Strategic Ambiguity

“When the facts change, I change my mind.”

Charlie Munger

Strategic ambiguity is an important lever of persuasion that may not only help you be more persuasive, but actually improve your own internal decision-making.

WHAT IS STRATEGIC AMBIGUITY?

As Scott Adams explains in Win Bigly:

“’Strategic ambiguity’ refers to a deliberate choice of words that allows people to read into your message whatever they want to hear. Or to put it another way, the message intentionally leaves out any part that would be objectionable to anyone. People fill in the gaps with their imagination, and their imagination can be more persuasive than anything you say.”

Strategic ambiguity means that you frame your positions without providing too much detail.

It often comes up in political slogans. For example, think about “Make America Great Again.” How will America be made great again? Anyway you want!

And because your brain is lazy, you’ll default to what you believe is the most reasonable, probable course of action. And this “easier” to imagine scenario will seem believable because of the availability bias.

SMART USE OF STRATEGIC AMBIGUITY

One risk in being strategically ambiguous is you don’t appear confident, and confidence often increases your persuasiveness (whether warranted or not). Because of this, you should generally avoid using strategic ambiguity when it comes to things that require your judgment (e.g., whether X or Y the right course of action).

Instead, the best place to use strategic ambiguity is when you want someone to more easily imagine your favored outcome. That is, if you want people to think a certain scenario is more likely and feasible, explain it with ambiguity.

For example, Scott Adams further illuminates how Trump uses strategic ambiguity to increase his persuasiveness in Win Bigly:

“If you hate socialized health care, you might like Trump because he hates socialized medicine too. Except that he also says he won’t let people with no money ‘die on the streets.’ So if you like socialized medicine, you might like giving free health care to those people, like Trump.”

HOW YOU WILL LEVERAGE STRATEGIC AMBIGUITY

• Getting A New Job — Be ambiguous about how you describe your skills on your resume, cover letter, and in the interview. For example, first, describe a skill generally so that the interviewer can interpret it however they want. Then, separately provide a detailed example since humans are more persuaded by certain details.
• Negotiations — When negotiating, be confident in taking a position. However, describe your desired outcome in general terms. For example, be confident in asking for $X price, but general and ambiguous in describing the benefits of the outcome to the other party.
• Copywriting/Sales — Good copywriters know it’s more important to describe benefits over features. This is because benefits are ambiguous and can be interpreted any way by potential consumers, while features restrict your product.

How have you leveraged strategic ambiguity? How have you seen others use it? Share your expertise in the comments!

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