(And Why Arguing About Them Usually Doesn't)
Sometimes the best way to change someone's mind isn't to change it at all.
I've been thinking a lot over the last few months about rules, not the bureaucratic, soul-crushing, DMV-ish kind that make you want to set your employee handbook on fire, but the deeper question of why we need them in the first place. And more importantly, what happens when we try to convince people to follow them by doing exactly the wrong thing?
It started with a conversation I had with a former colleague at Boise State who was frustrated about vaccine hesitancy in our community. Sound familiar? She'd been getting into fights with her family and friends about politics. Big fights. Showing up with printouts from news sites and research studies, she believed that if she could just walk them through the facts, they'd finally get it. Her efforts never worked and actually made everything worse. The harder she tried to convince them, the more they shut down.
"I don't understand it," she confided in me. "The science is clear. Why won't they just listen to reason?"
I thought about the experience Adam Grant wrote about in his 2021 New York Times opinion piece The Science of Reasoning With Unreasonable People, where his stubborn friend, the one who refused to vaccinate his children, no matter how many myths Grant debunked. Grant, an organizational psychologist, eventually realized something profound. When we try to change someone's mind by preaching about why we're right and prosecuting them for being wrong, we often end up strengthening the very beliefs we're trying to change.
The Logic Bully Problem
I've been guilty of this myself more times than I care to admit. I do this all the time. Someone says something I think is completely wrong - about COVID, or politics, or even just which way to drive somewhere - and I jump in with all my evidence. I start pulling up articles on my phone, explaining why they're mistaken, basically trying to beat them over the head with facts until they give up.
Turns out that doesn't work. At all. At least not the way we think they do.
When we attack someone's position head-on, we trigger what psychologists call the "psychological immune system." Just like a vaccine inoculates the body against a virus, the act of resistance fortifies the mind against future attempts at influence. We make people more certain of their opinions, not less.
The Motivational Interviewing Alternative
There's a better way, and it comes from an unlikely source: addiction counseling.
Decades ago, psychologists working with substance abuse developed a technique called motivational interviewing. Instead of trying to force people to change, they learned to help people find their own intrinsic motivation to change. The approach is deceptively simple: ask open-ended questions, listen carefully, and hold up a mirror so people can see their own thoughts more clearly.
It's not manipulation, it's genuine curiosity about how someone thinks and what matters to them.
Grant eventually tried this approach with his vaccine-hesitant friend. Instead of asking why he opposed COVID vaccines, Grant asked how he would stop the pandemic. Instead of debating the merits of immunization, he listened for moments when his friend expressed any ambivalence, any "change talk," and gently explored it.
The breakthrough wasn't that his friend suddenly signed up for a shot. It was that he admitted his views could change, that this wasn't a "black-and-white issue." That's not nothing. That's everything.
Why Rules Actually Matter
This connects to something more profound about why we have rules in the first place. Rules aren't just arbitrary constraints imposed by killjoys who hate fun. At their best, they're collective agreements that make cooperation possible.
Think about it: every time you drive through a green light without slowing down, you're trusting that everyone else has agreed to follow the same set of rules. Every time you put money in a bank, use a credit card, or sign a contract, you're relying on systems of regulations that make complex societies function.
But here's the paradox: the more we need people to follow rules, the less effective it becomes to simply tell them to follow rules.
The more I cited FASB and invoked my previous employer's institutional processes, the more creative Dave became in his resistance and explanations. "Well, our auditors approved this approach." "The previous CFO set this up for a reason." "We've been doing it this way for years without problems." "Your old company might have different circumstances." Each response felt like he was building a fortress around the status quo, brick by defensive brick.
I was ready to write Dave off as just another change management "anchor," a DMV-ish cog in the University bureaucracy threatened by the "new guy's" ideas, when a colleague suggested I actually talk with him instead of at him. So I asked Dave for a meeting (in his office, naturally) and instead of lecturing him about past history and compliance, I asked him how the university developed this procedure.
