Member-only story
How to Plant an Idea in People’s Brains
“I never thought of it that way.”
A few weeks ago, I was listening to two people argue about the same situation. One person was completely convinced that their decision was correct, while the other person thought it was obviously wrong. Both had their own reasons, and both were confident that they understood what had happened.
Then someone explained what had happened from the other person’s perspective.
The conversation suddenly became quiet.
The person who had been arguing didn’t immediately change their opinion. They simply paused and said, “I never thought of it that way.”
That sentence stayed with me because nothing complicated had happened. Nobody had won the argument. Nobody had forced the other person to agree. Someone had simply introduced information that wasn’t part of the original story.
And that is one of the simplest ways to put a new idea into someone’s mind.
The story people hear becomes the story they believe
Most people don’t see an entire situation. They see the part that reaches them.
Imagine your manager tells you that a project is late because the development team missed the deadline. Based on…
