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Issue #15

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From Confrontation to Collaboration: Making Discussions Productive with the Strategic Concession Technique

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Dear Readers,

We've all encountered people with whom productive discussions seem nearly impossible. They tend to take every counterpoint as a personal attack, becoming so defensive that they practically close themselves off to any new input.

The curious thing is that they often don't see themselves this way at all - in their minds, they're simply being thorough or experienced.

Sounds familiar?

Most of us have worked with colleagues like this, and some have even reported to managers with this tendency. The question becomes: how do you have productive discussions with people who seem to reject ideas simply because they didn't come up with them?

Modern management advice hasn't quite solved this puzzle, so let's turn to someone who truly mastered the art of difficult conversations 2,000 years ago.

Cicero's Solution: Concessio - The Strategic Concession Technique

Cicero, Roman politician and one of the greatest orators of his time, developed a technique called Concessio - the art of strategic concession, i.e. lose the battle, win the war.

You concede a point of little relevance to make them agreeable, which in turn makes them open to persuasion.

You see, the core challenge of dealing with such people is that their guard walls are raised so high up, that any idea, no matter how good, can not get by.

Therefore, we must first lower their defences by conceding a small point to them by agreeing with them or by accepting their suggestion on some small matter. This does three things:

a) It subtly sends the message that you respect and hear them
b) That you are a fair person, open to counterpoints, and
c) That this is about collaborating to win together, rather than a confrontation where one must come on top of the other.

This foments feelings of reciprocity - fairness begets fairness, and makes them more open to discussion.

How It Works in Practice

A Product Manager I know had a disagreement with his designer on certain UI aspects, and the discussion seemed to be going nowhere. So he agreed to one of the designer's proposals, lauded it for his creativity, then proposed that his main requirement be completed, with full autonomy to the designer on how he wanted to execute it.

This melted the designer's resistance quickly, and the discussion became collaborative, followed by a successful feature release.

Why This Works

The technique succeeds because it addresses the underlying issue - these defensive individuals aren't necessarily opposed to good ideas. They're often just concerned about feeling diminished or overlooked.

By conceding a smaller point first, you:

• Validate their expertise without surrendering your main objective
• Demonstrate fairness which triggers their reciprocal instincts
• Reframe the discussion from adversarial to collaborative

The beauty is that you're not being manipulative - you're genuinely acknowledging their valid concerns while creating space for your solution.

Your Next Difficult Conversation

The next time you find yourself facing a defensive colleague, resist the urge to push harder with facts and logic. Instead, find something in their position that you can genuinely agree with, concede that point gracefully, and then build your case from there.

The goal isn't to "win" the argument - it's to win their collaboration. And as Cicero understood, sometimes the best way to advance your position is to strategically yield the smaller battle to win the larger war.

That's all for this email.
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If you found it interesting, share it with one person who might find it helpful.
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Until next time,
The Rhetorician
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