DATE: Sunday, May 25, 1997                  TAG: 9705150634

SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review

SOURCE: BILL RUEHLMANN

                                            LENGTH:   78 lines

IT'S WHAT YOU SAY, NOT WHAT YOU MEAN

Can we talk?

Can we ever.

Who are the media deities of the '90s? Oprah Winfrey (sis). Howard Stern (boom).

Rush Limbaugh (bah).

Ours is an era that subscribes to, submerges itself in, wraps the environment wall-to-wall with talk. When we are not letting it all hang out, we are listening to other people outing it all hung in. Ellen's gay, Jack's not, Robert's in recovery.

Farewell, reticence.

What we have here is a failure not to communicate.

So it is refreshing to encounter a volume that posits other avenues to success.

When Talking Makes Things Worse by David Stiebel (Whitehall & Nolton, 251 pp., $24.95) purports to be the first popular book ``to illustrate the true key to resolving a disagreement - strategy.''

I think it's at least the second. The first was The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. But Stiebel's is illustrated.

One of those amusingly apt drawings, by syndicated editorial cartoonist David Horsey, is to the point.

Pincushion cavalryman: ``General Custer, I think the problem is they don't UNDERSTAND us!''

Pincushion brass hat: ``No, corporal, the problem is that they DO understand us . . . and they've got lots and lots of arrows!''

Negotiate this, white eyes.

``Expressing your true feelings, honest opinions and underlying interests does not always bring people closer together,'' writes Stiebel. ``Often, quite the opposite. Better understanding can drive you further apart.''

The author, billed as ``a master of mediation,'' has an alternative: strategic communication.

``The method in this book has evolved from my work as a negotiation adviser with corporate and government officials and also from work with my students at the University of California, Berkeley,'' he writes.

The method has four steps:

1. Decide whether you have a misunderstanding or a true disagreement.

2. Create the other person's next move.

3. Use his or her own perceptions to convince him or her.

4. Predict the other person's response.

Sounds simple. Life isn't. An example from the text:

Computer expert Rich works for a large consulting firm. His boss flies across the country for a meeting but arrives with the flu. She calls Rich and asks him to fly out and attend the meeting the next day in her stead.

The next day happens to be Rich's wedding anniversary. He doesn't want to go. Nor does he want to cross company policy that says the bottom line comes before personal matters.

So he thinks through the boss's perceptions, thus:

``He knew her first consideration would be money. She was a cheapskate. . .

``Well, for starters he decided not even to mention his anniversary. Instead, he called his travel agent. Then he called his boss: `The travel agent says I'm going to have to take a red-eye flight, fly 11 hours overnight through three airports - but I know this meeting is important to you and you can depend on me to be there.

``I just need your authorization to purchase the plane ticket. The least expensive coast-to-coast plane fare with no advance notice is . . . $1,875.'

``Right then his boss decided to reschedule the meeting.''

Game, set, match.

``This book is not about how to design a manipulative or exploitative strategy for selfish gain,'' Stiebel writes.

No no no.

``This book is about how to develop a strategy that persuades someone to cooperate with you and solve a problem.''

Your way.

So let's just cut the chat and get on with it, OK?

Of course, When Talking Makes Things Worse is also available on audiocassette. MEMO: Bill Ruehlmann is a mass communication professor at Virginia

Wesleyan College.

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