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00:00:01
Tamsen Webster: Making Ideas Make Sense
1 Plays2 minutes ago
In this episode, Eric talks with Tamsen Webster—message designer, strategist, speaker, and author of Find Your Red Thread and Say What They Can’t Unhear. The conversation explores how ideas spread, why so many messages fail at the point of first explanation, and what it takes to create understanding and lasting change without coercion.
Tamsen explains her work as an “English-to-English translator,” helping leaders, founders, and thinkers transform complex or technical ideas into something others can understand, believe, and act on. She and Eric dig into dual-process thinking, accelerated perspective shifts, how adults actually learn, and why messaging must speak to both the analytic and automatic parts of the mind.
They cover:
- Why most ideas break at the moment they’re first explained
- The role of intuition, felt experience, and the “automatic brain” in making meaning
- Why storytelling works, and why it’s not enough without a clear underlying argument
- How foundational principles (axioms, first principles, endoxa) create common ground
- Why leaders and founders need a reasoning model (ITBA) and a narrative model (Red Thread)
- What Tamsen is learning from her doctoral research in adult learning and accelerated perspective change
- How to avoid triggering resistance while preserving agency, transparency, and consent
- Why some changes happen instantly while others require long processes—and what makes the difference
This episode is a deep look at how people understand new ideas, how belief shifts happen, and how to communicate change in a way that sticks.
Episode Links
- Tamsen Webster: https://tamsenwebster.com
- Message Design Institute: https://messagedesigninstitute.com
- Find Your Red Thread: https://amzn.to/3Kn9yVW
- Say What They Can’t Unhear: https://amzn.to/49MFWf3
- Follow Tamsen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamsenwebster/
- Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: https://amzn.to/48FMHif
- Owen Fitzpatrick: https://owenfitzpatrick.com
- How Minds Change by David McRaney: https://amzn.to/49bMMKD
- The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself by Robin Reames: https://amzn.to/3IUtBur
For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com
Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com
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Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
Pamson, thank you for joining me. Where does today's recording find you? ah Relieved that we finally connected ah physically in Boston, um mentally pro still somewhere between here in New York, where I just was for school at a conference and a client. um But in life, just I'm legitimately excited about things that I'm working on and and and studying ah and um finding more about and just figuring out how to get all that into the world. So I'm in a good place.
00:00:39
Speaker
Several good places. It's to hear. Yeah. I'm a little tired, though. But I'm going to hold it. I'm going to keep it all together as much as I can. you and I both, I guess I didn't mention this before we started recording, but sadly I've been up since about one 30 this morning. So I have my energy going for this. And thankfully, and you know, I'm a fan of yours. and I have both of your books here on my table and I tell everyone in particular,
00:01:06
Speaker
from from my perspective, your first book is the best book on messaging that I've ever read. So i you know, like I said, that i I have the energy for this conversation. So thank you for making the time. And as you sort of said, I forget how you put it.
00:01:21
Speaker
It's been a long time coming. So it's nice that we're finally here. Yes, it is. Well, thank you for your kind words about that first book. Yeah, I think one of the things that's in my head right now is...
00:01:32
Speaker
um Yeah, what to do with it? I think probably... Yeah, i'm i'm I'm feeling like my next thing that I would publish is a completely revised and updated version of that book. um ah Because I am working on some new stuff, which is highly related with with my doctoral work and all of that. ah But it feels like there's enough of it that's there that I could integrate it into Find Your Red Thread ah and make it even stronger. Because I've learned a lot in the last four years since I published that book about, you know, how to make certain pieces of it easier, how to make the whole thing stronger. um
00:02:15
Speaker
But the general concepts are still the same. So, but thanks. I appreciate that. You're welcome. I'll keep it posted on like second edition. I appreciate that.
00:02:25
Speaker
Well, we, you have referenced school and your doctoral studies, and we mentioned that you've written books, but just take me back briefly a little bit through either your journey, or if somebody asks you to describe yourself, you know give me the brief version of what you would say about yourself so that we can bring ourselves up to speed on who you are, what you're doing and so on Yeah. I mean, I'd say that, you know, my my day-to-day job, the kind of official title that I have assigned to myself is a message designer. and when people say, what's that? I say, it's an English-to-English translator. um ah
00:03:08
Speaker
And, you know, expanding a little bit further, I really see what I do is I help people make things make sense so that other people will change their thinking and behavior about those things. um I have at the heart of that work, ah I mean, in one way or another, I've been doing that work for 25 years. So 25 years, one big question, how do we accelerate the understanding and adoption of new ideas?
00:03:36
Speaker
And really importantly, ah that's been become part of my work over the last 10 years, how do we do that without coercion, without manipulation, while honoring people's agency, um while giving full information, full transparency? Um, and I know that sounds like it might be an impossible task, but that's part of what I've gotten so excited about with my work over the last couple years in my doctoral research is that it's actually, it's not, uh, and you know, there's little hints in there, but you know, the work I've been doing with my clients over the past two years, particularly, um I really believe that that's possible. And, uh, it, it is,
00:04:21
Speaker
So much like the red thread is a straightforward approach. Doesn't mean that it's always like, you know, snap your fingers easy, um but it's pretty exciting. ah And like I said, yeah, I've been doing that for years and years and years. So from, you anything where you can imagine where people need other people need or want other people's buy-in conviction, genuine belief in a new idea in order to create change. Um, I've probably done that position, whether that's marketing, branding, sales messaging, uh, been this, been the CMO, been a director of marketing, worked in agencies, worked in organizations, for profitfis not profits, nonprofits, startups, fortune tens, um,
00:05:01
Speaker
entrepreneurs, thought leaders, academics, moonlighting jobs as a Weight Watchers leader and TEDx producer and idea strategist. But really, it all just comes down to ah how do we make things make sense so we can help make change happen faster.
