Kenneth Berger: preference

Transcript context

…So let's actually get into the skill of learning how to actually ask for what you want more effectively. You already described three steps, so maybe just describe them again and let's just walk through them. The first step is articulating what you want. And we've gone into this a little bit, but to me, I think that the key places that people tend to have missteps here, or one in this phrase, it's fine. I think of the "it's fine" cartoon with the flames and the dog, I think it is. But I think a lot of us fall into that trap of saying, "You know what? I'm fine. I actually, I don't need anything. I'm good." And again, this is tempting, right? Because it's so nice to have this idea that I'm fine, I don't need anything. And in a certain way, that's a nice attitude because yeah, we're not guaranteed anything, so it's nice to be okay with the status quo. But for those folks, often what I'm encouraging that do is to really tune into the parts of them that maybe aren't so fine like, "Gosh, I'd prefer it a little bit if things were this way or yeah, I'm a little bit bothered by this, or I'm a little bit nervous about this." And so kind of tuning more into those subtle emotions that are pointing them towards, "Sure, I'm okay with the status quo, but I want something more." And so helping them articulate that in a clearer way where they can want something without being attached to having to get it. The other extreme of this is people who articulate these sort of wildly unrealistic goals. So this is the founder that just wants everyone to agree with him all the time and to obey him immediately. So for those folks, it really tends to be more about saying it out loud. Once you say it out loud, it is clearer. That's not really what it's about. And so for those folks, I tend to ask them to go deeper to say, "Yeah, I know you're not a control freak. You don't want everyone to think exactly what you think. What's it really about? What does that get you? " And so often it goes from being this more kind of objective external goal to being a more kind of social emotional goal of, "You know what, I just want to have a team that feels really aligned around me and we're just ready to go for it and we've got each other's backs." That doesn't mean we agree with each other all the time or that we're a hundred percent aligned in everything, but it doesn't mean there's a certain feeling that I have when I go into work. Even though I don't know that we're going to get what we want or that everyone is going to agree. Do you have any examples from your time you could share of someone articulating what they want and figuring out how they articulate, how to articulate what they want just to make it even more real?…

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