Convincing people to follow your ideas means helping them convince themselves.
I Hear You but It’s Still “No”
If you’re reading this, it’s a good bet you’re a conscientious and diligent lawyer. A “counsel” in the best sense of the term. Your advice is thoughtful and well researched. Your ideas are reasonable and grounded in relevant experience. You take your work seriously and presume colleagues do the same.
If that sounds like your character, then I expect it’s also true that you are flummoxed, frustrated and disillusioned when colleagues decline to follow your good advice or say “no” to your good ideas—especially without compelling justification.
- “We can’t do it that way because of…” [Irrelevant]
- “That’s too much risk for us…” [Without further explanation]
- “My gut is telling me…” [It hasn’t done any research]
Sound familiar? Let me tell you a story about toilets.
The Illusion of Explanatory Depth
Several years ago, researchers started asking the following question: “On a scale of 1 to 7, how well do you understand how a toilet works?” The average response was about 4.5/7.
So, people don’t know how to build a toilet, but no one is surprised by the flush.<