Real tools for persuasion? (Part Two)

Persuasion is full of paradoxes, just like this one: the harder we try to control someone's conclusion, the more strongly they may resist being controlled. In reality, to be powerful and effective, persuasion should be as invisible as possible. Just consider the difference between: "You should do this because…" and "How do you see the situation?" 

If the second proposition appears much weaker and less dictating, it invites instead the other person to construct the reasoning themselves. And this is the clincher, once individuals have articulated an idea in their own mind and own words, they are no longer receiving a third-party argument. They are fully invested in participating in the creation of the conclusion. 

This is one reason good negotiators, therapists and astute folks often ask questions rather than making statements or demanding specific actions. 

They’ve understood that the goal isn't necessarily to force an idea into someone's mind but to involve them in helping them discover the idea themselves. More importantly, what I mentioned yesterday as my "burning need" to convince is made of a string of important variables that often frame our demand. 

It goes just like this: let’s suppose that we desperately need someone to agree with us. If they don't know precisely why, they can often feel it as our tone changes or as we talk too much. We anticipate objections even before they arise. We become attached to particular words and react emotionally to some anticipated resistance and all that staging ends up weakening our influence and the final outcome. 

There is enormous power in being able to think: “I strongly prefer that you agree with me, but I don't need you to.” That psychological position gives us room to listen, adapt and even walk away, and paradoxically, it often makes agreement more likely. One could argue that the real objective isn't persuasion and this where my opening statement helps me guide the discussion further. 

As I wrote, I’ve spent a lifetime encountering situations where I needed something from another person and had to persuade them to give it to me or just do it. Still, over the years, I found out that the outcome didn’t work well for me. Perhaps expecting total victory was the wrong metric? If instead of wondering "How do I get this person to give me what I want?" I had thought "How do I move the situation as far as I reasonably can toward a mutually acceptable outcome?" 

I might have set the stage for something much more productive, because it was much easier to achieve. That small change is enormous as it stops trying to win the person's mind, but starts trying to improve the outcome, keeping in mind that sometimes, the best influence strategy can actually be to concede something that costs us little but is still highly valuable to the other person. 

To conclude our discussion, we’ll explore the details of that strategy in our next blog, so please, stay with me!

Real tools for persuasion (Part One)

During my lifetime, and probably because I was in sales most of my professional career, I’ve been confronted many times by the burning need for convincing others, and by mastering the process of persuasion with various outcomes that rarely turned one hundred percent in my favor. It’s true that we all learn an awful lot on the job, through trial and error. 

As years have passed and I am now retired and far less involved with negotiating, I often wonder where research and thinking are headed these days to define the best practices in terms of seizing and controlling that elusive element? At first sight, my interrogation could have revolved around the quintessential question "How to become more persuasive?" but this was not quite the avenue I was truly pursuing and the result I was looking for.

I’ve been in fact asking whether the need to persuade itself can be understood, managed, and perhaps transformed into something much more powerful and efficient than what I used to do. That elusive element I’m trying to describe is in fact influence—the ability to move another person's thinking or behavior, when we have no direct control over them. 

As we can all imagine, there has been enormous research and findings on this topic, but one of the most interesting conclusions is that influence is not primarily about having the best argument, as I often found out. This has forced me to research the subject a little bit more and I found that the key to that question is about understanding what happens inside the other person between hearing our argument and deciding what to do about it. 

Unlike what we first assume, the first obstacle is rarely logical and simplistic, like in the following succession of events: I present some compelling facts, then the individual understands them, in turn they agree and then they execute. In reality, human beings don't work that way very reliably, instead they filter information through identity, emotion, prior experience, self-interest, trust and—perhaps most importantly—their desire to maintain their autonomy. 

Let me clarify, if someone feels that you are trying to make them agree with you, a curious thing is likely to happen: they become more resistant precisely because they feel their freedom is being threatened. In our upcoming blog we’ll look at alternative strategies for convincing others...

A very expensive car

In the no-so-distant past, I knew all the cars made on earth, or at least I thought so. As a result, it wasn’t such a big surprise to me that I was wondering about a car I couldn’t identify just a few mornings ago as I had a few things to do on Main Street, in Park City. 

I asked a passer-by what it was as he was snapping photos of the auto with his smartphone and he said “It’s an Aston Martin Valhalla!” I followed up by asking him, “Do you know how that precious little thing cost?” He responded “No, but I can tell you that it’s well above my pay grade!”

