Getting curious means being willing to play the long game

As I mentioned in this week’s episode of The Follow-Up Question, I’ve become fascinated recently by what I call the psychology of change — the why and how of a person’s decision to change their mind.

I brought Jeff Schoep back to the show to walk me through his own process of change. Jeff, if you recall from his appearance in episode 57, is the former leader of the National Socialist Movement, the largest neo-Nazi organization in the United States.

Just a few years ago, Jeff left “the Movement,” and today, he works to deradicalize others from the same kinds of ideologies he once helped perpetuate.

So who better to get a glimpse of what drastic change looks like than from someone like Jeff?

What is particularly striking to me about change is that true change cannot be forced, even if you hold direct authority or control over a person. You might be able to direct their actions, but their heart likely doesn’t truly change. 

If you go into a conversation with someone with the goal of changing them, you are setting yourself up to fail.

Here’s what Jeff said about it:

”It’s not about changing their mind or making them [change their mind]. Because you can’t force somebody to change. ... If you say to John over here, ‘Hey John, you’re going to go to jail if you don’t get out of the Movement,’ John’s going to say, ‘OK, I’m out. I’m done.’ And he’s not going to change up here in the head and he’s not going to change in here in the heart. We want real change. You want them to understand what they’re doing is wrong, to acknowledge it, to see it, and no one can make them do that. ... None of us can do that. You can’t make somebody change. We don’t want to make somebody change because it’s not going to be real and it’s not going to be genuine. We want real change, and real change comes from within. And if they start seeing what they’re doing is wrong because you’ve presented things to them in a way that makes them question it, that’s where real change happens. That’s how it worked for me.”

Without a doubt, the best way to bring about change is to not seek to change someone; but rather, to get curious about them and create space for them to safely (psychologically speaking) consider the things they’ve held to be true in their lives.

The minute you go into conversation with the intention of changing someone, you put yourself in danger of losing the ability to affect any change at all. In fact, you likely embolden the behavior you set out to change because rather than see the humanity of a person and be willing to explore with them how they got to that point, you attach their worth to a choice they’ve made and tell them they’re not good enough.

The more we don’t feel seen as humans and the more our choices are attacked without first understanding the makeup of who we are — no matter how wrong it may seem — the more we hold on to those choices because they become the identity we present to the world.

Instead, you have to be willing to play the long game. You have to lead with curiosity by asking questions not out of judgment and assumption, but out of a desire to fully understand another human being.

If you do this, and if you also admit that it could be yourself that is in need of a mindset shift, it is my belief that we can do nothing but change over time.

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