Think Again

THE SCIENCE OF THE DEAL
A few years ago a former student named Jamie called me for advice on
where to go to business school. Since she was already well on her way to
building a successful career, I told her it was a waste of time and money. I
walked her through the lack of evidence that a graduate degree would make
a tangible difference in her future, and the risk that she’d end up
overqualified and underexperienced. When she insisted that her employer
expected an MBA for promotions, I told her that I knew of exceptions and
pointed out that she probably wouldn’t spend her whole career at that firm
anyway. Finally, she hit back: “You’re a logic bully!”
A what?
“A logic bully,” Jamie repeated. “You just overwhelmed me with
rational arguments, and I don’t agree with them, but I can’t fight back.”
At first I was delighted by the label. It felt like a solid description of
one of my roles as a social scientist: to win debates with the best data. Then
Jamie explained that my approach wasn’t actually helpful. The more
forcefully I argued, the more she dug in her heels. Suddenly I realized I had
instigated that same kind of resistance many times before.

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David Sipress/The New Yorker Collection/The Cartoon Bank; © Condé Nast
Growing up, I was taught by my karate sensei never to start a fight
unless I was prepared to be the only one standing at the end. That’s how I
approached debates at work and with friends: I thought the key to victory
was to go into battle armed with airtight logic and rigorous data. The harder
I attacked, though, the harder my opponents fought back. I was laser-
focused on convincing them to accept my views and rethink theirs, but I
was coming across like a preacher and a prosecutor. Although those
mindsets sometimes motivated me to persist in making my points, I often
ended up alienating my audience. I was not winning.
For centuries, debating has been prized as an art form, but there’s now
a growing science of how to do it well. In a formal debate your goal is to
change the mind of your audience. In an informal debate, you’re trying to
change the mind of your conversation partner. That’s a kind of negotiation,
where you’re trying to reach an agreement about the truth. To build my
knowledge and skills about how to win debates, I studied the psychology of

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negotiations and eventually used what I’d learned to teach bargaining skills
to leaders across business and government. I came away convinced that my
instincts—and what I’d learned in karate—were dead wrong.
A good debate is not a war. It’s not even a tug-of-war, where you can
drag your opponent to your side if you pull hard enough on the rope. It’s
more like a dance that hasn’t been choreographed, negotiated with a partner
who has a different set of steps in mind. If you try too hard to lead, your