The Social Strategist: How to Master Your Social Life, Raise Your Status, and Win More Negotiations
Lucio Buffalmano and Ali Scarlett, 2022
Why do some people get help gladly while others get a polite no? Sociologist Lucio Buffalmano and Ali Scarlett show that every new acquaintance and every request carries a quiet bargain over value and power. The book teaches you to spot hidden power moves, answer digs without a scene, and negotiate so that both sides win.
Who it is for
For people who get taken advantage of more often than they'd like, who find it hard to answer a dig calmly, and who want to negotiate money, work and relationships with more confidence.
If you know your value, great. Just don't say it, show it.
A night in Berlin with no one to call
December in Berlin, and the whole city glows with Christmas lights. Lucio Buffalmano sits on the floor of a cramped little room he rents in someone else's flat, because he can't afford anything bigger, and he cries. He has no job and no one he loves, and the rejections keep coming one after another. He picks up the phone to call his parents and puts it down again: he is afraid he will break down and upset them.
His co-author Ali Scarlett fell seriously ill at sixteen and spent months alone in hospital. Not one of his friends ever called him.
Later, both of them realised they had been missing skills that school never teaches. Buffalmano, a sociologist, has a name for his subject: power dynamics. It is how a conversation decides who gets what they want. Every new acquaintance, every request and every argument, in the authors' view, turns out to be a quiet negotiation over who gives, who takes and who is stronger.
Ahead of you: a request doomed from its first line, a generous offer of help that puts you lower, and a conversation after which a company gave money back, even though it never gives refunds.
Asking from an empty account
One day on Twitter, Buffalmano got a message from a stranger: “Direct message me, I have a question on a recent article you wrote.” The authors explain why a request like that is doomed: the stranger was asking for someone else's time and advice and offering nothing in return.
Behind this is a theory known as social exchange. Almost everyone unconsciously keeps score of who has given and taken how much, and holds on to the people who leave them in the plus. The authors compare it to a bank account. Help, attention and gratitude top it up, and requests drain it. Ask from an empty account and you go into a social overdraft, and you get turned down for insufficient funds.
Scarlett himself shows how to fill the account. He worked out what Buffalmano could use, gave him tips on improving his ebook covers, went through his website's marketing and suggested a slogan. He could have asked for something back, but he didn't. When it came to writing a book together, an idea on a forum and five WhatsApp messages were enough.
And if you have nothing to give yet? Then offer praise and thanks: gratitude, in the authors' view, is an IOU that says the debt will be repaid. The stranger could simply have written: “Your article was so insightful! I already shared it with some friends. There is just this one thing I'm not sure about.” And instead of “let me pick your brain over coffee”, it's better to invite the person to lunch and offer to swap ideas, if you have something to share.
About the author
Lucio Buffalmano, a sociologist and entrepreneur, graduated from La Sapienza University in Rome and runs The Power Moves, a website about power dynamics. Ali Scarlett is an entrepreneur and the author of The Clever Connector, a book about business networking.
All books by this author: Lucio Buffalmano and Ali Scarlett
Terms from the book
- assertiveness
- Fiske
- power dynamics: A concept from the book: how power is shared out in a conversation or a group, and how it gets decided who gets what they want. It is the authors' framework, not a separate scientific discipline.
- social exchange: A theory from sociology and psychology that looks at relationships as an exchange: people hold on to those who make their lives better and avoid those who only take.
- overdraft: A banking term: spending more money than there is in the account, that is, going into the red. The authors carry it over to relationships.
- April: The name Scarlett uses in the book for a LinkedIn contact of his, the head of a chamber of commerce. It is not her real name.
- stereotype content model: A model from social psychology: people judge groups and individuals on two traits, warmth and competence. The book's authors call competence power.
- covert power move: A concept from the book: a line that sounds neutral, polite or even caring, but in fact lifts the speaker up and puts the other person lower.
- microaggression: In the book, this is the name for small digs and jibes that are easy to pass off as a joke. In psychology the word more often means everyday expressions of prejudice, and the authors use it more broadly.
- frame: A concept from the book: the set of beliefs and views through which a person looks at a situation, like a lens. To manage the frame is to influence how others see the situation.
- silver medal technique: A technique from the book for getting a refund: instead of “gold”, that is, dropping your claim, you offer the seller “silver”, your future purchases.
All terms
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