I since then did my own research found out that the Aston Martin Valhalla was one of the most advanced and exclusive hybrid supercars ever built — a mid‑engine, plug‑in hybrid machine blending Formula 1 aerodynamics, a carbon‑fiber chassis, and a 4.0‑liter twin‑turbo V8 paired with three electric motors, producing a combined 1064 hp and 811 lb‑ft of torque. 

It’s made of a carbon‑fiber tub and body panels acting as active aerodynamics capable of generating 600+ kg of downforce at 150 mph. It has dihedral doors (also called butterfly or elytra wing doors as they pivot on a hinge mounted near the A‑pillar). When opened, the door sweeps upward and outward simultaneously, giving wide access to the cabin and a distinctive supercar look.

Obviously, the car is AWD with front‑axle torque vectoring and its production is limited to 999 units worldwide. It can do 0–60 mph in about2.3–2.5 seconds (tested and manufacturer estimates) and reach a top speed of 217 mph. The US price for that beast is $1,051,700 (Car and Driver official pricing) while it’s priced at £850,000 in the UK and €980,000 in the rest of Europe. 

Right, a deal below one million euros! I’m also told that used models of that car fetch even more money, so I’ll pass for the moment...

The curse of too many choices (Part Four)

So, here we are, in front of a fascinating paradox, as we’re facing too few choices that can limit creativity and too many choices that can also overwhelm it. Still creativity could flourish in the space between constraint and freedom. 

Perhaps we need a "choice budget" as an interesting extension to our discussion. This idea didn’t come from me, but was suggested by another source and I thought, “What a great idea!” 

We normally think about budgets in terms of money, but perhaps we should also have a budget for decisions in which every insignificant decision consumes a tiny amount of mental energy and a limited time. 

For instance, which shirt to wear? Which restaurant to go to? Which podcast to listen to? Which route to take? Which brand to pick? Which email should I answer first? 

Which of these 47 versions should I buy? It’s obvious that taken individually, these decisions are trivial, yet, they occupy an extraordinary amount of our lives, so perhaps wisdom consists partly of creating default choices. 

This could go like this: The same breakfast, a small wardrobe, a few favorite restaurants, a handful of trusted sources of information, a limited number of hobbies and a predetermined exercise routine. In addition, we would adopt a rule that says: “I won't replace something until it actually stops serving me.” And perhaps one of the most powerful rules: “Once I have made a sufficiently good decision, I stop looking for a better one.” 

This powerful principle would attack FOMO quite directly. Ultimately, I’m also discovering as I advance in this discussion that my initial idea leads somewhere more profound than simply saying: "Too many choices are tiring." This, of course, raises the question of what freedom actually means as we tend to define it as: "I can choose anything." 

Perhaps another definition should be "I am not forced to consider everything." The first option gives us an infinite menu while the second offers us peace. So with this in mind, you now have all the tools in hand to master and control the immense array of choices that will continue to attack you every day!

The curse of too many choices (Part Three)

Could deliberately limiting our choices actually make us happier, freer, and now more creative? I believe it could and I think this may actually be the most interesting conclusion to our argument about the curse of too many choices. The deliberate limitation of choice can sometimes increase our experience of freedom. 

That may sound contradictory until we distinguish between freedom of possibility and freedom from indecision. If we have 10,000 possibilities in front of us, we possess enormous potential freedom. But if choosing among those possibilities consumes our time, attention, creates anxiety, and leaves us wondering whether we chose correctly, we may feel less free than someone who has deliberately narrowed the field to three.

Imagine deciding that you will have only five restaurants that you regularly go to. This could sound like deprivation, but something interesting happens: the decision disappears. We won’t have to spend 30 minutes searching reviews, comparing menus, looking at photographs and wondering whether something better exists. 

We just choose and because we’ve stopped comparing, we may actually truly enjoy the meal. This could apply to much larger things: clothing, travel, technology, books, hobbies, even friendships. Once we stop constantly comparing what we have with what we could have, what we have can become more satisfying. In fact, for folks with a minimum of common sense happiness isn't simply a function of how much we have, it’s partly a function of how much comparison we allow into our lives, with the less being the better. 

Limiting the number of comparisons we make can make us freer! Suppose we decide, not investigate every new electronic device (phone, TV, etc.), visit every destination, read every book recommended to us, respond to every smartphone notification and on top of this if we don't need to know what everyone else is doing, we haven’t lost freedom, we've reclaimed attention and that may be one of the scarcest forms of freedom we possess. It means that saying no to 95% of available possibilities can give us more time and freedom to engage deeply with the remaining 5%. 

