imagine a gun to your head, the cold metal on your soft skin and a voice straight out of some movie:
we can do this the easy way…or the hard way.
if you were feeling philosophical, you could ask this gangster:
what is the hard way?
the hard way in the movie world seems to be torture and violence. it somehow always is violence…to the point where you wonder how hard it actually is.
because you know what’s way harder?
Getting people to do what you want – but only because they want it too. That’s hard, with or without guns.
But I’d like to try the easy way if it’s so easy for you – why should I do what you want?
this essay is about the “easy” way. it’s about muggle magic. it’s about persuasion.
I hope you read to the end.
first, a case against calling it communication
At 13, we had a weekly class called Oral Communication.
(I would’ve called it Talking because the moment they chose the word “oral” they lost half the battle before the class even started. But we’ll wait till I start my own school inshaa Allah)
I remember only two things from this class:
- it’s bad to put your hands in your pockets while you’re talking and the technical term is pocket billiards
- it’s not condom-inium, it’s condo-minium.
Oh, and a third thing. I hated the trainer. He talked atas, seemed stuck up and as you see from the above, enjoyed nAUghTY humour – I believe he was either from an elite boys school or wanted to fit into his idea of what an elite boys school would look like…even though we were 13 and there to learn from him.
I tell this story not to diss this man (thank you for the knowledge), but to point out a flaw in how we define this skill. It all starts from the name we choose:
Communication.
Let’s do some word association here. What do you think of when you hear this word? I’ll start…
Boring
how to prounounce ah
body language
structure
confidence
…you might have others that are wildly different. But that’s part of my point – communication is the most vanilla, neutral, boring word you can use for the thing that makes up the entirety of human relationships!! every single interaction we have with humans, non-humans, ourselves – even God – can be reasonably described as communication!
these words are communication, and so is the design of the page, how your phone feels when you scroll down…heck, the gun to your head at the start of this essay was communication, as was the threat after, your response to it, and whether the gangster pulls the trigger or not – it’s all communication.
my point isn’t that it’s useless to learn to communicate better.
my point is that if we insist on using the term communication over a thousand others, then we have no real idea what better really means.
Which seems really important to get clear at the start. Do you want to get better at:
- listening
- selling
- negotiating
- empathising
- understanding
- asking questions
- digging deeper
- reflection
- building credibility
- writing well
- speaking well
- interviews
- emails
…the list is endless, but more importantly, being great at one does not automatically transfer to any of the others. The generic-ness of communication as a subject pretends that it’s like grammar or math, learn the rules and it’s the same no matter who you are, where you are or what you’re trying to do.
But in communication?
Everything depends on who you are, where you are or what you’re trying to do. Getting better at communication needs all of these 3 things to be checked – and depending on your answers, you’ll need very different skills, mindsets and behaviours.
Communication is the worst way to describe communication and get better at it. Saying communication is bad communication.
the case for persuasion
So what skill would I advocate for?
In this era of human history, specifically? I’m making the case for persuasion to be compulsory learning.
Persuasion is simply what we talked about with the gangster at the start. Persuade me. Bring me from a No, Maybe or uhhh idk to a yes – or better still, a YES I’M IN LETS GO.
There are two main reasons why every child and adult needs training in persuasion:
1. with persuasion, you get things done
Nothing gets done without persuasion.
It’s true for ourselves. It’s true for parents, siblings, partners and children. It’s true for clients, colleagues, direct reports and bosses. It’s true for leaders and followers. It’s true for communities.
At a horseriding lesson in Langkawi, we learnt a framework they use to train the horses called Ask, Make, Force. It’s great for humans too and I believe Asian Parenting uses the exact same framework.
To persuade though, is the base level for anyone with a working brain and heart. Skip that and you’re playing with fire and dehumanisation. But keep it in mind and even if you have to use any of the 3, you’d still get better results.
the example of a true leader in Prophetic teaching is the shephard. Contrary to our city-informed ignorance, sheep don’t just follow whoever all the time. Herding is a dance, it’s understanding the audience, aligning objectives and making the path easy – watch this video here if you think sheep just follow orders.
In a community with a high baseline of persuasion skills, you’d not only get more things done. You’d have less violence, better ideas and – since listening is key to persuasion – better empathy too.
Oh and you’d probably be a better worker or employer too. But that’s secondary – and especially because the world of business would likely transform beyond what we know…
2. with persuasion, you level the playing field
The highest manifestation of communication as of now is clearly the internet, with social media the biggest medium still.
You can now communicate with anyone, anytime and anywhere. Through the written word, a video, pictures or hieroglyph emojis. The only barrier left is our minds – and you can be assured they’re working on that.
But the corruption of communication is in how the industry is fueled.
It’s ads.
Better communication – in the eyes of the ones designing the tools we use daily – are those that serve better ads. Or more accurately, that serve advertisers better. We’ve lived through this long enough that there are thousands of documentaries, videos, articles, dramas that prove this point better than I can.
Here’s the catch.
I’ve worked in marketing. I just spent 1,055 words selling the virtues of better persuasion. Who am I to critique the ad industry?
To sell is human, as Daniel Pink says.
The industry must be regulated, sure. But sending millions of people out there into the world to be attacked from all directions by intelligent, well-funded and invisible masters of persuasion without them even knowing the game?
That’s irresponsible. That’s creating the consumer class, those numbers a pitch deck to investors highlight as ripe for the picking…and they want to keep us that way.
Learn persuasion and it’s harder to be persuaded.
It’s like me after an intro class to barista skills – even if I still can’t make a latte heart to save my life, I can comment on it. I can see what was once invisible. I know what they’re doing back there.
Our current defence against the dark arts is digital literacy. Check your sources, read widely, don’t believe everything you see, bla bla bla.
First: it’s boring. digital literacy cannot compete with the real world.
Second: the dark arts are constantly improving! digital literacy is inherently reactive, it’s building better locks. You don’t know your lock sucks until it’s been broken into and you lose everything. If your solution is I’ll make a better lock, that’s just a new challenge for the burglar to solve.
But if you learn to think like a thief? Then it’s a level playing field. You’re no longer ten steps behind – it’s a fair(er) game now.
persuasion is muggle magic
Harry Potter learned Ava Kevada and horcruxes not to use it, but to know what the dark wizards were using.
The difference between the dark arts and persuasion is this:
Learning to persuade will not corrupt you.
That’s why I started with the positives. Even without the threat of literal marketing armies, I would still want to teach everyone the art of persuasion. Things get done. Places get better. Relationships improve.
But the war for our attention makes it even more urgent to build up our defences. To launch counter-narratives, mobilise movements and inspire action.
For good. Against injustice. We must reclaim the muggle magic, and we will.