Understand Their Values
When I talk to other people, the question I’m constantly trying to answer is: What do they value? Answering this question, or rather, constructing several hypotheses about the many potential answers is the key to social intelligence and winning over people.
Example: My colleague Chad just celebrated his 3 year wedding anniversary. His wife and him went to an expensive meal. He had explained before that he was looking forward to the swordfish, so I asked him, “did you try the swordfish?” He said he had and then went into detail about the way the fish was cooked, the texture of the fish, the pickled onions it was served on, and the wine pairing he had with it.
Hypothesis: Chad likes good food. This is an okay hypothesis, but doesn’t tell me anything about Chad that I can infer outside of dining experiences. It opens up conversations about food with Chad, but doesn’t tell me about his character
Hypothesis: Chad likes rich experiences. This is much better. It opens up loads of conversations, enables me to talk about my own rich experiences, and to ask him about experiences he’s had in the past and experiences he is looking forward to in the future. Instead of slating Chad as the food guy—he is the food guy, but he’s more than that—I can now win Chad over on any topic that plays to his value of compelling experiences.
Open questions: Does Chad appreciate hearing about other’s experiences? Or does Chad just like reliving his own experiences? Does Chad like how he’s seen when he describes great experiences (Is this an ego thing?) or is Chad just excited about fun things and wants others to be excited with him?
The open questions are the next step in winning over someone. They are the new value questions you are looking to answer. They will provide the texture to understanding who Chad is, what he desires and cares about, both overtly and unconsciously. At first, constructing this layered model of a person can be challenging, so seek to hypothesize about the widest, most influential value a person holds. That will get 80% of the work done. Once you have that understood, then layering on details becomes easier.