00:05:17
Speaker
Is that ultimately what you mean when you say English to English translators? Like I say words and from my perspective, it all those words make sense. But what's received on your end is different from what I think I'm communicating.
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a there's probably several different ways that I interpret that. It covers most of the ways that I mean, however you think about it. um I think the go-to way in my own head is ah it's often expertise to everyday language. In other words, how do I take an idea a concept or something that's that was developed in one domain, let's say a super technical, you know, a lot of my clients are tech startups, you know often climate tech, regenerative agriculture, things that people aren't familiar with. And how do i translate help them translate it? And more importantly, learn the skill of translation.
00:06:14
Speaker
um so that they can reliably talk about their work to the wide variety of people they need to talk to, whether that's investors or their board people they're trying to hire, um or even internally to get everybody on the same page when not everybody is a scientist, an engineer, a technologist or something like that. So I often think about it in that context because in the grand scheme of things, I feel a That's where like my heart is. like i those i just I love big ideas. I love people who work for ideas you know bigger than themselves. um
00:06:50
Speaker
And so in that context, those are often the people who need the most help in translating their idea from how they see it into terms and concepts that other people can understand.
00:07:02
Speaker
um But fundamentally, that's the work for everybody. Right. It's just that how I make sense of things is different than how you make sense of things. um I've recently been reading the. um Oh, it was from a Mick Herron, the Slow Horses ah novels that are behind the Slow Horses show on Netflix.
00:07:23
Speaker
Apple Plus, I think. um Anyway, there's a great, there is a a great quote from the main character that says that the fact that a word can mean multiple things, the same word can mean multiple things to multiple multiple people is why we shouldn't trust them. Um...
00:07:38
Speaker
And that's a lot of it, right? Like, you know, anybody who has an idea, whether they're a leader and they're just trying to, you know drive compliance or, you know, you're ah an inventor or a technologist or something like that, you know your idea inside and out and a level of expertise that nobody else has about it.
00:07:57
Speaker
And just because of how we're wired and how we come to understand things, It's hard to get that big, beautiful idea packed into these untrustworthy words so that they get transferred to somebody else in a way that still captures the big, beautiful nature of that idea without overwhelming people and going, I have no idea what you're talking about.
00:08:23
Speaker
When I have read your work or not just your books, but also reading your articles over time or things that you post on LinkedIn or whatever else.
00:08:35
Speaker
I have often felt like in this, i don't know, sort of Venn diagram of complementary ideas, and you know, there's rarely perfect overlap that There's a lot to be said for in your thinking for empathy or approaches like jobs theory or jobs to be done theory.
00:08:58
Speaker
And there are probably plenty of other things I feel like I've seen you post about things like... Chris Argyris' sort of frameworks and so on. i don't recall if you've written about Edgar Schein, but he had a very similar approach, but from sort of org culture, that that perspective. But all of that said, your the subtitle of your first book is make your big ideas irresistible. And then the subtitle, I believe, of your second book is something about lasting change.
00:09:32
Speaker
And if I recall correctly, in your second book, Say What They Can't Unhear, yeah I think, do you state that some of your motivation for that was that it's not just about, i guess, drawing people into your idea or making it irresistible, but also saying things in a way that, well, they can't adhere it, but that, you know, it, that it sticks with them over time.
00:10:03
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Right. Yeah. So it was, yeah, it was interesting when I wrote that second book because people like, oh, you you're changing your focus. i'm like, oh, my gosh, no. Like, it's the same. Like, I've always been like, if anything, say what they can't in here is even closer to my heart because i i have been in that question about how do we accelerate the understanding and adoption of new ideas? I mean, I truly see the work that I've been doing over the last 25 years that I have been in change communications for that entire time.
00:10:31
Speaker
um And in in a huge different you know a huge variety of places. And in fact, my first job out of grad school, first round, ah was as a change management consultant. and so um And then for many of the years afterwards, while I was doing branding and marketing, i was moonlighting as a Weight Watchers leader. and so And what I observed was there was a big tension between What marketing or persuasion or influence or sales, like all that kind of theory and whatever was the supposed to do didn't actually work long term for people at an individual level. Yeah.
00:11:10
Speaker
So that was one piece of it. And then another point of information that kind of blend went into of the whole brain blender with this was um that most of the time where I was working in organizations or with organizations, and this is still true to my heart, ah they were resource constrained would be a very kind way to put it. Right. I i spent the first 15 years of my career in nonprofits. I still love working with academics, researchers, startups. Again, not swimming in money.
00:11:39
Speaker
And so um because of that and also how my brain works, and while I i do, I'm in the process, frankly, of getting ah you know getting officially assessed for my levels and varieties of neurodivergency, I do have some traits that are highly consistent. um And part of that comes into um Not wanting to revisit things. I only want to do things once. um and so And so I'm going to do something to figure out so that I don't have to keep thinking about it.
