The Small BIG: Small Changes That Spark Big Influence (13 page)

I
n the last chapter we discussed how communicators, by highlighting their expertise before presenting their message or proposal, can often register big differences in the subsequent response to those messages and proposals. Over two thousand years ago, the Roman poet Virgil advised that people should “believe an expert” and, as Jan Engelmann and his colleagues demonstrated in their brain-imaging studies, that advice remains just as relevant today. In fact a case could be made that Virgil’s advice is even more relevant. Every day we face an onslaught of information, in our professional and personal lives, that we are required to navigate. In the context of such information overload, we search for d
ecision
-m
aking
shortcuts such as those provided by expert opinions. So, it is easy to see why those who have superior knowledge and wisdom can exert so much influence over our decision making.

Fortunately, there appears to be no shortage of experts willing to help. The business world provides a good illustration with a seemingly never-ending supply of specialists eager to aid any organization to make the right choices. The same is true in our personal lives. Financial advisers stand at the ready, armed with the latest investment advice, as do parental coaches with state-of-the-art child-rearing techniques, and personal trainers with cutting-edge advice on how to stay fit and healthy.

There is an irony here, though. Today’s information-overloaded world requires us to look to experts to help guide our way,
but
there is also an overload of experts, all claiming that theirs is the advice we should listen to and follow. In this information-saturated world where so many claim to be an expert, how do we know who to follow?

Perhaps we should listen to the experts who sound the most confident. After all, we intuitively know that people are more often convinced by those experts who sound certain, right?

Actually, perhaps not!

Consumer researchers Uma Karmarkar and Zakary Tormala believe that it isn’t always the recommendations and advice that emanate from the most confident-sounding expert that will carry sway. Instead, their studies find that often it is the advice and recommendations that come from experts who are themselves uncertain that is the most compelling. This is especially the case when advice concerns situations for which there is no one clear or obvious answer.

In one of Karmarkar and Tormala’s studies, customers were shown a positive review for a new restaurant called Bianco’s. Half of the customers were told that the review was written by a well-known and regularly published food critic, but the other half were told the review was written by a little-known blogger who mostly ate in fast-food restaurants. As you would expect, and consistent with lots of previous research, those who read the review written by the well-known and experienced restaurant reviewer were more influenced by the review than those who read the one written by an unknown blogger. But the researchers weren’t finished.

As well as varying the expertise of each reviewer, they also varied how confident the reviewer felt about the review. For example in a high-certainty condition the reviewer wrote, “I ate dinner there and can confidently give this restaurant a 4 star rating.”

However in the low-certainty condition the reviewer wrote, “Because I have only eaten at Bianco’s once I am not completely confident in my opinion but, for now, I am awarding this restaurant 4 stars.”

Those folks who read the review from the expert who expressed uncertainty were significantly more favorable to the restaurant and rated the likelihood they would frequent it as much higher than those that read the reviews by the highly certain expert or the unknown blogger. In each case the review itself never changed—only the small degree of how confident the expert reviewer was.

In explaining their findings Karmarkar and Tormala point out that because people generally expect experts to be certain about their opinions, it’s when an expert signals potential uncertainties that people are drawn in to what they are saying. In effect, the source’s expertise, when coupled with a level of uncertainty, arouses
intrigue.
As a result, and assuming that the arguments that the expert makes are still reasonably strong, this
drawing in
of an audience to the features of the message can actually lead to more effective persuasion.

This insight offers an important lesson for communicators wishing to increase the persuasiveness of a message. It can be easy to conceal a small doubt, tiny niggle, or slight uncertainty in your argument, believing those small things could make a large and detrimental difference to your success. However, in situations where it is clear that no single obvious answer exists, signaling a small uncertainty, rather than being detrimental to your cause, could make a big and beneficial difference to it. As a result, when seeking to persuade decision makers, a business consultant, rather than hiding or covering up minor uncertainties about a recommendation, might instead embrace them in the knowledge that they can actually make him or her more persuasive—assuming, of course, that the case is a strong one. Doing so affords another advantage—it is a strategy that is likely to build trust as well.

S
ince first appearing on TV, the quiz show the
Weakest Link
rose rapidly to become a worldwide success, being broadcast on TV screens in dozens of countries across the world. The game itself is as much a test of cunning as it is of knowledge. In the early rounds contestants answer questions to accumulate collective prize money; however, at the end of each round, one contestant is voted off, eventually leaving two contestants to compete for the cash. In order to win, it seems that players need to develop a clear strategy, hold their nerve, and of course possess good levels of knowledge—skills that anyone in the business of influencing others recognizes as important.

But is there another important but less obvious factor that could also influence who goes on to win the game?

When analyzing past episodes of the
Weakest Link,
social scientists Priya Raghubir and Ann Valenzuela found that contestants who stood in the two central positions in the show’s familiar semicircular shape were much more likely to win the game than contestants in the remaining positions. In other words, it wasn’t just strategy, knowledge, and nerves of steel that played a part in winning the show—where a contestant stood also mattered.

The researchers found that this subtle yet important shift in location doesn’t just serve to influence the outcome of TV game shows. They also found evidence that anyone who arranges to be located closer to a central position—for example, a recruiter in an interview panel, or executives in a meeting—gains influence over peers. Why? Raghubir and Valenzuela argue that one important reason is observers’ learned associations and beliefs that the most important people are
expected
to be located in the center. Think of the bride and bridegroom at a wedding party, a CEO at a board meeting, and the gold medal–winning athlete at the Olympics.

