I have now read Never Split The Difference by Chris Voss twice. When I first read it, I only had a couple of takeaways but it still made me much better at holding my ground in a negotiation. I still sucked and hated talking to people. The second time was the charm. A switch flipped. I read the book on a long haul flight on a business trip. During the trip, I was able to use at least 3 or 4 of the lessons I summarise in this post with a lot of success. The main change I saw in myself after reading it, is the disappearance of feeling manipulative when I am negotiating. The reason we dread salary negotiations and sales meetings and asking for discounts is we don’t want to sound or seem manipulative. In reality, negotiation is life. You negotiate outside of business life more than you do in it. You negotiate with your kids, friends, siblings. Effective negotiation isn’t being aggressive and badger people to get your way. It is finding creative solutions that make both parties happy. Remember that “splitting the difference” or “meeting in the middle” makes no one happy. Here are the top 10 lessons from this really amazing book.
Listening is your biggest tool in negotiation and contrary to what most of us think, it is not a passive activity. You listen as your counterpart reveals their inner desires and fears and you use those to establish tactical empathy. Empathy is the number one quality in a good negotiator. This is especially important as this means a great listener can disarm people many times more intelligent than them.
Mirroring is when you repeat the words of your counterpart. It is a psychological concept where people feel comfortable and drop their guards as they hear back their own words. It is as simple as a plain repetition of the last few words, followed by silence, that generally forces the other party to open up a bit more and fill in the silence. Imagine your counterpart describing their position by saying ‘I think we’d like to go back and deliberate’. Normally, you’d feel this is where you’ve lost them but you don’t have to give up. You can respond with just ‘deliberate?’ and then stop. They will expand on what they mean and it will give you more information to continue the dialogue. I have tried this and it works beautifully.
Labeling your counterpart’s feelings makes them feel you understand them. When your counterpart feels you understand them, it makes them want to trust you and open up more about their true needs. If you’ve done your job of labelling your counterpart’s feelings well, they will say something like ‘that’s right’. Those are the two best words you can hear in a negotiation and it means you have established tactical empathy with them. Things are a lot easier if the other party feels you ‘get them’. Trust is gold dust in a business or interpersonal negotiation and getting your counterpart’s trust is half the battle.
Getting to a NO quickly is a great idea. I know this may come as a surprise. Getting to Yes is not your job. Being able to say No makes people feel comfortable. Their limbic system relaxes and they don’t feel threatened. Get to a no quickly (for ex: start with ‘is this a bad time’, to which they will most likely respond with No) is a great start. No is the starting point of negotiation. Get to a No quick, put your counterpart at ease, and start learning more about them using #1, #2, and the techniques that follow. A practical application of this is sending a ‘Have you given up on this project?’ email when you are not receiving any responses from the other party. This seemingly simple sentence makes people feel someone is about to give up on them while also giving them the liberty to say No. They will most likely update with their position by simply saying “No.. we are in the middle of something else ..”.
Do an ‘accusation audit’ to bring out all the stuff that your counterpart may find unattractive about your deal. This works when you have an offer people will most likely not like. You can srart with something like ‘I have a rather crappy offer for you and you will probably feel I am a really bad business partner once you hear it.. but still..’. This lowers their emotional expectations. Combining this with some ‘loss aversion’ (Kahneman and Tversky research) by offering something, the refusal of which seems like a loss is a great strategy. For example, you may complete the statement we were making with ‘.. I still thought I should bring it to you first before I take it to someone else..’. This makes it sound like the proposal can be lost and it forces people to take notice.
Avoiding the F word. Fairness is a very tricky word. You can use it at times to disarm your counterparts by saying things like ‘we just want what’s fair..’ People can also use it to disarm you and it forces you to concede, as nobody wants to be unfair. When this F word is used against you, take a pause, apologise and ask them to explain how you’re treating the other party unfairly. This is a great way to get out of the fairness debate.
Asking calibrated open ended questions that most often start with ‘what’ and ‘how’ are a great way to get your counterpart to reveal more about their strategy. Never use ‘why’ and closed ended questions, as in those cases people can give simple responses and then they will want something from you too. Simple questions like ‘how am I supposed to do that ’ are great openers and it establishes an environment of problem solving where your counterpart starts to help solve the problem at hand and may offer suggestions, you didn’t even know existed.
While negotiating salary, it is always important to not state a number first but if you absolutely have to, you can set a range and then know that the other party will settle near your lower side of the range. A specific odd number, like 4671, works better than a whole number, say, 5000. Extreme anchoring is good but could backfire. When the other party is forcing you to come up with a number, it makes sense to state a comparative example like people in company X generally make between $x – $y for a similar role.
65-85-95-100 rule for haggling. Start with 65% your budget, and then slowly go to 85, 95 and 100. Each offer decreases in increments, making the other party feel they are squeezing you for the very last drop, while in reality, you are getting to the number you wanted. Remember you need to be polite and genuine with each subsequent offer. Say things like ‘That is a generous offer and I really wish I could meet that. I would be willing to up my budget to xx because I really want to work on this with you..’.
Uncovering black swans. These are unknown unknowns that you must expect. The more your counterpart talks, the more are your chances to uncover their true desires and use them to your advantage. Using the combination of mirroring, labeling and open-ended questions to keep people talking and reveal what matters most to them (Chris calls it using their ‘religion’). Best negotiators not only expect surprises but go to the table with the core objective of exploring all the surprises. If you ever find yourself saying ‘they’re crazy’, know that you are having trouble understanding the position of your counterpart. People are not crazy and the fact that you feel this is a signal that you need more information to find their vulnerability and making them open to influence. This is most often caused by bad information or information asymmetry.
While these are the broad points, there is a lot more value in going through the practical examples in the book to see how these techniques have been used effectively. Nothing like reading through the real world applications of these theoretical concepts. The examples range from girl scout donors, salary negotiation in a new role, high pressure hostage negotiation situations where you may feel the other party has all the leverage, a contractor asking to be paid on time, the classic car salesman negotiation, challenging a rent increase, etc. There’s a great range of experiences you can learn from and apply in your life. The bottom line is keeping your emotions under control and staying focussed on not going for splitting the difference.
I run a startup called Harmonize. We are hiring and if you’re looking for an exciting startup journey, please write to jobs@harmonizehq.com. Apart from this blog, I tweet about startup life and practical wisdom in books.