Getting to Yes! The Art of Persuasion

We here at the Tobacco Control Evaluation Center are always talking about how evaluation is meant to be used -- to inform your program (and other key players) about where people are in terms of awareness or support of the issue, to serve as evidence which can be conveyed to decisionmakers, and to leverage this evidence into action.  However, data alone does not create social change, as many of you know firsthand. People have to be persuaded to act upon their feelings, and it is up to organizations like yours to build public will into action.

A nifty little guide called Discovering the Activation Point: Smart Strategies to Make People Act from http://www.activationpoint.org offers a number of ideas to consider as you begin thinking about how to use your outreach, data collection and messaging most effectively in order to achieve your project objectives.  It could be a particularly useful resource as your organization develops its communication plans -- including use of social media.  (See related news about the Social Media manual currently being written.)

Here are the main points from chapter 1 which relates to evaluation and use of data collection results:

The target is likely smaller than you think. Often you only need to motivate a few key people to achieve the change you want.  Most efforts are aiming too broadly at too large of an audience.

Ask the decisionmakers how many is enough to get their attention and change their behavior.  Find out what their pressure point is (through key informant interviews or other means). Identify who they pay attention to and are influenced by.

Focus on those you can actually persuade. Find out who is with you and who is against you and then start with those who are not actively opposing you -- people who might listen to what you have to say.

Segment audience targets until you can't segment anymore. It's critical to understand who is in your target audience and what characteristics they share and differ in. Find out what they care about so that you can choose the approach that will resonate best with them.

Target the audience(s) with the greatest influence over your decision maker. Identify the decision makers first and figure out who do they listen to most.  While using youth as spokespeople can attract media interest, they hold less sway over public officials than adult constituents because they can't vote. On the other hand because of their consumer habits and buying power, they are very influential with business leaders.

Find and activate social reference groups.  Target those who others look to for leadership and determination of when to take action.  When you persuade these folks, others will follow.

Show strong public support by picking audiences that are willing to show (not just voice) their support.  People who are willing to go public with their support create the perception that there is broader support for an issue.

Test the activation point before launching a full-scale campaign.  People's actions don't always match up with their beliefs or opinions, so it's important to figure out what they will actually carry out to ensure your efforts to build momentum work.  One way to maximize this is to align your issue with what they care most about and then ask small test groups to respond in some way.  Then you can replicate the strategy that worked best with your larger audience with better results.

For more details about framing your advocacy messages more persuasively, you can obtain a download of the publication by registering at the site through the link above. It just may give you some fresh ideas!  

Photos from I & E days     

As many of you already know -- at least you tobacco-control veterans -- one of the most important parts of your final evaluation report is the "lessons learned" section. And, although progress reports do not specifically require it, documenting what your project learned from the intervention and evaluation activities in each reporting period is highly recommended. In fact, doing so along the way while the details are fresh in mind is the best means of making the most of all of your project's hard work and allows you to build on that experience for the road ahead.

The rationale for including a "lessons learned" section is fairly straight-forward: to let project personnel reflect on what was learned in the process in an effort to make things easier or more doable in the future. Additionally, this valuable information can be transferred and conveyed to other projects that may be working on a similar objective to assist them in their efforts. This is particularly the case with the hiccups that are inherent in so many of the objectives pursued by projects. Knowing what obstacles may come up and strategies to handle them (or to avoid) can save your colleagues from wasted effort.

In previous newsletter pieces we have recommended documenting organizational history in terms of the processes by which a local project takes on an objective from beginning to end. This is vital for a host of reasons. For one, the lifecycle for plans is fairly uniform. While the actors, or contacts, may change with each objective, the processes used to achieve the goal is often fairly similar -- conduct outreach, establish relationships with key players, gather informative or persuasive data, present the data, try to get decisionmakers to act. By documenting the process of how your project went about this -- who you worked with, what specific tactics were tried, the sequence and timing of actions, what other factors played a role -- the information can serve as a rough game plan that can be followed in future plans.

