3 actionable tips to help move your career forward using strategic anchoring

I stayed at an Airbnb in Orlando recently and saw this magnet on the fridge:

5 stars: I enjoyed my stay here
4 stars: There are many issues to fix
3 stars: Major problems with my stay
2 stars: This should not be listed
1 star: I left early it was so terrible

My first reaction: How dare they. (4 stars is “Many issues to fix?!”) My second reaction: This is brilliant!

They’re retraining you on how to rate them. Five stars just means “I enjoyed my stay,” not “Best Airbnb ever.”

Once you see that scale, you think: “Well, I didn’t have many issues, so I guess it’s 5 stars.”

It’s appalling. And it’s genius. They’re anchoring you.

The Problem

You’re waiting for other people to set the terms. Waiting for your boss to define “good performance.” Waiting for the client to tell you their budget. Waiting to see how you’ll be evaluated.

But here’s what Airbnb figured out: Whoever defines the scale wins.

This is called “strategic anchoring.” They didn’t wait for you to decide what 5 stars means. They told you. And it worked.

You can do the same thing at work.

The Big Small Thing

Use strategic anchoring. Define the scale before you’re judged.

One way I love to use strategic anchoring is to get more information.

In my book Wild Courage, I call this being “manipulative.” It’s understanding how people think and using it to get what you want in a strategic (not shady) way.

Here’s how:

1. Get budget information.

You’re talking to a potential client. You want to know their budget, but they won’t tell you. So you anchor them: “For projects like this, we typically see budgets around $500k. Does that sound about right?”

If the budget’s too high: “Oh whoa, we’re thinking more like $200k.”

If the budget’s too low: “While we can’t share our exact budget quite yet, we are thinking north of 2x that; we want to go big.”

2. Get timeline information.

Your handyman hates to commit. You need to plan your life.

You: “About how long will it take to finish the tile in the bathroom?”
Handyman: “Oh, that’s really hard to say.”

You: “Are we talking closer to 3 hours? 3 days? 3 weeks?”
Handyman: “Oh geez, definitely not three weeks! Probably 1-2 days.”

Boom! You went from zero information to “1-2 days.”

People are oddly reluctant to take a stab at a time or budget number in fear of not getting it exactly right or overcommitting to something. But people love to react to numbers once you anchor them.

And even if they won’t say it out loud, their body language will. Say “$500K” when their budget is $20K? They’ll wince. That’s information.

3. Get promotion information.

You: “When do you think I’ll be ready for promotion?”
Boss: “Oh, that’s really hard to say. There are so many factors.”

(Bosses love to be cagey about promotion timing because they don’t want to overcommit. But you need to know if you’re talking months or years.)

Anchor them:

You: “Are we in the ballpark of this fall? Or more like next fall?”
Boss: “This fall would be really hard for me to pull off.”

Boom. You ruled out this fall. Now you know you’re taking a marathon approach, not sprinting to wow them.

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How This Helps You Get What You Want

The Airbnb magnet anchored me to give them a higher rating.

You can do the same thing: Anchor people to get more information.

More budget details. More timeline clarity. More insight into when you’ll be promoted.

Is it audacious? Yes.

Does it work? Absolutely.