience member's feeling of powerlessness by reducing a macroeconomic calamity to interpersonal terms. You may be able to explain to me in the abstract how my $24 a month can dent the problem of third world poverty, but your explanation won't move me, because I am unable to visualize that problem-solution relationship.The adoption story, even if not literally true--allows me to do just that. I can take responsibility on a global scale and perceive it on a local one. Heck, I can even leave the monthly newsletter strewn casually around to impress my friends and relatives with my activism (unless they stop to wonder how many more people could be fed by the money that went into printing and mailing it).

   Getting people to feel responsible for strangers is not as difficult as it may seem. The trick is to portray the nature of that responsibility in a way that is flattering and enobling to the audience member. The first and most obvious choice of tactics is usually to try to shame people into helping. That is almost bound to fail across a broad population. The genius of the adoption story is that it portrays the audience member as heroic in his or her choice to give. It not only denies the powerlessness assumption, it celebrates the existence of the provider's power. I feel as though I am gratefully going out of may way, not as though I am paying some global, culture reparation. That helps me and then people to whom I reach out. I have said many times before, in several ways:

   Mutual benefit is the ultimate rhetorical arrangement.

4. Time Limits.

   I love this one. It is just so odd and yet so deliciously predictable that someone will pay $5 for gas, $6 in tolls, and spend an hour and a half on the road all because "the first fifty people through the door receive a free T-shirt" that she could have bought for a fraction of the price and effort and will probably only wear twice!

   Time limits aggressively taunt the apathetic audience member by mocking his or her self-indulgent assumption that there are no penalties for inaction.

   The person who is predisposed to do nothing all of a sudden finds out that soon there will be nothing he or she can do! It works; don't ask me why.

   Consider televised Home Shopping. They put an item on the screen and for about three minutes wax poetically about its profound ability to enhance your life.

   The question in its raw, unmediated state is:

   Why on Earth would anyone pay $191.25 for the Star Trek "Riker and Troi" signed, limited edition photo?

   I mean, come on. Didn't she end up marrying the Klingon and moving to Deep Space Nine? What can that be worth?

   But then the commitment engineers begin to weave their magic. It is stated, or at least inferred by the countdown clock in the bottom corner of the screen, that you can only buy the item while it is on display (This is true in some cases, not in others). You are also repeatedly assaulted by the reality of the Money-Back Guarantee! Buy the thing. Hang it up next to your Elvis Presley "Love Me Tender" "Platinum Edition" Silverized Record (a steal at $105.00 plus $5.72 P&H from the good people at QVC), and if it throws off the whole precious metals theme, SEND IT BACK AT NO EXPENSE OR OBLIGATION! What have you got to lose?

   Whereas the original question was "Why buy this?" the insinuation of a money-back guarantee (which removes the threat of consequence) and the time limit (If I don't act now, I may never be able to act again.) changes the question to "Why NOT buy this? Where before, it seemed to the customer that her or she sstood to lose by acting rashly, it may seem now like he or she stands to lose nothing by acting rashly, that in fact the only way to lose is to fail to act at all!

   While the number of variations on the time limit theme must be virtually limitless (Limitless limits don't you just love the language?), we can reduce them to two basic categories: Terminal Time Limits and Degrading Time Limits.

Terminal Time Limits are points after which options are no longer available. The T-shirt exxample fits this category (When 50 are gone there are no more.). So does the home shopping example (In three minutes and one second, this product will be gone.).

Degrading Time Limits are defined by a beginning point after which the potential for benefit begins to erode. In other words, the optimal time to act is NOW! The longer you wait, the less you get. Sharing popcorn with my kids comes to mind. The proper way to eat popcorn is, of course, to pickmone out or two kernals at a time and digest them slowly. In the context of sharing with my kids, however, that is also the recipe for limiting oneself to the aforementioned one or two kernals--the feeding frenzy will proceed apace whether I involve myself or not. The only way guarantee even a modestly representative share is to join it. Some

Sometimes the Home Shopping people will announce that the product on display is a "limited edition." They will further emphasize this situation by placing a counter on the screen which purports to reflect how many pieces have been sold. Doing so in essence adds a degrading time limit to the terminal time limit mentioned previously. The implication now is that you have up to three minutes to decide, but when they're gone, they're gone.

Whichever time limit one elects to use, the stress must be placed on both its rigid finality and clearly-visualized contrasting accounts of life with and without the requisite action taking place. Where possible, emphasize the capability of the audience member to backtrack on the decision to act (the money-back guarantee), but minimize the potential for restorative action once the moment to act has passed.

 

Review.

To add urgency to an issue is to compel the audience member to respond to it. The clearest path to doing so is to convince the audience member that specific and concrete benefits accrue to those who act and that specific and concrete consequences accrue to those who fail to act. The emphasis, as always, must be placed on the outcomes related to the well-being of the audience member. Arguments relating to the cost and benefits accruing to any other population can be employed (e.g. second generation costs and benefits) but only within that context.

 

 

---

 

This is the End of "Virtual Consensus."

[Go Back to Virtual Assurance.] | [Go Ahead to Virtual Disaster.] | [ Go Back to the Table of Contents.]

 

Contact the Author!