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“I’ve said it three times and people still don’t get it.”

Or maybe they understood you just fine?

Sure, sometimes people don’t get it.
But quite often, they do.

They just don’t agree.
Or they don’t see why it matters to them.
Or they’ve heard you, but nothing in what you said made it worth acting on.

From the outside, all of that looks the same. No change.

And the most comfortable explanation is always: It must be them. They didn’t understand.

But is that plausible? Knowing that these are smart people?

Let’s assume for a moment it’s true. If they truly didn’t get it, the fix is easy. Just explain it better. Maybe ask them, what exactly they didn’t understand and give them the background required to understand it.

But if they got it and still don’t move? That’s a different problem.

Now it’s about relevance.
About tradeoffs.
About whether they believe it’s true. Reasonable. Worth it.

In other words, before repeating it a fourth time, I’d ask:

What if they understood it perfectly?
What might be true for them to still not act?

Then start from what matters to them, not what makes sense to you.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

Make it sound important

“So what was the big message from the meeting?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Come on, there must have been something.”

“They had this whole thing about ‘accelerating operational excellence.’”

“What does that even mean?”

“I think it means we’re fixing the same bug every week.”

“Ah. Why didn’t they just say that?”

Good question.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

What if persuasion is the problem, not the solution?

I bet that not even a single Porsche has ever been sold because of the car’s specs.

I mean, of course there are 100 good reasons for why a Porsche is a great car, especially one that’s better than a Nissan or a Mitsubishi.

The only problem is that there are just as many good reasons that prove the opposite.

The good reasons miss the point of buying a Porsche. This ad gets the point.

People who buy a Porsche don’t buy it for the good reasons. They have very personal reasons for doing so. One is that they are now in a position to make their youth dream come true. They can – finally – afford one.

But this isn’t a post about luxury cars. It’s a general principle in communication that JP Morgan captured brilliantly:

“Every man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason.”

The more a business is trying to prove their idea with good reasons, the more obvious it is that they have no clue about who their customers really are.

And that’s the problem with persuasion.

Persuasion means finding (more and more) good reasons for why I should buy your idea. While the decision hinges on the real reason why I would buy.

Which is why persuasion feels so exhausting on both sides:

You’re trying to influence a different decision than the one I’m trying to make.

The crucial flip is this.

Don’t ask: “How do we explain our product better?”
Ask: “What decision was our customer already trying to make?”

That’s resonance.

And it’s an entirely different conversation.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

Why your best people leave (and what would make them stay)

You’ve built a great place to work. What more do they want?

With your bold purpose the company should inspire them. They should appreciate the stability, the freedom, the growth paths. They should see how many extra miles leadership goes to “create belonging.”

It’s super unfair, isn’t it? On paper, your team really should love working here.

Plus, in the end, it’s also a professional agreement.

Which it is. But professional agreements don’t override human nature.

The thing is, loyalty is not persuaded. It’s felt. It needs to resonate.

And yet, most companies do exactly that: they try to persuade people to stay. With ever more shoulds.

But how does resonance look like?

Patagonia is a great example. Their founder, Yvon Chouinard knew that if the surf is up, a surfer cannot focus on a spreadsheet. No matter how fair the salary is, their mind is out in the water.

That’s why he didn’t come with ever more good reasons why being in the company should be what employees want. Instead, he leaned into the reality of who his people actually were.

He wrote the policy that became a legend: “Let my people go surfing.”

He realized that if people can live the life they love, you don’t have to bargain for their attention. They would bring that energy back to the work. They would get the job done, not because they should, but because the work allowed them to be themselves.

Loyalty doesn’t follow should. It follows would.

Especially if you ask it like this: Why would they never want to work anywhere else?

That question isn’t answered by a checklist of everything your company does right. It requires understanding what kind of people your employees are.

But don’t get distracted by Patagonia’s mission of saving the planet. It draws people. But my point is independent of their mission: It draws the kind of people who would feel out of place anywhere else.

They wouldn’t want to work for a company with lower environmental standards.

Your people might be different. Maybe they wouldn’t want to work for a place with lower quality standards. Or with lower ambition. Or with lower pay.

It may not be your people, but these people are who they are and they stay where they don’t have to compromise.

Now, this is not about bending backwards. It’s about knowing who you’re unmistakably right for. The clearer you can articulate what kind of person will want to do their best work for you, the stronger you can resonate with them.

And when they come, they will likely stay.

Do you know who is the perfect fit for your company?
Why they wouldn’t want to work anywhere else?

And can you articulate it?

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

PS: My newest essay on “What the Best Leaders Say” digs much deeper on this and explores how to shift from “How do we keep them?” to “Who are we built for?” and why that single question changes the entire game.

The gold standard of influence

I’m sorry to have to inform you that persuasion is not the gold standard of influence. It’s evidence that your actual message is weak.

Because if it weren’t, why would you need to persuade?

I mean, I get the appeal. You can’t simply let the audience decide. That would feel like giving up control.

Persuasion promises control. Learn this or that psychological trick and people will bend to your will.

Until, of course, Mary and Joe learn the same tricks and now you are in an arms race for better manipulation tools. So, who’s in control now?

If everyone can access the same persuasion playbook, where is your advantage? Worse, the moment I realize you’re trying to persuade me, my defenses go up.


Resonance works differently because it’s a different premise: Instead of asking what my audience should do I figure out what they would (and what must be true for that to happen).

And then, I craft my message accordingly.

What do you think is more influential?

Tomorrow’s essay will break this down in actionable detail.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

Why do we try so hard to talk people into things?

