You can learn a lot from a 10-year-old, especially when it comes to getting what you want. Earlier this year you might have heard the story of former Pimco co-CEO, Mohamed El-Erian, who resigned after his daughter confronted him with a list of events he missed because he spent too much time at work.
The girl’s argument was persuasive because it was specific, concrete, and tangible. She didn’t say, “Dad, you need work-life balance.” El-Erian’s daughter never took a communication course, but she intuitively understands that abstract concepts like ‘work-life’ are not as persuasive as specific examples. She created a 22-point list to make her case. “Talk about a wake-up call,” El-Erian wrote in an essay explaining his decision. “The list contained 22 items, from her first day at school and first soccer match of the season to a parent-teacher meeting and a Halloween parade. And the school year wasn’t yet over.”
I was reminded of El-Erian’s story when I asked my 9-year-old daughter, Josephine, what she wants for Christmas. She didn’t just say, “doll accessories.” She was very specific: “An American girl school-locker with the backpack and a gymnastics bar for McKenna. McKenna is the 2012 girl of the year. She’s not the 2013 or 2014 girl of the year.” Children like Josephine or El-Erian’s daughter don’t speak in abstractions to get what they want. As they get older and spend more time in corporate America, many business leaders try to be all things to all people and, as a result, they sound the same. Today’s popular buzzwords are “solutions” or “professional services.” A solution for what? A service for what? In business we often forget that there’s power in specificity.
For more than 100 years The New York Times has offered its readers the opportunity to contribute to its Neediest Cases Fund, a program that assists troubled families and children. The newspaper doesn’t simply solicit the abstract “donations for needy people.” Instead the newspaper runs very specific—and heartbreaking—stories of people in need. It’s very hard for most people to donate money to a faceless entity, but they’ll open their wallets for 21-year-old Carlos Montanez who grew up in housing in New York’s Lower East Side and wants to go to college. “His family had very little money. Their main source of income is a $600 Social Security disability check that his mother receives every month. She has Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, a neurological disorder that causes muscle weakness, and she is unable to work.”
Abstractions don’t bring in $6 million a year for the Neediest Cases Fund; stories of real people do.
It’s well established in the neuroscience literature than our brains do not process abstractions very well. Persuasion requires specificity. For example, when I meet with leaders at one of the world’s largest technology companies, we gather in a conference room surrounded by whiteboards and flip charts to brainstorm a specific story; the more concrete, the better. A new processor, for example, won’t just result in “a better” phone or computer experience. Instead it will give provide you with x hours of longer battery life, stream videos x times faster, and provide x more storage, which is the equivalent of x number of photos. And remember, you’re not just storing any photo or video. You’re capturing specific moments of your life such as your son reading a letter from Santa or your daughter receiving her high school diploma and shouting, “We did it!”
Consumers don’t buy ‘better;’ they buy products that will improve their lives in a very specific way. Donors don’t contribute to “needy cases;” they give money to help specific people attain specific goals. And little girls don’t give their dads a generic list; they’re very specific about what they want and very often get it.