9.5 Monroe’s Motivated Sequence

Ennes (2022) explains how Monroe’s Motivated Sequence creates a persuasive, motivational speech. Monroe’s Motivated Sequence is a five-part motivational process, which includes the five following steps of attention, need, satisfaction, visualization, and action (Monroe, 1935):

Attention: Get the audience’s attention by presenting an attention getter, then clearly stating the subject/persuasive goal, and finally, why the audience should listen and care about the topic. An attention getter is a hook designed to quickly draw the audience’s attention to you and get interested in learning about your topic through the use of a famous quote, statistics, or a short story.

Need: there are four specific parts of the need: statement, illustration, ramification, and pointing.

1. First, a speaker needs to give a clear and concise statement of the problem.
2. Second, the speaker needs to provide one or more examples to illustrate the need. The illustration is an attempt to make the problem concrete for the audience.
3. Next, a speaker must provide evidence (e.g., statistics, examples, testimony) showing the ramifications or consequences of the problem.
4. Last, a speaker needs to point to the audience and show exactly how the problem relates to them personally.

Satisfaction: the speaker attempts to satisfy the need or solve the problem using the following four steps:

1. State the attitude, value, belief, or action you want your audience to accept which tells them your goal.
2. Explain why they should accept the attitude, value, belief, or action you proposed, by presenting a solid argument for why they should act. Demonstrate how the proposed  solution would solve the problem.
3. Refer to practical experience by showing the audience how the theoretical solution you have presented has worked in other real instances by presenting actual cases, research, testimony, etc.
4. Identify and answer possible objections to your position. Refute possible reasons people might disagree with you or not be convinced by your message.

Visualization: Help the audience “imagine” your proposed solution for achieving the desired outcome. Speakers can do this by providing descriptive explanations, evidence as proof, and compare the outcome achieved by adopting your proposed solution to what would happen if it were not adopted.

Action: a request by the speaker to have the audience approve of the proposed solution which should result in action. These are separate steps, and the action step is when the speaker presents specific actions the audience is asked to take to achieve the desired outcome and equips the audience with the knowledge to act following the presentation.

This section is adapted from Organizing Persuasive Speeches in Elements of Public Speaking by Marty Ennes Copyright © by Lumen Learning licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License