Long, long ago - before internet, electricity and paved roads - most grocery stores had a butcher in the back….maybe some still do…. and you could get chicken necks for free since they were just going to throw them away…. I know you already asking, what the hell am I going to do with a chicken neck? Just hold on, I will get to that ……..
…. within minutes of being born each of us started trying to convince other people to do something for us……it began with just being fed…..and it continued and grew from there …..
Sometimes it is very small things….getting the cab driver to go a bit slower…. asking a friend to help you move furniture…..
Sometimes it is very big, serious things…. negotiating to buy a house….convincing an aging parent to move into a new home……
every day we are trying to persuade someone to do something we want ……… and somehow success, however we define it for ourselves, can be largely determined by how good we are at persuading others…… negotiating to get what we want….
Now of course there is an entire science of persuasion ….. and I guess it is useful … certainly the classic book Getting to YES provides a powerful way of thinking about negotiation….
And of course the clever movie Thank You for Smoking had the insightful exchange–
“Why are we arguing!?”
“Oh, This isn’t an argument – this is just a negotiation…..”
Tom Sawyer provided us with a model for persuasion when he masterfully convinced (manipulated? conned?) his friends into whitewashing the fence for him…..But the best lesson I personally learned about persuasion was with a chicken neck…..
I was on vacation near Pawleys Island in South Carolina and my brother-in-law Garry takes a group of us to go catch crabs….. so we go to a tidal marsh ….. and you start with a chicken neck…. You tie a string around the neck and throw it out into the water… say 10-15 feet from the shoreline and 2 feet deep……..and you leave it there say 5 -10 minutes….. somehow the crabs find it (can crabs smell??) and start chewing away…….
……and then you slowly start pulling the string in…. so slowly that the crabs just keep enjoying that delicious raw chicken…. and don’t notice that the chicken neck is moving……you finesse it and keep pulling it in very gradually….stop for a few minutes… and then slowly start pulling it in again…. Stop…and gently start again….slowly pulling it in until the neck – and the crabs – are right there next to the shore in 4” of water…. And then you take a net and move in very slowly and then when the net is right at the surface of the water – you pounce quickly and scoop them up !!!!
It is very cool….(you can see a demo here) Everybody caught lots of nice crabs… …except me…… I was coming up empty … and when I did catch a crab they were very tiny…… the others did 3 things very differently….
- Initially they left the chicken neck in place long enough for the crabs to really start chowing down… I always started pulling too soon
- They pulled the string very slowly - I pulled the string too fast… the big crabs got suspicious when their chicken neck moved…. And once the crab has been spooked once, they are not so easily fooled next time….
- I moved in too quickly with the net… when the crabs are in just 4” of water they can see the sudden movement and scamper back into deeper water
So now when I find myself struggling to persuade others, I think maybe I need to…. Get a chicken neck….be more patient to start …. pull the string a bit slower…. and not move too quickly to close the deal…….
Just some thoughts…..