How Analogies Can Make You Better at Arguments
John Pollack is a former Presidential Speechwriter. If anyone knows the power of words to move people to action, shape arguments, and persuade, it is he. In Shortcut How Analogies Reveal Connections, Spark Innovation, and Sell Our Greatest Ideas, he explores the powerful role of analogy in persuasion and creativity. One of the key tools he uses for this is analogy. But analogies do more than just persuade others  they also play a role in innovation and decision making. Despite their importance, many people have only a vague sense of the definition. Because they are so disguised they play a bigger role than we consciously realize. Not only do analogies effectively make arguments, but they trigger emotions. And emotions make it hard to make rational decisions. While we take analogies for granted, the ideas they convey are notably complex. Remember the powerful metaphor  that arguments are war. This shapes a wide variety of expressions like "your claims are indefensible," "attacking the weakpoints," and "You disagree, OK shoot.", Or consider the Map and the Territory  Analogies give people the map but explain nothing of the territory. Warren Buffett is one of the best at using analogies to communicate effectively. One of my favorite analogies is when he noted "You never know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out." In other words, when times are good everyone looks amazing. When times suck, hidden weaknesses are exposed. The same could be said for analogies, Most people underestimate the importance of a good analogy. As with many things in life, this lack of awareness comes at a cost. Ignorance is expensive. The key to all of this is figuring out why analogies function so effectively and how they work. Once we know that, we should be able to craft better ones. He who holds the pen frames the story. The first person to frame the story controls the narrative and it takes a massive amount of energy to change the direction of the story. Sometimes even the way that people come across information, shapes it  stories that would be a non-event if disclosed proactively became front page stories because someone found out. In Don't Think of an Elephant, George Lakoff explores the issue of framing. The book famously begins with the instruction "Don't think of an elephant.", What's the first thing we all do? Think of an elephant, of course. It's almost impossible not to think of an elephant. When we stop consciously thinking about it, it floats away and we move on to other topics  like the new email that just arrived. But then again it will pop back into consciousness and bring some friends  associated ideas, other exotic animals, or even thoughts of the GOP. "Every word, like elephant, evokes a frame, which can be an image of other kinds of knowledge," Lakoff writes. This is why we want to control the frame rather than be controlled by it. In Shortcut Pollack tells of Lakoff talking about an analogy that President George W. Bush made in the 2004 State of the Union address, in which he argued the Iraq war was necessary despite the international criticism. Before we go on, take Bush's side here and think about how you would argue this point  how would you defend this?, In the speech, Bush proclaimed that "America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people.", As Lakoff notes, Bush could have said, "We won't ask permission." But he didn't. Instead he intentionally used the analogy of permission slip and in so doing framed the issue in terms that would "trigger strong, more negative emotional associations that endured in people's memories of childhood rules and restrictions.", Commenting on this, Pollack writes, Deconstructing analogies, we find out how they function so effectively. Pollack argues they meet five essential criteria. Let's explore how these work in greater detail. Let's use the example of master-thief, Bruce Reynolds, who described the Great Train Robbery as his Sistine Chapel. Use the familiar to explain something less familiar, Highlight similarities and obscure differences, Identify useful abstractions, Tell a coherent story, There is an important point here. The narrative need not be accurate. It is the feelings and ideas the analogy evokes that make it powerful. Within the structure of the analogy, the argument rings true. The framing is enough to establish it succulently and subtly. That's what makes it so powerful. Resonate emotionally, Daniel Kahneman explains the two thinking structures that govern the way we think System one and system two . In his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, he writes "Jumping to conclusions is efficient if the conclusions are likely to be correct and the costs of an occasional mistake are acceptable, and if the jump saves much time and effort.", "A good analogy serves as an intellectual springboard that helps us jump to conclusions," Pollack writes. He continues, The ongoing battle between fact and fiction commonly takes place in our subconscious systems. In The Political Brain The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, Drew Westen, an Emory University psychologist, writes "Our brains have a remarkable capacity to find their way toward convenient truthseven if they are not all true.", This also helps explain why getting promoted has almost nothing to do with your performance. Remember Apollo Robbins? He's a professional pickpocket. While he has unique skills, he succeeds largely through the choreography of people's attention. "Attention," he says "is like water. It flows. It's liquid. You create channels to divert it, and you hope that it flows the right way.", "Pickpocketing and analogies are in a sense the same," Pollack concludes, "as the misleading analogy picks a listener's mental pocket.", We rarely stop to see how much of our reasoning is done by analogy. In a 2005 study published in the Harvard Business Review, Giovanni Gavettie and Jan Rivkin wrote "Leaders tend to be so immersed in the specifics of strategy that they rarely stop to think how much of their reasoning is done by analogy." As a result they miss things. They make connections that don't exist. They don't check assumptions. They miss useful insights. By contrast "Managers who pay attention to their own analogical thinking will make better strategic decisions and fewer mistakes.", ***, Join over 60,000 readers and get a free weekly update via email here.