He was always right

 

It is quite normal, during the course of our everyday lives, to find occasions in which other people disagree with us.

Sadly, some form of disagreement is often at the basis of violence, family disruptions and other unfortunate event.

I do not wish to address those circumstances, rather I would like to share a few steps one can try to follow to overcome an objection at work. This could be from a boss, an employee, a current or potential customer.

To a certain extend, this type of topic belongs to the old art of rhetoric, and ample volumes of books have been written on the subject. For example, one of the best readings I have ever had the opportunity to come across is “The Art of Being Right” by Arthur Schopenhauer.

I should state upfront that the most basic mistake, and the biggest obstacle to overcoming an objection, is to immediately, strongly and clearly, disagreeing.

Saying: “No you are wrong” almost never works.  It will only make the other person dig even more into his or her mental tranches.

Obviously, if it is about an immediately clear fact (eg. someone saying “today is Sunday on a Wednesday”) or if the person reports to you and you do not care at all about them; well then you can disagree and nothing happens, other than possibly some resentment, disrespect and other effects.  However, this post is more about a more complex situation, with an objection, more or less substantiated, coming from a person we cannot simply “dismiss”.

In my experience, I have used a simpler formula, based on four key steps, which seems to work quite well.

 

I will walk through the four steps whilst providing an example.  For instance, you might hold the point of view that the only way to grow profit in a sustainable way is through investment to increase revenue, and your opponents is instead calling for a rapid axing of the sales force in a company.  His argument might be: “Anther month of low profit.  If we cut 20 sales people in the lowest performing areas we can immediately save a lot of money”.

Step 1: Acknowledgement and active listening

The first step in overcoming an objection is to demonstrate to the person you are talking to that you are actually listening.  Repeating, clearly and out loud, what the other person is saying has two advantages,  Firstly, you can actually make sure your understanding of the objection is correct.  Secondly, it can immediately defuse part of the heat in an argument, make it more rational, because your interlocutor will feel recognised.  I find it is particularly effective to say: “do you mind if I restate what you are saying in my own words to make sure I understand correctly?” and then actually doing that, in a very honest and open matter.  It is very important this step is completed – ie you both are clear what the point of view for debate is – before moving to step 2.

Going back to the live example, your first step in this conversation could therefore be: “If I understand you well, you believe that the most effective way to increase profit is to reduce costs, and more specifically to reduce the cost of sales by reducing the number of sales people in our organisation”.

Step 2: Finding a common ground

Step 2 commences to build some empathy in your “opponent”, and it consists in finding a fact – or an opinion – we both agree upon.  Clearly, this need to be related to the topic in discussion, not an agreement on what day of the week it is.  It would be perfect if this common ground element is part of the proposition as per step one.

As in the example I am using, the follow on statement would be: “I agree with you that unless we fix profits, this organisation is not sustainable in the long-term.  And we both recognise we care about the structural sustainability of our profits.  Profit is our priority”.  Typically, the other person would find this statement acceptable.

The advantage of creating a common ground is not only because it is a necessary preparation to step 3, it also matters because it further puts the opponent at ease – after all, you are not just disagreeing with him; you do have a common point of view…

Step 3: Using the common ground to build a bridge to your argument

A critical step, this relates to the ability to connect to the common ground and build an incontrovertible statement upon it, a statement – however – that starts to swing the conversation in your direction.  It could be a factual observation (like the result of a research), it could be a mathematical conclusion, or a strong logical link.  But it needs to be closely grounded to the common ground.

Let’s continue with the example.  A way to build the bridge could be to say: “Market research shows that our product is better than that of competition, yet our prices are lower, because we spend less in advertising and our salespeople are fewer than competitors, so they visit the customers less often.  Since profit is really revenue minus costs, we need to consider whether we are more likely to grow profit – which is really our common goal isn’t it?”

Step 4: counterarguments and closure

In this final step, we can try to use the preparation we did in the previous steps to express our point of view.  Hopefully, our logic is strong enough to win our opponent over.  Or at least to consider an alternative, examine more the situation.  And even if this does not happen to a full extent, by following these steps we can at least express our point of view without having a strong confrontation or immediate / hostile closure.

For example: “since we both care about profit, I think we should consider spending more in advertising to make our better product known to our customers.  I am afraid that if we reduce our sales force now it will be even harder to exploit our competitive advantage.  Even if we might see an immediate lift in profits, I am afraid it would be short-lived and we might incur even bigger losses in the near future”.

I am not sure if the example is fully realistic and clear, but I have used the four steps many times, and it has worked well for me.  As I said, I did not revert the situation all the times, but at least I was heard, I tried and I did so without raising unnecessarily the tension.

To recap:

Step 1: Acknowledgement and active listening

Step 2: Finding a common ground

Step 3: Using the common ground to build a bridge to your argument

Step 4: counterarguments and closure