After finishing this book in August of 2022, I wrote,

 

"When we think of trying to change someone's mind, we go for the gas. Give them more reasons why they should change. Johah Berger shows how, in many cases, it's more effective to get them to let up on the brakes. Ask the question, 'Why haven't they already changed their mind?'"

 

My clippings below collapse a 276-page book into 9 pages, measured by using 12-point type in Microsoft Word." 

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See all my book recommendations.  

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Here are the selections I made:

Because rather than asking what might convince someone to change, catalysts start with a more basic question: Why hasn’t that person changed already? What is blocking them?

 

Sometimes change doesn’t require more horsepower. Sometimes we just need to unlock the parking brake.

 

This book is about finding the parking brakes. Discovering the hidden barriers preventing change. Identifying the root or core issues that are thwarting action and learning how to mitigate them.

 

Principle 1: Reactance When pushed, people push back.

 

Principle 2: Endowment As the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. People are wedded to what they’re already doing.

 

Principle 3: Distance People have an innate anti-persuasion system, but even when we just provide information, sometimes it backfires. Why? Another barrier is distance.

 

Principle 4: Uncertainty Change often involves uncertainty. Will a new product, service, or idea be as good as the old one? It’s hard to know for sure, and this uncertainty makes people hit the pause button, halting action.

 

Principle 5: Corroborating Evidence Sometimes one person, no matter how knowledgeable or assured, is not enough. Some things just need more proof. More evidence to overcome the translation problem and drive change. Sure, one person endorsed something, but what does their endorsement say about whether I’ll like it? To overcome this barrier, catalysts find reinforcement. Corroborating evidence.

 

Reactance, Endowment, Distance, Uncertainty, and Corroborating Evidence can be called the five horsemen of inertia. Five key roadblocks that hinder or inhibit change.

 

These five ways to be a catalyst can be organized into an acronym. Catalysts reduce Reactance, ease Endowment, shrink Distance, alleviate Uncertainty, and find Corroborating Evidence. Taken together, that forms an acronym, REDUCE. Which is exactly what great catalysts do. They REDUCE roadblocks. They change minds and incite action by reducing barriers to change.

 

People have a need for freedom and autonomy. To feel that their lives and actions are within their personal control. That, rather than driven by randomness, or subject to the whims of others, they get to choose. Consequently, people are loath to give up agency. In fact, choice is so important that people prefer it even when it makes them worse off. Even when having choice makes them less happy.

 

It’s providing a menu: a limited set of options from which people can choose.

 

Ask, Don’t Tell Another way to allow for agency is to ask questions rather than make statements.

 

Highlight a Gap Giving people a menu, or asking rather than telling, avoids usurping their sense of control. But another route to self-persuasion is to highlight a gap—a disconnect between someone’s thoughts and actions or a disparity between what they might recommend for others versus do themselves.

 

The Smoking Kid campaign worked because it highlighted a gap, a disconnect between what smokers were suggesting to others (kids) and what they were doing themselves.

 

People strive for internal consistency. They want their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to align. Someone who says they care about the environment tries to reduce their carbon footprint. Someone who preaches the virtues of honesty tries not to tell lies. Consequently, when attitudes and behaviors conflict, people get uncomfortable. And to reduce this discomfort, or what scientists call cognitive dissonance, people take steps to bring things back in line.

 

Consequently, seasoned negotiators don’t start with what they want; they start with whom they want to change. Working to gain insight into where that person is coming from. Comprehending and appreciating that person’s situation, feelings, and motives, and showing them that someone else understands.

 

Consequently, Greg Vecchi starts every negotiation the same way: “Hi, I’m Greg with the FBI. Are you okay?”

 

Greg talks about it as becoming their helper. Their advocate or means to get what they want. “It sounds like you’re hungry. Let me get you some food.” “You want a getaway car? What type of car do you want?” He becomes the intermediary, their partner. From the beginning he establishes that he is there to help them and that they are a team.

 

This even shows up in the language Greg uses. “You and I are going to work this out.” “We’ve got to keep working together, because we don’t want it taken out of our hands, right?”

 

And after they’ve been talking for a while and John shares all this information, Greg comes back with “Well, gee, John. It seems to me that if you kill yourself today, your boys are going to lose their best friend.”

 

When people feel understood and cared about, trust develops.

 

No one likes feeling someone is trying to influence them. After all, when’s the last time you changed your mind because someone told you to?

 

So how do we ease endowment? Two key ways are to (1) surface the cost of inaction, and (2) burn the ships.

 

Business author Jim Collins once said that “good is the enemy of great… We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.”

 

Because, as loss aversion shows, losses loom larger than gains. Losing $10 feels worse than gaining $10, and becoming less efficient feels worse than becoming more efficient. Seeing how much time or money is being lost is more motivating than seeing how much could have been gained. Making it less likely that people will stick with the status quo.

 

So sometimes inaction needs to be taken off the table. Or at least no longer subsidized. Because while inaction might beat newcomers in a royal rumble, once inaction becomes more costly, suddenly the contest is a lot more even. Now everyone is on equal footing.

