One of the tricks up my sleeve is figuring out that sometimes the new guy is the only person who can get Mr Grumpy to change his mind.
There's one phenomenon where some people don't re-evaluate their position until they've encountered the same issue with multiple people. Sending new people to ask often works better than going yourself for the third time. You're just a repeat, not a new data point.
And then there's a form of the Curse of Knowledge, where the resistant person has heard all of the arguments and (circular?) reasoning from their coworkers and doesn't buy any of it. And then someone asks the question in plain English, with no conceptual or relationship biases. Either the way they ask it makes the person realize they're being unreasonable, or they dissect the problem along a new axis that suggests a way to escape the deadlock. Words and questions can push us toward some connections in our brains, and away from others. Rephrasing is sometimes all it takes to reframe a problem, and the more inured you are to the project jargon the harder it is to rephrase things.
There's one phenomenon where some people don't re-evaluate their position until they've encountered the same issue with multiple people. Sending new people to ask often works better than going yourself for the third time. You're just a repeat, not a new data point.
And then there's a form of the Curse of Knowledge, where the resistant person has heard all of the arguments and (circular?) reasoning from their coworkers and doesn't buy any of it. And then someone asks the question in plain English, with no conceptual or relationship biases. Either the way they ask it makes the person realize they're being unreasonable, or they dissect the problem along a new axis that suggests a way to escape the deadlock. Words and questions can push us toward some connections in our brains, and away from others. Rephrasing is sometimes all it takes to reframe a problem, and the more inured you are to the project jargon the harder it is to rephrase things.