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What is the Rule of 27™?
Understanding People
What is the Rule of 27? I believe the origins of this rule are from marketing principles and I applied it to communication, referring to our chances to capture attention and retain it.
The Rule of 27 states that for a message to be received there is a 1 in 3 chance that you will be successful, and it must be repeated 9 times to be retained. Hence the rule of 27 (3×9=27).
Whilst it has origins in Marketing, I think it applies to all sorts of communication, whether your boss, your peers, or your teams…So, I started to use it in trainings with managers and leaders and pretty soon people would stop me in the corridor and say:
“Hey, thanks for the Rule of 27…I tried talking to XXX a different way and it worked”.
Don't Miss Out
So, there I was in a Training Room full of managers and leaders, a few years ago in Piccadilly, London. I have been training managers and leaders for nearly 20 years at that point, so I was used to people that didn’t want to change their behaviour. We had just discussed a great model for feeding back to others, and as a defence mechanism one of the managers refused to accept it would work with someone in their team.
The discussion centred on a particular issue that a manager was having, and how hard he was finding it to get one of his team to get the job done. The manager went into detail about how the team member was un-professional, emotional and obstinate. They refused to accept that any of the fault or responsibility to resolve the issue came down to them. In fact, they considered anyone that tried to help them in the room as hostile, shying away from any support and explaining that no-one knew the situation and so no-one could comment on it or offer help.
It was clear that the situation was stuck.
For some reason I had a flash of inspiration. From somewhere in the back of my subconscious I said…
“Have you heard of the Rule of 27?”
“No” he said
“Well, it kind-of states that if at first you don’t succeed, try 26 other ways to get through”
I know now that the explanation was not perfect, but it was from distant memory and I couldn’t recall it perfectly.
It is so easy to think that you say it once and it should be understood. However, that is not how our brains work.
Whether you are a professional, manager or leader, communication is key to success. In every company or project, communication is attributed as the most important thing to get right, and most blamed when things go wrong.
It means that sometimes the channel we broadcast on is not received. That can be because the other person is not listening, is distracted, or just doesn’t understand. It also means that just because someone has heard you say it once, does not mean they can do it. Their style may be different, or we may have missed out crucial bits of information in our explanation.
“How many times and in how many ways have you explained, demonstrated or supervised them with the task?” I asked, a little provocatively.
“Well, just once…oh, I see.” he said.
Think of Children. If we only had to say things once, parents would have a very quiet life. Kids need to hear things many, many times, before they can understand it, and in fact younger children need you to demonstrate the behaviour to replicate it, so shouting at them for not cleaning their room just teaches them to repeat how-to shout.
In fact, if you want your children to tidy their room it is better to show them how to pick up a toy and put it in their toy box. Then ask them to do it. Then reward them for success, or repeat the demonstration until they can replicate with ease without any more input…but that is by-the-by.
So, this thinking will allow you to accept some really useful information about yourself, others and your effectiveness as a communicator. It would after-all be very strange indeed if someone was able to do exactly what you wanted in the exact way you wanted it first time around. Has that ever happened to you?
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