How we change what others think, feel, believe and do

The Resonance Model

Disciplines > Communication > Methods > The Resonance Model

Description | Example | Discussion | See also

Description

When you are seeking to persuade or communicate something, rather than tell them what they need to know, try and draw it out of them. For example:

Find and used similar experiences they have already had.
Talk about the sensory elements of experience (speech, vision, hearing, etc.)
Use metaphors and analogy.
Use questioning methods, particularly Socratic questioning.
Ask them to extend their current thinking outwards.

In particular, seek to use their models ways of thinking rather than trying to impose your models and ways of thinking.

Example

So the last Volvo you drove lasted a long time. Well remember that comfortable reliability and imagine if you could have a car that lasted twice as long and that half as many problems. How would that feel now?

Discussion

When inferring meaning and developing new learning, we build on existing models, basing new understanding on current edifices rather than constructing new ideas from scratch. The Resonance communication model takes the practical step of suggesting that communications should align with this learning principle and, rather than taking the more difficult route of seeking to transfer a carbon copy of our own understanding.

Experiences are not stored as symbols and so symbolic cueing is not the best way to evoke them. The close linkage with feelings means that more emotional evocative methods will be more successful.

The Resonance Model is also known as the Evoked Recall model.