Transcriber: Chi Linh Reviewer: Emma Gon
Have you ever felt lonely in the company of a few hundred people?
That’s the way I felt when I stepped onto the stage.
So I'm going to establish rapport with you now,
and what I’m going to do is I’m going to say a sentence.
And when I stop, I want all of you
to shout the next word into the lecture hall
to let me know that I’m not alone and that you are not avatars, but real people.
Got the message? I say sentence, I stop,
and when I give you the signal,
you will shout the next word into the theater.
So here’s my sentence: “Yes, admittedly, it is a charitable project
and normally I’d be very happy to make a donation.
(Speaker signs the audience and they shout: “But”.)
How on earth did you know my next word was going to be “but”
and all of you guess that? Telepathy?
No, it is because I used anticipators,
anticipators are elements and signals that focus on what is to come.
The anticipators that I used were “yes” and they were “admittedly”,
“normally”, “I would“ instead of I will and most importantly,
rising intonation up to the comma, “but.”
Because of our experience with speech patterns and interaction,
we are often ahead of the speakers even formulating our response in our minds
while they are still talking.
Typical turn taking patterns, typical conversational patterns interaction
are an accusation triggers a contract causation or a rejection.
An attack triggers defense criticism, triggers justification,
and an argument triggers a counterargument,
and an allegation triggers refutation.
Do you recall your first refutation in early childhood?
Correct: “It wasn’t me.”
Do you remember how you first tried a counter argument on your parents?
“It’s bedtime.” “But I’m not tired,” yawn, yawn.
So let's just coin a new term term for these speech patterns,
these predictable patterns.
Let’s call them the communicative factory setting,
because we acquired and indeed mastered these sound taking patterns
in our early childhood.
Nobody in the world needs training for that.
And let’s call them communicative factory setting,
because they produced us in our families, as it were,
the communicative factory that produced us.
Communicative factory settings
are appropriate and standard in certain settings of discourse,
such as parliamentary debates and talk shows.
The poison when we are negotiating.
They are the reason why meetings are often unnecessarily prolonged.
They're the reason why collective bargaining often come to a grinding halt.
And they are the reason why, sadly, partnerships break up.
Marriages do not end in divorce because after 20 years of married bliss,
one of the partners wakes up one morning realizing, “Oh my God, you look ugly.”
(Laughter)
Okay. Let me take you through a negotiation conducted
in the spirit of the communicative factory setting.
The president of a citizens initiative had an appointment with a politician,
who was responsible for town planning.
The proposal was to replace the existing car park
by a beautiful harbour promenade.
To this proposal, the politician responded by saying,
“In principle, that is a great idea, a wonderful idea indeed.
And I do appreciate citizens coming to me with visions,
but we do not have sufficient parking spaces.
As a matter of fact, we’re desperately short of them.”
Now, this statement wasn't entirely true.
As a matter of fact, there were other areas, even suitable ones.
So the predictable response was, “But we do have alternatives,
think of the areas X, Y, and Z.”
Why is it that we cannot resist the seductiveness of a good argument?
That's your take home message, by the way.
And so the predictable counterargument that the politician came up with was,
“But these areas are too far away from where we need their shoppers.”
“But the harbour promenade would attract them.”
“But we need the revenues from the parking fees.”
“If we attract more tourists, the town would profit even more.”
“Do you know how much it would cost me
to have that car park built on the waterfront
only four years ago? €3.6 million.
Giving up that area as a car park is something
I could never explain to the voters.”
“Huh, Is votes, votes, votes, all you politicians can only think about?”
“But the time interval is too short for such drastic change in town planning.
We can’t jump onto the bandwagon at any moment.”
Okay. So far, so bad.
Now, let me take you through this negotiation again,
this time, step by step.
As you remember, the politicians first counterargument was
“In principle, that it’s a great idea, a wonderful idea indeed
and I do appreciate people coming to me with visions,”
anticipates “But”, the predictable but.
Now let’s assume that the president of the Citizens Initiative
had responded by saying,
“When I made inquiries about a contact person,
your name was the first to come up and I’m happy
I followed that recommendation because you immediately saw
that this was a great idea or a wonderful idea.
Do you know of any towns where this, as you actually put it,
vision has become reality?
So my first message to you is do not go for what is in dispute,
go for what has been conceded.
Go for the concessions and let’s coin a new term for this.
Let's call it the conceded territory.
Focusing on the conceded territory, as demonstrated just now,
makes the difference between negotiating opponents and negotiating partners.
It makes the difference between stagnation and dynamic negotiation.
We’re now in a position to start formulating
the first strategies for dynamic negotiating.
Strategy number one - do not be misguided by anticipators.
Do not go for what is in dispute, focus on the conceded territory.
Number two - position the negotiating partner
by asking questions as demonstrated, not by giving you a solution.
Now here comes a challenge.
What if the conceded territory has not been made explicit?
The town politician said giving up this area as a car park is something
I could never explain to the voters.
Concealed below the surface is the conceded territory.
The subtext, which means what the politician really meant
can be rephrased as if you can sell this to the voters,
you can do with the car park, whatever you like.
So strategy number three is if an objection doesn’t cover
the whole spectrum of possibilities,
this objection is to be interpreted paradoxically as consent.
When in the 20th century, a man proposed to a young maiden
and she protests by saying, “But this is so sudden.” It meant yes.
So, strategy number four - watch out for presuppositions.
Presuppositions are that part of a statement
that survives miraculously negations. The politician had said,
“But the time interval is too short
for such a drastic change in town planning.”
Of course, we would have preferred him to say,
but the time interval is not too short. That is the negation.
But within the framework of dynamic negotiation,
it doesn’t make any difference, it’s neither here nor there,
whether he says the time interval is too short
or the time interval is not too short.
Because in either case,
has he accepted the idea of a beautiful harbour promenade,
where now only talking about the time factor.
It can’t get any better than that, can it?
Because he has now accepted what was an issue only 60 seconds ago.
However, when I expound the strategies of dynamic negotiation
to people, in particular when I demonstrated in real case scenarios
they usually come up with the objection,
but you are manipulating people who only have
the communicative factory setting at their disposal.
I love objections because as you all have spotted now
the conceding territory is in that statement.
So my response to that is you've drawn my attention to the fact that
because dynamic negotiation is a powerful instrument,
it carries the danger of being misused for the purpose of manipulation.
Will it delay your concerns,
if we distinguished between manipulating people to their disadvantage
on the one hand and on the other hand,
positioning people in order to construct solutions
along the lines of the dynamic negotiating strategies
and making the latter the guiding principle of our governance.
If you systematically apply the strategies of dynamic negotiation
with the conceded territory at its core,
your life will never be the same again,
because people’s reaction towards you will be different.
And in the wake of these change reactions, your personality will change,
because our personalities are to certain extent
shaped by the way we communicate with each other.
Now from early childhood bedtime disputes to United Nations issues,
we negotiate everywhere and all the time.
The good news is you can practice it as you're walking out of that door.
Put it to the test. Give it a try.
And may the conceited territory be with you. Good luck!
(Applause)