interactions with such nice people, especially when they may be offering
us the best available deal.
I would recommend a different reaction. If our answer to the crucial
question is “Yes, under the circumstances, I like this guy peculiarly
well,” this should be the signal that the time has come for a quick
countermaneuver: Mentally separate Dan from that Chevy or Toyota
he’s trying to sell. It is vital to remember at this point that, should we
decide for Dan’s car, we will be driving it, not him, off the dealership
lot. It is irrelevant to a wise automobile purchase that we find Dan
likable because he is good-looking, claims an interest in our favorite
hobby, is funny, or has relatives back where we grew up.
Our proper response, then, is a conscious effort to concentrate exclus-
ively on the merits of the deal and car Dan has for us. Of course, in
making a compliance decision, it is always a good idea to keep separate
our feelings about the requester and the request. But once immersed in
even a brief personal and sociable contact with a requester, that distinc-
tion is easy to forget. In those instances when we don’t care one way
or the other about a requester, forgetting to make the distinction won’t
steer us very far wrong. The big mistakes are likely to come when we
are fond of the person making a request.
That’s why it is so important to be alert to a sense of undue liking for
a compliance practitioner. The recognition of that feeling can serve as
our reminder to separate the dealer from the merits of the deal and to
make our decision based on considerations related only to the latter.
Were we all to follow this procedure, I am certain we would be much
more pleased with the results of our exchanges with compliance profes-
sionals—though I suspect that Dealin’ Dan would not.
READER’S REPORTFrom a Chicago Man
“Although I’ve never been to a Tupperware party, I recognized the
same kind of friendship pressures recently when I got a call from a
long-distance-phone-company saleswoman. She told me that one of
my buddies had placed my name on something called the MCI Friends
and Family Calling Circle.
“This friend of mine, Brad, is a guy I grew up with but who moved
to New Jersey last year for a job. He still calls me pretty regularly to get
the news on the guys we used to hang out with from the neighborhood.
The saleswoman told me that he can save twenty percent on all the calls
he makes to the people on his Calling Circle list, provided that they are
MCI-phone-company subscribers. Then she asked me if I wanted to
Robert B. Cialdini Ph.D / 155