These aren't persuasion methods but techniques to exploit common cognitive biases. One thing I learned by reading Cialdini's "Influence" book is to call out such tricks when exposed to them. Hopefully, none of this is required when working in an organization which hires for cultural fit and shared vision.
As a former freelance graphic designer I also had to think about Cialdini, but his book "Presuation".
You don't want to manipulate anybody, but man are customers stupid sometimes (cue "clients from hell"). E.g. a pattern I noticed was that especially self-important customers always wanted to change "something" if presented with one draft — not because that change made sense, but because they felt the need to be in control. And if you know that is going to happen irrespectively you might as well just control the context within which it happens.
This is why I switched to presenting multiple drafts after each other with the first one being the "lightening rod draft". This way all the self-importance could be channeled there and they would (empirically) be far less likely to make destructive proposals on the later drafts which they then also liked more.
That is certainly manipulation. But manipulation done with the intent of saving customers from making stupid choices that fall back on me after a while, because of in the heat of moment paychological needs. If I was someones customer I'd like them to do the same for me.
If someone really didn't like all drafts I'd recalibrate and figure out what they want, I can be wrong and my ideas are not holy. But if you hired me, it was very likely that I know more about the craft than you did.
> customers always wanted to change "something" ...
> multiple drafts after each other with the first one being the "lightening rod draft".
This reminds me of something I learned in a developmental psychology class (many) years ago. It reflects the "terrible twos" when the toddler learns they can disagree with their parent and answer almost any question "No!" in order to exercise their newfound power.
The suggestion in the class was to phrase questions in a manner to give the toddler a choice between two reasonable options rather than a yes/no query. For example "Do you want to play inside or go outside?" rather than "Do you want to go outside?" [1]
It seems that the choice could be manipulative or could offer reasonable options depending on how it is cast. (Of course there is a continuum between the two.)
[1] Our two boys never wanted to go outside and play but once outside, didn't want to come back in, claiming "Do we have to? We're just starting to have fun."
The first one, Nemawashi, is not cognitive bias. It is very useful to discuss and to listen to feedback in an informal and safe setting (which fosters trust and honest discussion) to get buy-in in advance of formal presentation. This is change management, and not a sign of a disfunctional organisation but, on the contrary, of good, effective leaders, including on the purely technical side.
The cognitive bias here is in the mind of each person you meet with, who has different values that you can more easily address individually and/or who is more approachable in a small, informal setting.
From Wikipedia: "A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behavior in the world." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias
Example: Boss #1 has an irrational fear of short deadlines, so you meet with them ahead of time to assuage them that the deadline may seem short to them but it's actually quite normal because [reasons]. Boss #2 likes lead devs who keep their opinions to themselves, but your lead dev on the project is known to give unsolicited advice, so you meet with Boss #2 and tell them you'll try to switch to another lead dev after the project gets underway.
Would you be willing to describe why? I'd like to understand better. From what (admittedly little) I've read about nemawashi, my examples seem correct.
