sacha chua living an awesome life

I really like this book. Jay Heinrichs writes in a clear, accessible style that shows the relevance of rhetoric in life and gives great tips on how to get started. Through anecdotes, he also shows that rhetoric doesn’t have to be dodgy, and can contribute to a richer work and personal life.

W- and I are both studying this book, and it has given us a helpful framework for deeper discussions. I plan to use the tools in the book to analyze arguments, and to apply them when blogging too. (Hmm, might be interesting to use the classical structure for posts in response to other blog posts…)

Well worth a read.

• Introduction
  

  1. Open your eyes: The invisible argument: We treat rhetoric and argument as negatives, but we’re immersed in it. Learning about argument can help us not only recognize when we’re being persuaded, but use it to improve everyday life.

• Offense
  

  2. Set your goals: Cicero’s lightbulb: Fights and arguments are two different things. You’re in a fight to win; you’re in an argument to get what you want or to come to an agreement. When you argue, you want to change people’s mood, mind, and/or willingness to act. p17: story about “argument by the stick”

  3. Control the tense: Orphan Annie’s law: When people argue, they can be focused on the past (blame), the present (values), or the future (choices). Pick the appropriate tense for your argument. Future tense helps you keep moving forward. The author writes:

  • Present-tense (demonstrative) rhetoric tends to finish with people bonding or separating.
  • Past-tense (forensic) rhetoric threatens punishment.
  • Future-tense (deliberative) argument promises a payoff.

  The author also reminds us: “Never debate the undebatable. Instead, focus on your goals.”

  4. Soften them up: Character, logic, emotion: Or ethos, logos, and pathos, if you want to use their classic names. Read this chapter for great arguments by the author’s children.

  5. Get them to like you: Eminem’s rules of decorum: Ethos: Work with your audience’s expectations. Make it easier for them to believe you and identify with you. Fit in.

  6. Make them listen: The Lincoln gambit: Help the audience see your common values and practical wisdom. Show them that you’re focused on their best interests, not just yours. If necessary, you may need to mimic other people’s values in order to get them to hear you. Take advantage of opportunities to build perception of your character, such as changing your position based on people’s arguments.

  7. Show leadership: The Belushi paradigm: “Show off your experience. Bend the rules. Appear to take the middle course.”

  8. Win their trust: Quintilian’s useful doubt: Be doubtful or reluctant, talk about your sacrifice, or dial down your rhetoric skills if that serves your cause.

  9. Control the mood: The Aquinas maneuver: Use stories, volume control, plain language, and emotional influencers to change the mood.

  10. Turn the volume down: The scientist’s lie: Manage anger by using passive voice when referring to things other people had done (not you). Calm people by reacting more than they would, on their behalf. Humor might be a good tool, too, but it’s tricky.

  11. Gain the high ground: Aristotle’s favorite topic: Take advantage of common beliefs, values, or sayings as a foundation for your argument. Make your argument seem obvious. If people use common sayings to reject your argument, listen for that and come up with something relevant next time.

  12. Persuade on your terms: What “is” is: Pay attention to labels. Redefine words if needed, using a clear definition. Use the values of your audience. Switch tenses to focus on future choices, too.

  13. Control the argument: Homer Simpson’s canons of logic: This chapter covers deductive and inductive logic, and how to support inductive logic with facts, comparisons, or stories.

• Defense
  

  14. Spot fallacies: The seven deadly logical sins: This chapter lists logical fallacies and how to deal with them.

  15. Call a foul: Nixon’s trick: Identify fouls and deal with them, because if the conversation goes into inarguable territory, you’ll just be going around and round.

  16. Know whom to trust: Persuasion detectors: Are people being extreme? Are people focusing on needs that don’t include yours? Watch out when negotiating.

  17. Find the sweet spot: More persuasion detectors: Do people try to give you a solution without hearing the details of your problem? Do people have relevant, accurate, unbiased information? Can people figure out what matters?

• Advanced offense
  

  18. Speak your audience’s language: The rhetorical ape: Listen for the jargon and the keywords of a group, and repeat them. Try using antonyms when refuting other people’s arguments, if the original words will cause negative responses. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the logic of a sentence.

  19. Make them identify with your choice: The mother-in-law ruse: Let people come up with your idea by identifying with them and letting them identify with you. Use in-words and irony if needed to help a certain group identify with you more (possibly with the exclusion of another group).

  20. Get instant cleverness: Monty Python’s treasury of wit: This chapter covers figures of speech, subverted cliches, and other techniques for being wittier.

  21. Seize the occasion: Stalin’s timing secret: Pay attention to timing, and watch for persuadable moments.

  22. Use the right medium: The Jumbotron blunder: Different media emphasize different combinations of ethos, pathos, and logos. According to the author:

  • Sight is mostly pathos and ethos.
  • Sound is the most logical sense.
  • Smell, taste, and touch are almost purely emotional.
• Advanced agreement
  

  23. Give a persuasive talk: The oldest invention: Invention, arrangement (ethos, then logos, then pathos), style, memory, and delivery. Classical structure: Introduction (ethos), narration, division, proof, refutation, conclusion.

  24. Use the right tools: The Brad Pitt factor: Goals, ethos, pathos, logos, kairos (timing). This chapter has examples of how tools from different chapters work together in real-life situations.

