Today, I want to talk a little about negotiation. Not price negotiation that is all about the
numbers. I mean issue negotiation. Gun control, gender identity, peace treaties
– the kind of thing where you need to understand each other and come to some
kind of agreement.
It turns out that most of us are doing it all wrong. When we go into a negotiation of this kind,
we try to explain our position to the other side, expecting that if they only
understood the situation better, they would agree. Or at least they would move closer to our
position on the subject.
But think about this.
Our position is based on the facts and experiences that we have had over
our lifetimes. Their position is based on their facts and
experiences. It turns out that we
overestimate the accuracy and value of our own position because it is based on
only a subset of reality. And we
underestimate the accuracy and value of their position because we don’t know
all of their facts and experiences.
So your goal in an ideas discussion should be to better
understand the other side’s facts and experiences and to see how your own position
is wrong. Unfortunately, this is really hard. Our brain is not wired to do this
cognitively. We suffer (in this case
often literally) from self-reference bias, false consensus bias, and
confirmation bias.
We are also not wired to do this emotionally. Our identities are strongly tied to our
ideas. So even admitting we may not be 100% accurate jeopardizes our identity.
Going in with the assumption that our position is wrong and with the intention
to change it is both scary and painful.
But if you put some effort into doing this, you end up with
two major benefits. First, you become
much better at convincing other people about your ideas. Second, you will learn a lot about your own
ideas, where you are mistaken, and how you can improve your conception of the
world.
Go ahead, give it a try.