Finally, limitation can make us more creative, something artists have always known. For instance, give a writer an entirely blank page and unlimited possibilities, and the blankness can be paralyzing. Give that same writer a specific subject, a particular length, a deadline and perhaps even a few words that must appear—and suddenly creativity has something to push against. The same thing happens in music, architecture, cooking and science. 

Constraints create problems to solve and problems stimulate creativity. A painter restricted to three colors may discover combinations he would never have considered with an unlimited palette. A cook who has only five ingredients may invent something remarkably original. A writer who decides to write 500 words every morning may produce more than someone who waits for unlimited time and inspiration. 

We could go on and on, but to conclude our discussion, could we find the perfect equilibrium? Let’s see this next…

The curse of too many choices (Part Two)

Are we becoming the victims of having far too much to choose from and far too many options? Consider something as trivial as picking a restaurant. Ten possibilities may be okay, but a hundred is hard work. And once we have selected one, we may still wonder whether restaurant number 37 would have been better than restaurant number 82. The meal itself can become secondary to the nagging thought that perhaps we made the wrong choice. 

This is where FOMO—the fear of missing out—comes into play and becomes very insidious. Every choice simultaneously eliminates countless alternatives. Choosing one book means not reading another. Choosing one vacation means giving up dozens of other destinations. Spending an evening one way means surrendering all the other evenings that might have been.

And so, from that viewpoint, abundance creates a strange psychological equation as the more options we have, the more possibilities we may have to regret not choosing. But with this in mind, there’s another, perhaps deeper, consequence. When in the past, choices were limited, commitment was relatively easy. Once a decision was made, there weren't many alternatives competing for our attention. 

Today, commitment itself can become difficult. Why settle for this restaurant when another one might be better? Why remain with this product when the next model will soon be released? Why stay with this career when there might be hundreds of others more suited for us? Why read this book when an algorithm can immediately offer us ten more? 

This places us at the risk of becoming perpetual and insatiable shoppers—not only of things, but of experiences, relationships, ideas and even identities, and perhaps this is where the real danger lies. A meaningful life requires not only choosing, but accepting the consequences of having chosen and with limited time on this earth we can’t live every possible life. Nor can we visit every country, read every book, meet every interesting person, pursue every career, or experience every adventure. 

Life is, by its very nature, an exercise in exclusion. To choose one path is necessarily to abandon countless others. Perhaps these day’s new wisdom won’t consist in maximizing our choices, but in learning which choices can be safely ignored. There is a huge difference between having the freedom to choose and feeling compelled to choose among everything that is available. 

One of the great challenges of the twenty-first century might be to learn how to deliberately impose limits upon ourselves—not because we lack freedom, but because we have discovered that unlimited freedom can itself become a form of bondage. Can this give us more comfort and liberate us from the burden of choice. Let’s discuss it tomorrow

The curse of too many choices (Part One)

It’s been my strong belief for a while that being exposed to an infinity of choices might, in the long run, be one of the great unintended threats to humanity, or at the very least to most developed societies. When I was young, life was simple because I was poor. For instance, the only sport I knew and could practice was skiing because up in the mountains where I grew up, that was the only thing we knew. No soccer, no swimming, no rock climbing and certainly no paragliding!

Choosing, in and of itself, is both an exhausting and time-consuming exercise, without even mentioning the overwhelming—and often powerful—fear of missing out that stands tall as a by-product of a boundless array of options. 

For most of human history, the problem was largely the opposite. Choices were limited. Where we lived, what we ate, what we wore, how we traveled, if we really had to, what work we did, even whom we were likely to marry, were determined to a considerable extent by geography, family, social class and circumstance. 

Those limitations were certainly not always desirable, but they had one extraordinary advantage: they spared us from having to make thousands of decisions every day. Today, the situation has been dramatically reversed as we can now choose among hundreds of restaurants, thousands of books, millions of songs, endless destinations, countless products, innumerable career paths and an almost infinite number of ways to spend our time. 

The internet has transformed and further amplified the universe of available choices from a village into something approaching infinity. At first glance, this looks like an extraordinary privilege and luxury, but is it really? At some point, abundance stops feeling like freedom and begins to feel like a burden, as well as a paralysis, and that we’re going to explore in my next blog…