How to get the other side to yes
Watching mainstream coverage of the Biden inauguration, you couldn’t miss the much-repeated call for uniting a divided nation. The commentary was quite approving; no one seemed to disagree with the theme or the need. But if you turned to right-wing media, the notion of uniting the country was derided as a ploy and scorned as bad faith. This indicates the gulf that lies between vision and outcome.
It is much better to have a vision than not because a vision makes your intentions clear and keeps the goal in sight. A vision that is destined to fail, however, has no real use. Bringing the country together isn’t different from bringing a wounded relationship together. The needed skills are psychological. The right has taken advantage of this fact for decades, as many commentators have noted, by tapping into grievances. But stoking people’s complaints, grudges, fears, and fantasies of revenge is a negative vision. As recent events have shown, the people you manipulate this way eventually leads to bad faith and eruptions of a violent, chaotic kind.
So how do you get someone to yes when that person is dead set against you? The necessary tactics depend on understanding two things: 1) The basic principles of negotiation and 2) Putting yourself in the other side’s shoes. Both are always workable, no matter whether we are talking about a broken relationship or a broken political culture.
Principles of negotiation
Give up fantasies of controlling, demanding or persuading the other side.
Sit down in a state of rational calmness.
Show respect for the other side’s position.
Do more listening than talking.
Be prepared for compromise.
Drop us-versus-them thinking.
Look for win/win options.
Don’t display anger and impatience.
Find a place of non-judgment inside yourself.
Don’t quit until both sides are satisfied.
These principles are well known in diplomatic circles but they are flouted in everyday life all the time. The main reason is that people don’t try to learn how successful negotiating works. Instead, they fall back on tactics that hardly ever work, or when they seem to, leave residues of resentment from the other side. The tactics that don’t work are easily recognized in our current state of deep division.
How to stay at no
Keep up the rhetoric of blame and complaint.
Make the other side your enemy.
Talk about differences rather than points of agreement.
Try to win while making sure the other side loses.
Make a list of demands and don’t back down from them.
Enter the fray when you are angry and upset.
Attack the other side.
Walk away angry, with nothing settled.
Ignore the other side’s viewpoint.
It is worth the time to sit down and reflect on both lists. Getting what you want is a natural impulse, but using the wrong means leads to frustration and futility.
The second thing needed in order to change no to yes is to put yourself in the other side’s shoes. One might call this the path of empathy. Nobody really disagrees with the Golden Rule in their heart of hearts, but treating others the way you want to be treated remains hypothetical without an understanding of psychological wants and needs. The most basic wants and needs are common to everyone.
The need to feel safe and secure.
Wanting achievement and success.
Feeling that you are heard and understood.
Wanting to bond in like-minded groups.
Needing to have a purpose in life.
Wanting everyday existence to be meaningful.
Needing to feel good about yourself.
A basic feeling of contentment and fulfillment.
You can’t put yourself in someone else’s shoes by pretending that you agree with their beliefs, prejudices and social conditioning when those things are foreign to you. Much less does it work to adopt false empathy with positions you abhor. Divisions don’t go away as a condition for getting to yes. Instead, they stop being obstacles.
You put yourself in someone else’s shoes by shifting to the needs and wants listed above. They constitute the unspoken agenda in everyone’s life. Once you see that you and the other side share the same needs and wants, you can start to talk about them. Speak about the unspoken, and you will get much further than keeping silent.
I’ve devoted a small space to issues that fill many books, but I think it is necessary to understand that there is a way to clear up the fog of war. War isn’t always conducted with armed weapons. Armed words do the job quite well. If there is to be an end to deep divisiveness, one side must be the first to step up and use the tactics that actually work. The situation can’t be made any simpler than this.
DEEPAK CHOPRA? MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a nonprofit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a modern-day health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 89 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential, unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. For the last thirty years, Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution and his next book, Total Meditation (Harmony Books) will help to achieve new dimensions of stress-free living and joyful living. Time magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”
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