Link to Existing Values
As you consider all the consequences you could discuss with another person, turn your attention to that person’s core values. What does he or she care about the most? This will be your point of greatest leverage. Then help the other person see how his or her values will be better supported through the course you are proposing. If you have created enough safety, you can talk frankly about any value issues. Let’s look at an example of speaking with a spouse who has had two bypass surgeries and continues to gorge:
“Dear, I honestly believe that if your eating habits don’t change, you won’t raise our children; I will. Do you have the same concern? What do you think?”
Here you’re trying to deal with your loved one’s eating habits, and rather than nagging or attacking, you’re linking to his or her core value of being around to help raise the kids.
Connect Short-Term Benefits with Long-Term Pain
Show how the short-term enjoyment the person currently is experiencing is inextricably connected to longer-term problems. This is essentially the central task of parenting:
“If you continue to watch television and don’t do your homework, you’ll get bad grades, you won’t get into a good school, you won’t get a good job, you won’t make lots of money, and you’ll never drive your own Porsche.”
You might not use this whole list (you’re piling on), but this is at least part of the map you’re carrying in your head and the map you’d like your child to share eventually, except maybe the part about the fancy car.
This method of clarifying long-term or distant negative consequences is also applied at work dozens of times a day:
“I’m sure it’s a hassle to double-check appointments when you enter them on my calendar, but our current error rate is so high that the assistants of the other vice presidents are calling me to ask for confirmation. I worry that your reputation here is going to be hurt if we can’t solve this.”
Place the Focus on Long-Term Benefits
This is the other half of parenting. It’s also the single best predictor of lifelong success. If a person can suffer a little now — delaying gratification in order to serve a longer-term goal — life gets better (think dieting, weight training, studying, etc.).
If you doubt this premise, consider a study conducted over a matter of decades. A researcher put a marshmallow in front of individual children and told them that they would get another one if they didn’t eat the first one while the researcher stepped out. As the researchers tracked these children over the years, they found that those who had waited for the researchers to return did far better in life than those who ate the confection right away, and in almost every domain.[11] To help people stay the course, take the focus off the short-term challenge by placing it on the long-term benefit:
“I know that putting up with some of the kids’ messiness is really hard for you. I also believe that your relationship with them is at risk if you can’t learn to let some of the smaller things go.”
Introduce the Hidden Victims
This is perhaps the most widely used method of explaining consequences. You describe the unintended and often invisible effects an action is having on others. At work, leaders carefully and clearly explain the consequences to the company’s various stakeholders:
“Here’s what your failure to comply is doing to other employees, to the customer, to the shareowners, to the boss, and so forth.”
At home, parents explain what’s happening to other family members:
“Louisa, I know your little brother gets on your nerves a lot. But did you know that when you made fun of his weight, he sat in his room and cried for the rest of the evening? I know your goal was to get him to stop following you around and not to hurt him so deeply. Is that right?”
Hold Up a Mirror
To help introduce the social implications of a particular action, describe how a person’s action is being viewed by others. “It’s starting to look like you don’t care about the team’s results.” Remember, when it comes to the way we’re coming across, we all live on the wrong side of our eyeballs. Help others gain a view from the other side.
Connect to Existing Rewards
This is typically not the best starting place, but eventually you may want to talk about rewards. Help others see how living up to an expectation advances their careers, enhances their influence, puts more money in the bank, or reduces their risks:
“You’ve mentioned wanting to be the art director. In my view you will be much more successful in that position — and more likely to get it — if you have a solid working relationship with both the editing staff and the video team.”
Stay in the Conversation
Remember, as you’re doing your best to make consequences more visible, keep talking. Keep the information flowing honestly and freely in both directions.
Don’t Turn Consequences into Threats
There’s a fine line between sharing natural consequences and threatening others. Well, in most cases it’s not that fine a line. If your motives are wrong, sharing becomes threatening. If your motive is to punish or if you’re taking pleasure in describing the awful things that will happen if someone’s obnoxious behavior continues, you’re making threats. Your motive must be to solve the problem in a way that benefits both of you. Anything less than that will provoke silence or violence, not gain willing compliance.
The challenge increases when your motives are right but the other person mistakes your description of natural consequences for a threat. “When you fail to complete your assignments on time, we start giving you less relevant assignments to protect ourselves from failure” can sound like a personal attack or a job threat.
If the other person believes that he or she is in trouble, perhaps because of previous experience with other bosses, your best behavior may seem manipulative regardless of your skill or demeanor. If you notice that others appear nervous, step out of the conversation and restore safety by explaining your positive intentions. Explain that your goal is to solve an important problem. You simply want to share the consequences of what they’re doing and then ask them for their view on the matter. When they start hearing natural consequences as threats, you should recognize the situation as a safety problem and restore safety.
Listen to Others’ View of Natural Consequences
When it comes to other people’s roles, you should be listening as they explain their view of the consequences. They may be aware of consequences you know little or nothing about: “Yeah, we can do it the way you want, but it’ll blow up our lawn mower.”
Your view of what should be done may change in the process of jointly discussing consequences. In the end, you may be convinced that they shouldn’t do what you originally asked.
Stop When You Reach Compliance
As you help others see consequences they didn’t realize existed, explain those consequences only until you believe others will comply. Your job isn’t to keep piling on information. It is to share consequences until the other person understands the overall effect and shares your view of what needs to be done. Don’t sell past the close.
Match Methods to Circumstances
Let’s look at the final element of making a task motivating. It has to do with the circumstances you’re facing. Sometimes the person you’re talking to is simply unaware of the consequences associated with his or her actions. Sometimes you yourself don’t understand why the other person isn’t motivated. Or perhaps the person is partially motivated but the task just hasn’t made it to the top of his or her priority list. Maybe the other person’s openly resisting your efforts. Let’s learn to match method to circumstance.
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Yuichi Shoda, W. Mischel, and P. K. Peake, “Predicting Adolescent Cognitive and Social Competence from Preschool Delay of Gratification: Identifying Diagnostic Conditions,” Developmental Psychology 26 (1990), 978–986.