Choral

Robert Cialdini’s last principle of persuasion is liking. Well, you probably already knew you were more likely to go along with someone you find congenial, and more likely to resist somebody you don’t take to – just on principle! And this is why Dale Carnegie linked the two ideas of winning friends and influencing people as part of the same process.

So, how do you get your choir to like you? Actually, for a full set of ideas on this, you could do worse than reading the Carnegie book – it’s a classic for a reason. But it’s worth mentioning a few points just for starters.

People are, perversely, more motivated by the threat of losing or missing out on something than on gaining something. This is why advertising campaigns that say ‘Hurry! Only two whatevers remaining!’ work. People don’t want to miss out on their chance to gain a whatever if there are only two of them left, while they wouldn’t be bothered one way or the other if they could go get plentiful whatevers at their own leisure.

So, how does this impact on our work with choirs? As I mentioned in this post, it is something that we fight against if we have a regular rehearsal slot and other, competing events come along as a one-off. People would much rather skip a rehearsal (of which there will be another next week) than miss anything that will never happen again.

There are ways that we can leverage this principle, though, to get greater commitment from our singers:

Cialdini’s fourth principle of persuasion is in my view one of the most powerful. When people are trying to work out what to do, they look around them and see what other people are doing, and join in. For all we human beings pride ourselves on our individualism, in times of uncertainty we retain a strong affinity with the sheep.

This is why it can be so hard to change a choir’s habits.

Authority is perhaps the most obvious principle of persuasion, and the one the conductor relies on as a matter of course. People are more likely to comply with people they consider to be credible as experts or leaders. So, getting the job title of Musical Director goes a long way to helping you get your way in rehearsal.

It’s not always as simple as that of course. This principle relies on its effectiveness not so much on the actual expertise of the authority (useful as that will be in all sorts of ways), but about their perceived expertise. Whether or not their estimation of skill is accurate, a choir member who doubts your capacity to do the job undermines your legitimacy, and thus your power to persuade. It can be as arbitrary as thinking that a woman should not be directing a male chorus (yes, that has happened to me).

The second of Robert Cialdini’s principles of persuasion is self-consistency. That is, people are more likely to go along with something if they perceive it as aligned with commitments they have already made. This one has a lot of potential for the choral director I think. It has power for both good and ill, so needs handling with care.

The first of Cialdini’s principles of influence is the idea that people are more likely to agree to something if they feel it is in return for something they have already received. This makes intuitive sense, of course. But an interesting twist to this is that people will feel indebted even if the thing they have been given was unsolicited, and even if it is something they’re not particularly interested in. This is why Hari Krishna people give flowers before soliciting donations. You may not want a flower, but once you’re holding it you don’t feel so comfortable about not giving anything in return.

So, what is the conductor’s version of giving someone a flower?

Robert Cialdini’s Influence is one of those useful books that gives a nice clear framework of ideas that can be applied in all sorts of situations. It presents findings from an extended research project dedicated to finding out what common techniques are used by people who are successful persuaders. There’s a good summary here.

I thought it might be useful to see how we might use some of these techniques to enhance our choral rehearsals. The musical director, after all, is in the business of persuading people to behave in particular ways, and we all find that some behaviours are easier to change than others. There are six themes that Cialdini explores:

Well, we don’t call it authentic performance any more; now it’s merely historically-informed. But still, classical music still works under a strong ethic to perform music in a way consistent with its original conception. We use concepts such as style and composer’s intentions as means to constrain the expressive and interpretative possibilities a piece can yield.