Chapter 29 8. Use the W-shaped method to solve problems

When you encounter difficulties and problems, you should be indomitable and never give up until you reach your goal.It's a good spirit.However, the specific process of solving problems does not mean rushing forward blindly at all times, and not knowing how to turn back when you hit the south wall.Sometimes, you have to give special attention to quitting.Being able to advance and retreat is a kind of complete wisdom. In the course of Ten Wisdoms of Solving Problems Efficiently, I summarized a W-type thinking method that retreats into progress. The structure of W is the most vivid illustration of the characteristics of this kind of thinking. The apex in the middle can be regarded as a new starting point reached after going through all kinds of hardships, or a partial success that may be achieved through hard work. The vertex on the right cannot be moved smoothly, on the contrary, it has to fall into the trough again, and then curve up.

(1) Give the right to the other party first In order to let you have a deep understanding of W-type thinking, let’s look at the experience of an outstanding student who participated in our training. Ms. Hu is a life insurance consultant of a foreign insurance company.The insurance industry is a very challenging industry.Now some customers, when they hear the word "insurance", they will have negative thoughts at first, and even avoid seeing them.However, Ms. Hu can get rid of this negative influence of others. How did she create this miracle? Once, a friend introduced the CEO of an enterprise to Ms. Hu. From the general situation, he was a good sales target, and this friend also made a good connection, and the boss agreed to meet her.

Miss Hu went excitedly.Unexpectedly, as soon as he saw this boss, he immediately gave her a blow.Say: You are so young, beautiful, and highly educated.What are you doing wrong?I just want to do insurance.I didn't find out what's so good about insurance?At least I never buy insurance. As soon as the basin of cold water was poured down, Miss Hu's heart immediately became cold.She understood: it turned out that others agreed to see her for no other reason, but just for the sake of friends, and they had to see her.But he is a person who absolutely does not want to buy insurance! After receiving such a cold reception, should I go home?No, as a spiritual need, it is definitely not possible to regress.However, as a strategy, she must retreat appropriately.

She adjusted her mood, and said to the boss with a smile on her face: You are so right, it touched my heart!The boss was stunned: I refused you because I didn't want to buy insurance. How can I say it too right? But see the little nonsense: You are quite right.I am young, not ugly, and have a high degree of education.How did you get into the insurance industry?I was introduced to this industry by a friend.Been doing this for a while and am getting conflicted.Since you mentioned the advantages of insurance, that's great. I want you to help me sum it up: what are the disadvantages of insurance?I can use this as a basis for whether I want to work in this industry.Immediately afterwards, she took out a notebook and began to record.

Seeing that she was so pious, the boss began to talk about the bad things about insurance one by one, and there were four in total.After talking about the four items, I can’t say anything more.Plus seeing such a cute girl in front of him, it shouldn't be too much.So, I just said: Of course, insurance is not bad.It also has its bright side. Miss Hu was waiting for this sentence.Immediately hit the snake with the stick and say: I know you are studying economics.With regard to the benefits of insurance, you must have summed it up well. So, the boss began to summarize the benefits of insurance, and Ms. Hu was good at guiding, so the boss talked more and more happily without knowing it, and summed up more and more advantages of insurance.

When it came to a certain level, Ms. Hu smiled and said: Thank you for your summary.You see, you now conclude that there are seven advantages and four disadvantages of insurance.You see: Should I choose this industry? The boss was stunned when he heard this, and then laughed.Said: Well, I originally had a great resistance to insurance, but after you said this, I made up my mind to buy insurance.Help me be a consultant: what kind of insurance plan should I make?So Ms. Hu signed the biggest insurance policy in her life. When talking about how to apply the W-type thinking method, Ms. Hu's personal experience illustrates the charm of this wisdom: dealing with customers.The first point is to never conflict with customers, and always give the right to customers first.The same advantage, if I say it, is just sales.But if it is from the target of sales, it becomes self-knowledge and reinforcement.At least ten times stronger than I said!This is the charm of W-shaped thinking.

