How to win people over (w/ Robin Steinberg) (Transcript)

[00:00:00] Anne Morriss:
Hello, Frances!

[00:00:01] Frances Frei:
Hey, beautiful.

[00:00:02] Anne Morriss:
Frances, today we're going to talk about something every organization needs to focus on at some point in its life cycle, which is how to tell the story of the work it's doing to people outside the organization, which is also known in certain circles as communication strategy.

[00:00:17] Frances Frei:
Oh, indeed.

[00:00:19] Anne Morriss:
So, uh, just to kick this off, I, I wanted to ask you, where do you see people most often getting stuck on this issue?

[00:00:26] Frances Frei:
Oh, it's when they use a overly complicated jargon. It’s when they use inside the organization, and then they translate it outside the organization.

[00:00:35] Anne Morriss:
Without, without a a decoder ring.

[00:00:36] Frances Frei:
With no decoder ring. And I'll tell you when, the one where I was struck just so viscerally is I was working with a cable company, and they would refer to RPUs.

[00:00:50] Anne Morriss:
That's an awkward, awkward acronym.

[00:00:52] Frances Frei:
Yeah, and it was, they would do it in capital letters, capital R, capital P, capital U, and they just did it so conversationally, they would do it internally, externally, and everyone knew. And I finally had to say, “What's an RPU?” And I got two responses. From one, people said, “Oh, that's what we mean by our customers.” And I was like, “Why do you call your customers RPUs?” Because they're Revenue Paying Units.

[00:01:13] Anne Morriss:
Oh! That really hurts.

[00:01:16] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:01:16] Anne Morriss:
Wow. Do you remember how you solved that one?

[00:01:20] Frances Frei:
Yes, I suggested that they were animate. And, no, actually, I keep—

[00:01:26] Anne Morriss:
That’s what we get paid for, baby. It’s that powerful insight.

[00:01:28] Frances Frei:
Yeah, no, I actually do, I asked do, I remember my response at the time, I was like, “Do your customers react like you're making a two dimensional caricature of them?” And their response was yes, and I said, “I think I know why.”

[00:01:40] Anne Morriss:
Mm. I love that.

[00:01:41] Frances Frei:
How about you? Where do you see people getting stuck on the communication strategy?

[00:01:44] Anne Morriss:
Yeah, I would say one thing we observe is this impulse to start with Mount Everest in terms of the ambition and complexity of the message when you really need to start with a local foothill. And what I mean by that is starting with the assumption that you have to reach everybody everywhere all at once.

[00:02:04] Frances Frei:
Which is a great movie.

[00:02:06] Anne Morriss:
Great, great movie, not a great strategy, uh, and I think this is one of the issues we’re going to be getting into today.

This is Fixable. I'm Anne Morriss. I'm a company builder and leadership coach.

[00:02:19] Frances Frei:
I'm Frances Frei. I'm a professor at the Harvard Business School, and I'm Anne's wife.

[00:02:25] Anne Morriss:
On this show, we believe that meaningful change happens fast, anything is fixable, and solutions are often just a single conversation away.

Frances, today we are hosting Robin Steinberg. Robin is the founder of The Bail Project, which is a non profit organization that pays bail for people who can't afford it and also advocates for policy reform in the criminal justice system.

[00:02:48] Frances Frei:
Wow.

[00:02:48] Anne Morriss:
So, let's hear directly from her.

[00:02:52] Robin Steinberg:
The question that we really have is one of messaging the mission of our organization to external partners and people who are interested in this issue. Over the past decade, a majority of Americans have become increasingly aware that the United States criminal justice system is in dire need of reform. The data is clear. And so we know people see the need for change. What we are really finding, though, is that when push comes to shove, people are afraid of change. Of being harmed, which is really what crime is about. Which can be easily exploited by misinformation and people who are opposed to change.

So when I think about this problem, I think about how do we resolve the tension between our desire to feel safe and our desire for better justice in our legal system? And that's really the question that, um, I'm struggling with. Is there something that we could be doing that would be more impactful in bringing people into this conversation in a way that can lead to real long-term systemic change?

