From Annie Duke’s book “How to Decide”
When you are trying to get other people’s opinion, don’t tell them your opinion.
- “One of the best tools for improving your decision-making is to get other people’s perspectives. But you can only do that if you get their actual perspective instead of your perspective parroted back to you” (p. 221)
- “The only way somebody can know that they’re disagreeing with you is if they know what you think first. Keeping that to yourself when you elicit feedback makes it more likely that what they say is actually what they believe.” (p. 225)
- “Beliefs are contagious. Informing somebody of your belief before they give their feedback significantly increases the likelihood that they will express the same belief back to you.” (p. 241)
Don’t tell people outcomes.
- “Just as you can infect somebody’s feedback by letting them know your opinion, you can also infect their feedback if you tell them how it turned out.” (p. 226)
Be careful how your frame questions.
- “You want to be careful about the way that you frame the question, because the frame you choose can signal whether you have a positive or negative view about what you’re trying to get feedback on. Try to stay in a neutral frame as possible.” (p. 227)
Don’t use the word “disagree”. Use the word “diverge.”
- The word “disagree” has very negative connotations. If you call someone “disagreeable,” you’re not saying something nice about them. You might have noticed that I’ve been using the term “diverge” rather than “disagree,” and that’s on purpose. It has a more neutral connotation. Using the terms “divergence” or “dispersion” of opinion instead of “disagreement” is a more neutral way of talking about places where people’s opinions differ, allowing you to better wrap your arms around disagreement.” (p. 228)