I am still holding my ground against Ford Harding.  We have been debating the relative merits of raising FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) in persuasive arguments, or GOG (greed, opportunity, and glory.) 

Ford seems to think that GOG is better than FUD.  I think they work together, and that one is not better than the other.

I follow what the ancient Greeks taught.  Aristotle taught that speakers need to make three types of arguments in order to be persuasive.

The first is the ethical appeal:  you argue that you are a trustworthy source of information.  You do this by casually referencing your experience or expertise, and perhaps with some self-effacing humor.

The second is the intellectual appeal.  You argue by stating your point and then proving it with reasoning and facts, or you present your facts and reasoning and then conclude with your point.

The third type of argument is the emotional appeal.  You try, through stories, or humor, to arouse an emotion in your listeners.

Cicero, the great Roman statesman, thought the emotional appeal was the most important.  He said, “…tickling and soothing anxieties is the test of a speaker’s impact and technique.”

Ford, please note that he said, “..tickling AND soothing anxieties,” and Cicero was no slouch as a speaker.  He knew what he was talking about.  He seems to be saying that swenever we propose to an audience that they make a decision, we should bring up the pros and cons. 

For instance, you might say that if the listeners don’t do what you recommend, A, B, C and D are the negative consequences they might expect.  However, if they decide to do what you suggest, you would argue that they could enjoy X, Y, and Z.

I’m sure I don’t have to remind you, or anyone, that your reasoning should be fair and balanced.  Using FUD or GOG is ethically neutral.  One is not more virtuous or ethical than the other.  It is not our technique that makes us unethical, but our intention.

And by the way, most speeches, articles, plays, novels, and movies are structured in the same way.  They single out a problem, consider its implications, and explore solutions.   

Humans like problems because problems resemble puzzles, and we love puzzles.  We derive great pleasure from solving them, and grow as a result. 

FUD gets our attention on the problem.  GOG drives us toward a solution. 

They are the one-two punch of human growth and accomplishment.

Girls of a certain age expose their stomachs, and boys expose their underwear.  Those of us who are too old to seek this kind of social status based on sex appeal are more concerned about dressing to project power, authority, and stability.

We select our clothes even more carefully when we are going to present.  Do we dress like the audience?  Do we dress in our finest?  Or do we calculate what the audience will wear and dress slightly more formally?

We agonize over such questions because clothing is one of the languages we speak.  Our first (or second) language is English.  Then we have the specialized language of our industry or profession, which in some cases takes years to master.  We also speak body language, over which we have little control and which communicates volumes about who we are.  Then there is para-linguistics, which amounts to the  impact of our speaking voice (nasal? whiney? fast? sonorous? deep? Brooklynese? Old New England?)

But not to be neglected is what social science calls “Symbolic Communication.”  We choose our clothes, grooming, and accessories to show the world who we want to be.  Thus, in adolescence, soon after the hormones kick in, we drop our drawers and raise our shirts to say, “I have the power of sex appeal.”

And when that phase is over, we climb into our power suits and power ties, wear a lot of black, and keep our hair neat and tidy so as not to suggest anything too playful.

We choose our watches and our cars as accessories, in order to tell others that we are successful and in-demand.  We locate our businesses at prestigious addresses in order to appeal to the social aspirations of our potential customers.  Such choices are forms of symbolic communication.

We do this to earn the trust and respect of others, so that they will give us responsibility and money, and we will therefore be prosperous, respectable, and secure.

I find it fascinating that it is difficult to trust somebody who is not dressed properly.  We want airline pilots, judges, and doctors to wear uniforms.  And those of us in business create our own uniform code of attire.  Blue suits, red ties, skirts at the knee, cleavage in storage.

Clothes make the man.  I think Beau Brummel said that.  Deep down, we’re all shallow.  Oscar Wilde said that. 

I say clothes are either about sex or power.  Guess which type presenters wear?

This morning a woman told me that when she hosted a company radio show, she heard herself on tape and was horrified to hear how often she said “er” and “uhm.”  She resolved to stop.

