Reclaiming Conversation.....

 

Quite by accident rather than design, I came across a book that tells us what we know and yet does so in a particularly persuasive way.  

Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age was written a decade ago - in 2015 - and its relevance is twice (at least) what it was then.  The title, of course, gives it away – in essence, tech has taken over human conversation and it’s not been a happy ending).  

What lends the book heft is the credibility of the author: Sherry Turkle is a clinical psychologist and professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT.  She specializes in human-technology interaction and has written extensively on technology’s problematic effects on human connection (‘Alone Together’ – now that is an interesting title! – was her earlier book).  

The big lesson when we deal with people: reclaim human connection, partly through redeeming the lost art of face-to-face conversation.  When we do not do that, what is lost is the capacity to be patient, to listen, to pay attention and to empathise.  Conversation, says the author, is the most human - and humanising - thing that we do....Conversation cures.

A reviewer of the book wrote this beautiful sentence (in the Frontline):  In our current context (2025), this optimism feels almost absurdly radical.  The idea that people might actually listen to each other, seek understanding before being understood and recognise the humanity of those they disagree with has become more revolutionary than most actual revolutions.  

QED.

This is not to suggest, I think, that humans were good at these traits earlier but we have, in a word, regressed:  a 2010 study led by Prof Sara Konrath at the Univ of Michigan even quantified it to say that college students were (then, in 2010) 40% less empathetic than their equivalents from just a decade ago.  

What does this mean?

A loss of ability to read human emotions, to listen and to sustain meaningful conversation.

Each of these is a stone in the foundation of negotiation.  That matters.   

It Isn't What You Do. It Is Where You Are Now

This is an unusual post and it borrows liberally from other ones.  

On page six of The Washington Post dated 25 October 1911, in an article titled 'Letting Bryan Down Easy' was a quote that would go on to become a classic, relevant for all times, sensible and, hence, contrary to our nature (I mean that).  The quote read: "Nor would a wise man, seeing that he was in a hole, go to work and blindly dig it deeper..."

Seventy two years later, in 1983, a politician named Bill Brock remixed this: "Let me tell you about the law of holes: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging."  

This is the form in which the First Law of Holes has taken shape today.  

(as an aside, there is a Second Law too: "When you stop digging, you are still in a hole.")

This may seem inane and perhaps trite (i.e., boring because it has been quoted so often), but it is true, because the realisation that I am in a hole is one that 

- I might not want to accept (Denial) or 

- might want to fight away (Defiance) or 

- explain away saying that it isn't my fault at all and I can recover lost ground (Defense) or 

- wish away by telling myself to think about it tomorrow (Delay), 

...among other things.  

And I am busy digging, so I continue (perhaps I love the exercise). 

For an excellent case study of how this happens, do read Jordan RothStein's case study of a software project that kept growing.....

https://medium.com/king-tide/the-first-rule-of-holes-6f24b19f3e47

Now for the strategic thinking lesson from the case study (in his words):  The project isn’t working out, let it go, and focus on what is working.  

The Big Lesson: Letting go is a strategic option that should rarely, if ever, be kept aside.

(ps: he has another Law of Holes added, by the way: adding more shovels doesn't help you dig faster.)

In sociology, irrational escalation of commitment or commitment bias describe similar behaviors. The phenomenon and the sentiment underlying them are reflected in such proverbial images as "throwing good money after bad", or "In for a penny, in for a pound" (which is another term for the sunk cost bias), or "It's never the wrong time to make the right decision" - the last phrase suggesting that climbing out of the hole, with an apology and suitable contrition, is often the best course of action.  

There are 2 reasons from this post:  

Reason 1: for some years now, I have been struggling with keeping an otter conservation effort running in the Brahmagiri hill range: more misses than hits, indifference from local stakeholders and the logistical problems on the ground.  When I decided in February this year - more in a fit of petulance - to give the project a break (for a year, two years or more.....), the feeling of relief swept over, of time available to do things I would love to do much more, of not having a feeling of two steps forward and three in retreat.  

And now I wonder why it took so long to look in that convex mirror.......

Reason 2: Have you read this rather unusual book?  Fredrik Backman's books are so unusual anyway.  

Review: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49127718-anxious-people

And somewhere in this book, in a page I read last evening, is this paragraph on digging, deep within the human conscious mind: 

"....One of the most human things about anxiety is that we try to cure chaos with chaos.  Someone who has got themselves into a catastrophic situation rarely retreats from it, we are far more inclined to carry on even faster.  We have created lives where we can watch other people crash into the wall but still hope that somehow we are going to pass straight through it.  The closer we get, the more confidently we believe that some unlikely solution is miraculously going to save us, while everyone watching us is just waiting for the crash."

And I have stories to tell....of men neck down in debt, borrowing more on senseless terms to pay the earlier lenders (and does the name Satyam ring a bell?), of private equity funds putting in good money after bad, of men (again) who run an airline to the ground and - to protect their egos - buy another one that was run to the ground, which adds up to two birds on the ground, none in the bush, of families believing that their child will eventually turn out a genius when evidence shows sandy soil between the ears.....

But I will stop.  You get the picture.  

Dealing with an expert - Do's (esp if he is a painter)

A question that is frequently asked in my Winfluence session on negotiation is this: how do you negotiate with someone who knows his/her subject or product much better than you do, so that you do not get taken for a ride, say, with the price you pay? 

The standard approach is to work down a price from what they quote, without any logic, other than to say, ‘We got another vendor offering this for 25% less.’  This is, frankly, rather silly because I need to pretend that I know something about the product and they need to pretend that I know and I need to pretend that they do not know that I do not know.  You get the gist. 

That brings me to the village house-painter, an unassuming fellow called Susairaj, whom I call Susai.  He is excellent at his work, which means that demand exceeds supply, which means that, if you need him for a (relatively) small job, the odds are not (to put it mildly) stacked in your favour.   The alternative option of a painter is so distressingly poor that I would rather use charcoal on the wall and ask a pan-masala consumer to have a go with his output. 

I am glad to report though that he does turn up to do the work at my village home (a month or two late, but time has always been relative).  To make this sound suitably important, I shall state that I follow four rules of engagement:

-      - Recommend him to others and let him know that I did so

-      - Tell him (more than once) that I am prepared to wait as long as it takes, but will not give the work to anyone else (which is the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth)

-    - Tell him (more than once) that I will not negotiate the price because I trust him totally (which is Half Truth, but I console the brain by arguing that quality has its price).  The fact, incidentally, is that his pricing isn’t absurd, it is a tad higher because he works slower and pays attention to detail. 

-      - Offer him and his crew tea and an above-ordinary snack when they show up.

The Principle of Liking.  There is no better way to influence someone.