Not only do we expect the important people to be located “in the middle,” there is also worrisome evidence that, due to their central position, we are less likely to pay attention to the errors and mistakes they make. These findings have implications for meeting leaders who could find a hastily suggested proposal less challenged if it comes from someone who—by virtue of their seating p
osition
—is literally the “center of
in
attention.”

Of course in those situations where it is your idea or proposition that you wish to promote, assuming that the idea or proposition is a good one, then a small change you could make to leverage-up your influence would simply be to seat yourself in a center position. And when speaking or presenting as a group, you could arrange for the centrally located person to deliver the statements you’d most like your audience to accept.

Not only does this research provide a useful reminder of why it is much better to consider the seating positions well before the start of a meeting, but additional research indicates that when it comes to presenting your products and services, such planning can make a real difference too. In one study designed to test this hypothesis, participants were asked to choose one of three differently flavored and simultaneously displayed packets of chewing gum. Even though the researchers routinely changed the order in which the packets were presented, it was the gum that was placed in the middle of the array that was selected most often, and by a significant margin. When the researchers extended the number of choices to five and also experimented not just with gum but with different varieties of other products too (that were all priced the same), they found the same result:
The option in the center stage position was selected significantly more often.

Now while this finding might seem intuitive to some, we would wager that the demonstrated cause will be anything but intuitive. Contrary to what many people might think, the reason why the middle option is chosen more often has less to do with greater attention being drawn to options placed there or to the easier recall of products in those positions.

The primary reason that the center-positioned product was chosen most often was people’s beliefs that products that are positioned in the center of an array are
deliberately
placed there because they are the most popular. Recall from previous chapters how, especially when someone is uncertain of what the best choice to make is, a choice becomes more compelling when it has been visibly popular with others. Note that in this study what signaled the product’s popularity was not information about how popular it was at all, but rather its position in an array.

This explanation offers a way for manufacturers of truly popular products to ensure that they don’t lose that earned influence via the politics of store shelf placements, which can sometimes be determined by payments to store managers. They can place the words “Best Selling” or “Most Popular” directly on their packaging, thereby communicating honestly which of the brands has “the strongest link” to genuine popularity, no matter where they are placed on the shelves.

A
significant amount of research has demonstrated the remarkable influence that environments and surroundings can have on our behaviors and decisions. For example, people tend to eat less food from the buffet if they are given smaller plates, give greater tips to food servers if a credit card logo appears on the tray containing the check, and vote more conservatively if the voting booth is located in a church rather than a school.

In each of these examples, the decisions made, and the behaviors enacted, didn’t occur as a result of a direct request or appeal. Instead they were influenced by a single feature of the environment that then
primed
an automatic and unconscious change in behavior.

Besides influencing voting choices via voting location or reducing calorie intake via plate size (politicians and nutritionists, take note), do other opportunities exist where a small change in the environment could lead to big differences? For example, how about in your next business meeting or negotiation?

Many organizations will host meetings to share best practices, generate new ideas between colleagues, and encourage new ways of thinking. If you have ever been to such a gathering you will likely recognize that a variety of environmental factors can influence its success, from the number of people attending (including the personality traits of those individuals) down to the quality of the lunch buffet and the drinks being offered. But is there something else that could also influence a team’s ability to think in a blue-sky way?

Researchers Joan Meyers-Levy and Juliet Zhu believed that ceiling height can have a
priming
effect, influencing people to think more conceptually and creatively when the ceiling is high but in a much more specific and constrained way when the ceiling is low.

In order to test their ideas, the researchers set up a series of studies in which participants were asked to solve a series of word jumbles (anagrams). One group solved the puzzles they were given in a room with a low ceiling height (8 feet), with the other group working in a room with a higher ceiling (10 feet). Some of the anagrams participants were asked to solve related to the concept of freedom and creativity—for example, words like
liberated, unlimited,
and
emancipated
were included. However, for others, the words related to the concept of confinement—for example,
restricted, bound,
and
restrained
.

The researchers found that the participants solved freedom-based anagrams quicker and the confinement-based anagrams slower when they were in the high-ceiling room. The opposite was the case in the room with the low ceiling; there, participants’ response times when solving the confinement-based anagrams were quicker than the freedom-based ones. A follow-up study also found that the participants located in the high-ceiling room were able to make relational connections between abstract ideas—a key feature of creative thinking—much more easily than those in the low-c
eiling
room.

The results of this study suggest that when arranging your business meetings, team workshops, or training programs and a central goal of those meetings requires an element of creative thinking, then a small change you could make in advance would simply be to select a facility with high ceilings. Doing so could increase the chances that your group is
primed
to think in a less constrained way.

However, if the meeting you have called concerns working on a specific item or challenge where it is not new ideas you are looking to foster, but rather specific actions and plans, then selecting a room with a lower ceiling would be the way to go. If your meeting requires the group to first think creatively about new ideas and then specifically about how those tasks will be carried out, then selecting two rooms, while a little more expensive, might provide a worthwhile return on investment if it helps turn all the creative thinking into concrete plans and action.

But what if your next business meeting is a negotiation, which, in contrast to a meeting that seeks to generate ideas, is more concerned with generating profits? Might the environment where your negotiation is actually conducted influence certain behaviors that change the outcome of the deal? For example, are you likely to be more persuasive in a business negotiation that is done in your own office rather than in a venue less familiar to you?

In the next chapter we’ll take a closer look at the potential answers persuasion science can provide to these questions.