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ASSERTIVE MOTIVATOR - SKILL 4 OF 4

4. Negative Inquiry.   The fourth assertion skill, Negative Inquiry, carries the usefulness of Negative Assertion one step farther, by asking the critic to elaborate on the complaint or reservation he has about you. In Negative Inquiry, you don't stop by saying, "Yeah, I really messed up." You press your critic for details: "You could be right about that. What is it particularly you don't like about the way I handled this job?"

Negative Inquiry, a particularly powerful way to consolidate your position by seeming to deny it, builds on many of the principles I've already introduced in this book. In asking the critic for details about your behavior, it is an example of the Pinpointing technique. In tacitly (or vocally) suggesting that you agree with the critic's point, it performs the validating function that is so important in Reflective Listening skills. And in asking for elaboration, it allows both Sender and Receiver, with the technique of Open-Ended Questioning, to clarify the overall situation and get closer to mutual solutions.
Mutual solutions. That means solutions where there is Involvement and ownership, and respect among all the people concerned with the achievement of a common end. Those are the only solutions, as I've pointed out throughout this book, that have any chance of long-term survival. They're the only kind of solutions you can get your people up for. This point, of course, relates not just to Negative Inquiry, but to all four of the assertiveness skills, and to the Reflective Listening skills that I talked about in the previous chapter. I've spoken of good listening and good assertiveness as two "halves" of the same large interactional skill package. The final goal of these two halves is the same. It's to enhance communication, so that you can develop with everyone you talk to that condition of active interchange  that  is  essential  to  all  motivation and all performance.

Of course, a lot of what I've been saying in this and the previous chapter is as relevant in family life and general social life as it is in business settings. Making sure that you're "right" first by listening, and then "going ahead" by straightforward assertion - those two skills comprise a large part of good motivation in all these settings. Unfortunately, many people remain convinced - in spite of vast experience to the contrary - that the only way to get somebody to do what you want is to yell at him or threaten him into compliance. The lesson of the past two chapters is that a far more efficient way of motivating people into appropriate action is first to listen to what they have to tell you, and then to tell them what you want in a direct, non-defensive, non-threatening manner. That doesn't guarantee you'll always get your way. But it does minimize the chances that you will spend countless hours of bitterness and recrimination going at each other like butting rams.

This is important anywhere, but it's especially crucial in team settings - as you'll see in the following section.

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