Manipulation: Eight Ways to Control Others

Manipulation: Eight Ways to Control Others: Summary

One word at dinner, and seventeen stab wounds

Picture an ordinary supper in Westphalia. Two people sit at a kitchen table, the soup steaming, the light fading outside. The man is a thirty-four-year-old office worker, his wife twenty-two. And then the woman, just like that over her spoon, lets it drop: her boyfriend has far more stamina in bed. The man grabs a screwdriver and stabs his wife with it seventeen times.

Josef Kirschner puts this horrific story on one of the earliest pages of his book, and not to shock you. He does it because, in his view, these were two people playing against each other, with lethal precision, the exact same game you play with your boss, your mother, the waiter, and your partner, only you never noticed. The single difference is that they didn't know the rules. You're about to learn them.

This book is built around one uncomfortable claim: every human conversation is manipulation. Not the dark, knife-in-the-back kind, but the everyday kind. When someone opens their mouth to speak to you, they have exactly one aim: to get you to do something. Kirschner wrestles with three questions. Why do so many talented, hardworking people fail while others with far smaller gifts get ahead? How do people get you, day after day, to do what you don't actually want to do? And how can you turn the game around so you're the one steering, consciously, skillfully, and with integrity?

The dirty word that's really a skill

Let's stop for a moment at the word "manipulation," because it leaves a bad taste. For most people it means vile deceit, exploitation, an ulterior motive. That's exactly the reflex Kirschner wants to smash. To him, manipulation is a neutral skill, like bookkeeping or a foreign language. It can be learned and practiced, and you either do it well or badly.