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{{a|devil|[[File:wear a mask.jpg|450px|thumb|center|Step this way, madam]]}}It doesn’t take much time listening to Dale Carnegie, Robert Cialdini or | {{a|devil|[[File:wear a mask.jpg|450px|thumb|center|Step this way, madam]]}}It doesn’t take much time listening to {{author|Dale Carnegie}}, {{author|Robert Cialdini}} or {{author|Rory Sutherland}} to grasp that ''how'' you say something can be be just as important as ''what'' you say. This is hardly news: {{br|How to Win Friends and Influence People}} is 85 years old. | ||
But nor does it take much time reading modern commercial contracts to | But nor does it take much time reading modern commercial contracts to know how resistant they are to the charms of persuasion. Legal drafting is habitually fastidious, over-particularised and ''logical'' at the expense of being what Sutherland calls ''psycho''-logical. | ||
By way of illustration: signage. | |||
===The [[Coronavirus]] mask example=== | ===The [[Coronavirus]] mask example=== | ||
Say you want to ensure all your customers to wear face masks in your shop, by means of a sign.<ref>All this notwithstanding the [[JC]]’s aversion to [[signs]], which are by their nature cowardly, [[passive-aggressive]] and hectoring means of influencing behaviour, but still.</ref> | |||
Your object remains as it ever was, and always will be, twofold: | Now, firstly, your object here is ''not'' “to prevent bare-faced customers coming into your shop”. You could achieve ''that'' by locking the door. If ''no-one'' comes in your shop there is no point having a door or, for that matter, a shop at ''all''. Your object remains as it ever was, and always will be, twofold: | ||
*''For as many customers as possible to come in your shop'', and | *''For as many customers as possible to come in your shop'', and | ||
*''For | *''For those who do to be as well disposed towards buying from you as can be''. | ||
Your ''second-order'' object, is to comply with regulatory guidance that they all wear masks. Now some customers might think this guidance idiotic. Others might think it essential to the continued progress of ''homo sapiens'' on planet Earth. It is not the [[JC]]’s goal to rush in where [[tiresome]] angels fear to tread, so he will stay out of the debate. But people are polarised on the issue so, as a shopkeeper, your best gambit is to stay out of the debate too. ''You don’t make the rules''. Don’t defend ''or'' attack them. ''Play the ball''. | |||
[[File:Rectal thermometer.jpg|250px|thumb|right|When it is important to be the first one to be tested]]So how do you write your sign? Consider four means of skinning the same cat: | [[File:Rectal thermometer.jpg|250px|thumb|right|When it is important to be the first one to be tested]]So how do you write your sign? Consider four means of skinning the same cat: | ||