Last week, Channel 4 aired Brexit: An Uncivil War, a drama that explored how the Leave campaign, headed by Dominic Cummings was so unexpectedly successful in the face of the establishment and economic experts.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the last thing we needed was a TV drama about the actual drama that’s dominated our society for the last three years. Nevertheless, because I’ve a lifelong interest in history and politics, I tuned in.
As the drama unfolded, I started to see unexpected parallels between the referendum campaigns and Learning and Development. It occurred to me that training, just like any election or referendum campaign, attempts to influence people’s future behaviour. And I wondered, could we as L&D professionals learn anything from the success of the Leave campaign?
Knowledge vs Beliefs:
You might be familiar with my argument that knowledge alone does not change behaviour – our behaviours are based not on what we know so much as what we feel and believe. That’s why many people will regularly drive at speeds in excess of 80mph on British motorways, in the full knowledge that the speed limit is 70mph. Information alone doesn’t drive our behaviours.
According to Channel 4’s drama, this is a reality that those leading the Vote Leave campaign understood. Whilst the Remain campaign leader is seen arguing that “we need to appeal to heads” and “focus on the facts”, Dominic Cummings, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, argued: “We need to appeal to their hearts – emotional resonance.” Even the slogan, ‘Take Back Control’ was a call to the hearts of people who felt, for whatever reason, disgruntled and disillusioned.
If we want people to leave training inspired to do something different, it’s not enough to give them lots of facts, figures and instructions. We need to engage learners at an emotional level. We need to stir their passions, we need to excite them, and we need them to leave believing they have the power to deliver meaningful change.
My Agenda vs Your Agenda:
Where the Remain campaign focused on the economy and their agenda, the Leave campaign, through unprecedented use of social media, were able to give much greater control over the ‘agenda’ to those they sought to influence. In short, the messages people received in their feeds, were tailored to their individual concerns.
If, as trainers, we want to influence behaviour, we too need to understand what’s important to our learners and deliver training that addresses those needs, rather than deliver training that presumes to know the challenges they face in their roles.
Confirmation Bias:
We all have a predilection to focus on information that conforms with what we already believe and ignore that which doesn’t. The Leave campaign allegedly sought to exploit Confirmation Bias, focusing on stories that reinforced people’s fears.
The Credibility Barrier:
We all remember the now infamous quote from the referendum campaign, “People have had enough of experts”. Expertise is only influential for as long as your audience believes you are an expert and believes what you are saying.
As trainers, we often find ourselves at the front of the room training more ‘senior’ people who might have more ‘experience’, which means that the credibility barrier can be a very real challenge. However, we can overcome this barrier by facilitating experiences and using skills like observation and effective questioning to encourage participants to explore and learn for themselves.
So, there you go, four things we may be able to learn from the Leave campaign. However, I would like to conclude by highlighting one major difference between our role and that of political campaigners. Political campaigns are about winning or losing and, ultimately, they are about tribalism; they are about division.
Learning and Development is not. It is about helping individuals achieve their full potential, it is about exploration and discovery and building the ability to see, understand and value unique differences which, when combined, make a stronger whole. And it is those things that a
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Until next time...