Session 2: Persuasion within the team, challenging the Frame & Elements of Persuasion

The session two was also a bag full of surprises! First of all, SKG sir asked all of us to remove the chairs from the centre & asked us to assemble in the centre. The class was only half of what was in the first session thanks to Diwali & Drop-outs. We were than divided in two teams. The task was to de-activate forty mines (Numbers) in a certain manner (by stamping with both feet). But we also needed to follow the order meaning it should be in sequence from 1 to 40. Each team had to bid for the time they were going to take & the lowest bidder would get the opportunity.

We were 9 members in the team. We first thought of strategy that we will get eight persons to search mines & one person monitoring the order. Each person was given numbers to search in the gap of eight (1, 9, 17...). The logic was simple: Considering that each number will take 2 seconds for the search, the time-gap between two numbers for a person was 16 seconds which was sufficient. We thought that we should keep 20 seconds buffer, then thought the other team must be thinking the same. So we kept only 10 seconds as buffer plus the 80 seconds for the mines, which came to 90 seconds. And lo, we won the bid by 10 seconds. What happened next can be termed in a single word: CHAOS!

Some of my team members did not follow the order & kept on running from one place to another. We finished in 78 seconds but made 7 mistakes which took our time to 183 seconds. The team-B had a case-study of mistakes ready. They applied a different tactic, allocating the area of the room to the members. They had seen the result of panicking & worked calmly with Joy & Suyog monitoring the process smoothly. They finished in 93 seconds. We tried to challenge with much better accuracy but reached to 130 seconds. In all, the few things were clear. Many of us did not work according to the plan. They broke the sequences, panicked too much and stamped in a wrong way. I still think we could manage in 90 seconds. Anyways, what are the take-away? It’s the following:

1. Aggressive bidding may not be a good strategy always.

Well, I had to put this first as it was my instant reaction. We panicked, made mistakes because we were under-pressure. Pressure exerted by ourselves by bidding too aggressively.

2. Building consensus was easy, but ensuring that people have convinced is also a part of persuasion.

This may not have been discussed in the class but I feel it’s relevant as it came as an after-thought. People who did not stick to the plan may not have been convinced but they were oppressed by the majority. So, at the time of execution they could not perform. Had they cleared all their doubts, there would have been a different story.

3. Simpler the plan, easier the execution.

I think explaining this is an insult of the statement!

Next was an exercise where a sheet full of instructions was given and we had to work on it individually in 3 minutes. In essence, we had to read the instructions first & then work on it. But I started working on it from the start & when I reached the last one, I came to know it wasn’t required! This gave me two useful insights:

· Challenging the Frame- Asking the Questions.

· Patience

After that the theory session was conducted by Suyog, Shobhit, Shashank & Joydeep. It started with three videos epitomising Ethos, Pathos & Logos (We could connect at the end). The significant discussions were done on the order of importance of the three elements of the persuasion. I would list the insights drawn by me:

1. The order of importance for the elements depends on two things: The target audience & the skill matched by the persuader.

2. Credibility has taken over the leadership from Logic mainly due to the ease of information available.

3. Un-ethical means of persuasion (bribing) & Carrot-stick techniques are not the part of persuasion.

All in all it was another action packed session with a lot of interaction. Next session is the presentation by my group so stay tuned. Fellows, do post comments.

Note: All the Views, Interpretations, Descriptions and Depictions in the blog are entirely from Author's View-point. Differences in terms of Actuality, Accuracy and Point of View may exist depending upon the person-to-person.