Once in a while, you learn something important.
Last Thursday, Dan Gardiner, spoke at Cefic’s General Assembly.
I walked away with a deep realisation that Europe’s industry is 25 years behind the Canadians. There must be something in the air over there, that forces you to raise your game, and understand how to really persuade people.
Dan Gardiner was self-effacing. Many of his ideas are from Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow.’
Kahneman idea is the division between two modes of thought: “System 1” is fast, instinctive and emotional; “System 2” is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Gardiner paints the picture of an elephant (system 1) and a person steering the elephant (System 2). Most decisions are driven by the primordial brain. We really are not as sophisticated as we think we are.
Whilst most people think in stories – we have been thinking like that for thousands of years – most industry communication seems to be based on statistics and excel charts. Accidentally, or deliberately, we doing the very things that are bound to ensure that we won’t communicate, inform, or persuade our human audience. This may work well with Daleks.
That realisation provides a plausible explanation about why NGO campaigns with cute animals with big eyes work and excel sheets, beloved of so many, don’t. I let you into a secret. NGOs have known this for years. And, even though most NGOs are made up of scientists, who like statistics more than anyone, they are not allowed outside to communicate with people.
We may pretend to be system 2 thinkers, but in reality, we are mainly system 1. And, if we don’t adjust, we’ll be working very hard to achieve nothing.