You’ve Got a Good Idea. Can You Persuade Me?

Whether through an informal chat or a keynote speech, empathy is the key.

Thought leadership aims to stimulate people’s thoughts and actions through well-argued persuasion. Persuading them to consider an issue they hadn’t thought of, or to take a new perspective on a familiar topic, or to actually do something. But persuasion is ultimately in the gift of the persuadee, not the persuador. This is where empathy—the key to all persuasion—comes in. In order to understand how to best persuade your audience, you need to enter into their mind.

Here’s how to bring empathy to three very different-yet-common scenarios. In each, the ability to talk effectively about your ideas can be hugely consequential:

Scenario 1: The Unplanned Meeting

An informal, unplanned interaction, such as an event where you happen to find yourself with a potential client or sponsor of your new idea.

You unexpectedly find yourself next to a potential client or sponsor at a dinner table, in a reception area, or in an airport queue. Always have your “hook” ready; your single sentence that draws people into your new idea. Typically, this will be about the intractable issue your idea helps to solve, or an anecdote that shines a light on it. Also, have your two-minute version ready, which tells enough of the story to draw in the listener, without overwhelming them with information. No more than one data point, if that. Less is more. Remember that they have not come to listen to you; they’re thinking of their upcoming meeting, or flight, or...anything but your idea. Empathise.

Even if they’re able to rapidly shift their brain into the gear you want, there’s no time to walk them through the full intricacies of your thinking, so your intent should not be to firehose them with information. Quite the contrary, your intent should be to intrigue them enough to want to talk to you again and find out more. So again, always be prepared with your hook and your (very) short summary. And don’t worry if your thinking evolves over time—that shows progress; just always have your latest versions polished and ready.

These unplanned opportunities are gifthorses, so be thoughtful about how to make the most of the moment. Don’t try to “close the deal” when the person you’re speaking to doesn’t even know there’s a deal for consideration.

Scenario 2: The Interview

An unstructured interview with a journalist or podcaster where you have the chance to weave in your new ideas.

Your research output is a mass of insights, data, examples, arguments, case studies and recommendations. Much of your effort goes into combining, refining, and editing all this into a compelling storyline, often in a report. But that’s just one of the potential outputs that could be created from these ingredients. An output that is entirely under your control.

In an interview, you lose part of that control. The questions are dictated by the interviewer; their priorities and preferences lead the direction and scope of inquiry. You need to be prepared to listen and identify how each question relates to your work, and pivot to the most compelling, relevant parts of your research. All whilst keeping a natural flow of conversation and engagement.

In preparation, revisit the mass of your research, and construct multiple, distinct, mini-narratives. A mini-narrative could be a key statement, backed up by a real-life example, revealing a clear recommendation. Or it could be a series of connected statements and data points that, together, make a robust case for a specific action. Such mini-narratives will be scattered throughout your research, so the task is to draw them out, categorise them, and learn them, preferably by memory. The notes you take to your interview should be around these easy-to-remember mini-narratives—easy to find, easy to articulate, easy to group in different combinations, as the question demands.

Amid this challenging scenario, never forget to empathise: Media relations training will teach you to always “pivot” from the question to your core message. But if you do this in an unnatural way that feels like a starchy politician or an all-too-slick salesman, the credibility of your idea will be lost. Always listen carefully to the question and make sure you’re answering it, even if you then make the connection and progress to your bigger point. And remember to empathise not only with your interviewer, but also with the ultimate audience. Use language and terminology that they use; illustrate with examples that speak to them; and be sure to connect your ideas to current events and developments.   

Scenario 3: The Captive Audience

A speech or presentation where you have a captive audience for an allotted time.

Your audience wants to go on a journey, so do them that courtesy. Crucially, begin planning from the final destination: What do you want your audience feeling, saying or doing when they leave? Craft the steps towards that endpoint, using your insights, datapoints, examples and stories. Centre on what they need to know in order to bring your idea to fruition, not on what you want to tell them. Invariably, you’ll want to tell them too much, so use the audience’s gaze as an editing tool. Empathise by meeting them where they are first, then take them towards your destination.

And stay focused: Don’t hide the core messages in verbiage - draw stark attention to them. Reinforce them through repetition and compelling stories. A spoken example demands a different structure to a written example. Edit, rehearse, and re-edit your script. It has to sound natural.

Try to get the audience members personally invested in your story. Get under their skin; draw them in, guide them, design mini-narratives within grander story arcs, use humor. Shock, if necessary. Engagement is essential to absorb information. Remember that attention spans are exceedingly short, so be sure to signal some kind of change every 2-3 minutes, even if it’s simply through a shift in pace or tone. Better yet, get them to say or do something.

The audience wants to feel part of this journey, not just watch it from afar. So engage them. I don’t necessarily mean “audience participation”, but they do need opportunities to connect your ideas to their reality. Give them opportunities to do so, whether by explicitly asking them to think about something (remembering to give them time to do so), or by requesting their active participation. For example, a simple poll (whether through hand-raising or survey apps) can willingly oblige the participants to engage with your idea, connect it to their lived experience, and then commit to a point of view. Don’t waste that moment of commitment, use their input to shape the next stage of the journey. Keep them involved...and make sure they reach that final destination with you.

In summary, prepare well for every interaction, however seemingly major or minor, and always keep empathy at the heart of your planning.

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