The next day, while on the air, she heard herself  “ering and uhming” and began to have a dialogue with herself.  One voice was telling her that she was “ering and uhming” and the other voice was trying to talk to the audience through the microphone.  She described it as an impossible situation.

Athletes practice until their bodies know what to do.  Musicians practice until their fingers know what to do.  Why should speakers be any different?  If you have the habit of “ering and uhming” you need to practice speaking until you’ve created a new habit–the habit of flawless speech.

However, if you are obliged to perform during such a “practice period” in your life, you would be better off forgetting about your “ers and uhms” during performance and simply let your talent take over.

If you ride shotgun on your talent, as the radio announcer did, your conscious mind is trying to interfere with what should be a well-grooved habit.  Psychologists call this “conscious override.”  It’s the mind getting in the way of the talent.

Work on your skills in practice, but when it comes time to perform, give it your best shot.  When the performance is over, you can go back to ridding yourself of those “ers and uhms.”

Here’s the scenario. A bio-tech company will fly to Paris to convince influential French physicians to use their compound-in-development in clinical trials. The company has invited the French doctors to a nice meeting room in a nice hotel and plans to tell the doctors all about the compound.

When asked, “What is the purpose of the presentation?” they say, “To tell them about the drug.” I say I see it differently. I say it’s to help the French doctors come to the conclusion that the bio-tech company would be a great company to partner with, and that the drug is a versatile powerhouse that will almost certainly make it to market and get their names in the best peer-reviewed journals in the world.

When I lay out this plan, they say it is not scientific enough. I am sensitive to that. I like and respect the traditions of science. But I say, “This is not a scientific presentation. This is a business presentation. Science plays a part, but the goal is a business goal. You need these people to believe in your company and your compound. Our job is to induce belief in them, and raise that belief to the level of action.”

We take the scientific and corporate information they already have and restructure it to make a strong argument for partnership. There is some resistance holding out in the recesses of their scientific hearts.

I persist. This is a “decisional” presentation, I say. The French doctors will say, “Yes, No or Maybe.” There are risks for them. They could miss out on a good thing if they say no. They could miss out on better opportunities if they say yes. There are rational calculations to make, including the fact that they have practices to run, assistants to pay, and time to manage.

There are also non-rational issues. They would love to get their names on an important study. They would hate to work for years on a trial of a compound that never gets to market. Should they say no? Should they say yes?

In reality, I would guess their decision will hinge on what the most influential physician in the group decides.

This was a lesson in knowing the audience–in targeting their rational and non-rational needs. The bio-tech firm was relying on the science to do the job. It seemed to me the calculation was broader than that. For the doctors, the decision would be psychological as well as scientific.

Stay tuned.

Blaise Pascal was a 17th century French mathematical genius who spelled out the laws of probability more clearly than anyone before him.  This was a watershed moment, because for the first time humanity had a systematic way of thinking about the future.

Pascal was both a gambler and a religious zealot.  He wanted to know if God really exists, which is knowledge not easily acquired.  So the next question was, “Should I act as if God exists, or should I act as if He does not exist?”

Suppose, said Pascal, that we lead a life of virtue and self-restraint, and when the day of reckoning comes, we discover there is no God.  Well, life was not too bad being good.  Maybe  life could have been a little more fun, but …this is a consequence that most people could accept.

Suppose however,  we bet that God does not exist, and lead a life of lust, violence, and depravity, only to discover that God really does exist.  Suddenly we’re looking at some serious time in the furnace of the underworld.  Pascal was not willing to take this chance.

Pascal’s wager is helpful for speakers.  When recommending a course of action to an audience that seeks GOG (greed, opportunity, and glory) a speaker should spend time exploring the possible downsides.  Risk is always present, no matter how close the goal appears.

For instance, hedge fund managers often make a huge bet, and then borrow even more money to put down on the bet to increase their potential earnings.  They do this because their data tells them that it’s practically a sure thing.  The problem arises when their data, which is about the past, does not apply to the future.  And if they have borrowed more money than they can easily pay back, their creditors close them down, and their clients lose their money.

A persuasive speaker, when advocating for a course of action, will ask the question, “How will we deal with surprises?  What are the consequences if we are wrong in our assumptions? “  Risk is the eternal possibility of being wrong–not always in an adverse direction.  Sometimes you’re wrong and things turn out better than expected.

