More Debate over FUD and GOG
Sims Wyeth and I are having a debate on the use of FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) and GOG (greed, opportunity and glory) in selling. He argued for FUD and I suggested that for some clients, those who are achievement oriented, GOG works better. He came back with the one, two punch of FUD first followed by GOG. In plain English, scare the pants off of them first and then wow them with the opportunity. This is my rejoinder.
Sims, our arguement started with your FUD hypothesis, followed by my GOG antithesis, allowing your FUD’em then GOG’em synthesis. Your Aristotelian heart must be glowing. If this were an Aristotelian world, that would be the end of it, but it’s not. Making a client keenly aware of the risk she faces and then showing how she can both avoid the risk and achieve something good at the same time makes a powerful arguement when this logic reflects the client’s situation. Often it doesn’t. If you see smoke coming out of someone’s roof and rush to their door to warn them, you shout to alert those inside of the danger and don’t waste time describing how beautiful the renovated building will be a year from now. It’s a FUD only situation. If you discover a great deal for some object you think a friend might like to buy, you seek to pursuade him what a great opportunity it is–a GOG situation.
There is an ethical issue here, too. Fear tactics are despicable when used with unsophisticated clients who don’t know enough to discount the inflated description of what might happen. The same is true about inflated descriptions of future benefits. The goal of selling is to help the client assess real risks and real opportunities in the situation she faces.
Imagine a Venn diagram of two overlapping circles. The left one represents situations where downside risk is high, where FUD is appropriate. The right circle represents situations where upside risk is great, perfect for GOG. Only where the circles overlap is it approriate to use both FUD and GOG.
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Ford Harding has lifted his pen to engage with me on a subject of profound importance to sales professionals, leaders, and anyone who seeks to influence others. That subject is the emotional sea on which all decisions float.
FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) is one current in that sea. It drives most of us away from the shoals of risk, hardship, pain and loss.
GOG (greed, opportuntiy, and glory) is another current in the sea. Its siren song calls us to risk our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor in pursuit of objectives that may or may not work out.
I will address Ford’s recent comments in this posting, but first I must clarify my position and then I must make the case for the role of emotion in business decision making.
My position: I am not the champion of FUD and the enemy of GOG. I strive to be the wise master of both. However, I am of the opinion that mankind is more motivated by the fear of loss than the hope of gain. What gets our attention, on a daily basis, are problems. Most people and organizations will not change until the pain of change becomes less than the pain of the status quo. Alcoholics don’t stop drinking until they hit rock bottom. They do not get sober because they suddenly decide to be good little boys and girls. They get sober because they are avoiding the dire consequences of their drinking.
In his book, Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert writes the following:
Stumbling on Happiness
by Daniel Gilbert
One of the most annoying songs in the often annoying history of popular music begins with this line: “Feelings, nothing more than feelings.” I wince when I hear it because it always strikes me as roughly equivalent to starting a hymn with “Jesus, nothing more than Jesus.” Nothing more than feelings? What could be more important than feelings? Sure, war and peace may come to mind, but are war and peace important for any reason other than the feelings they produce? If war didn’t cause pain and anguish, if peace didn’t provide for delights both transcendental and carnal, would either of them matter to us at all? War, peace, art, money, marriage, birth, death, disease, religion—these are just a few of the Really Big topics over which oceans of blood and ink have been spilled, but they are really big topics for one reason alone: Each is a powerful source of human emotion. If they didn’t make us feel uplifted, desperate, thankful, and hopeless, we would keep all that ink and blood to ourselves. As Plato asked, “Are these things good for any other reason except that they end in pleasure, and get rid of and avert pain? Are you looking to any other standard but pleasure and pain when you call them good?” Indeed, feelings don’t just matter—they are what mattering means. We would expect any creature that feels pain when burned and pleasure when fed to call burning and eating bad and good respectively, just as we would expect an asbestos creature with no digestive tract to find such designations arbitrary. Moral philosophers have tried for centuries to find some other way to define good and bad, but none has ever convinced the rest (or me). We cannot say that something is good unless we can say what it is good for, and if we examine all the many objects and experiences that our species calls good and ask what they are good for, the answer is clear: By and large, they are good for making us feel happy.
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Ford, I take this to mean that our careful reasoning and efforts to be logical about any important decision to be made–from making an investment, to building a bridge, to figuring out how to land a new client–is ultimately floating on a sea of feelings and emotions, and that we are constantly striving to minimize our FUD (negative emotions) and maximize our GOG (feelings of pleasure.)
If we are sales professionals, leaders, or public speakers, we need to consider all the tools of persuasion at our disposal. This consideration of tools and techniques makes us rhetoricians practicing the art of rhetoric. We are obliged to use the tools of rhetoric when considering a decision for which there is no clear answer–a decision about which reasonable men can disagree.
FUD and GOG are rhetorical tactics which we can use to persuade an audience. You write that fear tactics are despicable, and then you wisely mention that GOG tactics can be equally deceptive. Let me remind you that the techniques of persuasion, like many other technologies, are neither inherently good nor evil. They can be used to advance noble or pernicious purposes. “What makes a man a sophist is not his faculty but his moral purpose.”
As for your Venn diagram example, in which you describe the two overlapping circles of FUD and GOG, and argue that where downside risk is high, the use of only FUD is appropriate, and where the upside is larger, it is appropriate to use GOG.
It seems to me that Plato, quoted above, is saying that we undertake projects in our lives to minimize pain and maximize pleasure. In other words, to get rid of FUD and grab hold of GOG.
Furthermore, if we are successful business leaders, as soon as we make a decision to pursue GOG (greed, opportunity and glory), we have a whole new set of FUD calculations to make, such as, “What if I’m wrong? What if the future is not like the past? What if, what if, what if?”
It is up to the speaker, the salesman, and the leader to explore these unknowns, and thereby help his audience to the best decision for them. Reasoning and logic will play their parts in the drama, but FUD and GOG will always be the co-stars.
June 22nd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
I will let the debate end here.
Ford
June 22nd, 2008 at 4:04 pm
[...] Ford Harding has lifted his pen to engage with me on a subject of profound importance to sales professionals, leaders, and anyone who seeks to influence others. That subject is the emotional sea on which all decisions float. [...]