• Name: Never Split the Difference
• Author: Chris Voss
• Type: #literature/article
• Source: #source/website
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1. Mirror¶

Keep them talking, feeling heard/safe and revealing information that you can use just by repeating back the last 3 words that they said.

Works better than positive reinforcement.

2. Label (tactical empathy)¶

The "presenting" behavior of a person is driven by an "underlying" feeling.

Validate feelings - when you validate someone’s underlying feeling by acknowledging it, it gets you close to someone without asking about external factors you know nothing about. - "It seems like ..." - "It sounds like ..." - "It looks like ..."

Clear barriers - Get the negative out in front of you right at the beginning. Do not wait for them to bring it up. - Label your counterpart’s fears to diffuse their power. - List the worst things that the other party could say about you before they do.

Deescalate confrontation - Labelling defuses angry confrontations because people can acknowledge their feelings rather than continuing to act out.

3. Get to "No"¶

Telemarketers ask questions where yes is the only answer but the end result is almost always a no.

Value of no - Yes has little value in a negotiation. No is where the real negotiation begins, get them to say it early. - Makes the other feel in control of their decisions. - Slows things down so people can freely embrace their decisions and the agreements that they enter into. - Forces engagement - yes requires no engagement (think about people waiting for a meeting to end).

No can force engagement - Sometimes a person is on autopilot and is not engaging with you. An intentionally mis-labelled question or a ridiculous question that can only be answered negatively will always get them to engage.

4. Summarize¶

Before you convince your counterpart to see what you’re trying to accomplish, you have to say the things to them that will get them to say, “That’s right.”

Summarize their view point with the slant of making it seem like you agree with them.

5. Bend their reality¶

Fair: the most powerful word in negotiations is "Fair". - You want to have a reputation of being fair. "I want you to feel like you are being treated fairly, stop me anytime." - You want to use the emotional heft behind "fairness" to bend the negotiation into your favor. - Offensive: Is that a fair offer? - Defensive: That is fair? It seems like you can give the evidence to show how you arrived at that decision.

Don't compromise: it is a bad deal for both sides. Be willing to walk away.

Deadlines: force people to rush the negotiating process.

Framing: Know the emotional drivers and you can frame the benefits of any deal in language that will resonate.

Loss Aversion: To get real leverage in a tough negotiation, you have to persuade the other party that they have something to lose if the deal falls through.

How to bend their reality: 1. Anchor their emotions - use an accusation audit to anchor their emotions in preparation for loss - "You are going to think I am an unprepared businessman, that I do not think ahead and do not think about my subcontractors but I wanted to come to you first before going to someone else". - Moving from 3000 a day to 1000 a day. 2. Let them go first - but be prepared for their lowball extreme anchor. 3. Establish a range - at X corp. people in this job earn between 130-170k (if you want to get 110k). 4. Pivot to non-monetary terms - to sweeten their deal, or your deal. 5. Use odd numbers - they feel like the result of a thoughtful calculation.

6. Calibrated Questions¶

Calibrated questions have the power to educate your counterpart on what the problem is rather than causing conflict by telling them what the problem is.

Calibrated questions make your counterpart feel like they’re in charge, but it’s really you who are framing the conversation.

Calibrate your questions to point your counterpart toward solving your problem. This will encourage them to expend their energy on devising a solution.

How/what questions: - What is the biggest challenge you face? - What about this is important to you? - How is that worthwhile? - What's the core issue here? - How does this fit into what the objective is? - How can I help to make this better for us? - How would you like me to proceed? - What is it that brought us into this situation? - How can we solve this problem? - What’s the objective? / What are we trying to accomplish here? - How am I supposed to do that?

7. Guarantee execution¶

"Yes" is nothing without "how".

Besides saying “No,” the other key benefit of asking “How?” is that it forces your counterpart to consider and explain how a deal will be implemented. - How will we know we're on track? - How will we address things if we find we're off track?

Follow up by summarizing what they have said to get a “That’s right.”

8. Get them to bid against themselves¶

By saying no up to four times, you can get your counterpart to work towards a solution for you. 1. How am I supposed to do that? 2. Your offer is very generous, I'm sorry, that just doesn't work for me. 3. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I just can't do that. 4. No.

9. Case studies¶

A war-lord kidnapper I decided that in order to break through this phase we needed to reposition Sabaya with his own words in a way that would dissolve barriers. We needed to get him to say, "That's right." At the time, I didn't know for sure what kind of breakthrough it was going to give us. I just knew we needed to trust the process.

I wrote a two page document that instructed Benjie to change course. We were going to use nearly every tactic in the active listening arsenal: 1. Effective pauses: Silence is powerful. We told Benjie to use it for emphasis, to encourage Sabaya to keep talking until eventually, like clearing out a swamp, the emotions were drained from the dialogue. 2. Minimal encouragers: Besides silence, we instructed using simple phrases, such as "Yes," "OK," "Uh-huh," or "I see," to effectively convey that Benjie was now paying full attention to Sabaya and all he had to say. 3. Mirroring: Rather than argue with Sabaya and try to separate Schilling from the "war damages," Benjie would listen and repeat back what Sabaya said. 4. Labeling: Benjie should give Sabaya's feelings a name and identify with how he felt. "It all seems so tragically unfair, I can now see why you sound so angry." 5. Paraphrase: Benjie should repeat what Sabaya is saying back to him in Benjie's own words. This, we told him, would powerfully show him you really do understand and aren't merely parroting his concerns. 6. Summarize: A good summary is the combination of rearticulating the meaning of what is said plus the acknowledgement of the emotions underlying what meaning (paraphrasing + labeling = summary). We told Benjie he needed to fully and completely summarize all the nonsense that Sabaya had come up with about war damages and fishing rights and five hundred years of oppression. And once he did that fully and completely, the only possible response for Sabaya, and anyone faced with a good summary, would be "that's right."

