Counseling for More Progress
your Saturday roundup
Professionally, I focus on creating social benefit startups. In my Saturday morning emails I share what I’m learning and thinking. Topics range from better living and parenting to business and philosophy.
Getting More. I’ve started rereading my favorite book on negotiation. Getting More is a practical and comprehensive model that emphasizes the human element without letting go of Game Theory. For example, it emphasizes building rapport first and making emotional payments like complementing your negotiating partner. It includes classic advice like applying principles that the other party cares about to frame your argument, adding dimensions to the conversation to enable a more creative solution, and negotiating the process of negotiating. One recommendation that I had not seen elsewhere is to sometimes admit weakness and give yourself an out based on it. So many goodies! I’ve gotten a lot out of the book. For example, I used the methods in the book to settle a multi-million dollar lawsuit when the mediator was pushing us just to haggle. What’s your favorite negotiation book or course?
Error Correction. As Enlightenment Now argues, humans have improved our lives in many areas and the way to keep progressing is to continue the tradition of reason, science and humanism. Now comes the argument that epistemology and morality merge in highly valuing means of error correction. We will always be wrong. How can we find our errors and replace them with better wrong theories? We may not be able to find the bedrock of rational justified beliefs or update our way to truth but if given the chance we can continue to improve our understanding through criticism and creatively proposing new theories. We can continue this improvement as long as we preserve our error correcting tools: free speech (and science), democracy and capitalism. What’s missing in this vision? How would you criticize it?.
Admission Counselors. This is a topic in parent conversations and not sure what to think. What’s your take on private paid admission counselors or standardized test prep courses for your children? Choose one:
Good way to find best fit school and navigate a complicated process
Regrettable fact of life given competition for inherently scare spots at top educational institutions
Must have for anyone who can afford it
To be avoided as it doesn’t make much difference to admission rates anyway and furthermore raises stress levels
Unfair advantage for those with more money
Some combination of the above
Other: _________
Until next time,
Miles