What is Monroe's Motivated Sequence?

Many of us people are afraid of speaking in front of others; the audience, they are nervous about being judged. No matter if people judge you, it is the perspective that they think about you.

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You do not need to be afraid of what they think, you should be concerned that how can you make your words affect the audience who prefers to listen to you and ask you for more discussion or opinions on the topic you are talking about.

If you are in the field of banking or management and have to interact with the customers as a sales manager, or customer relationship manager, you should know the game of words to keep attracting the customers by offering the maximum advantages and special offers for the customers from your side.

Whether you are a professional person or you are trying to motivate people for making their personal lives groomed, you should know the magic of convincing or motivating them. Alan H. Monroe a Psychologist and a professor at Purdue University, explained the sequence of motivating the people in the mid-1930s. Monroe gave a sequence for motivation that is a technique to organize your words in such an effective way that people listen to them and are eager to take action.

An overview to Monroe’s motivated sequence, five steps

Following are the Monroe’s motivated sequence, five steps you should know about.

Holding the consideration of audience

The first and most important part is to get the consideration of your words from the audience's side means to grab their attention. If you have grabbed the attention once you need to sustain it throughout your speech. People think it is not possible to keep the audience engaged for a long time and hold their consideration.

According to Monroe's sequence, it is possible if you prepare your speech in an order to make it attractive and effective that can be by

  • Relating a story as a core example

Think like you are a parent or a teacher and you have to make your children attentive towards you so that they forget all about the things they were showing the urge to get. You will get a better idea to grab their attention. You need to choose a story to tell them. The story you choose to tell them should be

  • Precise
  • Moral based
  • Related to the topic for discussion
  • Concise

If you deliver the story in a way that people think is real and it could happen to them too, they will never likely quit your speech, they will prefer to listen more from you.

  • Creating humor by relating some funny words or even funny incidents

Being serious and delivering a serious speech all the time can make the audience feel bored, they will feel, now that's enough, I have listened too much, now it's time to leave. You will lose the hold on your speech. So, make the humor a part of your speech with intervals so you would make the audience laugh and keep refreshing them. This will help you to hold the consideration of your audience.

  • By telling some shocking facts

When you are talking about something, collect some interesting or shocking facts about the topic the majority of people do not know and would like to know from you. Therefore, you should prepare yourself before the time to interact with the audience.

  • By asking general questions to get the audience’s contribution

You can also keep the audience engaged and full of energy when you ask them some general questions just like their opinions and then compare them and tell them the facts about the questions raised.

Finding the needs of people’s problem by highlighting them

The second step of the sequence of Monroe's speech is to find the needs of the public and convince them that this problem exists among them and they need to get the solution to that particular problem.  Monroe’s motivated sequence, five steps are important and this point can’t be ignored from the list.

It all depends on the motivational speaker’s words that how did he/she convince the audience. You can also develop a plan being a speaker just like we do in the first step by dividing the second step into chunks like:

  • Finding the need of people and realization

Finding the need is finding the problem among the people and let them realize or let them know it exists among them and still is out of their consideration. It will create a feel of unawareness among the public that they should be aware, they are not, and you make them realize. They will know the worth of your words you are trying to deliver to them.

  • Relating to an incident

When you have called attention to the problems that exist among the general public, presently the time has come to relate it with a frequency that the vast majority know when it occurred, and what were current realities. This will help you to make the audience realize to own your words.

  • Showing Consequences

After realizing the existence of the problem and relating it to an incident, you present the results that are called consequences. The consequences show how serious or critical the problem was and what were the effects. Mostly the effects appear with negative impacts. You can convince the audience by narrating some prominent and highlighted effects that they could understand the strategy easily.

Give them a feeling of satisfaction by offering solutions

The third step of Monroe's sequence is to make the audience satisfied when you have told them the problems among them and their needs, you will guide them on how to get these needs or how to overcome these problems emerging among them. This is the main and significant part of the speech you are making with the public.

In this part, you will tell the audience about the solutions to their problems or you will guide them to find the solutions of their personal lives, their professional lives, or their impacts on society. You have made them mentally ready to find the solution by discussing the problems and their consequences.

Now, the question is how will you solve the problem of the audience or how will you help them to find the solution to their problems. The kinds of solutions may vary depending upon the nature and intensity of the problem. You can present the solution of the problem by dividing it into some ordered parts like:

  • Have a debate on facts

Start from presenting the background of the problems either these are related to a particular person or it is passing person to person, showing that it has become the habit of most of us but we do not pay attention to it. After that, start a debate on the facts by showing some comparisons or rates of the problem that might be country-wise, year-wise, or organization-wise.

By having a healthy debate on the facts and background of the problem you can convince the people that they should find the solution to their problem and it is necessary before giving them the solution.

  • Elaborate the points you want to make them understand

Next, you should elaborate on the statements you are making and explain the reasons for these statements so that the people could understand your point of view and the solution to the problem you want to give them.

  • Make them feel you are not supporting a particular party or person

Sometimes, in your speech, people get the sense of favoring some particular entity and they think you are just throwing words toward them which are meaningless. If you are talking as a public motivator, you should be neutral and avoid talking about a particular entity that you doubt everyone likes.

  • Co-relate the previous information

Yes, you should co-relate the previous perspectives to make sure you are not leaving a single point to be discussed.

Then give your final words to show that if this work was performed in this way it was good for all, by giving counterarguments about that particular problem.

Give them future visuals to make them able to idealize the solution

The most effective message you can convey by future visualization. You can let the audience suppose a situation, find the problem in that particular solution, and then ask them to find the solutions. This activity helps them to visualize future problems and find their solutions. You can promote a positive thinking culture.

You can make them realize what are the positive perspectives of the problems and to get its solution and in contrast what if you make a negative approach to that situation, you won't be able to find a solution. You can make them realize that if their negative approach is executed and get the result, do you think these results will be positive? By raising this question, you can easily convince your audience.

Time to show action

When you have delivered your speech to the audience, it is time to act upon them. but there is no need to tell them too much information that they could not absorb and get overwhelmed. You should leave them in a state that they feel satisfied that now they can make a positive approach to the problems and find the solutions.

You also involve them in a field trip if related, and let them find the problem in that particular place and ask them to find the solution.

Ending with refreshment and huge applause for appreciating their urge to learn the solutions to the problem will be a good idea.

Final thoughts

You can motivate the people by adopting the 5 parts of Monroe's motivated sequences by creating the situation according to the nature of the problem you have chosen for discussion and motivating the audience.


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