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and Other Unsuspecting Adults I want… I need… I would like… Dad, can I go to… Honey, why don’t we… Oh would you get it for me?… Sir, this is very important to me… All right guys, this is what we have to do… Almost every day, we face the challenge of convincing someone else to so something for us that they haven’t thought of or don’t want to do. Manipulating, negotiating, coercing, call it want you like, but we continually find ourselves in situations where we must change another’s attitude or direction. Most people think of manipulation in a very negative sense. Evil, repulsive, a dark art performed by only the most vile and reprehensible of humans. It’s blackmail or bribery. Stealing another’s soul or freedom of choice. But manipulation does have a positive connotation. When you injure you arm, the doctor manipulates the limb to check its soundness and may even manipulate it back into place. All of us possess information, that if known by others, would change their actions or attitudes. The giving of this information, to someone who is unreceptive, in order to change their behavior, is manipulation. The key is to present this information in the best way so as to achieve the desired result. The ideas presented herein are not new or revolutionary. They are as old as mankind, but have been ignored in favor of the Neanderthal vision of conquest by concussion or victory by vandalism. The concept of a reasonable, rational individual voluntarily submitting to the will of another, has not been tried and found wanting, it has been tried, found difficult and left undone. Hence, the win-lose philosophy, which always decomposes into lose-lose, has dominated the manipulation market for millennia. We need to emerge from the Stone Age concepts of behavior and understand how to harness the power of agency and triumph with win-win technics. In this presentation, we explore:
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