I have three core values:
Honesty. Empathy. Trust.

And I’d argue they’re all you need to know about communication.

If you take these three values seriously and apply them to how you speak and write, they become the most ruthless, demanding communication strategy you can possibly use.

Honesty requires a true story worth telling.
If you commit to only ever saying what is true, you lose your ability to spin. You can’t use clever words to dress up a bad idea. You can’t hide behind corporate jargon. Your words have to be attractive strictly because of what you are saying, not how you frame it. Honesty forces you to dig until the plain truth is actually useful all on its own.

Empathy requires words others effortlessly understand.
It is never enough that a thought is clear in your own head. Empathy means you care deeply about how others hear it. You care about what they see and how they feel when the words land. You don’t make them do the hard work of decoding what you mean. You do the hard work of making it as easy as possible for them to understand.

Trust requires genuinely useful stuff.
This terrifies people. You tell the truth. You make it easy to understand. And then? You let go. You trust your audience to decide. But because you know the choice is completely theirs, it forces your hand: you have to make absolutely sure that what you are asking them to do is actually a good choice for them.

You want a communication strategy that works? Stop trying to talk people into things.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

You don’t have a communication problem

You have an altitude problem.

The moment I said this, my client burst out with a loud “Hah!”

She smiled: “That makes so much sense. I’m still thinking like old me.”

And that old “me” was the best operator in the room. Careful, detailed, complete.

But today, her team didn’t need more detail.
They needed a clear call.

When you keep answering questions your team didn’t ask, give context, exceptions, edge cases, and background, because you’re terrified of being misunderstood …

What they hear is: “This is complicated, so I’ll wait for more direction.”

And then you wonder why nothing moves.

An executive does three important things:

  1. Highlight the few things that truly matter.
  2. Make the tradeoff visible (what we’re not doing).
  3. Show people a simple rule they can use when you’re not in the room (how we make choices along the way).

If you don’t do this, two things can happen: Either your team fills the gap with their best guess and you end up correcting everything. Or they stall and you end up pushing the whole thing.

The worst trap is that this can feel heroic. But is it really?

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

Why no one cares for your differentiation

I usually take a lot of heat for this position: No one cares for your differentiation.

“Being different” is often positioned as the superior alternative to “being better” and the argument usually is that different puts you in a category of your own.

I call BS.

Most customers actually run away from different. In most situations, people will much rather choose something familiar.

If only because different is risky. What if it doesn’t work? What if it breaks? What will my peers think? … to name just the three most obvious concerns.

Most people are naturally risk aware. They follow “different” only when others have gone first.

However, I’m not arguing for “being better” (although I do believe that being truly better serves you way more than most people realize).

The real game changer is “being specific.”

If you solve
a very specific pain that
a very specific group of people has
in a very specific situation,
then that will almost certainly intrigue them.

And (just in case that’s not obvious) it will automatically make you different (but as a side effect).

Different focuses you on the competition.
Specific focuses you on the customer.

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

Why the best leaders don’t persuade

I’m pretty sure that every one of you would agree that persuasion is a super skill of effective leaders.

It’s what gets you deals.
Approvals.
And it aligns your team.

Persuasive leaders know how to win over the skeptics.

But I want to show you why that very strength might expose your biggest fear as a leader.

Persuasion works by narrowing the field.
You steer people toward a conclusion.
You reduce friction.
You increase the agreement potential.

Essentially, you make the choice for them in advance.
And then you eloquently steer them to agreeing with your choice.

But why?

Sure, it means decisions get made quicker.
It means things get done your way.

But in the end, I think you do it …
→ because you don’t trust them with the choice.

Because if you would, why would you need to persuade them?
You could simply speak with clarity.

Make things so clear that they see what you see.

Now I’m not arguing here for less guidance.

But for guidance that takes into account:

  • where people actually want to go,
  • where people are standing right now (and the constraints they’re operating under),
  • and what they can realistically see from where they’re standing.

So, instead of asking

“How do I steer them to the right answer?”

you ask

“what do they need to see clearly so I can trust them with the choice?”

Ultimately, could it be that the core problem is that you don’t trust yourself to speak with that level of clarity?

That might sting a little. I know that from my own experience.

But if you make that mental flip, you’ve moved from persuasion to resonance.

The good news is that this achieves two things:

  1. Once people make the choice, it’s their choice. Which means they will embrace it as theirs and act accordingly.
  2. It scales much better.

So, the next time you feel the urge to persuade, pause and ask yourself

Am I trying to steer the decision?

or

Am I trying to make things unmistakably clear?

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

Do you crush the competition?

Only one of those columns builds a culture that consistently finds innovation:


When you look at the columns, resist the philosophical rabbit hole.
Think about your last three big conversations.

The board update.
The leadership offsite.
The all hands.

Did you talk more about “beating X, defending Y, crushing Z”

or about “what we are learning, what surprised us, where customers show us we’re still missing the mark”?

What’s the kind of conversation that follows each?

The first keeps everyone focused on the scorecard. In other words: execution.

The second keeps everyone focused on the problem you exist to solve. In other words: innovation.

Both matter. But only one reliably produces new ideas instead of faster or bigger versions of the old ones.

The biggest problem is that the left aligns the whole company on a path defined by what your competitors do.

Instead of what’s most useful for your customer.

So, back to your conversations.
Do your words signal that you’re trying to build …

… a company that wins races others define?

… or a company that discovers paths others never see?

Keep lighting the path,
Michael

PS: If you want to see the impact of this shift in practice, the current issue of What the Best Leaders Say takes a deep and nuanced look.

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Dr. Michael Gerharz