Do you wish that you were better at getting people to do what you need them to do? Do you keep getting put in charge of things and then get stuck wondering how the heck you're supposed to get things done? Do you keep getting into conflicts with other people because of stuff you've said, and you aren't entirely sure why? Fortunately, Slytherin House has you covered. Come to this talk and learn the basics of how to hack human relationships, using the tools of cunning and ambition to achieve inter-House harmony. As long as you promise not to use these techniques to support the next Dark Lord, of course.

1. Slytherin
101
Denise Paolucci
Dreamwidth Studios
denise@dreamwidth.org
slides at: slideshare.net/dreamwidth

3. Positive traits
•Cunning
•Ambitious
•Clever
•Rational

4. Negative traits
•Overly complex
•Manipulative
•Self-centered
•“Rational”

5. “A Gryffindor will jump off acliff.A Slytherin will pushsomeone else off.A Hufflepuffwill call in five hundred otherHufflepuffs, and they'll carve astairway.And a Ravenclaw willget hold of a flying carpet.”Transfigurations, by Resonant
ao3.org/works/59676
ao3.org/works/59676
ao3.org/works/59676

6. “Smart kids in Ravenclaw, evil
kids in Slytherin, wannabe
heroes in Gry ndor, andffi
everyone who does the actual
work in Hu epu .”ffl ff
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality,
by EliezerYudkowsky
hpmor.com
hpmor.com
hpmor.com
hpmor.com

7. What a Slytherin wants
• Power: having your decisions respected
• Influence: having your wishes respected
• Optimization: exert the minimum effort
necessary to achieve your goals
• Subtlety: keep attention on your goals and
accomplishments, not on your methods

8. The route to achieving
all those goals:

9. People

10. People are complicated

11. And have no manual

12. But there are basic rules
• We are social creatures
• Our brains lie to us
• We fixate on things
• Even when we’re aware of the bugs in our
brains, it’s incredibly hard to patch them

13. Also, we are vulnerable to cute things.

14. DISCLAIMER:
Don’t be evil.
Don’t be evil.
A lot of these techniques can be readily abused.

16. People tell themselves
stories
• People are the heroes of their own stories
• It’s easier to work inside someone’s story
than to work against it
• Stories can change over time
• Sometimes people’s stories don’t mesh
with their actions; believe the story

17. Communication styles
• “Ask”/“Guess”, direct/indirect,
qualified/confident, receptive/absolutist, and
more
• Gendered, classed, geographic/dialectical
• When dealing with a mismatch: set
expectations, raise awareness

18. Using communication
styles
• To establish rapport, match styles
• To perform confidence, go slightly more direct
• To perform authority, go much more direct
• Not matching expectations can backfire

19. Build up relationships
• Spend time doing “social lubricant”
• Keep track of people as individuals
• Be human (and vulnerable) with people
• Authenticity > constructed persona

20. Rules for mediating
disputes
• Don’t get in between the sides if the conflict
hasn’t stopped yet
• Don’t side with each person against the other
• Look for points of empathy, but don’t fake them

21. Getting Commitment
• Some of these can be Dark Arts; use
sparingly and with mindfulness
• People hate saying ‘no’ to a direct request:
ask someone personally, and tell them why
• People hate looking bad: get the
commitment in front of the group
• Give people something or do them a favor
before you ask them to do something

22. slideshare.net/dreamwidth