00:12:14
Speaker
And so all of that came together by saying, like, listen, I can use all these things that marketing and sales things say I should be able to do to get someone to yes. But I see in the meeting room that that doesn't, if they don't genuinely believe it, if they don't genuinely understand it, if it in fact weakens their own self-perception or their own self-efficacy in and a certain way, their belief in their, that they have the capability of doing something, this is not an action that's going to sustain. So I became really interested in what was I learning in the in in the meeting room about what was more effective to get someone to shift, like permanently, deeply, broadly, and durably change their way of thinking so that it translated in a way of behavior. And what did they need to hear from me in order to start that process? And what were the conditions that needed to be present in that room? And then i started to figure out how could I replicate that in my day job?
00:13:17
Speaker
So all of that to say in my mind, this is an interesting exercise in translation, making your idea irresistible and saying what somebody can't unhear is me saying the same thing in two different ways. um And the principles of lasting change are...
00:13:37
Speaker
That's the out, outcome you know, that's the reason why it's so important. And if you can say something that sticks in someone's head because it's it because they they it can acknowledge, even if it's just at first, the intuitive truth of that, the intuitive sense making, it makes sense both intuitively and intellectually to them.
00:14:01
Speaker
Even if they don't change right away, it sits in their brain, right? and And then oftentimes will eventually lead to a shift down the line. So for me, these ah both of these concepts are intimately connected um because and what I have seen in my work and now what I'm you know diving deeper into my research is that
00:14:28
Speaker
you know there There are a certain set of like mental conditions of of how we make meaning and how we make sense of things that in the right, and like you put the right thing set of things together and both things happen, right? You make something, a new idea, irresistible. it it leads to the behavior change that would follow and therefore the lasting change comes from.
00:14:52
Speaker
What are some of the things that you are learning in your research or or any aspects of your doctoral work? So the degree, it's an educational doctorate, an EDD in adult learning and leadership.
00:15:07
Speaker
um And the reason why I was so interested in adult learning is that new ideas, kind of by definition, require some form of teaching. Right. And yet, as I look at the business literature, I've spent the last 20 years as a speaker working with speakers. Again, you know, speaking as part of business development for various day jobs, et cetera.
00:15:29
Speaker
That is a piece of that. Like business literature has cherry picked from like every other discipline, except for the one that's actually at the heart of all the change that everybody is. So that was a bananas to me. And I was like, I need to I want to know more about how people and how adults in particular learn um so that I can I can again it just serve that big question in my head even better.
00:15:58
Speaker
So my goodness, all sorts of things. um You know, I think that there they are. you know, anything that I would tell you is probably not a shocker. um You know, somebody they're like, well, of course. I'm like, yeah, and we're not doing that. Like, I think the biggest thing that's been inciting to me is that we assume that transformational shifts and perspective like that must be.
00:16:25
Speaker
Conscious must be the process of, you know, critical reflection and lots of dialogue and lots of steps because a lot of our examples and a lot of the official examples are, right? So whether you're thinking about, you know, um therapy or you're thinking about, you know, kind of big transformational projects or whatever in organizations, everyone's like, well, is this going to take us like, you know, a year or two whatever? And even then, not everyone's going to be on board.
00:16:54
Speaker
So there's this real, um and it's a critique of some of the theories, but there's this real focus on like rational thought processes that are entailed in perspective change.
00:17:08
Speaker
And, and so this is where I came in from, again, not necessarily the official theory and language of marketing and sales, but from, again, my 13 years of, at you know, like lived experience with people making big changes and my own because, you know, I've, I've sustained a 50 pound weight loss for 25 years now. um I have seen and everybody I've ever talked to has had an experience where they heard one thing and everything changed.
00:17:44
Speaker
And it wasn't a long process and it wasn't necessarily a painful process. Like it may have been difficult to implement that change afterwards, but the actual shift wasn't different. So that's like, this is like, woof, I have so much fun, like just, you know, figuring that piece out. But you know More broadly, i think one of the things that I really enjoy about kind of the field of adult learning um is how much more advanced that field is in understanding how people take in information, which would be
00:18:20
Speaker
in my mind, seems to make like to be wildly important for leaders. um But I think the biggest thing that people would probably recognize from their own experience is ah is about that that privileging, that prior to prioritization of this rational thought process. Yeah.
00:18:37
Speaker
When, you know, I'm paraphrasing one of the books that I've i've read in last year, but the the the the way that the idea came, you know, that I've processed it and kept it with me is that there is nothing that your mind knows that your body didn't experience first.
00:18:54
Speaker
Your eyes took the information, your ears took it in, like ah you felt it. like you and And just saying that means why are we ignoring so often the felt experience of something? Because that's actually the first way that it comes in. And whatever the conditions are for that really affect what happens after. That's one thing. The other thing that I have found to be really um like you know juicy and delicious as ah as I get into it um
00:19:28
Speaker
is how, you know, again, how it's gotten translated into the business world and the business thought leadership, people often, if they have recognized that they over prioritizing the rational, oftentimes what's held up as the opposite is the emotional.
00:19:46
Speaker
And that is like one slice of the other half. Right. And so, you know, I've evolved. I think I just posted about it fairly recently. To thinking about it much more as the analytic brain and the automatic brain and where things like emotion, but also intuition and learn patterns and behaviors and that felt experience. And, oh, that stove is hot. Let me take my hand off.