[00:04:02] Frances Frei:
Wow. This is a varsity sport, this one.

[00:04:05] Anne Morriss:
This is a varsity sport. Where did your head go, Frances?

[00:04:09] Frances Frei:
You know, on the one hand I'm like, "Oh my goodness,” where I think a lot of people's heads will go is “Oh my goodness, there's rampant crime.” And that would then cloud my thinking—

[00:04:22] Anne Morriss:
Right.

[00:04:22] Frances Frei:
—about even reasonable policies. Going after that. So the, I, I think this is like a very big emotional hurdle to go over before you can pour on any logic of how to make the system better.

[00:04:35] Anne Morriss:
Totally. That's where my head was going, too. As long as we're framing it as a showdown between my need for safety and my need for criminal justice reform, my need for safety is always gonna win. So, I think we really have to reframe the problem here if we're gonna make some progress.

[00:04:52] Frances Frei:
Absolutely.

[BREAK]

[00:05:04] Anne Morriss:
Robin. Welcome to Fixable.

[00:05:06] Robin Steinberg:
Well, thank you. I'm delighted to be here.

[00:05:08] Anne Morriss:
So this is a show about fixing things, which is why you're one of our celebrity callers, Robin.

[00:05:16] Robin Steinberg:
‘Cause I've been throwing myself into cement walls trying to fix them for very long time.

[00:05:22] Anne Morriss:
Um, but what problem did you set out to solve when you started the Bail Project?

[00:05:26] Robin Steinberg:
So, you can intervene in lots of places along the criminal justice system. They all need changing and all need fixing, right? But what I really wanted to focus on in this part of my career was the front end. Like, how can we work on something that's very concrete that might prevent mass incarceration before it begins?

We have 3000 local jails across America, and in those 3000 local jails, um, upwards of 60 percent of people in those jails every single day are there because they can't pay their cash bail, not because they've been convicted of a crime or they're serving a sentence. So it is the majority of people in our local jails are there because they don't have enough money to pay cash bail. And so it really was an effort to think about how do we eliminate our reliance on cash bail in this country. And so we set out to we've been able to address the humanitarian crisis by bailing out as many people as we could over the past five years, and we, I think we bailed out about 30,000 people across the country. But also collecting the data to really be able to make the case with evidence that you don't need cash to ensure people will come back to court because if we're paying bail, the nobody has any skin in the game. It's not their money on the line.
So that was sort of the idea was let's really think about what a better pretrial justice system would look like, right? That's more fair and take money out of the system. But the ultimate goal is to put ourselves out of business.

[00:06:51] Anne Morriss:
Of course.

[00:06:51] Robin Steinberg:
The ultimate goal is to change cash bail and eliminate it and, you know, work with jurisdictions to stop relying on cash, to be the thing in the system that determines who's in and who's out because that's just wrong.

[00:07:01] Anne Morriss:
And when you solve this problem, who benefits? What's the upside for getting it right?

[00:07:09] Robin Steinberg:
So, obviously, the most immediate harm happens to the person who's held in jail. Right? Jail is a horrifying place to be. It's traumatic. It's violent. It causes all sorts of physical and psychological harm to the person being held in the jail cell. It also causes harm to their life outside and their family outside and their community.

[00:07:28] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. What has surprised you the most in the journey of immersing yourself in these issues?

[00:07:34] Robin Steinberg:
Particular, what surprised me is how misunderstood the pre trial justice system is by most Americans. Even thoughtful journalists that I talked to will sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that bail got set because somebody was guilty of a crime. And so you have to keep reminding people over and over again, right? No, no, no, bail gets set by a judge before any evidence has been brought to court. It's just about a mechanism to ensure people should come back to court. That's what its purpose was. And people really don't understand that because it's become a proxy for “Let’s hold people in jail who might cause harm.” The good side is when you talk to people and ask them, you know, should money be the thing that determines who stays in jail and who goes home free in the pre-trial context, almost everybody agrees that money shouldn't be the thing that determines that.

[00:08:23] Anne Morriss:
So how does your program work as an antidote to some of these trends?