 

Rather than thinking about whether a given new thing is better than the old one, by helping to take inaction off the table, burning the ships encourages people to set aside the old and instead think about which new thing is worth pursuing.

 

So Cummings bought a big red bus for Vote Leave. He had politicians drive around the country, speaking to voters. And on the side of the bus in large white letters it read: “We send the EU £350 million a week; let’s fund our NHS [National Health Service] instead.”

 

He added the word “back.” As in “Take back control.” “ ‘Back,’ ” Cummings wrote in his blog, “plays into a strong evolved instinct—we hate losing things, especially control.” “Back” triggered loss aversion. It made it seem like something had been lost, and that leaving the EU was a way to regain that.

 

Ask for Less The movable middle is a great place to start, but sometimes we want to change minds of people who are further away. So how do we do that?

 

Switch the Field; Find an Unsticking Point

 

To avoid this issue, rather than inhabiting someone else’s shoes, deep canvassing encourages voters to find a parallel situation from their own experience. Not imagining what it’s like to be someone else, but a time the voter felt similarly.

 

Rather than pushing harder down the same blocked path, explore related directions where people aren’t so dug in. Even though someone might seem like an adversary on one dimension, there’s probably more to them than just that. Points of agreement like making sure the company continues to grow or employee retention stays high. Start with that. Start with the areas of agreement and build from there.

 

The Uncertainty Tax

 

This devaluing of things uncertain is called the “uncertainty tax.” When choosing between a sure thing and a risky one, the risky option has to be that much better to get chosen.

 

And people dislike uncertainty. Not just a little, like bad weather or spoiled milk or a host of other things they find mildly annoying. No, people really dislike uncertainty. So much so that it has a real, tangible cost.

 

So, while uncertainty is great for the status quo, or whatever people were doing before, it’s terrible for changing minds. Because rather than moving ahead and doing something new, uncertainty makes people wait and stick with whatever they have always been doing. At least until that uncertainty resolves. If it ever does.

 

Simply put, trialability is how easy it is to try something. The ease with which something can be tested or experimented with on a limited basis.

 

The easier it is to try something, the more people will use it, and the faster it catches on.

 

The question, then, is how to reduce uncertainty by lowering the barrier to trial. Four key ways to do that are to (1) harness freemium, (2) reduce up-front costs, (3) drive discovery, and (4) make it reversible.

 

By allowing consumers to experience things like they would in a physical store, without having to pay for the opportunity, free shipping overcame the uncertainty tax and changed how people shop forever.

 

The last way to reduce uncertainty is to make things reversible.

 

But if something like free shipping or returns helps overcome that inertia and leads someone to order a particular pair, the impact of inertia shifts. Now the question isn’t whether it is worth the effort to get new shoes but whether it is worth the effort to get rid of the pair that was just ordered.

 

In cases where people are not aware that something exists, however, or don’t think it’s a good fit for them, driving discovery helps. Like Acura or Kiwi Crate, bringing things directly to people or using social ties to encourage trial.

 

But beyond how many invitations people received, when they received those invitations also mattered. The closer the different invitations were in time, the bigger their collective impact.

 

Take two people, one who got two invitations in quick succession and one who received them a month or two apart. The person who received the two invitations one right after the other was over 50 percent more likely to join the site.

 

REACTANCE When pushed, people push back. So rather than telling people what to do, or trying to persuade, catalysts allow for agency and encourage people to convince themselves. ENDOWMENT People are attached to the status quo. To ease endowment, catalysts surface the costs of inaction and help people realize that doing nothing isn’t as costless as it seems. DISTANCE Too far from their backyard, people tend to disregard. Perspectives that are too far away fall in the region of rejection and get discounted, so catalysts shrink distance, asking for less and switching the field. UNCERTAINTY Seeds of doubt slow the winds of change. To get people to un-pause, catalysts alleviate uncertainty. Easier to try means more likely to buy.

 

CORROBORATING EVIDENCE Some things need more proof. Catalysts find corroborating evidence, using multiple sources to help overcome the translation problem.

 

REDUCE REACTANCE How can you allow for agency? Like the truth campaign, encouraging people to chart their path to your destination? Can you provide a menu? Like asking kids whether they want their broccoli or chicken first, can you use guided choices? Like Smoking Kid, is there a gap between attitudes and behavior, and if so, how can you highlight it? Rather than going straight for influence, have you started with understanding? Have you found the root? Like Greg Vecchi, built trust and use that to drive change?

 

EASE ENDOWMENT What is the status quo and what aspects make it attractive? Are there hidden costs of sticking with it that people might not realize? Like financial advisor Gloria Barrett, how can you surface the costs of inaction? Like Cortés, or Sam Michaels in IT, how can you burn the ships to make it clear that going back isn’t a feasible option? Like Dominic Cummings and Brexit, can you frame new things as regaining a loss?

 

SHRINK DISTANCE How can you avoid the confirmation bias by staying out of the region of rejection? Can you start by asking for less? Like the doctor who got the trucker to drink less soda, chunking the change and then asking for more? Who falls in the movable middle and how can you use them to help convince others? What would be a good unsticking point and how can you use it to switch the field? Like deep canvassing, by finding a dimension on which there is already common ground to bring people closer?

