Catalyst

Because rather than asking what might convince someone to change, catalysts start with a more basic question: Why hasn’t that person changed already? What is blocking them?

To reduce reactance, catalysts allow for agency—not by telling people what to do or by being completely hands-off, but by finding the middle ground. By guiding their path. Four key ways to do that are: (1) Provide a menu, (2) ask, don’t tell, (3) highlight a gap, and (4) start with understanding.

surfacing the cost of inaction helps make people realize that sticking with the status quo isn’t as costless as it seems.

Venture capitalists often refer to products and services as vitamins or painkillers. Nice-to-haves (e.g., vitamins) that can be put off until later, or need-to-haves (e.g., painkillers) that people can’t live without.

This devaluing of things uncertain is called the “uncertainty tax.” When choosing between a sure thing and a risky one, the risky option has to be that much better to get chosen.

the more change involves uncertainty, the less interested people are in changing. The more ambiguity there is around a product, service, or idea, the less valuable that thing becomes.

uncertainty acts like a pause button. Stopping action and freezing things where they are. So, while uncertainty is great for the status quo, or whatever people were doing before, it’s terrible for changing minds. Because rather than moving ahead and doing something new, uncertainty makes people wait and stick with whatever they have always been doing. At least until that uncertainty resolves. If it ever does.

And of the key factors Rogers identified, the most important, the one that explained the most variance in the studies he reviewed, was a concept he called “trialability.” Simply put, trialability is how easy it is to try something. The ease with which something can be tested or experimented with on a limited basis.

Trialability works because making things easier to try lowers uncertainty. It makes it easier for people to experience and evaluate new things.

REACTANCE When pushed, people push back. So rather than telling people what to do, or trying to persuade, catalysts allow for agency and encourage people to convince themselves.

ENDOWMENT People are attached to the status quo. To ease endowment, catalysts surface the costs of inaction and help people realize that doing nothing isn’t as costless as it seems.

DISTANCE Too far from their backyard, people tend to disregard. Perspectives that are too far away fall in the region of rejection and get discounted, so catalysts shrink distance, asking for less and switching the field.

UNCERTAINTY Seeds of doubt slow the winds of change. To get people to un-pause, catalysts alleviate uncertainty. Easier to try means more likely to buy.

CORROBORATING EVIDENCE Some things need more proof. Catalysts find corroborating evidence, using multiple sources to help overcome the translation problem.