[00:08:29] Robin Steinberg:
So, you know, we have a revolving bail fund that we use to bail people out in the different jurisdictions where we have teams. There are local teams and local communities who do the day in and day out work of interviewing people at the jail, determining who we can pay bail for, paying the bail, supporting the client when they come out, meaning giving them court reminders and transportation if they need it.

And then the policy team and the rest of our advocates really work hard to try to work towards change, either at the local city/state, um, level. Sometimes that's legislative change. Sometimes that's a policy change. It is a substantial number of people whose cases get dismissed entirely once we intervene by paying bail.

[00:09:06] Anne Morriss:
So the voicemail you left us was around messaging.

[00:09:10] Robin Steinberg:
Mm-hm.

[00:09:10] Anne Morriss:
We’re delighted to dig in there, but I wanted to pause and just ask how could this conversation be most helpful to you today?

[00:09:18] Robin Steinberg:
Well, so my guess is that you all have seen what happens when there is a disconnect, right, between what the facts are and what we know and what people think and how they behave. And I'm curious whether there are things that you have seen in other spaces and other industries where, you know, the facts say this, right, but somehow we can't get people to be driven by the facts and the evidence, and they continue to sort of be fed misinformation that fuels really bad ideas. I don't know if you can solve that problem. You can probably fix our entire political system, but—

[00:09:54] Frances Frei:
We’re gonna give it a go. We’re gonna give it ago.

[00:09:54] Anne Morriss:
We're going to try. We’re going to try, Robin. But, if you could have anything you wanted as an input to your work, if you think about it from the perspective of you, like, leading an army of change right now, what would be most helpful to you?

[00:10:13] Robin Steinberg:
Um, I think there, a huge investment in the communication strategy would go a long way.

[00:10:20] Anne Morriss:
Got it.

[00:10:20] Robin Steinberg:
And a, like, we have a great communications team, that obviously is limited by funding. So, yes, if there, we would love to see a real investment in the communication strategy that went national that would begin to change hearts and minds.

[00:10:33] Anne Morriss:
Awesome. Tell us about that team.

[00:10:36] Robin Steinberg:
We have a fantastic communications team who have been working since day one on trying to think about how do you get the message out there and change hearts and minds about a pre trial justice system. So they do everything from tell human stories about the devastating impacts of cash bai to also telling successful stories about people getting out and how they succeed and thrive when they're out.

We knew at the very beginning of the Bail Project that not only bailing out people was going to be critically important to our mission, but so was using communications as a way to change hearts and minds and eventually policy.

[00:11:09] Anne Morriss:
And how big is that team?

[00:11:11] Robin Steinberg:
Uh, we now I think it is best, we have 1, 2, 3, 4 people on the team?

[00:11:16] Anne Morriss:
Nice. And how big is the team overall?

[00:11:18] Robin Steinberg:
Oh, about 125 staff across the country.

[00:11:22] Frances Frei:
So, um, first of all, in awe, I just want to start it, start it there. Um, so, I think where we are is that we have a situation where there, where the facts are on our side.

[00:11:37] Robin Steinberg:
Mm-hm.

[00:11:37] Frances Frei:
So this is a, a true communication challenge. The facts are on our side.

[00:11:42] Robin Steinberg:
Yes.

[00:11:42] Frances Frei:
And yet we are struggling to overcome the emotional hurdles of other people receiving them.

[00:11:51] Robin Steinberg:
Yes.

[00:11:52] Frances Frei:
So it, at its very simplest, it's a communication problem, and at it's deepest, if we can change the way people think, that will manifest a new behavior. So I also, I think that you have a communication problem and I also think communication is the right solution because when we can get this into the minds of people, all of the behaviors will start to be different. So I'm going to say it's a very novel context, but it's a very common problem.

[00:12:24] Robin Steinberg:
Mm-hm. I can see that.

[00:12:24] Frances Frei:
And if we can solve it here, and I'm optimistic we can, we're going to solve it for everyone else who doesn't have quite such an extreme novel context. And the subset of it is we have facts and we have to penetrate emotions.

[00:12:42] Robin Steinberg:
Yes. That’s a great sentence. I love that sentence.

