Weed Out Unnecessary Negatives

This is a simple but powerful tip for coaches and teachers who are writing to influence and encourage their readers.

You don’t want to overdo the positive messages in your writing or you’ll start to sound unreal (and break rapport with your reader).  You also run the risk of creating too big a stretch between where your reader is currently at and where you and they want to be (which means you need to go back to pacing.)

But you don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot by adding in unnecessary doubt.  Focus on the positive message you’re putting across, and edit your words so the ideas you’re putting across avoid the negatives.

This is also a way of working in a subtle embedded command.  Your reader can pick up on a simple verb phrase like “avoid the negative” and accept it (subconsciously) as an instruction or invitation.

Here’s an example from a piece of work I was editing recently.  The author was attempting to create rapport with her readers through reassurance, along the lines of ‘you don’t need to do this because I’m telling you to, but because all the evidence points towards this being a sensible approach’.

The phrase ran:

“You won’t be compelled to do this because I’m telling you to, but because of the evidence you’ve gathered…”

What the reader actually picks up on is not the reassurance but the negative instruction:  “You won’t be compelled.”

This has two subtle effects.

1) The reader internalises the embedded command “you won’t be compelled

2) Rapport is not enhanced but weakened.  You’re undermining the trust relationship by injecting doubt in your own teaching.

An alternative would be something like this:

“If you’re compelled to do this it’s because the evidence you’ve gathered points you that way..”

All I’ve done is added in some extra words and changed the construction to include an “if”.  Yes, that still allows for an element of doubt (it’s not a command, it’s just a possibility that you’ll find yourself compelled to do this).

Can you see how this works in the embedded command?

It’s also a way of enhancing rapport: you and your reader, on the same side, working towards the place both you and they want to be.

Remember: pacing and leading… on the same side.

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