If you were offered a painting for half a million dollars, would you be interested? What if you discovered that the artist’s paintings sold for no less than ten million dollars, and the seller simply didn’t have that point of reference? The reaction of most people is actually quite predictable. When encountering the first prospect, thoughts of a corrupt and elite art world make the reader scoff at a ridiculous price tag. When reading the second statement, however, most would quickly switch gears, wondering how they could secure a loan to get their hands on a 9.5 million dollar profit.
The key to the phenomenon illustrated above is referred to as anchoring, or our tendency to make decisions based on a reference point. Much of how we evaluate the impact or value of information relies on its context. If you go to a grocery store, for example, you will almost always find at least three versions of each product: cheap, moderate, and premium. Consider canned vegetables. You might see the store brand for $1.50, a premium brand for $3.75, and another brand “in the middle” for $1.99. Chances are there will be more of the $1.99 cans than the other two combined. Why? Because the other two cans provide context for what you believe to be good value for the price. The premium can is over twice the cost of the cheap on, but the moderate can is only a little more expensive, so it must be the best deal, right?
I wouldn’t be writing about this if it didn’t apply to public speaking, so how can you use the concept of anchoring when developing your speeches and presentations? It boils down to a concept I call information mutability, meaning information’s susceptibility to intentional change. For example, if presenting about about product management, we might not be able to change the availability of a raw material (immutable), but perhaps we can redesign our manufacturing process to use less of it (mutable).
Information mutability informs the order in which you present information in your brief. Suppose you’re telling your boss about gaining efficiencies in an assembly line. “Upgrading our machines would be prohibitively expensive, but by adjusting the timing at each station, we can reduce bottlenecks and improve overall output for the same number of employees and labor hours.” For the most part, the flow will always be immutable then mutable, what can’t be changed followed by what can.
This works because of the anchoring phenomenon mentioned earlier. Flow is largely about framing and ordering information so that the presentation order a) feels natural and b) heads off potential questions or objections that might derail the speech. What if you took the same assembly line scenario but started with, “Good morning, boss. We have an idea about adjusting station timing to reduce bottlenecks and improve overall output for the same number of employees and labor hours.” Your boss looks back at you and says, “I can see where that would buy us a little efficiency, but what about upgrading our machines?” You say that it will be prohibitively expensive, and the boss says, “What about just a few of them?” and you end up in a back-and-forth scenario focusing on the wrong solution, trying to navigate your way back to your original point about adjusting assembly station timing.
Likewise, by anchoring your audience in what can’t be changed, you prime their minds to focus on what can. Maybe you’re looking for ways to enhance employee morale, so you hold a sensing session with the team. Budget constraints prevent you from increasing salaries or giving bonuses (immutable), but you may be able to grant more personal time off, offer flexible work schedules, or develop effective recognition programs (mutable).
Keep in mind that information mutability is not about whether the information can change at all, but whether it is within your audience’s power to change. If discussing distribution costs, fuel prices fall under the immutable category because, while they fluctuate, you are not the one to impact their rise and fall. Therefore, you might talk to your audience about fuel prices being immutable, but which vehicles the company purchases are very mutable.
You can use anchoring and mutability together to structure most of your speech. Talking about warehousing solutions? You can’t change that your product needs cold storage, but you can decide whether to rent or own refrigerated space. Manufacturing flashlights? You can’t change the brightness of bulbs, but you can change the number of them and how they’re focused. Remember to fix your audience’s mind on what cannot be changes in order to guide them to what can, and you will find yourself making your point faster, easier, and more effectively.