Another reason to document lessons and the process of pursuing objectives is staff turnover. In analyzing the last two cycles of final evaluation reports, we have found that staff turnover has been a major challenge to many projects. It is natural for people to move on and find new positions and new careers. When they do, they can often leave a major void in the organization and the forward motion of the campaign if there is no documentation of the process along the way. It is important for your project to know what efforts have already been made, what tactics have been tried, and which contacts and relationships are in place so that you don't have to start over from scratch when someone leaves.

Documenting the lessons learned during a "crisis" situation can also be vital. Although it is especially difficult to record the process during a time when your project encounters a major roadblock or even a train wreck, it is critical to identify what went wrong, the factors that led to it and what you could have done differently so that later plan cycles can learn from these experiences. Having a key member of the team regularly provide a blog or mini-report that describes the situation can be very worthwhile. We have so often seen that one cycle's "failure" to reach an objective often results in successes in later cycles because of the valuable information that is often gleaned when things do not go so well. The key is learning from past mistakes.

One strategy for documenting organizational strategies and lessons learned is to create a shared data file where team members can briefly describe the path they took and make recommendations for the future. Consistency over time is key. If all team members were required to spend 20 minutes a week jotting down this information, at the end of a three year cycle there would be wealth of information which could inform not only your final evaluation report, but also future plans.  

This data can be generated by individuals or in staff meetings where team members can share information on how obstacles were overcome, and what they would have done differently if they were to do it again, and so on. And of course, this documentation doesn't need to be high tech. It could be as simple as keeping handwritten notes in a binder or in a Word document kept on a shared drive. Whichever the method used, it should be something where team members and the project director can easily access it.

Learning from past successes as well as mistakes makes for a much quicker road forward. So take a few minutes right now to document your project tactics and experiences. It will most likely save your project a lot of time and effort in the future!

 

Training Delivered the Goods on the Principles of Survey Design  

                               

This spring, two of TCEC's evaluation associates, Robin and

Travis, embarked on a tour of California to provide a series of trainings on "Designing Effective Surveys." As projects were gearing up for their data collection (including developing their
data collection instruments), the team at the Tobacco Control Evaluation Center thought a training on designing surveys would be timely and beneficial to project directors, evaluators and health educators.

The one-day trainings were held at four different locations throughout California. One webinar-based remote training was also offered to those who could not attend in person. In total, over 81 people participated in the sessions, representing over 50 local projects.

The training focused on the pragmatic approaches to designing effective surveys, with collaborative breakout sessions devoted to end-use strategizing, survey question creation, and a collective feedback session on questions devised by each of the small groups. This latter portion of the day was based on 10 of the principles espoused by survey guru Don Dillman. During this segment participants learned the value of balancing question stems and answer choices with positive and negative frames, avoiding double-barreled questions, alleviating respondent burden, and so much more. By the end of the day, the Dillman principles dripped from the pores of training participants!

At the conclusion of the training, participants had the opportunity to meet individually with Robin and Travis about their specific evaluation questions. Some people even brought the instruments that they were currently working on in order to get feedback.

Participants received a notebook full of useful resources, including sample surveys, guidelines on survey construction, an end-use strategizing worksheet, and information on field testing instruments. The day's presentation slides were also included as part of the "goodie" folder. These resources are now available for download on our website under Past Trainings.

Robin and Travis were incredibly impressed with not only the turnout for these trainings, but the great attitudes and good cheer among the participants. Like our previous trainings, getting out in the "field" gave us the chance to learn about the issues faced by local projects in developing evaluation instruments and collecting data, as well as to see some old friends and meet new ones.

For those of you who attended the training, we at TCEC would LOVE to hear from you and learn about how you have been able to implement the survey design strategies into your own work. So, give us a call or email us to let us know!

Photo by: istockphoto