Life is not rational

I am an engineer and thus I have been trained to analyze problems and calculate the solution. This is how I started my career.

However, I quickly learned that the world is not rational. We are all human beings and we do not act in a fully rational way. And rightly so, because many topics are far too complex to find a purely analytical solution and our intuition is not a bad indicator.

As a consequence we not only have to manage our own emotions and leverage our intuition, we also have to appeal to other peoples emotions and drivers, if we want them to follow our ideas or even change the way of working.

The elaboration and even more so the communication of a strategy has to take this into account. And since we are much more moved by positive emotions than by fear, the classical „burning deck“ approach is not the most powerful way to present a strategy.

Think about yourself! What motivates you and triggers you to support an initiative or even take action? The threat that you are doomed, if you don’t do it? Or rather if something seems to be really appealing, triggers positive emotions and/or offers great learnings and development for you?

Look at the positive triggers of the people you want to convince and tailor your story so as to pull those triggers. You will be rewarded with much more support.