[00:12:45] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. What I also find myself thinking a lot about, Frances, is Everett Roger’s work on the diffusion of innovation, which is all about: how do good ideas get adopted. By sectors, by people, by communities, and the premise of his work which is really extraordinary is that the facts are not enough. So having, and as he starts in, uh, in actually farming technology, having a better axe, right, is not enough to get adoption.

And, um, but he goes everywhere with it, including, um, my favorite is, um, you know, the, the value of boiling water as a public health innovation in Peru. That's one of his famous case studies. So how does this idea disseminate? And what he found was there's a pretty stable architecture for the diffusion of innovation being defined as a better way to do something.

And one of the key findings that has kind of seeped into our vocabulary is that it doesn't make any sense to waste your resources on the majority of the population, you really want to go in order starting with the early adopters. So in every community, and this is what he was able to show over his career is the way to get these ideas out in the world is to start with the people who are really predisposed to think they're interesting. And whether that's early adopters inside the criminal justice system, whether it's early adopters among policymakers… can we bring some real strategy and really focus our resources on the people whose hearts and mind we are most likely to win over at this point in the story?

What his research shows is let's not try to win over everyone because most of the people we're not going to be able to convince at this point in the story ‘cause those late adopters, they need to see all the other people jumping on. They're not gonna be convinced by, you know, Robin Steinberg’s passionate, uh, storytelling and presentation of the data. They're gonna wait. They're gonna be on the sidelines until they see other people getting on board.

[00:15:03] Frances Frei:
Yeah, let me offer an alternative to—related, but an alternative to Anne's approach, which is I think that you need to partner with the police. Because the police should be on your side with it, but they're emotionally not. Like even if this is viewed as soft on crime, it's the incorrect view on it. So if you can tell a compelling story that can get, and we don't have to go to the most extreme police, but the open minded part of the police, if we can say it to them, you're going to be able to affect everyone else.

[00:15:46] Anne Morriss:
Another way to describe those people, Frances, are early adopters.

[00:15:50] Frances Frei:
I, I, yeah, I, I think—

[00:15:51] Robin Steinberg:
To your point.

[00:15:51] Frances Frei:
I, I, yeah. I, I think so. I'm just going to try to do it in a slightly more accessible language.

[00:15:54] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:15:55] Frances Frei:
But I want, because I watched the, our audience didn't get to see your eyes pop out of your head when I said the partner with the police. You were very politely, uh, nonverbal. Um, because I don't see any reason why, except for emotional ones, why police wouldn't want this to occur. I think they're our right testing audience to do it. And when we can tell a story that they're like, “Of course, how can we help?” Then we will get everyone else. So I first want to hear your reaction to that. And then I have a bunch of ideas of how to do it.

[00:16:34] Robin Steinberg:
So, you know, one of the surprises has been we have developed some substantial and really positive partnerships with jail administrators. Right? So that's not the police, but that's law enforcement. But they have been really positive partners in lots of places. And I think that's in large measure because they're tasked with the job of managing jails that are overcrowded, under resourced, terrible for the people stuck in them, including the staff, their staff. And they look in and they can see, “Oh, I don't know why that's seven-month pregnant woman who stole something is in here on cash bail. Can't somebody get her out?”

And so they have wound up in lots of jurisdictions being really good partners for us because they, they’re proximate the problem. They see it.

[00:17:32] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.

[00:17:32] Frances Frei:
So let’s say… yeah, so I'll, I so I'll say law enforcement more generally instead of police. That's fine.

[00:17:38] Robin Steinberg:
Yeah.

[00:17:38] Frances Frei:
And so let's say that the earliest adopters to Anne's point are jail administrators. I think we're going to get to move acr—not up the tree, but across the forest when we do this. But, so let's say we're partnering with jail administrators. You ask me who will be magnificent storytellers, I think you want it to be law enforcement.

[00:17:59] Robin Steinberg:
Mm-hmm.

[00:18:00] Frances Frei:
I want, I think you want law enforcement to be telling your story because then it's not soft, it can't be misunderstood as soft on crime. So I'm very much craving Having, you know, jail administrators in uniform talking about why this is best for the criminal justice system.

