Lead with what participants feel competent about; let the music arrive second.
principle — attributed to Roger Nierenberg
Nierenberg's discovery was that classical music intimidates many people. The moment they understand the experience is about classical music, they doubt whether they will appreciate it. His workaround was to focus the explicit subject on something the participants felt competent about: their own careers, their teams, their leadership challenges. While their minds were engaged in territory they owned, the music could reach them. The principle generalizes for any educational intervention whose primary content intimidates the audience. Lead with the participant's competence. The intimidating material arrives while the participant is in a confident posture, and lands in a way it could not land from a defensive one.
For educators, facilitators, and program designers introducing audiences to material that triggers self-doubt. The principle is most useful as a corrective when frontal teaching of the primary content has not been working.
entry-point, competence, inhibition, facilitation