Leaving someone a dignified route to change position gets the position changed; closing that route entrenches it.
Carnegie's rule anticipates a general finding about concessions: the cost of changing position is largely social rather than intellectual, so reducing the social cost is the effective intervention. Supplying the other party with a reason that is not capitulation is cheap for the person supplying it and decisive for the person receiving it.
In practice
- A supplier offered a way to correct an error without admitting it corrects it the same week.
- An official cornered in public defends a position they had privately abandoned.
- Standing
- Compare the Chinese concept of face, which distinguishes the achieved and moral varieties, and Machiavelli's rule on injuries and benefits.
- Subject
- Communication & Media
- Essay
- Rules for speaking, writing and disagreeing