Selling to a doctor In her first appointments, the doctor dismissed her product. He said it was no better than the ones he was already using. He was unfriendly. He didn't even want to hear her viewpoint. When she presented the positive attributes of her product, he interrupted her and knocked them down.

Making the sales pitch, she soaked up as much as possible about the doctor. She learned that he was passionate about treating his patients. Each patient was special in his eyes. Improving their sense of calm and peace was the most important outcome for him. How could she put her understanding of his needs, desires, and passions to work for her?

At her next visit, the doctor asked what medications she wanted to discuss. Rather than tout the benefits of her product, she talked about him and his practice.

"Doctor," she said, "the last time I was in we spoke about your patients with this condition. I remember thinking that you seemed very passionate about treating them, and how you worked hard to tailor the specific treatment to teach and every patient."

He looked her in the eyes as if he were seeing her for the first time.

"That's right," he said. "I really feel like I'm treating an epidemic that other doctors are not picking up on - which means that a lot of patients are not getting treated adequately".

She told him he seemed to have a deep understanding of how to treat these patients, especially because some of them didn't respond to the usual medications. They talked about specific challenges he had confronted in treating his patients. He gave her examples.

When he was finished, she summarized what he had said, especially the intricacies and problems in treatment.

"You seem to tailor specific treatments and medications for each patient," she said.

"That's right," he responded.

This was the breakthrough she had hoped to reach. The doctor had been skeptical and cold. But when she recognized his passion for his patients, using a summary, the walls came down. He dropped his guard, and she was able to gain his trust. Rather than pitch her product, she let him describe his treatment and procedures. With this, she learned how her medication would fit into his practice. She then paraphrased what he said about the challenges of his practice and reflected them back to him.

Once the doctor signaled his trust and rapport, she could tout the attributes of her product and describe precisely how it would help him reach the outcomes he desired for his patients. He listened intently.

"It might be perfect for treating a patient who has not benefited from the medication I have been prescribing," he told her. "Let me give yours a try."

She made the sale.

Negotiating a better salary While Angel was finishing up his MBA, he went to his boss and began to lay the groundwork for his work post-MBA (which the company was paying). During his last semester, he set a nonspecific anchor- a kind of range- by suggesting to his boss that once he graduated and the company was done investing in his MBA (around $31 000 a year), that money should go to him as a salary.

His boss made no commitment, but Angel was pleasantly persistent about it, which set the idea as an anchor in his boss's mind.

Upon graduation, Angel adn his boss had their big sit-down. In an assertive and calm manner, Angel broached a nonfinancial issue to move the focus away from "How much?": he asked for a new title. Angel's boss readily agreed that a new role was a no-braner after Angel's new degree.

At that point, Angel and his manager defined what his roles and responsibilities would be in his new role, thereby setting success metrics. Then Angel took a breath and paused so that his boss would be the first to throw out a number. At last, he did. Curiously enough, the number showed that Angel's earlier efforst at anchoring had worked: he proposed to add $31000 to Angel's base salary, almost a 50% raise.

But Angel was no rookie negotiator, not after taking my class. So instead of countering an getting stuck in "How much?" he kept talking, labeling the boss's emotions and empathizing with his situation (at the time the company was going though difficult negotiations with investors).

And then Angel coureously asked for a moment to step away and print up the agreed-upon job description. This pause created a dynamic of pre-deadline urgency in his boss, which Angel exploited when he returned with the printout. On the bottom, he'd added his desired compensation: $134.5 - $143k.

In that one little move, Angel weaved together a bunch of the lessons from this chapter. The odd numbers gave them the weight of thoughtful calculation. The numbers were high too, which exploited his boss's natural tendency to go directly to his price limit when faced by an extreme anchor. And they were a range, which made Angel seem less aggressive and the lower end more reasonable in comparison.

From his boss's body language, raised eyebrows, it was clear that he was sruprised by the compensation request. But it had the desired effect: after some comments about the description, he countered with $120k. Angel didn't say no or yes, but kept talking and creating empathy. Then in the middle of sentence, seemingly out of the blue, his boss threw out $127k. With his boss obviously negotiating with himself, ANgel kept him going. Finally his boss said he agreed with the $134.5k and would pay that salary starting in three months, contingent on the board of directors' approval.

As the icing on the cake, Angel worked in a positive use of the word "fair" and then sold the raise to his boss as a marriage in which his boss would be the mentor. "I'm asking you, not the board, for the promotion, and all I need is for you to agree with it", he said.

And how did Angel's boss reply to his new ambassador?

"I'll fight to get you this salary".

10. Negotiation one sheet¶

Negotiation-One-Sheet.pdf

1. Define the goal
2. Think of the best/worst case scenario's and write down the best case.
3. Set an optimistic but reasonable goal and define it clearly.
4. Write it down
5. Discuss your goal with a colleague

6. Carry the written goal into the negotiation.

7. Summary

8. Summarize and write out in just a couple of sentences the known facts that have led up to the negotiation.
9. Get on the same page at the outset.
10. Why are you there? What do you want? What do they want?

11. Get a that's right soon.

12. Labels/accusation audit

13. Prepare 3-5 labels per accusation for the summary you just made. What might they say to counter your requests based on the summary you just provided.
14. It seems like .... is valuable to you.
15. It seems like you don't like ....
16. It seems like you value ...
17. It seems like ... makes it easier.

18. It seems like youre reluctant to ...

19. Calibrated questions

20. Prepare 3-5 calibrated questions to reveal value to you and your counterpart and identify and overcome potential deal killers.
21. Go past their demands to what is making them want those demands. What are they worried about, what do they hope for or lust for?