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AUGUST 27, 2020 | The Jewish Home OCTOBER 29, 2015 | The Jewish Home
Dr. Deb
How to Get Listened To By Deb Hirschhorn, Ph.D.
T
he man was very sad. “I never get listened to. It’s been going on my entire marriage. I feel invisible.” I asked him if he tried to be assertive, meaning not wimpy, but not obnoxious, either. I’d heard from his wife that he starts raising his voice and getting unpleasant. He assured me that he was assertive, just as I had wanted. “But you said you could lose it too,” I mentioned. “Well, sure, after not getting listened to,” he responded. He was a bit surprised at my comment. After all, anybody would lose it if they keep knocking their head against a stone wall, right? So I thought it would be fun to share with you a book that I’m reading. This one was written by a hostage negotiator. He works or used to work for the FBI getting terrorists to give up their kidnapped “property” in exchange for ransom. The author is Chris Voss and the book is Never Split The Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It. I can assure you that he never lost his cool. At least not when negotiating for someone’s life. And his subtitle – and the theme throughout the book – is to use his methods with your spouse, at the airplane terminal, or anywhere else where you need to be listened to. Maybe your life doesn’t depend on it. But maybe it does. After all, being listened to at home in your family may very well be the difference between a miserable life and a happy one. So maybe not giv-
ing in to the temptation to “lose it” or walk out in a huff or file for divorce is what’s required. And negotiating with these basic rules in mind may be the better alternative. So what do you do, then – just take it? Absolutely not. If you “take it,” you’re not absorbing Chris Voss’s tricks. Here are some of them: Know for sure what the other person wants. See, you thought it was all about being heard. Well, it’s not. You don’t need to be heard as long as you win in the end.
down to something reasonable? Voss has a bunch of ideas, but the common thread running through all of them is to make them totally believe that you want to give them what they want. And you do. You want to meet in the middle. You really, truly do. Or if you don’t, maybe that is your problem. Remember: do you want to succeed or do you want to feed your ego? Assuming you do not want to feed your ego, never call it “compromise.” Don’t compromise because you will both be miserable. That is why his book is titled “never split the differ-
The reality is that two people are entitled to have different opinions and neither one needs to persuade the other to change.
It’s not about ego, after all. So his first rule is to know what your spouse, mother, child, or boss really wants. Then figure out how you can help him/her change that want to something closer to what you want. While it’s easy to know what hostage-takers want because they want money, the trick is that they always would ask for more than anyone would or could possibly pay. How do you bring them down to something reasonable? And, of course, the real question is how do you get your life partner to come
ence.” So you want to please them and yourself, but not by compromising. What you want is to find a way to gently bring them over to your own point of view without them feeling like you’re doing it. Here are several ways he advocates: Ask the simple but elegant question, “How can I do that?” Imagine you’re arguing with your life partner about whether you should or should not go to their mother for a meal. You do not want to go because
you’ve been insulted in the past. Why not employ Chris Voss’s suggestion of “How can I do that?” And by the way, he further advises to say it in a kind and conciliatory voice. For example, “You know I want to please you. I want to make you happy. And I’ve done X and I’ve also done Y just for that reason. But now that your mother said A and also B, how can I go and put myself in a place to have her say those things again to me?” The kinder and more conciliatory you are, the less argument you will get in response. Phrase your questions to get a “No” response, not a “Yes” response. The logic behind this is simple. Most salesmen are trying to get to “Yes.” The water filtration system salesperson asks, “Do you enjoy a nice clean glass of water sometimes?” You can see the question coming a mile away and you can see where it will go. They want you saying “Yes” so many times that you’re ready to say it again when it’s time to buy. But that’s not what you’re ready to do when it’s time to buy. You’re ready to clobber them! On the other hand, people feel like they’re in control when they say “No.” So ask them whether they think there will be a problem if we can alter plans so everyone will be happy. “No” is a reasonable answer to that one. “That’s right” is a response that shows they’ve internalized a point but “You’re right” means they’re blowing you off. So you might not want to say, “Your mother is rude!” It’s extremely unlikely you’ll get an agreement