When recommending a decision to an audience, it is wise to explore the consequences of your being wrong.   Sometimes the consequences are trivial (lead a good life but get no prize in Heaven), and sometimes they are not (lead a bad life and cook slowly forever.)

Rather than let the audience try to poke holes in your argument, you should do it yourself.  Give your presentation a pressure test, and see if it holds up.

Effective persuasion starts with the recognition that any forecast can be wrong, then weighs the consequences of being wrong.   Even if success will lead to fame, wealth and glory, you will be more credible if you surface the negative possibilities, and can honestly dismiss them as trivial.

On June 20th in the Wall Street Journal, in response to the media coverage of Tim Russert’s untimely death, Peggy Noonan wrote in her Declarations column, “When somebody dies we tell his story and try to define and isolate what was special about it–what it was he brought to the party, how he enhanced life by showing up. In this way we educate ourselves about what really matters.”

“In a way, the world is a great liar. It shows you it worships and admires money, but at the end of the day it doesn’t. It says it adores fame and celebrity, but it doesn’t, not really. The world admires, and wants to hold on to, and not lose, goodness. It admires virtue. [...] That’s what we talk about in eulogies, because that’s what’s important.”

Reading this, it struck me that we could say the same thing about public speaking. We make a show of admiring speakers who are clever, rich with data slides, equipped with approved platform behaviors and polished texts. But in the end, what we really like in speakers is character.

Character traits that appeal to audiences are varied, but certainly confidence is one, tempered, we hope, with humility. Genuine interest in the audience is another, or at least an empathetic understanding of their needs and concerns.

Finally, I myself like speakers who appear to be authentic, true to themselves, not working too hard to please me, but are nevertheless skilled at holding my attention.

Think about this. When a speech or presentation is over, which do you remember the longest: what the speaker said, or the impression the speaker created?

Decision makers rarely undertake an important project without first hearing the project leader explain it to them. They are listening for two things–grasp of the material, and the requisite character needed to overcome the inevitable obstacles any large project will encounter.

When a presentation is over, and listeners gather to discuss it and pass judgment, the speaker’s expertise is the dimension they consider overtly. But deep down, their decisions are informed by their perceptions of the speaker’s character.

Ford Harding has lifted his pen to engage with me on a subject of profound importance to sales professionals, leaders, and anyone who seeks to influence others. That subject is the emotional sea on which all decisions float.

FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) is one current in that sea. It drives most of us away from the shoals of risk, hardship, pain and loss.

GOG (greed, opportunity, and glory) is another current in the sea. Its siren song calls us to risk our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor in pursuit of objectives that may or may not work out.

I will address Ford’s recent comments in this posting, but first I must clarify my position and then I must make the case for the role of emotion in business decision making. I think Ford and I are using a kind of shorthand in discussing this topic, and some readers might be concerned about the difference between logical persuasion and emotional persuasion.

My position: I am not the champion of FUD and the enemy of GOG. I strive to be the wise master of both. However, I am of the opinion that mankind is more motivated by the fear of loss than the hope of gain. What gets our attention, on a daily basis, are problems. Most people and organizations will not change until the pain of change becomes less than the pain of the status quo. Alcoholics don’t stop drinking until they hit rock bottom. They do not get sober because they suddenly decide to be good little boys and girls. They get sober because they are avoiding the dire consequences of their drinking.

In his book, Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert writes the following:

“One of the most annoying songs in the often annoying history of popular music begins with this line: “Feelings, nothing more than feelings.” I wince when I hear it because it always strikes me as roughly equivalent to starting a hymn with “Jesus, nothing more than Jesus.” Nothing more than feelings? What could be more important than feelings? Sure, war and peace may come to mind, but are war and peace important for any reason other than the feelings they produce? If war didn’t cause pain and anguish, if peace didn’t provide for delights both transcendental and carnal, would either of them matter to us at all? War, peace, art, money, marriage, birth, death, disease, religion—these are just a few of the Really Big topics over which oceans of blood and ink have been spilled, but they are really big topics for one reason alone: Each is a powerful source of human emotion. If they didn’t make us feel uplifted, desperate, thankful, and hopeless, we would keep all that ink and blood to ourselves. As Plato asked, “Are these things good for any other reason except that they end in pleasure, and get rid of and avert pain? Are you looking to any other standard but pleasure and pain when you call them good?” Indeed, feelings don’t just matter—they are what mattering means. We would expect any creature that feels pain when burned and pleasure when fed to call burning and eating bad and good respectively, just as we would expect an asbestos creature with no digestive tract to find such designations arbitrary. Moral philosophers have tried for centuries to find some other way to define good and bad, but none has ever convinced the rest (or me). We cannot say that something is good unless we can say what it is good for, and if we examine all the many objects and experiences that our species calls good and ask what they are good for, the answer is clear: By and large, they are good for making us feel happy.”

_____

Ford, I take this to mean that our careful reasoning and efforts to be logical about any important decision –from making an investment, to building a bridge, to figuring out how to land a new client–is ultimately floating on a sea of feelings and emotions, and that we are constantly striving to minimize our FUD (negative emotions) and maximize our GOG (feelings of pleasure.)

If we are sales professionals, leaders, or public speakers, we need to consider all the tools of persuasion at our disposal. This consideration of tools and techniques makes us rhetoricians practicing the art of rhetoric. We are obliged to use the tools of rhetoric when considering a decision for which there is no clear answer–a decision about which reasonable men can disagree.

FUD and GOG are rhetorical tactics which we can use to persuade an audience. You write that fear tactics are despicable, and then wisely mention that GOG tactics can be equally deceptive. Let me remind you that the techniques of persuasion, like many other technologies, are neither inherently good nor evil. They can be used to advance noble or pernicious purposes. “What makes a man a sophist is not his faculty but his moral purpose.”

As for your Venn diagram example, in which you describe the two overlapping circles of FUD and GOG, and argue that where downside risk is high, the use of only FUD is appropriate, and where the upside is larger, it is only appropriate to use GOG, and only in the middle, where they both overlap, is it appropriate to use both, I have to disagree. All upsides have risk, and all downsides have solutions.

It seems to me that Plato, quoted above, is saying that we undertake projects in our lives to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. In other words, to get rid of FUD and grab hold of GOG.

Furthermore, if we are successful business leaders, as soon as we make a decision to pursue GOG (greed, opportunity and glory), we have a whole new set of FUD calculations to make, such as, “What if I’m wrong? What if the future is not like the past? What if, what if, what if?”

It is up to the speaker, the salesman, and the leader to explore these what ifs, and thereby help his audience to the best decision for them. Reasoning and logic will play their parts in the drama, but FUD and GOG will always be the co-stars.

FUD is Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.  I first heard the term when consulting at Gartner.  I was working with the analysts in preparing for a Gartner Symposium, and several of them used FUD at the start of their talks to engage the listeners on an emotional level.

For instance, they might have said, “While e-mail may be the killer-app of first generation internet programs, it could very well become the mass murderer of the second generation as it hurls armies of hackers, worms, viruses and spam against the the gates of your corporate security infrastructure.”

I made that up.  But something like that. 

Fear-based arguments are common and valid, in my experience.  Our lives are built around the fear of pain and the hope of gain.  Every story we have ever enjoyed in novel, play, film, or ballad is about a person who had a problem (and had FUD) and struggled to make it go away. 

In fact, FUD is what makes drama dramatic.  If we dont’ have FUD when the pretty young thing all alone in the house on a dark and stormy night hears a sound downstairs and gets out of bed in her nightgown to see what’s happening, then the story doesn’t work.

We have to care about the girl, and we have to be afraid that something might jump out of the closet, hatchet raised.

What if a CIO heard a noise in the middle of the night, and it was her phone, and she heard that a hacker had broken through her security system at work, the one she touted and convinced the company to buy, and she had to get dressed and drive into headquarters and face the embarrassment of a crisis that higher-ups were likely to blame on her?