00:20:11
Speaker
Like that. Those two things are operating at the same time. So just in even those set of concepts, i you know, it is just of it is just like i am an absolute kid in a candy store, um just kind of learning more and figuring out more and kind of seeing where the gaps are, not only in adult learning leader and theory, but also how that has carried some of those f sometimes faulty assumptions have carried through all the way into how we are handling things.
00:20:38
Speaker
strategic communications, et cetera. um And so it's been just an absolute blast. If I choose to look at some of what you're saying through a framework, let's say, of or an explanation of some of the the reasons for some of these things as well. There's so much that goes on in the unconscious mind and then the conscious mind has so little processing or there's post hoc rationalization of activities or whatever else.
00:21:11
Speaker
If I come at it from that perspective or I feel like that explains a lot of what you're saying. Do you have a reaction to that as in I'm leaving things out or? i mean, so it's always it's always complex, right? So that's you know, that's the thing that we always need to be on. the But I would say, know,
00:21:34
Speaker
that The essence of that is 100% correct, which is when we receive information, it's not that there's a lack of processing on that automatic side. is that there's It's just that we are not conscious of that processing. um And yet what's really important to understand about that automatic, intuitive, shortcut, heuristic, instinct, intuition-driven side of ourselves is that Because it's fast and because it's faster than the analytical side, it it has a lot to say about whatever makes it into our conscious, rational brains.
00:22:11
Speaker
And does. it definitely colors. I mean, that even Kahneman was seeing this work. It definitely colors the the the way that the rational brain receives the information. So for instance, um and so this is the heart this is the heart of what I've been working on for the last couple of years. I'm like, how do we talk to both brains at once? right Because again, I have to get, in order for someone to understand and adopt a new idea, i have to one of the elements is not only understanding, which is where Find Your Red Thread was coming in. I was really trying to say, like, well what do people need to understand?
00:22:46
Speaker
um but but But more importantly, how do I... avoid triggering the things that are most likely to get in the way of, once somebody understands, of that kind of intuitive felt response to whatever it is I'm saying. In other words, how can i right? Because if i give you data that you don't agree with, that's not going to do anything for you. And in fact, that's now going to, like, your immediate response
00:23:16
Speaker
kind of gut brain response is that's not correct. And therefore, anything else I tell you is going to be processed by that rational brain of I don't trust this person. I don't trust their sources. I i don't see the world the same way they do.
00:23:30
Speaker
Or, you you know if you you know, if somebody just says, do this, again, that triggers that that piece as well because we don't like to have the the perception of control taken away from us. And so when you just tell someone to do something, that's going to trigger it too. So a lot of my work really started from, okay, what triggers it? How do we how do we avoid that? But how do we avoid it without...
00:23:53
Speaker
You know, I see a lot of people kind of leveraging psychological loopholes in what I would term ethically questionable ways. In other words, there' are a lot of times they're using psychological techniques on people without a training and at least actual psychological training, um you know, and or they're using it without those people's knowledge, which I. That goes against.
00:24:18
Speaker
a lot of what I think about. So the work in my mind, given all of that, is that it really comes down to how do you give, how do you talk to both brains simultaneously, particularly in the beginning of the, in the first introductions of the idea? Because That's often where they fail. right The other day i was giving a talk to ah a, it was the closing keynote at the um High Spot customer conference, the Spark conference.
00:24:50
Speaker
and And I asked the audience, i was like, you know, I knew it was Seattle, so I knew would be baseball fans. And I'm like, all right, baseball fans. In what inning do most perfect games get broken up?
00:25:04
Speaker
right? And i and people were like ninth and seventh. And then someone goes first. And I'm like, exactly. Like the first time somebody gets on base, that's the perfect game getting broken up. And that's in a lot of ways how I see the process of a new idea is that a lot of times people think that it fails in implementation or whatever. And I suspect there's a lot of times where it fails with the first batter, right? It fails with how it was the first time somebody heard about it. It triggered that automatic brain to go, ah i don't know about that.
00:25:39
Speaker
And once that's happened, it's really, really, really hard to ever get the automatic brain on board. It can happen. I mean, that's also part of Kahneman's work. You know the analytic brain does exist to to correct um misinterpretations by that automatic brain in one way. um But to me, that's the thing. And we've either been talking to one side or the other, right? Either we're either we overweight on emotions and storytelling and visioning and values alignment, or we overweight on data and analysis and evidence and rational arguments.
00:26:17
Speaker
And I'm like, y'all, it's both processes operating at the same time. We've got to find a way to to to unite them. um and ah And in a reliable way that most people who are trying to lead change can feel they can do. Right. So storytelling does a lot of that naturally, which I think is why everyone thinks it's like the end all be all.
00:26:39
Speaker
It's really good. But it's not everything because every story is just an argument in disguise. So if you don't know what that argument is, and if that argument is based on concepts or beliefs that people either don't care about or don't believe, they may be moved by your story, but they are not going to have their perspective changed.
00:26:58
Speaker
How has your thinking about, I'm going to say messaging, but maybe we could say communicating change or getting people to act ah or change to stick, whatever label we want to put on it very broadly. How has your approach or your thinking about this changed over either your career or, you know, maybe the last 10 15 years?
