Familiarity used to breed contempt…but not anymore

Or so says an article I read recently in the Boston Globe (http://bit.ly/9Q88LZ).  The article entitled “Easy = True”  discusses the concept of cognitive fluency which is a measure of how easy it is to think about something.  The more familiar an idea or concept, the more likely your audience is to accept it.

Essentially (and rather intuitively) it suggests that people prefer things that are easy to think about than those that are hard.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?  Apparently even the most obvious of changes can impact the outcome.  For example, research has shown that the shares of companies with names that are easy to pronounce tend to outperform those with more difficult names.  And I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you that, when you’re presenting information, cleaner fonts and repetition of content are more likely to lead the audience to a conclusion that your information is factual.

By contrast, the concept of “disfluency” – or making things harder to interpret - can assist in getting people to think more carefully about a difficult issue at hand.  Challenging familiarity can act as a roadblock and make people think.

According to the article, fluency helps us to allocate mental resources and determine which ideas are worth thinking about. So what are the implications of this?  It depends on your objective.  Here are a few examples to consider when you’re working with your team:

• Communicating Vision & Strategy– when you present a new idea have you shared how it relates to existing strategy?  Does your audience have a familiar base of knowledge to provide context for your new direction?  Have you used a simple, clean font?  How many times have you mentioned the “big ideas”?

• Building Confidence – Creating “stretch goals” is often cited as a way to build confidence for your team members. But how do you get them to a point where they believe those goals are achievable?  Consider asking them to perform related or developmental tasks that have a lower degree of difficulty to build familiarity and allow them to build the confidence to attack the “stretch goals”

• Developing New Skills – Employees often fear failure when asked to develop new skills, particularly when the stakes are high.  Have you communicated the requirements to them (multiple times), using clear steps and simple language?  It may sound like I’m suggesting that you treat your team members like they’re in kindergarten – and of course I’m not. But it is important to remember that something that is simple and perhaps automatic for you may be new and difficult for them.

• Innovating & Developing New Products – here’s where “disfluency” has a role to play.  Are you looking for new, creative solutions to an old problem?  Are you struggling to find new ideas to entice your customers?  Consider re-framing the challenge for your team.  Make it even more difficult by introducing greater ambiguity or perhaps re-introducing roadblocks that have been removed.  See if that encourages your team to think differently about the challenge at hand.

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