The 50th Law (with 50 Cent)

Intelligence.
When you disagree with another person and impose
your contrary opinion, you are implying that you know better, that you
have thought things through more rationally. People challenged in this
way will then naturally become even more attached to their opinions.
You can prevent this by being more neutral, as if this opposing idea is
simply something you are entertaining and it could be wrong. But
better still, you can go much further: you see their point of view and
agree with it. (Winning arguments is rarely worth the effort.) With
their intelligence flattered, you now have some room to gently alter
their opinion or have lowered their defenses for a request for help.
The nineteenth-century British prime minister and novelist
Benjamin Disraeli conceived of an even cleverer ploy when he wrote,

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“If you wish to win a man’s heart, allow him to confute you.” You do
this by beginning to disagree with a target about a subject, even with
some vehemence, and then slowly come to seeing their point of view,
thereby confirming not only their intelligence but also their own
powers of influence. They feel ever so slightly superior to you, which is
precisely what you want. They will now be doubly vulnerable to a
countermove of your own. You can create a similar effect by asking
people for advice. The implication is that you respect their wisdom and
experience.
In 1782 the French playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de
Beaumarchais put the finishing touches on his great masterpiece The
Marriage of Figaro. The approval of King Louis XVI was required, and
when he read the manuscript, he was furious. Such a play would lead
to a revolution, he said: “This man mocks everything that must be
respected in a government.” After much pressure he agreed to have it
privately performed in a theater at Versailles. The aristocratic audience
loved it. The king allowed more performances, but he directed his
censors to get their hands on the script and alter its worst passages
before it was presented to the public.
To bypass this, Beaumarchais commissioned a tribunal of
academics, intellectuals, courtiers, and government ministers to go
over the play with him. A man who attended the meeting wrote, “M. de
Beaumarchais announced that he would submit unreservedly to every
cut and change that the gentlemen and even the ladies present might
deem appropriate. . . . Everyone wanted to add something of his
own. . . . M. de Breteuil suggested a witticism, Beaumarchais accepted
it and thanked him. . . . ‘It will save the fourth act.’ Mme de Matignon
contributed the color of the little page’s ribbon. The color was adopted
and became fashionable.”
Beaumarchais was indeed a very clever courtier. By allowing others
to make even the smallest changes to his masterpiece, he greatly
flattered their egos and their intelligence. Of course, on the larger
changes later requested by Louis’s censors, Beaumarchais did not
relent. By then he had so won over the members of his own tribunal
that they stridently defended him, and Louis had to back down.
Lowering people’s defenses in this way on matters that are not so
important will give you great latitude to move them in the direction
you desire and get them to concede to your desires on more important
matters.

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