digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: Before a difficult negotiation, list the negative opinions, assumptions, and impressions the other side may hold about you, your company, or your situation, and label them out loud at the start of the conversation, using what the video calls an accusation audit. The video argues that labeling negatives is about three times as powerful as labeling positives and that doing it early keeps the other side from using those negatives against you later.
Key Points
- The video reframes negotiation as a difficult conversation, noting that discomfort drives people to resolve things quickly, often by conceding too early.
- Negative perceptions are often unspoken, and if you do not address them upfront, the other side may use them against you.
- Labeling negatives gets more results, faster, than labeling positives, though labeling positives is not wrong.
- Starting with the negatives takes away the other side's permission and authority to bring them up later in the conversation.
- A speaker in the video reports using this approach with colleagues, who later said they did not hold the criticisms he had voiced for them.
Details Worth Noting
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Concrete instructions: Before the conversation, write a list of the negative opinions, assumptions, and impressions the other side might have about you personally, about your company, and about your circumstances. Ask yourself what you would want to deny if someone shouted these views on a street corner, how your request could create problems for them, how they have viewed others in your position, and how they might view you as a man or a woman. Then, at the start of the conversation and before making your actual request, state each negative aloud as a preemptive label, such as "You might think I don't know what I'm doing," and let the other side respond.
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The speaker describes the method as making the negative "your Matrix moment," and suggests following the negatives "down the rabbit hole" to find how deep they go.
Bottom Line
Naming the other side's negative views about you at the start of a negotiation, rather than waiting for them to raise those views, is presented in the video as a faster and more effective way to reduce their leverage.
