I’m still very much in the earlier stages of learning, but I’ll say negotiation. Recognizing that virtually any situation involving an “exchange” between two interested parties can become a negotiation has been a great insight into control for me.
People often think of negotiation as business, however it can be much more personal than that and can be very useful for your interpersonal relationships as much as it can be for your professional relationships.
Understanding how you can leverage another person’s empathy (and your own) in your favour without exploiting the other person is tremendously valuable whether you’re trying to get your kid to eat their vegetables or trying to convince a terrorist organization to free their hostages.
I’ve learned a few simple techniques that have honestly improved my ability to not only negotiate but communicate and understand people better in general.
I bought Chris Voss’ book on negotiating and it’s been really pivotal for my understanding of, well, humanity to a certain extent. Highly recommend it to anyone who wants to make a stronger person out of themselves.
No affiliation with the book btw but I’m a huge fan of the author as a result of his book.
> I bought Chris Voss’ book on negotiating and it’s been really pivotal for my understanding of, well, humanity to a certain extent. Highly recommend it to anyone who wants to make a stronger person out of themselves.
For people wondering, Chris Voss is the former lead international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI. Here's a podcast where he talks about negotiation [0] and the link to the book the above comment refers to [1]. His talk at Google about the same subject might be interesting too [2].
On thing that has bothered me about some other negotiating books is that they seem to focus on [what I call] "psychological tricks", then one day you get two people who've read the same book together and they just go back and forth trying to play tricks on each other and nobody gets anywhere.
Chris Voss' book teaches [among other things] that listening is the most important and most difficult negotiating skill. That's a "scaleable" approach to negotiation, if you happen to get two people together who both believe in listening to the other, that works.
The unfortunate thing about negotiation books is that people begin to see all forms of human interaction as a negotiation. Negotiating when buying a car, sure go for it. But if you've scratched someone else's car and they're asking you to pay for it. Maybe not the best time to whip out those negotiating skills.
if you've scratched someone else's car and they're asking you to pay for it
That's a perfect time to use those negotiating skills. When I was buying a car, I just told them the number I'm willing to pay, and two weeks and 5 calls later they agreed. On the other hand, had I scratched someone's car, I'd want to use some negotiation tricks in case they wanted me to pay too much.
People often think of negotiation as business, however it can be much more personal than that and can be very useful for your interpersonal relationships as much as it can be for your professional relationships.
Understanding how you can leverage another person’s empathy (and your own) in your favour without exploiting the other person is tremendously valuable whether you’re trying to get your kid to eat their vegetables or trying to convince a terrorist organization to free their hostages.
I’ve learned a few simple techniques that have honestly improved my ability to not only negotiate but communicate and understand people better in general.
I bought Chris Voss’ book on negotiating and it’s been really pivotal for my understanding of, well, humanity to a certain extent. Highly recommend it to anyone who wants to make a stronger person out of themselves.
No affiliation with the book btw but I’m a huge fan of the author as a result of his book.