Episode 149 of The Informed Life podcast features a conversation with message designer Tamsen Webster. Tamsen helps leaders enact large-scale change, and her latest book, Say What They Can’t Unhear explains how to drive lasting change through effective communication. That was the focus of our conversation.

Tamsen’s journey with change started in her teens. But it was while moonlighting as a Weight Watchers leader that she gained firsthand experience using principles of cognitive science to help people implement lasting changes in their lives. In this book, she presents these principles in an accessible and actionable format.

I’ve long been interested in the distinction between informing and persuading. I asked Tamsen what makes persuasion different from other uses of language. She gave an insightful answer:

I’d say persuasion is different than the regular use of language because it is fundamentally aimed at action or change, right? A change in thinking or a change in behavior. Not just an expansion, but a transformation. There’s a learning theorist named Robert Kegan who talks about the difference between information and transformation and information you are adding information into the form of the person that you’re doing. So that to me is instructional, that’s informational. But transformational, you are changing the form of something.

And to me, I think that’s where persuasion comes in. You’re changing the form of something, either the way that someone sees it or the perspective from which they’re coming from, or the form in which that understanding takes in the form of action or behavior. To me, it is fundamentally about a shift, not just in awareness, but in interpretation and in meaning, all towards action.

Communicating for persuasion isn’t easy. Being effective requires understanding the perspective of the people one is trying to influence. Tamsen classifies these ‘stakeholders’ into four groups:

  • Actives, who are onboard with — and enthusiastic about — the change,
  • Antagonists, who are opposed to the change,
  • Indifferents, who don’t care either way, and
  • Ambivalents, who are torn between existing approaches and the new proposed path.

As you might expect, this last group represents the largest opportunity for impact. But in all cases, effecting change entails understanding what drives each individual and where they might lie in this spectrum. As I pointed out, it’s a designerly approach to change. Tamsen summarized it nicely:

I think many of us don’t like to be in the position of persuading. We don’t like to be in the position of selling because it feels so us and them. And I’ve just seen over and over again that if we can find a way to say, “Hey, are we fellow travelers on this road? Is there something that we are both trying to get to? Is there a place that we both wanna go?” Great. Super. Do we both believe in that endpoint enough to figure out how we can find a shareable path to travel? Great. Does that mean I’m asking you to be a different person? No. Do I have to change who I am in order to get you to agree? No. I am telling you based on really starting from that perspective of any change, any idea, any innovation, it’s first realized in the words used to describe it and in the words used to present it, and that, unfortunately, is also where a huge number of them fail.

As I mentioned in the show, I loved Tamnsen’s book. Driving change is essential to just about everything. Say What They Can’t Unhear offers practical suggestions for communicating effectively for change. Our conversation gives you a taste for the material.

The Informed Life ep. 149: Tamsen Webster on Communicating Change