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Thanks Wez,
One view of the persuasion process is that it is like walking. Walking is literally falling to the left, then falling to the right, and repeat. Each step takes us off our (strictest) path, and the following step corrects but takes us off the other side of the line.
Providing that we can keep our main objective in mind – we usually end up where we were intending to walk to.
One (surmised) objective is to position herself and her policies in the minds of the viewers. The planning she put into her anchoring would have been tactical use of her time pre-election. And – it will have worked to some degree.
The longer tail strategic issue on using it – is that people will sometimes believe what we tell them, but will always believe what THEY conclude. One conclusion is that after the past performance of the government, the PM is desperate and needs all the help she can get?
Another conclusion might be that Mr Abbott did not need to use such techniques – because he has a stronger position?
Or that Mr Abbott simply does not know about this stuff – what else does he not know about?
Which comes back to the walking analogy. Fall forward to the left, and correct by falling forward to the right. Gillard has fallen forward to the right, and if she is off target – she can correct to the left. For example – if challenged on her anchoring by an opposition who suggested it might be cynical – she could “go meta” and explain the positive intent behind its use. And then ask gently if the opposition might be better off investing its time in some policies rather than watching what she is doing with her hands? She could then use the metaphor of a conductor – where movement helps the orchestra follow what is going on while still playing great music?
The other side can do similar steps. Eg Suggesting that her hand motions are just another example of her habit of giving more attention to the “spin” than to the substance and results?
One of the things that makes the current political scene so dismal is that the falling to the left/to the right and so on – CAN be done as a dance – not a tedious “SLOG”.
Cheers
James
Reply Hi David -thanks for your comments. Good question. Check out the longer version of the video [the previous blog] that has some explanation before the video of Julia Gillard. It is one of the best live examples of anchoring in space I have come across.
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