  25: Run an agreeable country: Rhetoric’s revival: We need more rhetoric in real life. Yay!

• A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms, Richard A. Lanham
• Encyclopedia of Rhetoric (Oxford University Press, 2001)
• Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student, P. J. Corbett (Oxford University Press, 1990)
• The Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle (Penguin, 1991)
• Cicero, Anthony Everitt (Random House, 2001)
• The Founders and the Classics, Carl J. Richard (Harvard, 1994)
• A Rhetoric of Motives, Kenneth Burke (University of California, 1950)

Getting to Yes is a slim book that packs a lot of useful advice from corporate, government, and personal experience. The focus on principled negotiation, reason, and objective criteria will help me learn to keep my cool during difficult negotiations, and to stay focused on finding or creating options that address people’s interests instead of being limited to the positions that have been expressed.

This book focuses more on the process of negotiation, while “Thank You for Arguing” focuses more on the forms of rhetoric and the components of argument. Both are good reads in this area.

One of the key things I’d like to do to apply the lessons from this book is to develop better relationships with people, which can help when negotiating. (Not just for the purpose of negotiation, of course!) The more I understand about other people and the more they understand about me, the better the conversations can be.

Aside from applying these ideas to relationships with family and friends, I’m also looking forward to exploring this through outsourcing or other avenues.

• Part 1: The Problem: Don’t bargain over positions
  

  When you think about negotiation, it’s hard to escape the stereotype of haggling over souvenirs, houses, or salaries. There are age-old tactics for dealing with those kinds of negotations: start with an extreme, and only grudgingly give up ground. The authors argue that this kind of position-based negotiation is inefficient and ineffective. Instead of getting locked into one position or another, you should focus on understanding your interests and other parties’ interests, and inventing creative solutions that work for everyone if possible.

• Part 2: The method
  

  In this part, the book gives concrete tips for working through the different components of a negotiation: people, interests, options, and criteria.

  People: We often see negotiation as an adversarial problem. If you can reframe it from a contest of wills to a cooperative initiative to find something that works for all parties, negotiation becomes much easier. This can be difficult when there’s a lot of public pressure, so understand people’s private interests as well as their expressed ones. The book also points out the importance of focusing not just on the situation, but also on the relationship, and the value of developing a good working relationship outside the negotiation.

  Interests: The positions people take may give some clues about the interests they have, but these positions should not be the final word in negotiation. Find out more about what people truly value, because that may help you find creative ways to address those interests.

  Options: If you don’t firmly commit yourself to a position, you have more space to find better solutions that line up with people’s interests.

  Criteria: It’s better to negotiate using reason and objective criteria than to take arbitrary positions. Identify objective criteria you and other parties can agree on, and use those to evaluate the options. Translate irrational arguments into objective criteria, asking questions to investigate.

• Part 3: Yes, but…
  

  This is where negotiation meets the real world. In this part, the book covers how to negotiate with a seemingly more powerful opponent, a stand-off, and dirty tricks.

  How to deal with power imbalances: Develop your best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA). This will help you resist pressure. If your alternative is stronger than their alternative, you will also have more negotiation room.

  It’s important to pick one alternative as your best alternative to a negotiated agreement, and to have a good idea of this alternative before negotiating. We can be overly optimistic and think of hundreds of alternatives. If we don’t choose, however, we can feel overwhelmed. Picking one forces clarity and makes it easier to walk away if necessary.

  How to deal with people who won’t negotiate: If people are locked into positions and don’t want to negotiate, or focus on irrational arguments, you still have several approaches you can try. The first approach is to focus on negotiating well yourself, using interests, options, and objective criteria. Another option is to redirect their negotiation moves in a way that focuses on interests, options, and objective criteria. The third strategy uses a trained mediator who can help you focus on collaboratively finding a solution.

  How to deal with dirty tricks: Keep your best alternative in mind. Call out the tactic and talk about it. Use objective criteria to avoid giving in to pressure. Don’t be afraid to take breaks or to walk away if necessary.

• Part 4: In Conclusion
  

  It’s not about “winning” – it’s about finding ways to deal with differences. The book has a lot of advice that we’ve heard from different sources, but you still need to practice in order to get better at it.

• Part 5: Ten questions people ask about Getting to Yes
  
  • Questions about fairness and “principled” negotiation
    1. “Does positional bargaining ever make sense?”
    2. “What if the other side believes in a different standard of fairness?”
    3. “Should I be fair even if I don’t have to be?”
  • Questions about dealing with people
    1. “What do I do if the people are the problem?”
    2. “Should I negotiate even with terrorists or someone like Hitler? When does it make sense not to negotiate?”
    3. “How should I adjust my negotiating approach to account for differences of personality, gender, culture, and so on?”
  • Questions about tactics
    1. “How do I decide things like ‘Where should we meet?’ ‘Who should make the first offer?’ and ‘How high should I start?’”
    2. “Concretely, how do I move from inventing options to making commitments?”
    3. “How do I try out these ideas without taking too much risk?”
  • Questions about power
    1. “Can the way I negotiate really make a difference if the other side is more powerful?” And “How do I enhance my negotiating power?”