Enrollment

a painting of the author, the description of the blog, and his URL: rickkitagawa.com/blog

Changing someone’s mind is incredibly difficult if they’re not already open to changing it. 

We often try brute-force intellectual attacks with a barrage of facts, and when that doesn’t work, we start humiliating them when it is exposed that they’re not probably operating off of truth. 

While giving people the logical equivalent of a drop kick can be satisfying, it’s not going to change anyone’s mind. 

I assert that we need to enroll people in the change we’re looking to make. It’s using empathy to understand what’s important to them and generously offer to meet them where they are and then bring them over to where you’d like them to be.

It’s important to state that especially in cases where you’re looking to change a person’s harmful behavior, there’s a difference between pandering / not holding people accountable vs. letting people know they’ve significantly harmed someone and not being a jerk about it. There’s also a difference between being a jerk about it and enforcing firm boundaries and being direct with the other party. 

There’s a lot of nuance needed in this conversation, and that’s the point. Nuance, empathy, and trust are the keys to enrollment, so make sure you’ve got those in your toolkit.

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