Our job as persuaders is easier than we think. It’s not to
get others believing what we say. It’s just to stop them
unbelieving. Once we achieve that, the game’s half-won.
“Unbelief is the friction that keeps persuasion in check,”
Dutton says. “Without it, there’d be no limits.”
Giving your counterpart the illusion of control by asking
calibrated questions—by asking for help—is one of the most
powerful tools for suspending unbelief. Not long ago, I read
this great article in the New York Times^2 by a medical
student who was faced with a patient who had ripped out his
IV, packed his bags, and was making a move to leave
because his biopsy results were days late and he was tired of
waiting.
Just then a senior physician arrived. After calmly
offering the patient a glass of water and asking if they could
chat for a minute, he said he understood why the patient was
pissed off and promised to call the lab to see why the results
were delayed.
But what he did next is what really suspended the
patient’s unbelief: he asked a calibrated question—what he
felt was so important about leaving—and then when the
patient said he had errands to handle, the doctor offered to
connect the patient with services that could help him get
them done. And, boom, the patient volunteered to stay.
What’s so powerful about the senior doctor’s technique
is that he took what was a showdown—“I’m going to leave”
versus “You can’t leave”—and asked questions that led the
patient to solve his own problem . . . in the way the doctor