 

ALLEVIATE UNCERTAINTY How can you reduce uncertainty and get people to un-pause? Can you lower the barrier to trial? Like Dropbox, can you leverage freemium? Like Zappos, how can you reduce the up-front costs, using test drives, renting, sampling, or other approaches to make it easier for people to experience something themselves? Rather than waiting for people to come to you, can you drive discovery? Like the Acura experience, by encouraging people who didn’t know they might be interested to check it out? Can you reduce friction on the back end by making things reversible? Like Street Tails Animal Rescue did with a two-week trial period, or as others do with lenient return policies?

 

FIND CORROBORATING EVIDENCE Are you dealing with a pebble or a boulder? How expensive, risky, time-consuming, or controversial is the change you’re asking people to make? How can you provide more proof? Like interventionists, by making sure people hear from multiple sources saying similar things? What similar but independent sources can you call on to help provide more evidence? How can you concentrate them close in time? Making sure people hear from multiple others in a short period? For larger-scale change, should you use a fire hose or a sprinkler? Concentrate scarce resources or spread them out?

 

Jacek Nowak was struggling to get buy-in from senior management. He was working in an industry, banking, that is known for being reticent to change. And he was trying to get them to do something about customer experience that was in some senses the antithesis of what they were used to. But by lowering the barrier to trial and driving discovery, he helped management experience the value of what he was suggesting and ultimately adopt his suggestions. Chuck Wolfe was competing against one of the largest industries in the world, whose budget dwarfed his by more than a thousandfold. And getting teens to quit smoking was something that dozens of organizations had been trying to do for decades, without much success. But by laying out the truth rather than telling teens what to do, he was able to turn the tide. By letting them be active participants rather than passive bystanders, Chuck made them feel like they were in control. He reduced reactance and got teens to convince themselves. Nick Swinmurn needed a way to help a small start-up get off the ground. Shoesite.com was running out of money and they needed to change consumer behavior—fast. But rather than trying to convince people or spending funds they didn’t have on splashy ads, they removed the roadblocks. They used free shipping (and returns) to let potential customers experience the offering firsthand. By lowering the barrier to trial, Zappos reduced risk, alleviated uncertainty, and built a billion-dollar business. And along the way, helped usher in the world of online shopping we’re all so familiar with today. 

 

Use Minimal Encouragers One way to show someone you are listening is to demonstrate through your body language and verbal responses that you are focused on what is being said. This can include nodding your head, leaning forward, or watching the person’s eyes, as well as phrases like “Yes,” “Uh-huh,” and “Okay, I see.” While such assent words or phrases may seem inconsequential, they’re actually the glue that holds conversation together. When presenters don’t get any response or feedback from their audience, they not only enjoy it less, they do a worse job overall.

 

Ask Open-ended Questions Questions get discussion going and build trust. Looking at a range of situations, from getting-to-know-you conversations to speed dating, people who ask more questions are liked more.2 Questions also help collect useful information so people can better understand their conversation partners. But not all questions are equally good. Why questions (“Why didn’t you take out the trash?”), for example, can make people defensive or feel like they are being interrogated. Yes-no questions, or those that encourage one-word answers (“Do you have a gun?”), are also less effective because they fail to advance the conversation. Open-ended questions (“Can you tell me more about that?” or “Wow, how did that happen?”) not only show people you’re listening but generate details and information that can be helpful later.

 

Harness Effective Pauses Pauses harness the power of silence. Silence can be uncomfortable, so people tend to fill in conversational space. Hostage negotiators use pauses to get subjects to speak up and provide additional information, particularly when they think asking a question might derail things. Rather than asking a follow-up question, they’ll be quiet and let the suspect fill in the dead air. Pauses also help focus attention. Pausing just before or after saying something important breeds anticipation and encourages listeners to focus on what the communicator is saying. President Obama was famous for this. His campaign slogan “Yes, we can” was often delivered with a pause in between, as in “Yes… we can.” In his 2008 election night speech, his most stirring sentence contained ten of these pauses: “If there is anyone out there… who still doubts… that America is a place… where all ...

 

Reflect What You Heard Mirroring involves repeating the last few words of what someone said to show you’re listening and engaged. Particularly if someone is feeling emotional, it encourages them to keep talking and gives them the opportunity to vent. If someone says, “I’m so annoyed that our supplier is always a day or two late,” for example, one could respond, “They’re always a day or two late?” Mirroring builds liking and affiliation while keeping the conversation flowing. Rather than repeating exactly what was said, paraphrasing involves rest...

 

Label Emotions Changing minds is often as much about emotion as information. Facts and figures are fine, but if you don’t understand the underlying emotional issues, it’s hard to get people to move. Emotional labeling helps identify the issues and feelings that are driving someone’s behavior. Statements like “You sound angry” or “You seem frustrated” help show that you’re listening and trying to understand....

 

One way to spot barriers is to think about the past and present rather than the future. As we’ve discussed, instead of asking what would encourage change, ask why things haven’t changed already. Why hasn’t the desired shift already occurred. What’s preventing it? What existing factors have prevented it from happening by now?