[00:18:24] Robin Steinberg:
Mm-hmm.

[00:18:25] Frances Frei:
And it is best for the criminal justice system. So I would say let's partner with jail administrators. And here's then the components of the story.

[00:18:36] Robin Steinberg:
Mm-hm. Yeah I think that, I think it sounds great.

[00:18:38] Frances Frei:
Like you have done something exceptional. You now have the data, so now it is simply a matter of communicating, and the messenger matters, which is why I want someone in uniform. I don't even know if jail administrators wear uniforms, but if they do, I want it there because, it, for several reasons. One of which is though they're going to talk about how that their system is improved by this.

[00:19:03] Robin Steinberg:
Mm-hm.

[00:19:03] Frances Frei:
You have a solution that is quite literally better for everyone except for people that profit off of, off of this.

[00:19:11] Robin Steinberg:
Right.

[00:19:11] Frances Frei:
And they're not one of our, our constituents, and so it's almost like I want the extreme example of someone who we would never expect to be on site, but even they will be better off even they are not holding these people and spending this money. And what could they do?

And then now we're at a position where we have a proven solution that works. And the only thing I will put, uh, on our radar is that when people have an emotional obstacle, we sometimes try to double down with facts. There's no stack of facts that can penetrate the emotions. And you need bilingual people. So your world class communications team, I want them to be expert in the logical part of the a-arguments. And I want them to be expert in the emotional part of the argument.

And the reason I want the jail administrator is as much for the emotional part of the argument, which wouldn't necessarily fall out of the logical, but because so many people have an emotional obstacle, we need bilingual (logical and emotional) as, as part of this. So I can imagine as a next step, bringing your awesome bilingual communications team and sitting down with jail administrators that you've already know and saying, how can we co-create a, a narrative for why this is a useful thing?

And I know the jail administrator is going to be able to help, is going to be able to reach people that you probably won't be able to reach. Um, and it's the same set of facts. We're just honoring the fact that there's the emotional side to it.
[00:20:57] Robin Steinberg:
Yeah. I love this. This is great.

[00:20:59] Frances Frei:
Yeah.

[00:20:59] Robin Steinberg:
I love it because it is this issue should be bipartisan.

[00:21:03] Frances Frei:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[00:21:03] Robin Steinberg:
This issue really one that should appeal to everybody. And somehow it gets caught up in the ideology wars. Um, and frankly, you know, our partnerships with jail administrators was we hadn't really thought about it in the communications lane or the change lane as much as we'd thought about it in the operational need.

[00:21:22] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. I was going to say side note, I would be broadcasting in every conversation that this, your solution was co produced—

[00:21:32] Frances Frei:
with jail administrators.

[00:21:32] Anne Morriss:
—in partnership with law enforcement. yeah. Amazing. So here's my one, one final tactical thought.

[00:21:35] Robin Steinberg:
Yeah.

[00:21:35] Anne Morriss:
I have no doubt that you have four extraordinary best in class communications professionals on the project from the detail that you've shared. I would love to somehow supplement that team in a way that's going to be cost efficient to you. Every great advertising agency that I know takes on a small number of pro bono projects that the team really believes in. And so, I think as homework, I would also charge you and or your team with the task of—

[00:22:11] Frances Frei:
—and the listeners of this right now—

[00:22:13] Anne Morriss:
I know I was exactly,

[00:22:15] Frances Frei:
—who work at said advertising agencies.

[00:22:18] Anne Morriss:
O-of finding a partner

[00:22:19] Frances Frei:
Yeah. As a pro bono client.

[00:22:22] Anne Morriss:
As a pro bono client who really thinks about bringing messages, bringing messages to the general public that will really spur action.

[00:22:32] Robin Steinberg:
Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:22:32] Anne Morriss:
Can we bring that team into this new framing? How do we integrate all of the different stakeholders into telling this story?

[00:22:42] Robin Steinberg:
Great idea. So fun. So smart. So really appreciate it. It is…you are right that it’s just sort of… we think I think in terms of influencers and athletes and, you know, and, and musicians. Who are all amazing. And I think you need all of those voices, but had not thought about bringing that team into really thinking about how we might we do some of that communications with unlikely voices… Yeah.