00:27:23
Speaker
you know, one of the ways they describe it is I keep going upstream, right? I, i that, you know, my, yeah i would see something not work and I'm like, okay, well, what's the thing that's causing that to not work? Okay, let me see if I can fix that or determine what, you know, and and keep going upstream, upstream, upstream. So I would say my understanding has deepened, first of all, um and my ability to articulate why things that,
00:27:54
Speaker
I could observe didn't work earlier in my career. i now understand why they didn't work. um Things that didn't feel right to me, like just that is just didn't feel right. Like, I don't like this. I don't like that. Somebody's telling me this is the way to do this. It doesn't feel right. Doesn't feel honest. Doesn't feel transparent. Doesn't feel yeah even morally or ethically right.
00:28:15
Speaker
um Now I understand where that comes from, too. I've. so i've You know, i I would say that like what's top of mind for me right now about what is probably what stands out for me as the most different from then to now is is that understanding of how inextricably linked these two processes are and that you. you You can talk to just one or the other, but you are lessening your probability of long-term success if you do.
00:28:50
Speaker
um Also, what I have now come to believe is that it does not need to be as painful and as long as everyone seems to think that it needs to be. Again, our lived experience would tell us that. But I also believe now I've gotten to this point, done enough research, done enough testing, done enough, you know, all of this, that I do believe, current opinion is, um that we can create the conditions for this kind of rapid, durable shift in thinking that, you know, may not always qualify as fully transformational, but certainly leads to a shift. Um,
00:29:31
Speaker
I'd say the third big thing, and I'll i'll leave it at that because again, I could talk about this for hours, is that there is a huge amount of common ground on which for us to base our conversations with each other they are that we are not currently treading.
00:29:51
Speaker
and so And what I mean by that is... You know, I often think about it in terms of bands of beliefs, right? And I think the ones that get a lot of attention right now are the ones that that are pulling apart from each other, right? Or, you know, religious beliefs, um ah government, political beliefs of, you know, just all sorts of stuff, right? Identity-based. And that is a problem. And so I feel...
00:30:16
Speaker
great urgency around my work. At the same time, there's another band of beliefs, which is kind of what started me on this this path three three or four years ago, um though I read this article when it came out, very soon after it came out in 2019. So it's now been like cooking for about six years.
00:30:31
Speaker
Six years? Did do the math right? I don't know. 2019? Whatever. Okay. And it was about primal beliefs. So this is work ah from Jerry Clifton's lab out of ah University of Pennsylvania. And um this idea that there's like there is this baseline level of beliefs, ah you know, that that really underscore everything and that they're pretty oppositional. Right. That that people fundamentally believe the world is a good place or a bad place or a beautiful place or an ugly place. I do talk about this in my second book because it was so foundational for that line of thinking. um
00:31:07
Speaker
And though they don't, we seem to be born with them, is what he's found. Like, they don't seem to be dependent on socioeconomic status or childhood experience or whatever. in other words, you kind of seem to be there. And they're they're pretty darn stable over time.
00:31:21
Speaker
They can shift. But again, with my lens of leaders and folks that don't have a lot of time with people ah and oftentimes don't have the opportunity for an actual dialogue. Again, we are in that situation a lot where we have to broadcast, we have to make a presentation, we have to make an announcement, we have to write an email, we have to write a paper or, you know, an article or something.
00:31:46
Speaker
um We don't have time. but we don't That's not an opportunity, right? So one of the first things that set in my mind from that was, oh, so it's really important that if you are making the case for something through a story or directly, that unless you're pretty darn sure that everybody in that audience shares a primal belief with you, do not anchor it in a primal belief.
00:32:13
Speaker
But right above that is this huge band of beliefs that I don't, that I feel are underserved. And, you know, they go by a bunch of different names. That's part of the fun and the challenge of my doctoral research. um Scientists and engineers and mathematicians would known them primarily as either axioms or first principles. In other words, like they are, they are things like Newton's laws. They are just the the generally accepted way of how things work most of the time, given our current state of knowledge.
00:32:43
Speaker
And very strongly related to that are kind of received wisdom over the years, right? Like, you know, and and you see some of those foundational principles show up in that, like what goes up must come down and like, you know, um but things like, you know, slow and steady wins the race, things like that, right?
00:33:01
Speaker
And even there are some consistency in cultural beliefs like every I think I mentioned this in the in the second book as well. It's just that, you know, every religion ah or philosophy generally has some version of what the Judeo-Christian like tradition would would call like the the golden rule. Right. Like do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Right.
00:33:24
Speaker
And what I've seen over and over and over again in my work is that they are really effective ah as kind of supporting not just premises, but what argumentation theory what um calls warrants, like justifications. When you use those kind like foundational first principles, axioms, and whatever as like, this is why I believe in this, you get two benefits out of it right away. Number one three. Number one, back to our double brain thing. Both brains get it. Both brains get it instantly. It passes that gut check. The you know the the intuitive brain is like, yep, absolutely. the the you know the The logical brain, the analytical, excuse me, they're both logical. The rational brain, the analytical brain goes, yeah, agree. Can't immediately disprove that. So I'll keep listening.
00:34:16
Speaker
um Two, because they're commonly held and accepted, They are generally accepted to be true most of the time. So again, I'm going to keep my listening open to you. um And yeah, I'm going to try to find the ways that it isn't true in this situation. But again, I've got enough of your attention and enough of your openness to continue the conversation. And the third thing, and this seems to be kind of a hidden benefit of it,
00:34:45
Speaker
is that, and this is something I'm learning from adult learning, is that we're actually building on how people learn. Because we're starting with a concept that people already know, already understand, already carries with it a bunch of other characteristics, qualities, concepts, e etc. And then once we've kind of made sure that they understand and agree with the kind of why we're using it and how we're using that concept in this context...
