Critical Thinking Isn’t Enough: 8 Ways to Be a Critical Persuader

Lonnie Pacelli is an Accenture/Microsoft veteran with four decades of learnings under his belt. He frequently writes and speaks on leadership, project management, work/life balance, and disability inclusion. Reach him at [email protected] and see more at ProjectManagementAdvisor.com.

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Topics: Communications Management

Recently, my wife and I were on a social visit with a friend I’ll call Vick. We were enjoying beverages and light chatter when suddenly the topic changed to world events. It was like a light switch turned on, with Vick becoming very animated about the topic, spewing data point after data point, and aggressively quizzing me on whether I had heard about some of the points he was raising.

When I replied “no,” his response was incredulous. “You mean you haven’t heard of _____?” he asked, as if I were the only person on Earth who didn’t know what he was talking about. This went on for about an hour before we resumed talking about lighter topics.

I thought about the interaction that evening, and the next day texted him a follow-up question. The onslaught resumed, and after a while I decided to disengage because I saw that no good would come of the exchange.

I later thought about both the face-to-face and the text interactions, and came up with some important elements that were there—and some that were missing:

What was there:

• Passion – Vick clearly had passion about the topic and truly believed what he was trying to communicate to me was right.
• Data points – Vick had many individual data points to back up what he was trying to communicate. While some may have been anecdotal, he still used facts to try to …

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