The motivated sequence pattern of arrangement, developed in the mid-1930s by Alan Monroe,² is a five-step process that begins with arousing listeners’ attention and ends with calling for action. This time-tested variant of the problem-solution pattern of arrangement is particularly effective when you want the audience to do something—buy a product, donate to a cause, and so forth. Yet it is equally useful when you want listeners to reconsider their present way of thinking about something or continue to believe as they do but with greater commitment.

Step 1: Attention

The attention step addresses listeners’ core concerns, making the speech highly relevant to them. Here is an excerpt from a student speech by Ed Partlow on becoming an organ donor:

Today I’m going to talk about a subject that can be both personal and emotional. I am going to talk about becoming an organ donor. Donating an organ is a simple step you can take that will literally give life to others—to your husband or wife, mother or father, son or daughter—or to a beautiful child whom you’ve never met.

There is one thing I want to acknowledge from the start. Many of you may be uncomfortable with the idea of becoming an organ donor. I want to establish right off that it’s OK if you don’t want to become a donor.

Many of us are willing to donate our organs, but because we haven’t taken the action to properly become a donor, our organs go unused. As a result, an average of eighteen people die every day because of lack of available organs.

In this first step, the speaker makes the topic relevant to listeners by showing how their actions could help those closest to them. He further involves the audience by acknowledging the sensitive nature of his topic and assuring them that he respects their right to make up their own minds. The statistic he cites underscores the seriousness of his purpose.

Step 2: Need

The need step isolates the issue to be addressed. If you can show the members of an audience that they have an important need that must be satisfied or a problem that must be solved, they will have a reason to listen to your propositions. Continuing with the organ donor speech, here the speaker establishes the need for organ donors:

According to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, found on the OPTN website, there are over 121,000 people on the waiting list today for an organ transplant. Each day, about 79 people receive a transplant, but about 18 people die as a result of not getting one in time. According to the National Kidney Foundation, over 96,000 patients are waiting for kidney transplants alone, and the stakes are high: 90 percent of patients who receive a kidney from a living donor live at least ten years after the transplant. One of the people on the waiting list is Aidan Malony, who graduated from this college two years ago. Without a transplant, he will die. It is agonizing for his family and friends to see him in this condition. And it is deeply frustrating to them that more people don’t sign and carry organ donor cards. I have always carried my organ donor card with me, but I didn’t realize the extreme importance of doing so before talking to Aidan.

Every ten minutes another name joins that of Aidan Malony and is added to the National Transplant Waiting List.

Step 3: Satisfaction

The satisfaction step identifies the solution. This step begins the crux of the speech, offering audience members a proposal to reinforce or change their attitudes, beliefs, and values regarding the need at hand. Here is an example from the speech on organ donation:

It takes only a few steps to become an organ donor.

First, sign up as an organ and tissue donor in your state’s donor registry.

Second, designate your decision on your driver’s license.

Tell your health care provider and family that you want to become an organ donor and ask them to honor your wishes when the time arrives. If possible, include a directive for organ donation in a living will.

Step 4: Visualization

The visualization step provides the audience with a vision of anticipated outcomes associated with the solution. The purpose of the step is to carry audience members beyond accepting the feasibility of your proposal to seeing how it will actually benefit them:

There are so many organs and such a variety of tissue that may be transplanted. One organ donor can help up to fifty people. Who can forget the story of 7-year-old American Nicholas Green, the innocent victim of a highway robbery in Italy that cost him his life? Stricken with grief, Nicholas’s parents, Reg and Maggie Green, nevertheless immediately decided to donate Nicholas’s organs. As a direct result of the donation, seven Italians thrive today, grateful recipients of Nicholas’s heart, corneas, liver, pancreas cells, and kidneys. Today, organ donations in Italy are twice as high as they were in 1993, the year preceding Nicholas’s death. The Italians called this phenomenon “The Nicholas Effect.”

Step 5: Action

Finally, in the action step the speaker asks audience members to act according to their acceptance of the message. This may involve reconsidering their present way of thinking about something, continuing to believe as they do but with greater commitment, or implementing a new set of behaviors. Here, the speaker makes an explicit call to action:

It takes courage to become an organ donor.

You have the courage to become an organ donor. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services organdonor.gov website, 100 million people in the U.S. have signed up to be an organ donor.

All you need to do is say yes to organ and tissue donation on your state’s donor registry and discuss your decision with your family and health care provider.

Be part of “The Nicholas Effect.”