00:35:13
Speaker
Then again, they get it. They go, oh, I understand. I get the gist of it. I get why that would work or why you believe that. And they may not always agree, but I think from a business standpoint, that's actually, it it at least speeds the opportunity to like find where that disagreement is and either find a different point of agreement or something else. But regardless,
00:35:38
Speaker
you know this is That would be a side project for me. i believe this group of what, Erin, you know that I love a good Aristotelian word. So my new discovery of this one is endoxa, which is, again, generally accepted principles. there They go with the axiom of the axioms. um the These endoxa are, there's way more of them than endoxa.
00:36:04
Speaker
divisive political pundits and media would have us believe. um And I think that that gives us hope for all sorts of things. I think that gives us hope for collective action. I think that gives us hope for more civil discourse. I think that gives us hope for um being able to, you know, even just from a really practical standpoint, from marketing and branding, actually being able to find more people who are more likely to be aligned with your organization and brand from the get-go, provided, of course, you're operating from what those beliefs actually are for you. So again, long answer, but I think deeply about these things. So there you go. Appreciate it
00:36:45
Speaker
Regardless of my role, you know, whether I'm in some form of leadership, marketing, coaching, well whatever it is, sales, when you When you say things like, well, the mind is very complex or culture is complex or whatever, there's some group of people and I feel like it's often large if I'm not doing a very good job communicating or I haven't built up some credibility, some large group of people receive that. like
00:37:18
Speaker
So the next thing you're going to tell me is, well, we really can't have any certainty about what message will stick or whatever else. And so I don't think that that is generally true. I think it says more about, am I doing a good job communicating whatever I'm trying to communicate?
00:37:35
Speaker
And so I'm wondering when you work with someone, how do you talk to them about, or how do you build certainty for them, some level of confidence that their message is going to achieve its goal?
00:37:55
Speaker
couple different ways. The first is so stipulated the world, culture, mind, people are complex. um That said, i was delighted to discover, thanks to my husband, who you know, Tom, um who stumbled across it. And he's like, oh, I think you're going to like this.
00:38:13
Speaker
So there's a systems thinker theorist called named John Gall, and he, I'm paraphrasing him slightly, noted and observed that for any complex system that works, there is an underlying simple system that works.
00:38:31
Speaker
And that's generally true. This is why there are first principles and axioms of science and math. It's because fundamentally, those are the simple rules, the simple premises, which in combination create a so simple system that underlies all the other more complex systems. So I often explain that from the first beginning and say, listen,
00:38:54
Speaker
I am not trying to simplify your idea. I am trying to find its point of, its most accessible entry points for the audience that you're talking to. And that's generally like, so again, there are like industry and docs that we don't always have to go down to like, for, you know, every pot, like to get to zero, every positive needs a negative, which I did use one time when I was working with a company that builds carbon negative building materials.
00:39:20
Speaker
Um, So I think that there's that's that that makes sense to people. That's that again, it's so because, again, they'll do exactly what you did, which is you looked up and you did a quick check. And I'm like, is that true? Do I can I can I buy into that for the moment? Like, yeah.
00:39:37
Speaker
Are there probably situations where that may not be true? I don't know. I've said that to like evolutionary biologists and they're like, yes, correct. And I'm like, all I'm going to go with you on that. um Again, I know I'm confirming my bias. I'm aware. um So that's that's one thing ah that is true. The second thing that I build in, particularly to them to the to the kind of, you know, the the underlying model. and So the the red thread is, know, I now think of it as that's my um narrative logic model. like that's ah And then the model I'm working on now is is very much um a proxy for reasoning logic. How do we come to a decision about something?
00:40:21
Speaker
And... The way that i that we address the complexity is that any particular... ah Anytime we're using that framework to articulate the core strategy and the case for it, um for something, it is focused on a very specific question.
00:40:40
Speaker
Like, that's how we're doing we're doing it in a context-specific way so that we can say... To achieve this particular outcome, would you agree, based on these principles that you already generally would agree are true, that these elements are necessary for us to achieve that outcome, whatever it is?
00:41:01
Speaker
If so, this this is Aristotle at work, basically said, then wouldn't you agree that it would at least be plausible that any combination of those things, like the the combination, a combination of those things would therefore be likely to achieve that outcome?
00:41:17
Speaker
And then, again, depending on what context we're using this on, we can then say, that's what we think, too. Here's how we can now show you that we do that. Now you start to hang on the customer testimonials or how you've got the systems and processes or features built into your product or services that deliver those things. But...
00:41:39
Speaker
um That's what I'm helping to establish for people is like, listen, we got to give them a container. We've got to give them a snapshot that they can process and kind of just give a quick check on. And then we can layer on the complexity and the nuance.
00:41:54
Speaker
And it's, i you know, sometimes I've seen it as a parallel to, you know, Seth Godin's like, yeah, seminal concept of permission marketing. And I see this as kind of permission influence or permission persuasion, because you're not in this kind of approach where Like it's you you've got to get a check of understanding and agreement before it even makes sense to proceed. Because if you don't understand the great the general idea and if you don't understand or agree that it that.
