I have some reputation for stepping into a negotiation room and walking out generally successful.
One day, a team member said, "You are great at manipulation. You get people to say yes to you very easily."
Her statement stayed with me for a long time. Manipulation and gameplay are behaviours that i left behind, consciously, after reading Dr. Eric Bern's Games People Play - not because politics is bad in itself but because i realised that gameplay is not who I am. It has been a lonely ride, but since making that resolve, every single one of my friendships has been emotionally mature and very rewarding. When i encounter gameplay, i step away consciously and allow the person to continue on their journey.
So, here are my thoughts:
The output of getting a successful negotiation might look like manipulation, but manipulators rarely get good negotiation results. To be a good negotiator, you have to:
A. Think Win-win. You truly have to believe that two people are at a table because each has something the other wants, and they will both be the richer/better for it. People who think in terms of zero sum games execute zero sum settlements, and those rarely work in the long term.
B. Be selfless and impartial - a good negotiator needs to be inherently selfless. The reason i get results is that i constantly think of the greater good and inspire everyone else at the table to draw their eyes to the horizon that is larger than our view. If I take sides (even though I am sitting on one of the two sides), then somehow the conversation is sub par and not as productive.
Knowing what we want is important, but knowing what the other person wants and how they will benefit from it is even more important.
And then, on further thinking, I arrived at this - What I do is not manipulation. I get people to accept my ideas, so it might look like manipulation to the onlooker. But the core motivation and the psychological processes behind that action are diametrically opposite of manipulation. And this distinction is so important that i am spending a beautiful Fall day writing about it here instead of being out on the road.
What I do is called Empathic Conversations - I put myself in the shoes of the other person and think - What does this person want? What are they looking for? What is their real need? My motivation is not to twist that information around to get them to give me what i want. it is to ensure that in any interaction with me, their real needs get met.
Let's take an example. A 20-year-old gets asked at home - "Beta, what is AI?"
Here is how he responds -
To dada: Dadu, imagine all the world's knowledge is put in a single computer. Then we assign a librarian like program to that computer. Now, suppose you want to know anything. So you ask the librarian program, and it will find the information you want. It will give it to you in a way you like. So you dont have to read multiple things to learn what you want to learn.
To Dadi: Dadi, all the things you wanted to say, but had no one to tell, you can tell to this computer. It will give you advice like your sisters used to. It will understand your personality, your relatives and family, and it will talk to you. For your physical symptoms also, it will help you do some quick diagnosis if you want.
To dad: Dad, think of AI as the skill everyone needs to learn to get a job. Like Microsoft Office. It is like a supercomputer put in the hands of every laptop user. like if i want to know what advice will a stock broker give me about an upcoming IPO, i dont have to look for a stokebroker. I will ask the AI to assume the role of, say, Anand Rathi, or Rekha Jhunjhunwala, and give advice.
To mom: Mom, think of it like this - you have a friend. That friend knows everything about you and about your family. It knows how you feel about everyone. It talks to you, it learns from you. It learns to understand your moods, your needs. It also answers your questions quickly. It does not leave u dependant on anyone for anything. You can train an agent to set reminders for you instead of remembering everything yourself. If you are wondering how to handle a friend, you can discuss it with this. It talks like a person, but is not a person. It moulds itself to your personality, your talking style, your everything.
Now, look at what the child has done - to each stakeholder, it has given the information that makes AI relevant to them. There is no jargon, though he has explained the essential themes of reinforcement learning, massive training datasets, job viability of AI skills, agentic AI, etc.
But this is not manipulation. Why?
A. The motivation- There is no ulterior motive to be liked, to appear like an expert. Could the child have answered like this: Dadu, its a very technical thing. Massive datasets, reinforcement learning, tasks, reward rigging, bahut kuchh hota hai. Very high tech skills are needed to use AI? - Yes, they could have answered this way. It would have impressed everyone. Would it have been useful? No. The child takes away their need to appear important and comes down to ask - How can i help this person understand?
B. The psychological process - the core psychological process is empathy. While the question from each family member is the same- What is AI? The real question is - What is AI TO ME? The child's psychological process is to understand the information need and then to meet it using words and concepts that are familiar to each user. That is personalised communication coming from a place of understanding and empathy.
The outcome is the same - the child is now well liked. But they did not start off wanting to be well liked. They started off wanting to help.