W-type thinking emphasizes retreat as advance.The necessary retreat is precisely to advance better! (2) No matter how difficult it is, we must retreat, and find another countermeasure It is not easy to retreat like Miss Hu.But there are more serious situations in life: Sometimes we also encounter situations that are simply unacceptable.Obviously you are very reasonable, but your path just doesn't work.You have a thousand reasons to justify yourself, but others just don't admit it.At this time, what should you do? Let's take a look at the famous "The Merchant of Venice" by the famous writer Shakespeare.It is said that a man named Antonio, in order to help his friend get married, borrowed some money from the usurer Shylock, and Shylock put forward a harsh condition to him: if he did not pay back, he would cut off a pound of his body.Unexpectedly, Antonio's boat was in an accident, and he really couldn't pay back the money on time, so Shylock wanted to cut off a pound of flesh from him.Antonio and his friends try their best to get Shylock's sympathy and understanding, but Shylock never agrees.

For a long period of time, Antonio and his friends thought of various retreats and compromises, but no matter how they retreated and compromised, they could not achieve this result: accept his threat and find another countermeasure. The wife of the friend Antonio helped Miss Portia had a whim, why can't she accept Shylock's harsh conditions and counter Shylock?So she confronted Shylock in court and agreed that Shylock could cut off a pound of Antonio's body because he didn't pay back the money.However, there is also a condition: Sherlock can't cut a little more, can't cut a little less, and can't have a little blood.Sherlock had no choice but to admit defeat.

Ms. Portia's method of solving problems is a high expression of W-type thinking. If you follow the general thinking, you can only directly influence Sherlock, obtain his tolerance and understanding, or think of some ideas (such as giving him other services from an unexpected place, or seeking out his weaknesses.) But these cannot achieve the desired results.The W-type thinking is to accept his unreasonable conditions first.It's the hardest thing to do.But the most interesting thing is: when you accept the condition, you can analyze the condition itself, and there lies the best way to defeat the opponent.

To cut a pound of meat, yes, cut it.But you can only cut one pound of flesh, unless you are a god, otherwise, can you do it? Now, you should feel the greatest beauty of W-type thinking: first accept the situation that is unacceptable, and then look for ways to restrict your opponent and solve the problem. (3) Dare to give up, dare to suffer As mentioned above, the most difficult part of W-type thinking is that when you can achieve partial success, or when you have already achieved partial success, you can take the initiative to turn back and retreat.Whether you can take the initiative to retreat at this time depends on whether it is possible to achieve overall success.Therefore, the breakthrough point is that no matter how complicated the situation is, how difficult it is to let go, we must calmly look back and give up actively.It is generally difficult for people to retreat in such a big way. However, if you force yourself to retreat, and then find a countermeasure again, maybe the peak will turn around. It is precisely this retreat that has the best strategy to deal with the problem.

Jinyong's famous martial arts novel "Tianlong Babu" has a famous plot of Linglong chess game: the deaf-mute old man, the major disciple of the Xiaoyao School, is ordered by his teacher to set up a Linglong chess game. Anyone who can solve this chess game can get the supreme benefit.Almost all masters in the world gather, but no one can solve it. Unexpectedly, Xu Zhu, a young monk who doesn't know how to play chess at all, makes a random move in the game to save people.This son actually killed a large piece of his own chess.The masters booed at first, but unexpectedly, after playing this move, the situation suddenly opened up, and there was a lot of success in the future, and they won this round.Because of this skill, Xu Zhu has become the official successor of Xiaoyao School, he has obtained Xiaoyaozi's skills for decades. Although this is a novel, the description of how to solve this situation most vividly illustrates the greatest mystery of W-type thinking: (1) The masters who come to solve the game are all masters in a certain field.However, strengths are also weaknesses. For example, Duan Yu, the son of the king of Dali, is a passionate son, he pursues every step delicately, but he is reluctant to give up; Murong Fu, the descendant of Emperor Yan, only wants to restore the country, and dares to abandon his son for the sake of power, but What should be kept is often discarded, and the result is all failure.It can be said that each person's life style and mentality formed over the years constitute a loss of understanding of the chess game in front of him; (2) Although there are also ways to play such as upside-down boots in Go, generally there are not many pieces discarded, and the number of pieces is enough. I have never seen such a method of killing a large number of pieces at one time.This fully shows that this kind of abandonment is not an ordinary abandonment, but a huge abandonment like a strong man cutting off his wrist. To sum up the above, the key to making good use of W-shaped thinking is: first, you must dare to cut off the mental set, and be alert to the long-term psychological strengths. No matter how proud it makes you feel, it has its own fatality. ;Second, you must dare to suffer a big loss, even if your teeth are knocked out, you must swallow it.