Those CIOs in the audience listening to the Gartner analysts are human beings motivated by the same things that everyone else is motivated by–the fear of loss, and the hope of gain.  I’m not a CIO, but if I were, I’d be worried about making bad decisions, not looking good when my systems aren’t successful, spending too much, spending too little, and taking too much time to get things done.

We know that humans are interested in their own problems.  We talk about our problems most of the time.  They’re  number one in the conversation hit parade.  If we talk to our listeners about their problems, they are much more likely to listen.  If we demonstrate a firm grasp of their problems, and the consequences for them if they don’t solve the problems, they are more likely to respect us and trust us.  So reminding them of their problems might not be a bad strategy.

There is evidence in social science that it is not wise to use FUD arguments on people who are already in a state of high anxiety.  But there is also evidence that we retain and value information when it is linked to our emotions–any emotions, positive or negative.

Consulting is based on problem solving (i.e., the removal of FUD.)  Philosophy is built around problem solving.   Politics likewise.  For the client, the voter, the audience, beyond the FUD is a vision of a new and better reality.  But our credibility as speakers depends largely on defining, in vivid and human terms, the problem that your content solves. 

Let’s not be afraid of FUD.  Used appropriately, FUD can turn a dry information dump into a compelling story about a person, a product, a department, or a company that prevents disaster and saves the day.

Public speaking is a talent before it becomes a skill. A talent is a latent ability, something that is dormant inside you. When you work at it, it becomes a skill.

If you do have a potential talent for speaking and you work at it, you are likely to receive encouragement and recognition for your talent, which then makes you want to continue, which in turn helps you get better.

However, if you don’t have a talent for speaking, but nevertheless work at it without receiving encouragement and recognition, you are likely to give up, and will therefore not develop the skill.

The hard thing is to persist in the face of discouragement.

Churchill passed out when giving his first speech in the Commons.

FDR bombed over and over again when he was a young Secretary of the Navy. His wife Eleanor thought he was hopeless.

Woodrow Wilson had terrible nerves and worked like a fiend to overcome his fear.

And our own Bill Clinton was booed for his interminable speech at the 1988 Democratic convention.

Yet he, and all the others, went on to become highly respected communicators.

I feel like quoting someone famous on the subject of persisting.

Emerson: “Move confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.”

Or the great Japanese folk saying: “Fall down seven times, get up eight.”

It’s the only way to sculpt talent into skill.

I just finished working with a client who had to prepare and deliver an after dinner talk to clients in a museum. Her firm planned to take the clients on a private tour of the museum, feed them dinner, and then she was to stand up and offer them a short talk on investment opportunities in the current turbulent markets.

We spent a few hours crafting the talk, and another couple of hours getting her to verbalize it. At the end of the rehearsal, it was still not right, but she had to go. It was Friday afternoon–the weekend called.

As we parted, I made a few suggestions.

1. Cut it. Your audience is primarily in their 60s and beyond. They will have been on their feet, drunk a few glasses of wine, and will be looking at their watches thinking of bed.
2. Say it aloud at least five times over the weekend (she was to speak on Monday night).
3. Don’t drink any wine until you’ve spoken.
4. Go to the museum tonight, or over the weekend, to see the room where the dinner will take place. Find out where you will stand, what the acoustics are like, and whether you need a microphone or a lectern.
5. Wear something red.
6. Keep it simple, upbeat, and story-like. Don’t drill down into an analysis of the investments.

A few days after the event, I called her. “How did you do?” I asked.

“I give myself a 7 out of 10,” she said.

“How come?” I asked.

“Well, it was too long, they couldn’t hear me, the room was horrible, I didn’t go to see the room over the weekend, I had to cut it on the fly, which made me nervous and look discombobulated.”

“Great!” I said. “Now you know. After dinner speaking is intense. It is intimate. Your audience is on top of you. The rooms are often not good for speakers. There’s noise in the room. The audience is tired and drunk. They want to be entertained–period. They want funny stories and they want them short.”

“It was intense,” she said.

“You’ve had an experience,” I said. And I quoted Mark Twain: “Good judgment comes from experience. And where does experience come from? Bad judgment!”

I told her not to be discouraged. Most people fail their way to success.

She said she was not discouraged, and looked forward to trying again.

She’s a trooper.