Langford: Learn to make the most of persuasion to the power of three

During the week, I am a mediator and arbitrator. On most Saturdays during the school year, I serve as a high school speech and debate team coach and judge. I therefore spend much of my waking hours strategizing about persuasion, being the object of persuasive efforts, and evaluating the effectiveness of persuasion.

A common misstep I observe in the persuasion business, whether that be by high school debaters or experienced attorneys, is that too much or too little is offered as evidence. To counter this, I recommend thinking, writing and arguing in threes. For sure, this seems simple enough, just grouping your evidence in threes. Yet, considering the reasons behind the power of three underscores why, when and how to bring a nice case of the threes into your future persuasion.

Humans like lists. Lists keep us organized, purposeful, and even persuasive. While we value lists, we still prefer they not be too long. In fact, a top researcher in cognitive psychology has concluded that the optimum length of a list is 3.4.

In his paper titled “The Magical Mystery Four: How Is Working Memory Capacity Limited, and Why?”, Nelson Cowan found that an average human’s central memory storage capped at about three to five items at a time, debunking research opinions from the 1950s that humans can regularly store information in chunks of seven — which was one of the reasons behind seven-digit phone numbers.

Think of all the ways we traffic in triplet. There’s birth, life, death. Don’t forget about before, during and after. How about left, center and right? Intuitively, the power of three resonates. After all, one feels like a mere one-off. Two feels like a coincidence. But three? Now that feels like a pattern.

Gifted speechwriters and authors evidently feel the mystique of three as well. If Americans were asked to name the best and most important speech of the last 100 years, likely Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech would be near the top of most lists.

Recall the iconic and crescendo ending of that speech: “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last.”

About 100 years before that, Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg Address urged that the “…government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.”

Close to 100 years before the Gettysburg Address, Thomas Jefferson penned in the Declaration of Independence that our collective goal should be three: “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

There is something about the magic, power and mystique of three that those of us in the persuasion business should not ignore. Long before our famous American authors were dabbling in threes, a Latin phrase emerged: Omne trium perfectum, which means that everything that comes in threes is perfect.

Indeed, the father of persuasion, Greek philosopher Aristotle, taught in Rhetoric that there are three chief ways to persuade: ethos (credibility of the speaker), pathos (affecting the heart of the audience) and logos (the logic of the argument.) Threes are everywhere in the art of persuasion. But do we carry threes with us in our practice of law?

As lawyers, we would do ourselves a favor to think, write and speak in threes. What are the three best and three worst facts of every pending case in our office? What are the three most important points to capture in your contract drafting? When you draft your client opinion letter, pen your summary judgment brief or make your opening statement, what are the three most important points you want to make?

In the debate competition realm, no matter the event or the topic to be debated, our high school team reasons, writes and then argues in threes. Our debaters start by identifying the three main contentions for their arguments.

Inside their contentions, the debaters identify three arguments that support each contention. Supporting each argument are three pieces of evidence, including history, statistics, and analogies.

Our debate opponents do not always work in threes, but when it is time to cross-examine or offer rebuttals, our team members reorganize their opponents’ arguments in threes to maintain our mission of succinct, organized persuasion.

The organizational power of three also works inside Aristotle’s three ways to persuade. The next time you set about your mission to explain why your litigation argument is the strongest one, identify three reasons why the main actors in your case are the most credible. Then, address why the emotion rests with your case and not with your opponent’s case. Finally, what are your most important pieces of logical proof that connect your underlying facts to a winning position?

Now, walk yourself into a truth booth and ask yourself this question: “Do I consistently think, reason and argue in threes?” Odds are that your factual and legal contentions are like your current “Things to Do” list and way longer than just three.

Especially in complex cases, it is easy to end up with a legal pad full of contentions that go on incessantly. It’s also a common trap to find yourself believing the more numerous your contentions, the stronger your case.

But of course, your duty as a zealous advocate isn’t to huff and puff and blow down the barn doors with your never-ending lists of contentions. It’s simply this: to present, persuade and win.

William Shakespeare penned that “Brevity is the wit of soul.” Later, French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal (or was it Mark Twain or George Barnard Shaw? – the debate rages on) shared, “If had more time, I would’ve written a shorter letter.” Following that, Franklin D. Roosevelt noted, “Be sincere, Be brief, Be seated.”

Their point? It takes more effort but is ultimately more persuasive to be succinct than windy. In your law practice, endeavor to articulate just three main points and with three pieces of evidence to support each of those main points.

My final point in shaping your persuasion in threes is not to hide the ball. Instead, provide constant signposts, showing your audience your outline. “There are three enormous ways that my client’s traumatic brain injury has changed her life.” Or perhaps, “Three reasons punctuate why my client was justified in rescinding the contract.” Or, “In three different respects, the State has failed to prove my client’s guilt.”

This type of signposting keeps both you and your audience organized, it helps your audience comprehend your points, and it focuses you on brevity, separating the wheat from the chaff.

Go for three. Don’t show just a one-off. Don’t show a mere coincidence. But show a pattern. Patterns are where persuasion, connection and conclusion happen. And that’s your persuasive path to victory.•

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Michael Langford is a mediator and arbitrator with The Mediation Group in Indianapolis. Opinions expressed are those of the author.