00:42:29
Speaker
that it could work, right? Then there's really not much point in me going further until we've established agreement on those things. um Because any, he you know, failure point down the line is probably going to come back to one, ah some foundational misunderstanding or disagreement in that underlying rationale for that change, that idea in the first place. Um, so, you know, another thing that's just been bopping around my head lately is that, you know, I think that, know, can you ensure that a change, let's say an organizational change is going to be successful in 90 seconds? No, but you sure can make sure that in 90 seconds you don't ensure it's future failure.
00:43:16
Speaker
Right. Um, And again, i just think a lot of changes, a lot of like product launches, a lot of offerings die at the point of first explanation. And that is a line from my first book. So that has never changed. Like I still believe that. um But ultimately it's, you know, it is, yes, things are complex, but I don't think they need to be as complex as we make them out to be to start.
00:43:42
Speaker
Because let's just make sure that everybody's on the same page and then we can add words to it. Where is all of this taking you or or where do you think it's taking you at the moment in terms of, know, I ah forget how you stated it I don't think that it was my next book.
00:44:00
Speaker
I think it was more like ah the model that you're using right now or developing or whatever. Is all of this taking you to a one framework to rule them all? Is it just going to those higher levels or deeper levels, depending on the direction we want to go? Yeah. I mean, so it's not one framework to rule them all. Like I said, I think it's they they achieve different things. And and of the two frameworks that I have. right now, you know, one I call the core case or the ITBA, which stands for if then, because and, um, that's the reasoning model. And then there's the red thread, which is the narrative model. Um, uh, they, they, they work complimentarily, uh, complimentarily. i don't know what the word, um, if you are working on a red thread, understanding the ITBA will make a stronger red thread.
00:44:52
Speaker
You can, i think, assess and establish quick understanding and agreement with the ITBA in 90 seconds, but you would need a red thread to to build out how you would then make the case and, you know, most most logically and most engagingly and most intuitively, uh,
00:45:13
Speaker
ah You know, just to to kind of get that engagement that any any story structure is going to give you. Because you're going to need something that helps guide how you add a additional additional information to that very short court case. Because again, it's four sentences. So or um super quick. um So from a directional standpoint...
00:45:34
Speaker
you know i I can see from a commercialization standpoint how they work together. like I generally believe, yeah, you got to start with it, but if something is not working like in a case, in ah in an ad, in a pitch, in a talk, in a book, in a whatever, it's probably because something is broken. at the underlying rationale at the ITBA court case level. Something's missing, something's not there. um You're making, you know, either you're not justifying your point of view, you're not making a complete claim.
00:46:03
Speaker
um There's a lot of different places it can go wrong, um which were, still in operation with the red thread. I just have now a lot more clarity about what those pieces are and why they're so critical in a story.
00:46:17
Speaker
So, but from a directional standpoint, I think what I am, you know, from ah from an academic standpoint, the first point of call, ah first port of call, is to really verify the fact that this idea, like, that the that they're just...
00:46:34
Speaker
is is to either find or establish um what it is that's required for that accelerated perspective change. like And so I have, you know kind of working backwards from the model, right? I have some ideas, but, you know, taking now a true scholarly, like rigorous empirical research approach, um really figuring out Okay, i i can I believe my model works, and I believe it works for these reasons, but that is not how one approaches research, right? where One approaches research from what do we know already about fast perspective change, those kind of epiphanies, those aha moments, those kinds of things. um
00:47:22
Speaker
And if we know something, and right now that seems to be a big if, at least in learning, um To what extent, like, you know, then then it's about, like, how does my model line up with that? What would need to happen with my model to um to line up with established theory? And then it would be, let me empirically test the model to to see whether or not in in use, does it in fact shift people's perspectives? And if I really want to establish
00:47:55
Speaker
transformation, which has an actual academic definition, um i would need to do follow-up work to see the degree to which those those shifts, if they occurred, persisted. So um it really is going in like deep into the weeds of like what are the underlying processes behind accelerated perspective change um because the the incremental perspective change is fairly well understood about what how that happens, what's required, how do you support it. um
00:48:27
Speaker
But it's it it doesn't seem to be as well understood about the other side, particularly outside of crisis situation. So a lot of times when people think about like a sudden shift in how they see the world, it's because something awful has happened. um And while I'm not uninterested in that, I am more interested in the more common ah use case where outside of a crisis situation, right, a leader, a founder, a a author, of a thinker, just somebody, a human, right, has a situation where they they they want to share their point of view with somebody else in such a way that the there's the greatest likelihood that somebody else will adopt that same point of view.
00:49:17
Speaker
um and it And it seems from preliminary poking ah that there's a lot of work to do there. So I'm excited. So...
00:49:28
Speaker
whether it's reading your books, following you on LinkedIn, something else, what what's the best way for me to learn more, connect? and then, you know, we've had such a short time today, so maybe you can point me in a direction or something, that or maybe we didn't get to a topic, but is there something you would want me to think about or a point you would want to reiterate or leave me with in addition to where do I go?
00:49:56
Speaker
Sure. So where to go? i i so i believe i am still the only Tamsin Webster spelled this way, T-A-M-S-E-N, Webster like the dictionary, in the searchable universe. So I'm pretty easy to find. um i'm I'm most active on on LinkedIn.
00:50:10
Speaker
um If you want to kind of follow along as these ideas burble up, which is how like anybody who's, you know, followed me for a long time knows that the but the ideas show up first in my newsletter. So I would hope you know recommend signing up for that. I do also post those as articles on LinkedIn.
