Strategy Blog: Understanding Motive
Understanding motive & decision making
It is a known fact that some people are just more persuasive than others - whether they are trying to sell you an apartment or convincing you to come to their party or following through their plans at work or even informing you how plastic is bad for the environment. In life, you will need to avoid being sucked into their thought process blindly without engaging with your own thoughts.
That apartment might not be something for you, but there is truth about how plastic is bad for the environment. If someone wants you to adopt their thoughts, beliefs, or advice, you can’t just deduce the thoughts from them alone whether it is a good idea, you need to understand why they are seeking to persuade you.
It is always a good idea to understand what this person wants you to believe and why. More often than not, they want you to do something as a result of their persuasive efforts - whether to buy something (for commission), agreeing on something, or even signing a petition. Whilst it is not an absolute always the case, sometimes they are just simply passing on opinion and would like your agreement. Maybe they do want to persuade you on a good cause (#blacklivematters) - but for whatever reasons it might be, it is always a nice feeling when someone agrees with you but beyond that, they may not be after much at all.
If you managed to established clearly what they really want, it is much easier to decide whether you want it too. You might not want to really want to support the cause, but if your friend is telling you how great the party can be, high chances it is because they want you to be there. It is NOT certain that the party is great, they are just guessing that it could be great. Do you actually agree with your friend? Do you want to be there? If so, do you want to be there because you believe the party is great or because you want to accompany your friend? It is much easier to inure yourself to your friend’s persuasive methods once you see them for what they are.
Of course, there might be the perfect apartment for you, whatever the salesperson’s motive might be, you can’t dismiss it out of hand just because they have a vested interest in you buying it (if that ruled it out, no one would ever buy any case from any dealer). Identifying the motive isn’t a reason to reject someone else’s thinking. The point of doing it is to give yourself a sensible dose of wariness, of where you should know their assertions and making sure that their arguments (if any) are the ones that matter.
A property agent might get you really excited with their infectious enthusiasm about how the property is “undervalued” or how great the investment could be, but do not get swept along mindlessly. Are those things actually important for you? Your colleague might persuade you that this exhibition is just the way to reach all those potential clients out there but how big of a proportion of your customers are actually going to be there? So, why does your colleague care so much about reaching them? Only by recognizing the motive you can then understand how much importance to attach to the facts you are being fed.