It turned out Dave wasn't anti-FASB or resistant to proper accounting standards at all. The procedure I was critiquing had been his brainchild during a particularly chaotic period when the previous CFO had left suddenly and the auditors were breathing down their necks. He'd cobbled together a solution that worked in the crisis. While he knew it wasn't perfect, it had kept the university compliant during a vulnerable time. When I kept invoking "best practices" from my previous employer, he felt like I was dismissing not just the procedure, but the context that created it and the effort he'd put into keeping things afloat.
Once I understood the history and his actual concerns about changing mid-stream, we could work together on a transition plan. Dave became one of my strongest allies in implementing the new procedures, not because I'd convinced him with FASB citations, but because he felt like his institutional knowledge and past efforts were valued in creating the solution.
The Stag Hunt Principle
The tragedy isn't that some people are selfish; it's that when trust erodes, even well-meaning people start making choices that undermine the collective good.
Rules work when people buy into them. And people buy into them when they feel heard, understood, and respected, not lectured, shamed, or bulldozed.
This reminds me of something I know intimately as a lifelong Cubs fan: the difference between loyalty born from argument and loyalty born from love.
For decades, people have tried to convince Cubs fans to abandon their team using perfectly logical arguments. "Look at their record!" "They haven't won anything!" "You're wasting your time and money!" The more people told us the Cubs sucked, the more we'd defend them. 'This is our year!' we'd say, every single year, despite all evidence to the contrary.
But nobody becomes a Cubs fan because someone showed them a spreadsheet. You stick with the Cubs because your dad did, or because you love Wrigley, or because misery loves company. It's not a logical decision. It's about tradition, hope, community, and something ineffable that connects us to Wrigley Field, to our fathers and grandfathers, to the beautiful futility of believing that this might be the year.
You can't logic someone into, or out of, being a Cubs fan, and you can't logic someone into following a rule they don't believe in. Both require something deeper than facts; they need trust, connection, and the sense that your perspective matters.
Most diehard Cubs fans don't come from sabermetricians proving (or disproving) the talent of the team. They come from tradition, and more recently, they come from the team finally honoring what we've always believed was possible. Sometimes the best way to change someone's mind is to show them you understand why they think the way they do.
What This Looks Like in Practice
So what does this mean for those of us who care about rules, standards, and collective responsibility?
First, get curious instead of certain. Instead of asking "How can I convince them they're wrong?" try asking "What would have to be true for their position to make sense to them?"
Second, listen for ambivalence. Most people who seem completely rigid actually have some uncertainty lurking beneath the surface. Your job isn't to create that uncertainty; it's to notice it when it emerges and make space for them to explore it.
Third, focus on shared values. Most people want the same stuff you do; they just disagree on how to get there. That parent who won't vaccinate their kid? They're not trying to hurt anyone. They're scared and trying to protect their child, same as you would. The guy who won't wear a mask at work isn't necessarily being selfish - maybe he's worried about looking weak, or maybe he thinks the whole thing is overblown. Start with what you both care about, not where you disagree.
Fourth, resist the prosecutor's impulse. When someone says something you disagree with, your first instinct might be to pounce. Don't. Get curious. Ask them to say more. You might be surprised by what you learn.
The Bigger Picture
None of this means we should abandon our convictions or stop advocating for what we believe is right. It means we should get better at it.
Rules matter; they make civilization possible. But rules without buy-in become DMV-ish bureaucracy at best and authoritarianism at worst. If we want to live in a society where people choose to cooperate rather than being forced to comply, we need to get better at the delicate art of persuasion.
That starts with remembering that the person across from us is a human being with their own fears, hopes, and reasons for believing what they believe. Even when those reasons seem entirely wrong for us.
Especially then.
The next time you find yourself wanting to logic-bully someone into agreement, try this instead: take a breath, get curious, and ask them a question you genuinely want to hear the answer to. You might not change their mind. But you might change the conversation. And sometimes, that's precisely where change begins.
