“Think, Feel, Do” is a simple framework to consider when drafting communications or creating development workshops and programmes. Before creating such things, ask yourself: what do you want people think, to feel and to do as a result of what you create. Summary by The World of Work Project
Think, Feel and Do
The “Think, Feel, Do’ framework we actually picked up when working closely with internal comms teams, which has served us well in many different situations since then. In fact, we use it as a quick objective setting discussion for most things we create that involve working with people.
The idea here is that everything ever time we have an interaction with someone, via a communication or in a workshop or similar, we need to ask ourselves three questions about the impact we want to have on them:
Think
How do we want them to end up thinking about whatever the subject or topicis that we’re discussing. What will they “know” about it? What will their logical brain hold in relation to it?
We can think of this as connecting with them from the “Logos” perspective in the Aristotelian Rhetorical Triangle.
Feel
What do we want their feelings, their emotional state be as a result of this interaction we have with them? How will they feel as a result of it? What will their sentiment be?
We can think of this as connecting with them from the “Pathos” perspective in the Aristotelian Rhetorical Triangle.
Do
What do we want them to be motivated to actually do as a result of our interaction with them? Is there a specific call to action? Is there an influence on their motivations?
The Outcome
If we are clear on these three sets of outcomes from the beginning, then we will better able to design communications, workshops or other interventions to achieve our objectives. Similarly, if we fail to consider any of these three factors when designing communications and interventions, then the chances are high that our communications and interventions will have unintended or unhelpful impacts.
Learning More
This is another way to think about how we influence people, and there are many other models to help us with this.
Great starting points for influence include the above-mention Rhetorical Triangle and the Five Canons of Rhetoric, which evidence we’ve been trying to influence each other for millenia. More modern takes on the same thing include Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion and Monroe’s Motivated Sequence.
Of course, we also go beyond influence at times and try and really change each other’s behaviours. For this, ther Hook model might be interesting as might Nudging and Sludge.
Moving further along the path towards getting people to do things, you might find some of the work on power interesting as well, including French and Raven.
Our podcast on influencing consumer behaviours might also be fun:
The World of Work Project View
Gosh, what do we think… Well, perhaps with things like this we need to think about the concepts themselves and also about how they are used in practice.
From a concept perspective, we like the Think, Feel, Do model, as well as the other models in this space of influence. They’re interesting and we think they are effective, playing to core parts of the human Psyche to achieve influence.
So that leaves us with the practical application of them. Here we think that they can be used for good, or for less good purposes.
We like to think that we fairly ethically use ideas like this to influence people to change their behaviours so that they achieve better outcomes for themselves and their teams. So we think we’re pretty benign. At least we aim to be.
However, there are many people in the world, and many organizations, who use the ideas of influence and behaviour change to achieve outcomes that serve their own ends more than the ends of the people being influenced. There is clearly a moral element at play when this happense.
We suggest that when people seek to influence others that they check in quickly with their own moral compass before doing so.
We also suggest, that as an individual, it’s very advisable to learn to spot when others are trying to influence you so that you’re better able to make rational decisions about your courses of action in life.
How We Help Organizations
We provide leadership development programmes and consulting services to clients around the world to help them become high performing organizations that are great places to work. We receive great feedback, build meaningful and lasting relationships and provide reduced cost services where price is a barrier.
Learning more about who we are and what we do it easy: To hear from us, please join our mailing list. To ask about how we can help you or your organization, please contact us. To explore topics we care about, listen to our podcast. To attend a free seminar, please check out our eventbrite page.
We’re also considering creating a community for people interested in improving the world of work. If you’d like to be part of it, please contact us.
Sources and Feedback
We’ve no sources for this. If you are aware of any we should cite, please let us know and we will do so.
We’re a small organization who know we make mistakes and want to improve them. Please contact us with any feedback you have on this post. We’ll usually reply within 72 hours.
