I hate to break it to you, but it doesn’t matter how right you are.
If you can’t persuade people, then you’ll lose.
There are a variety of methods to make your story engaging, but a sense of humor is often overlooked by serious causes, and that’s a shame.
In New York, particularly, when so many of us are eager to tell ourselves how hard we’re working, and of course, how important the work we’re doing is, so many of us lack a sense of humor, and it can stifle our campaigns.
A lightness of touch can be transformational, no matter how serious the work you’re doing!
When I was a child, I loved playing a computer game called Monkey Island. It was a point-and-click graphic adventure game. The storytelling was slow-paced and creative. But the thing that really drew me in was the wit. It felt like the creators had spent years watching Monty Python on the BBC.
Since then, I’ve enjoyed bringing a sense of wit to even to the most serious issues.
At ShareAction, the responsible investment nonprofit in London, for example, we coined the strapline, “Ask Me Why Your Pension Is Dangerous And Exciting” to build a public-facing movement encouraging people to use their retirement savings to influence companies on issues like workers’ rights and climate change.
It helped break down the “boring” barrier when we were meeting people, and built our engagement across all our platforms.
In California, when we were working to ban plastic bags across the state, we realized that a cheeky campaign action to deliver thousands of the things back to their source in North Carolina might be more effective at drawing voters’ attention to the out-of-state campaign contributions than a dry investigative report.
And I absolutely love this dentist in England (yes, the country of terrible teeth), who’s developed a massive following, by singing. The singing dentist!
You might have ruled out humor too early. But it can be particularly effective at taking a weakness—such as the fact that you’re right, but not terribly persuasive—and turning it into a strength.
Work is hard when you’re not open to humor, and I enjoy working with clients who are. It might not be quite right for you, but if it isn’t, then you’ll at least have a good conversation about your audience and what does tend to influence them. And then, about how we might get them to move slightly more towards you.
Stimulated by the idea? Doing something important?
