Boots in the Same Ditch

Dear friend,

The riddle first, as the tradition demands. Back in the old town, out on the wet fields east of it, where two drainers have been asked to look at the same waterlogged acre.

Two drainers view one sodden field,
Same fall, same clay, same likely yield.
One sits across and states his case,
One walks the ditch, boots in the same place.
Same scheme proposed, same price to pay.
Why was one argued with all day?

Hold your answer. Story time.

The Story

Two drainers working the land east of the town I've never named, and their schemes, in the old chorus, were equally sound. Same fall, same depth, same price to the shilling.

The first came out, looked at the field, went back to the farmhouse and sat down at the far side of the kitchen table with his plan in front of him. He explained it well. He answered every objection, and answered them correctly, which is the part worth noting: he was right about all of it.

And the farmer argued with every point, not from awkwardness but because of where the two of them were sitting. There was a plan on the table belonging to one man and a purse belonging to the other, and the natural shape of that arrangement is a contest. So the farmer did what a man does in a contest, which is to look for weaknesses, and he found some, since every scheme has them.

He said he would think about it, and the thinking was mostly a rehearsal of the objections he had raised.

The second drainer never sat down at all until the end. He walked the field with the farmer for the better part of an hour, and most of what he did was ask and look: where does it stand longest, what did your father do about it, how does it behave in a wet March, show me where the cattle poach it worst.

Then he took out a sheet and they drew on it together, standing at the gate, and the farmer marked two of the lines himself because he knew the ground better than any drainer could.

By the time the price was mentioned, they had spent an hour on the same side of a problem. There was no plan belonging to one man; there was a plan with the farmer's own marks on it, addressed to a field they had both been standing in. The objections that came up were raised by the farmer against his own drawing, and he answered several of them himself.

He also said, at one point, that the top corner was not worth draining at all and he would leave it in rough grazing, which cost him about a fifth of the work and was true.

The scheme was bought that afternoon, at the full price, and the two of them were pleased with one another, which is a thing that almost never happens across a kitchen table with a plan on it.

The Lesson, Since You've Earned It

Where you stand decides what sort of conversation it is. Facing a customer with your proposal in front of you creates two parties and one document, and the natural business of two parties with one document is to test it. Standing beside them looking at their problem creates one party and one difficulty, and the natural business of that arrangement is to solve it. The words you say may be identical in both. The reception will not be.

So the practical move is to spend the first half of any meeting on their situation rather than your solution: looking, asking, and writing down what they tell you, in their words, on a sheet they can see. Let them mark it. Let them correct you. Every correction a customer makes to a plan is a small act of ownership, and people do not argue with their own handwriting, which is the tailor's lesson arriving in a muddier field.

And the ally must be genuine, which means saying at least one thing against your own interest before the price comes up. The corner not worth draining, the part they could do themselves, the job that can wait until spring. That sentence is what proves which side of the problem you are actually standing on, and no amount of warmth or good manners substitutes for it. This is the same currency as the insider's plain statement that his thing is no use to you.

Two cautions. It is not agreeing with everything, since a man who never disagrees is not an ally, he is a mirror, and customers discount mirrors entirely. And it does not remove the need to ask for the order plainly at the end, which the hour of good fellowship makes easier and does not replace.

Three questions, and think of your last three quotes:

1. Where were you standing? Literally, or its equivalent in your trade: presenting at somebody, or looking at the thing together. If you arrived with the answer already printed, you arranged a contest before anybody spoke.
2. What did they mark or change? If the answer is nothing, they have not taken any ownership, and the plan remains yours to defend. Find the two decisions that are genuinely theirs and hand them over.
3. What did you say against your own interest? Name it. If there was nothing, they had no evidence at all that you were on their side, and were quite right to test everything you said.

The Answer to the Riddle

Why was one argued with all day?

Because he sat opposite. He was right about the fall, right about the depth, right about the price, and he had arranged the afternoon so that being right was something to be resisted. His rival spent an hour in the wet with the same facts and never had to defend a thing, since by the time there was a plan, half of it had been drawn by the man who was going to pay for it.

The verse:

Sit opposite, and every word
Becomes a thing to be disputed.
Stand in the ditch, and what you've heard
Comes back agreed, and undiluted.

Until next time. Go and turn your next quote into an hour of looking at the problem together, and let the customer mark the sheet.

P.S. If your trade is one where you cannot stand beside anybody, the same thing is done on paper. Open by setting out their situation in their own words before you offer a single suggestion, and you will find the rest of the document is read quite differently, because the reader has already agreed with the first half of it.

Also in the archive: The Buttons and the Book, The Shallow Keel and The Ironmonger's Second Question.