How To Trade Like A Kung Fu Master: Snakes Versus Cranes
The kung fu master must evaluate his opponent. One of the things you are looking for is how the opponent is likely to attack or respond. In Shaolin’s five-animal, five-element system, the way a person’s body moves and their innate approach to conflict drift toward certain animal archetypes. People are leopards, snakes, tigers, cranes, and dragons in different sizes. Each animal is associated with one of the five traditional Chinese elements: wood, earth, fire, air, and water, respectively. It’s not just for kids movies! People follow the same approaches in negotiation. You can learn to understand it.
Air and earth are opposites, but connected. There is a well-known martial arts legend about a kung fu master who watches a fight between a snake and a crane. The crane hit and the snake got out of the way, then the snake hit and the crane pushed it out of the way. The teacher went on to develop techniques that mimicked animals.
In conversations, people who channel their inner crane often prefer to evade the unpleasant and sharp truths that attack them, even when they politely throw themselves in. When they do get involved, they may prefer to stick to abstractions, principles, and the big picture. We see this often among mid-level entrepreneurs from certain Asian countries. It’s something your culture has selected for. People who are channeling their inner snake, the predominant type among mid-level American entrepreneurs, may prefer the details. Listen to whether people are using inductive or deductive reasoning, working from concepts and applying them to real-world situations (crane), or working from details and using them to construct concepts (snake). These two guys may look like they are speaking together, but they actually speak two different languages. In the world of money, think of the economist and manager: the perspective from which they discuss the dollar is very different.
As a concrete example, consider a discussion within a manufacturing company about the possibility of expanding a certain aspect of the business. One person talks about generalizations of corporate strategy and macroeconomics. If the generalizations sound internally consistent, they may indicate your mindset, but if not, they may be like patches holding together a discussion based on undisclosed interests. Someone else goes straight to the numbers or the nuts and bolts of a personnel problem. The decision’s first speaker’s connection to the corporate mission statement seems to elude him. It can be difficult to hear the coherence between the details, but one can hear whether the details are obfuscation tactics or that person’s actual understanding of the situation.
Many of us have found similar contrasts in family discussions. Hear words like “always” compared to a concrete focus on details: “You’ve always acted like you don’t care about _____, so why are you bringing it up now?” Versus “I remember one Tuesday night four years ago when I came home from work and you said very clearly, ‘_________'”. While both charges can be redirection or diversion tactics that have nothing to do with real concerns, they can also reflect real ways of thinking.
Different walks of life attract different personality types in different cultures. Listen to the patterns. Being able to read the person across the table will help you in your next negotiation. It can also help you manage conflict that can arise from different ways of thinking and speaking.