The foundation of every human need is the need for control.
By being able to control the world around us, we are able to satisfy our every need.
There are our basic survival needs. When we can get food and water and shelter we can stay alive. When we have a family, we become responsible for the survival needs of multiple people. When we can get what we need to keep them alive, we can relax.
There are our social needs. When we can get quality relationships and social interactions in our life, this keeps us sane and happy. When we can associate with people who share our values, and who value us, we feel a part of something bigger than us.
There are our fulfilment needs. When we can feel we are progressing towards the goals our unconscious mind has bought into, we feel in control of our destiny.
As soon as we lose control, we can lose the ability to satisfy any or all of those needs.
Whenever we feel hungry, it takes up all of our attention. We lose the ability to think of much else beyond feeding ourselves.
When our family is in danger, maybe our spouse has suffered an injury, or our young child has a fever, again we can’t think of much else beyond making sure they are OK.
In this modern age, when we lack quality social interaction in our lives, we instantly open our smartphones and dive into social media. Loneliness is probably what fuels social media addiction.
When we can’t put the time into achieving our goals, we feel an incredible sense of frustration. All the times I want to be writing this book but can’t due to other commitments that frustration occupies my every thought.
The sense of being in control, having our most fundamental needs taken care of and being able to make progress towards goals our unconscious has bought into, leads to engagement. We relax, and our mind becomes fully immersed in whatever it is we are doing.
We see this in people playing video games. The goals in video games are meaningful to people. They provide a sense of purpose, a sense of progress and achievement, and some games even help satisfy peoples’ social needs. As a result, their minds focus fully on the game, they feel a buzz in their veins, and filter out everything else in their world. The calls from their parents, or even spouses, to come and eat dinner go completely unnoticed.
Similar states can be reached when communicating with others. We’ve all experienced being lost in conversation with good company. Our every thought is occupied by this conversation. Before we even know it, 3 hours have passed by.
When it comes to bridging communication gaps, we ideally want whoever we are communicating with to have reached that state. We want them to focus on our conversation, and to engage in it. Especially when we are talking about something important, such as managing a conflict, sharing feedback, or solving problems.
A person’s need for control will impact their ability to open their minds to you. There are all sorts of subtle ways we can unintentionally cause people to feel we are a threat to their sense of control. When they feel we will take away their capacity to fulfil their needs, the only thing they can start to think of is how to regain control so that they can fulfil their needs.
In this moment, their minds shut off. Whilst we are talking at them, their minds are elsewhere, brainstorming how to take care of whatever need must be attended to. They may even reject our ideas, get defensive, or challenge us. This is not what we want.
So how do we help people open their minds to us? There are two things we can do:
- Talk to what they are approaching and avoiding.
- Let them decide.
1. Talk to What they are Approaching and Avoiding
What keeps people up at night?
The short answer; it’s the things they care about. Paying bills, the overwhelming pile of work they have waiting for them, the fight they had with their spouse or friend, and so on. Basically, anything that is either a pleasure they want to approach, or a pain they want to avoid.
And remember how our attention is goal directed?
When I am hungry, my attention focuses on finding food. When my bladder is full, my attention focuses on finding the nearest bathroom. And when my 2 year old has wandered off into the kitchen by himself, my attention focuses on retrieving him before he finds the kitchen knives again!
Just because you speak, doesn’t mean people’s attention will be on you. Their attention will be on their goals. And if you are not speaking about anything related to their goals in that moment, then you won’t have their attention.
So the first way to open their mind is to talk about things they care about.
And if you don’t know what they care about then ask them.
I remember when I almost walked into a trap with a potential client. I was invited by the HR Manager to come and meet the Product Manager, a German engineer. As I walked into the meeting room, he was looking at his computer and barely acknowledged my presence. After several moments of ignoring me, he finally said “OK, do you want to connect to the projector and give me a 10 minute pitch?”.
Out of principle, I don’t do pitches. And considering the situation, a pitch would have been a disaster.
His attention was clearly focused elsewhere. The HR Manager hadn’t fully communicated to me what he cared about, and hadn’t been able to communicate to him what I could help him with, she just had a sense I might be able to help solve a problem they were facing. If I had given a standard pitch, it probably would have been something completely unrelated to anything he was interested in, and would have got filtered out whilst he continued to type away on his laptop.
