Trying to solve your grassroots engagement problems? Stop making sense.

In the study of psychology, there’s a concept called the “makes sense stopping” rule. It states that when presented with a difficult question, we take a position and look for evidence to support it.

If we find some evidence — enough that our position “makes sense” — we stop thinking, even if our position may be incorrect.

I was reminded of this concept during a recent meeting of grassroots and advocacy professionals here in Washington. As I went around the room, it became very clear that many of their grassroots networks were underperforming, at best, or completely imploding, at worst.

At the same time, I also realized that so many of the professionals in the room were affected by the “makes sense stopping” rule. They were missing solutions to their problems because they had attached to some piece of evidence, no matter how flimsy, that supported their world view and they stopped thinking critically. I say this because most people I spoke with focused only on external factors.

“Our advocates are tired of Washington gridlock,” they’d say. “They’re frustrated and have stopped responding to our calls to action.”

Sometimes, Washington wasn’t the problem.

“Our calls to action are getting buried under the mountain of email our advocates receive. We’re having trouble breaking through the clutter.”

In the examples above, you see how we started with the position that we — our organization — is doing everything right. Therefore, it must be something else. And so we go until we find enough evidence that our position makes sense.

The problem here is that this position focuses only on factors outside of our control, ignoring internal factors that we can correct. And it absolves us of any responsibility for underperformance. It’s not our fault our advocates have checked out! It’s Congress’s fault!

The fact is, organizations have to push on and dig deeper, to realize that their network’s underperformance could be a result of their own actions.

I’ve had many grassroots experts tell me the best way to diagnose network performance issues is to first hold up a mirror and ask the hard questions:

· Are our advocates interested in the issue we’re talking about?

· Is there a disconnect between our agenda and our advocates’ agenda?

· Are we asking our advocates only for low value contributions?

These are tough questions, no doubt. The good news here is they examine issues that are under our control. And if it’s under our control, we can take corrective action and solve the performance problem.

But you’ll never get to this point if you stop your thinking prematurely because “something made sense.” Don’t run afoul of the “makes sense stop” rule — push through it. Look in the mirror and consider both internal and external drivers of your grassroots network engagement.