[00:23:10] Anne Morriss:
Police chiefs… jail administrators… Yeah.

[00:23:13] Frances Frei:
That are are enormous stakeholders in this.

[00:23:17] Robin Steinberg:
Yeah.

[00:23:18] Anne Morriss:
Robin, this has been such a pleasure.

[00:23:20] Robin Steinberg:
For me as well.

[00:23:24] Anne Morriss:
We are Team Robin. We are Team Bail Project.

[00:23:25] Frances Frei:
Really.

[00:23:26] Robin Steinberg:
Thank you.

[00:23:35] Anne Morriss:
Where does it leave you, Frances?

[00:23:36] Frances Frei:
So many good places, quite honestly, one of which is: we can come up with such great solutions and we can lose it in the communication. It just means we got to do the thing and then we have to be able to communicate the thing, and they both need to be done.

[00:23:53] Anne Morriss:
And I think I may even believe this even more strongly than you do, in the sense that, it is just as important, if not more important than the innovation itself.

[00:24:02] Frances Frei:
I'm going to go 50/50.

[00:24:03] Anne Morriss:
And it, yeah, and it is often a secondary thought for innovators.

[00:24:10] Frances Frei:
I agree a hundred percent. Yeah. And, and all of it fits in our move fast and fix things approach. And these things do need to be done in sequence. I also loved the part of the how many of the stakeholders, like the leader sometimes can't be the same person, but the jail administrators can participate in both parts. And I do think that sometimes in our communication, we don't, we get afraid of our biggest critics when we can actually include our biggest critics, it's so much more powerful.

So it reminds me of the story of Domino's, that we wrote about where when Domino's wanted to do a turnaround, they asked customers: what’s wrong with our pizza? And then what did they do with it? They put it on the ticker in Times Square.

[00:24:56] Anne Morriss:
Well, yeah, I mean, it's an interesting co production point because we often talk about co production on the operation side, but co production on the storytelling and the communications side—

[00:25:06] Frances Frei:
Oh, it's so good.

[00:25:06] Anne Morriss:
I think those examples are really powerful. And yeah, the, the, the Domino’s story was a moment in time when, they had come around to the fact that the pizza did not taste very good, just objectively.

There was a lot of data supporting that and the team really decided to bring consumers into the challenge of making that pizza better. And they, I mean, they use that story to galvanize the whole organization.

[00:25:36] Frances Frei:
Successfully.

[00:25:36] Anne Morriss:
But they put, they put consumer comments, um, on a billboard in Times Square, and it would just, it just was running of, of, of people's feedback—

[00:25:47] Frances Frei:
It just scrolled right with “It tastes like cardboard.”

[00:25:49] Anne Morriss:
—on the pizza and it was really powerful because then we're also super invested.

[00:25:54] Frances Frei:
It's authentic.

[00:25:57] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:57] Frances Frei:
It’s also then authentic. Yeah. I hope our listeners get the integral nature of communication out of this and that we can co produce in both the operations and the communication, and that there are amazing public servants out there and if you have any pro bono time, let's go and be of service to them.

[00:26:17] Anne Morriss:
I love it. thanks for listening, everyone. We want to hear from you too. If you want to figure out a workplace problem together, send us a message, email us at fixable @ted.com or call us at 234 fixable. That's 234-349-2253.

Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective. It's hosted by me, Anne Morris.

[00:26:46] Frances Frei:
And me, Frances Frei.

[00:26:48] Anne Morriss:
Our team includes Isabel Carter, Constanza Gallardo, Lidia Jean Kott, Grace Rubenstein, Sarah Nics, Michelle Quint, Corey Hajim, Alejandra Salazar, Banban Chang, and Roxanne Hai Lash. This episode was mixed by Louis at StoryYard.

[00:27:05] Frances Frei:
If you're enjoying the show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And tell a friend to check us out.

[00:27:11] Anne Morriss:
And one more thing, if you can, please take a second to leave us a review. It really helps us make a great show.

[00:27:18] Frances Frei:
And it totally helps the search algorithm.