Berger: Clear asks require sticking strictly to facts and direct observations
Kenneth Berger · Why not asking for what you want is holding you back | Kenneth Berger (exec coach, first PM @Slack) · May 19, 2024 · at 40:19
Executive coach Kenneth Berger explains the common principle behind effective communication frameworks like Stanford's Touchy Feely course, Nonviolent Communication, and DBT.
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“There's kind of rough consensus, you know, in, in the sort of personal development world of how to ask, and really what they have in common is around kind of staying really factual, because, you know, I think that, you know, what can we know factually? Well, we can know our thoughts, we can know our feelings, because no one else can know that better than us, and maybe we can trust our eyes, right? Like, you know, what would a video camera have recorded, right? And that's about it. And so I think often we get really distracted by all these stories we have about the data, but when we bring it back to that fundamental core of this is what I think, this is what I feel, this is what I've observed in the world, it tends to make the ask a lot clearer versus these stories like you mentioned of, you know, I feel like you're an asshole, right? It's like, well, that's a story. That's not a fact.”
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