The Fourth Law of Trust: The trick of earning trust is to avoid all tricks.

The Eighth Law of Trust: Never promise anything.

THE PRINCIPLE OF LEAST REGRET: THE NINTH LAW OF PRICING Through discussions with Judy, I arrived at the principle by which I now set all fees in new situations. I call this Ninth Law of Pricing my Principle of Least Regret: Set the price so you won't regret it either way. When I set a fee, there are two possibilities: One is that the client will ac

At times I can circumvent the subconscious defenses by saying, "I know you can't think of anything you'd like to change about this plan, but if you could think of something, what would it be?" At least half the time, this paradoxical question gets right to the core of the matter. It does so because paradox is the language of the subconsci

Improvement is easier than perfection, and as the Chinese say, the best is the enemy of the good.

If you can't think of three things that might go wrong with your plans, then there's something wrong with your thinking. The Rule of Three can be used to check any thinking

around from change to constancy, that is, from what clients want to happen to what they don't want to happen: I ask a question such as, "As we implement this plan, what is the one thing you want to be sure doesn't change?" If I remember to ask this question before I start rattling off plans for change, I may avoid resistance altogether.

According to legend, Henry Ford was once interviewed by Congress on the question of how to prevent river pollution caused by industrial plants. Ford pooh-poohed all the complex legislation that Congress was considering, proposing instead a single law that would "end river pollution once and for all." Congress didn't pass the law, but its

consultant uses missing elements as a guide to action. Other actions might be triggered when the consultant notices, for example, that there are no women in an organization or no people between the ages of 35 and 50, that the project leader shows no regret when talking about people who have left, or that nobody ever talks about the training departm