To change what people do, you first have to change how they think.

Change is like a trapeze. People don’t let go of the old bar until there’s a new one within reach. The problem isn’t getting them to learn something new, it’s getting them to unlearn something they already know.

This shift in thinking, or mindshift, can be achieved in three steps:  

1. Get people to see that the rope is fraying: their current way of thinking is ineffective.
2. Show them the new bar: there is a better way of thinking about their situation.
3. Help them leap to the new bar: let go of the old thinking and adopt the new mindset.

When trying to shift thinking, most of us tend to focus on the second step to persuade people why our way of thinking (or product or company) is is better than others.

But most people on the trapeze get stuck when it comes to the first or third. They can be convinced your solution is better, but they don’t think they have the problem, or they aren’t ready to make the jump.

The “Horseless Carriage”

When motor cars first came into being around 1900, people had no frame of reference. They were like a carriage, but without a horse, so they became known as “horseless carriages.” In the picture below, you can also see that they were steered not with a wheel, but with something like a boat tiller.

As humans, we see the new through the lens of the old. If you have a novel solution, you need to give people a way to make the bridge from the old to the new. Before you ask people to let go of the old trapeze, give them a way to have one hand on the old bar and one hand on the new.

Steve Jobs used the same strategy about a century later when he introduced the iPhone as three new products: a touch iPod, a mobile phone and an Internet communicator. Then he showed how the three products were actually one device: the iPhone. 

Read more about mindshifts and work on identifying your own in our Narrative Guidebook.