Them: “Oh, it’s nothing really.”
You: “No, this is important, let’s make sure we get this
right.”
Them: “Thanks, I appreciate it.”
This is the way to make sure your agreement gets
implemented with no surprises. And your counterpart will
be grateful. Your act of recognizing the incongruence and
gently dealing with it through a label will make them feel
respected. Consequently, your relationship of trust will be
improved.
THE RULE OF THREE
I’m positive that sometime in your life you’ve been
involved in a negotiation where you got a “Yes” that later
turned out to be a “No.” Maybe the other party was lying to
you, or maybe they were just engaged in wishful thinking.
Either way, this is not an uncommon experience.
This happens because there are actually three kinds of
“Yes”: Commitment, Confirmation, and Counterfeit.
As we discussed in Chapter 5, so many pushy salesman
try to trap their clients into the Commitment “Yes” that
many people get very good at the Counterfeit “Yes. “
One great tool for avoiding this trap is the Rule of Three.
The Rule of Three is simply getting the other guy to
agree to the same thing three times in the same
conversation. It’s tripling the strength of whatever dynamic
you’re trying to drill into at the moment. In doing so, it
uncovers problems before they happen. It’s really hard to