00:50:28
Speaker
Um, yeah, I, you know, stay tuned. Um, and thanks to Jen Hines on my team. I, you know, she makes sure that it gets out in other formats too. So, um, but to learn more about this, since I haven't, you know, since I've, again, you know, I, in scattered ways, it's in my newsletter and on the, on the, on the, on the kind of content page of the Message Design Institute, which is where I'm kind of putting all of this stuff going forward. Um,
00:50:58
Speaker
I would say that filling in, no matter what your position is, that starting to fill in your gaps around kind of processing of information and language would be really helpful. So I would say three books come to mind that have been really, like, have been just, A, interesting, like a good read. um And be really helpful. So the first one, classic recommendation is Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. um That is like the book about what's more officially known as dual process theory, but is like that's where this idea of not by those terms, this, you know, analytic, automatic brain, really how that plays in. And, you know, he won he won a Nobel Prize for some of the research underneath that. So it's reliable.
00:51:47
Speaker
And a lot of the other stuff you see people talk about is really just that stuff watered out. All right. Second book I'd recommend, which was ah actually the next two books are both recommended to me by a very interesting fellow named Owen Fitzpatrick, who I would also recommend you follow. He really studies the kind of psychology of belief.
00:52:03
Speaker
um He recommends two books. I read them both and i they were both very solid recommendations. One was um How Minds Change. ah Donald Rainey. I always get the first name wrong, but it's called How Minds Change.
00:52:18
Speaker
don David McRaney. david i don't mick rayney I don't know. it I keep thinking of that guy from coach, ah that actor. And I always want to make the name wrong. um But then the last one is, um again, I'm not going to get the author's name right because that's not how my brain works. But I remember the title of the book. i remember the concept. um So How I Change is really good because it really does talk about um so some of these transformational belief shifts and does go into some of the ways that people have been trying to do that and what some of the mechanisms are. A book that was a beautiful pair with it, and so I'm glad he recommended at the same time, was a book called The Ancient Art of Thinking for Yourself.
00:52:55
Speaker
And it is actually a book about, this doesn't sound interesting, it's fascinating. um It's about the history of rhetoric, right? And combined with the kind of like most up-to-date understanding of how we come to make decisions about things. And so, you know, it's very much positioned. I think the book is from 2016. So the timing of that book is, is, and what was happening here in the U S during that time is very influential on what they're talking about there. um But I also found that deeply fascinating and also reassuring that in any moments, you know, that regularly, even back to like ancient Greece, that in moments where,
00:53:38
Speaker
we um rhetoric and language and speech and persuasion and influence have been used against a society, there has been a wave coming in afterwards of setting us up for better success the next time around. um And so, yeah, I think it's a good note to end on because ah to me, I feel like if I could have some, if I could play some role in that happening this time around, I would be, and that would be the mark of a life well lived.
00:54:08
Speaker
I can well imagine the situation in which you, you finish your doctorate and the next book is out and you're having a big influence. So I, I hope that that is the case. I don't know if that's exactly what you're saying, but I i could see, you know, the, the, the New York times cover or whatever with Tamsin Webster on there. Yeah.
00:54:28
Speaker
Fabulous. I'll take it. Yeah. I mean, would that all be nice? Yes. Do I? I mean, it's part of why I founded the Message Design Institute in the first place. i actually really, and it is part of why I wanted to go to school because to me, the fastest path to impact is is through the academics because it's the academics that get you know, that they, you know, it's, they talk to each other, their, their stuff gets built, like other people's ideas get built on other people's ideas. And it's the academics that, you know, in, in various rings of distance, get cherry picked for business books, thought leadership, get, you know, get spread out that way. So again, it was another example of me going as upstream as possible so that I could have as much downstream effect as I could.
00:55:09
Speaker
um So that's what I'm trying to do. And, you know, it's, It really is. i say this with all honesty. I sure i would love to like make a bajillion dollars from it, but it's actually way more important to me um to give people tools for.
00:55:26
Speaker
First and foremost, for getting new important ideas out into the world faster. um And if secondarily it achieves what I think it might, which is allowing people to have conversations across Differences of all kinds, cognitive, experiential, developmental, um socioeconomic, and at the same time to be able to to ask just one layer deeper of question when somebody tells you something. And just say, oh, why do you believe that? And again, not in an aggressive way, but in a curious way. So that it just starts that very natural process of somebody having to justify to themselves what it is that drives that belief. um
00:56:13
Speaker
Because I think right now we're in a situation where people... even for themselves, aren't necessarily always stepping back and going, well, wait, wait a minute. Why why do I believe that's right?
00:56:24
Speaker
Right. And that's fine. Like if you can like test it and it still stands up more power to you. it's the It's the alternative that's empowering. Like when you realize that there may be a different way to see things that actually feels more right to you than whatever you're feeling now.
00:56:41
Speaker
And that has downsides too. I'm not trying to be, you know, too starry-eyed about all that. But um like I said, i feel i feel a great deal of urgency about this work. And whatever I can do to get it out faster is while still hewing and honoring it, it what it needs to be successful, I will do it.
00:57:00
Speaker
Well, I'm very interested in it, as I hope you can tell. And I won't ask any more questions because I have kept to you over time. So I really want to respect you get to your schedule, but I will be following and hopefully learning more from what you share. So thank you, Tamsin.
00:57:17
Speaker
It's been lovely to catch up and to just, you know, chat about deep things with you. Thank you. I appreciate that.