So I immediately responded “I don’t want to waste your time with a pitch. I’d prefer to understand what you need help with first, then I can see if I am able to help you.”
He immediately closed his laptop and looked at me. We made some small talk and introduced a bit about what we both did. Then he talked for 20 minutes about the challenges he was having getting his sales team to sell more of the products in their portfolio. Eventually we found a solution I could help them with; I would help them redesign and then facilitate their product knowledge training as a way of testing the waters to see if bigger changes could be achieved.
Before that point, I had never designed or facilitated any product knowledge training in my life. Neither did I have a clue about any of their products. But we both realised it was something within my skillset, and he trusted me to take on the challenge because I showed I was able to understand what he cared about.
2. Let Them Decide
The easiest way to piss someone off is to tell them what to do.
Actually, there are lots of other even easier ways. But telling someone what to do is a pretty straightforward way of pissing them off.
Anytime we use words like “Should…”, “Must…”, “Have got to…” and so on, this signals to people’s unconscious that they are being pressured to do something they don’t want to do.
The very nature of that kind of language implies that it’s something their unconscious has not brought into, otherwise they’d probably already be doing it by now.
Furthermore, coming from someone else signals a reduction in status. Commands come from people above us in the hierarchy, otherwise how would they have the authority to command us to do something?
A reduction in status is pretty much the definition of humiliation.
Humiliation is always a social issue. It’s always to do with what other people think of us. Do they deem us worthy of respect, or not worthy?
Look at our monkey cousins to see how dangerous a loss of status is. The alpha male gets top of pick of food and mating partners. They have an established network of allies who will come to their support. They have access to all the resources they need and more. Whereas those at the bottom have to fight for scraps. Less food means less strength. They are easily picked on. They don’t get any mating partners. They may even get ostracised, which is basically a death sentence.
A loss of status is no joke.
Even though “Should…”, “Must…” and “Have got to…” are simple words, for many people they can be triggers for the primal threat response. This is at least true for my wife who will do the exact opposite of what I think she “should” do!
There is an exception to this though. That is when people acknowledge a person’s higher status, and want their advice. Watch any video of Gary Vee, the entrepreneur influencer, on YouTube and you’ll see exactly what I mean. People pay good money, travel great distances, and wait in line for a long time to be told what to do by him. He uses very strong, direct commands, and people lap it all up with great enthusiasm.
Does the other person acknowledge you as having a higher status? Are they asking for your advice?
If Yes, then you’re probably fine giving them direct commands.
But if the answer is No, then anytime you want to give feedback or offer suggestions, then do so with the intention of letting them decide what to do.
I have a good friend who I believe would benefit greatly from being more active on LinkedIn. They work as a coach just like me, and I believe that if they were more active on LinkedIn, they’d meet more new people, be easier to find, and even refine their thinking.
I know that saying the following would not work:
- “You should be more active on LinkedIn”
- “You’re really missing out. You’d be so much better off if you had a stronger profile on LinkedIn”
- “Come on! Get on LinkedIn already!”
So instead, I have shared with them the benefits I’ve experienced on LinkedIn, my observations of what they say about LinkedIn, and the lessons I’ve learnt about using LinkedIn. On top of those, I haven’t told them to do anything. I’ve simply given them this information, and let them digest it and make their own decisions.
Have they started using LinkedIn yet? Nope! Will they? I don’t know. But it’s not my place to say what is in their best interest. As a friend, the best thing I can do is share with them my honest thoughts and let them decide what to do.
So when you want to give feedback, instead of saying:
- “You should…”
- “You really need to…”
- “Stop…”
Try the following:
- “I’ve noticed…”
- “I feel…”
- “I saw/heard…”
And when you want to give suggestions, instead of saying:
- “Do this…”
- “Here’s what you’ve got to do…”
- “Start doing this…”
Try the following:
- “I’m wondering if…?”
- “Here’s what I think…What do you think of that?”
- “Have you considered…?
Opening Their Mind
If you need to get people to open their mind, then the key is to let them feel in control. To do that, always following these two steps:
- Talk to what they are approaching and avoiding.
- Let them decide.
