Top highlights from Never Split the Difference
He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.
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Conflict brings out truth, creativity, and resolution.
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Negotiate in their world. Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. Its about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea. So dont beat them with logic or brute force. Ask them questions that open paths to your goals. Its not about you.
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If you approach a negotiation thinking the other guy thinks like you, you are wrong. That's not empathy, that's a projection.
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The beauty of empathy is that it doesnt demand that you agree with the other persons ideas
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Hope is not a strategy
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Negotiation is not an act of battle; its a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible.
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Mirrors work magic. Repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. We fear whats different and are drawn to whats similar. Mirroring is the art of insinuating similarity, which facilitates bonding. Use mirrors to encourage the other side to empathize and bond with you, keep people talking, buy your side time to regroup, and encourage your counterparts to reveal their strategy.
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Another simple rule is, when you are verbally assaulted, do not counterattack. Instead, disarm your counterpart by asking a calibrated question.
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Research shows that the best way to deal with negativity is to observe it, without reaction and without judgment. Then consciously label each negative feeling and replace it with positive, compassionate, and solution-based thoughts. One
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Psychotherapy research shows that when individuals feel listened to, they tend to listen to themselves more carefully and to openly evaluate and clarify their own thoughts and feelings.
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This is listening as a martial art, balancing the subtle behaviors of emotional intelligence and the assertive skills of influence, to gain access to the mind of another person. Contrary to popular opinion, listening is not a passive activity. It is the most active thing you can do. Once
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The fastest and most efficient means of establishing a quick working relationship is to acknowledge the negative and diffuse it.
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The positive/playful voice: Should be your default voice. Its the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while youre talking.
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Though the intensity may differ from person to person, you can be sure that everyone you meet is driven by two primal urges: the need to feel safe and secure, and the need to feel in control. If you satisfy those drives, youre in the door.
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Its a phenomenon (and now technique) that follows a very basic but profound biological principle: We fear whats different and are drawn to whats similar. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. Mirroring, then, when practiced consciously, is the art of insinuating similarity. Trust me, a mirror signals to anothers unconscious, You and Iwere alike. Once
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By repeating back what people say, you trigger this mirroring instinct and your counterpart will inevitably elaborate on what was just said and sustain the process of connecting.
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The person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is. So focus on the issue. This is one of the most basic tactics for avoiding emotional escalations. Our culture demonizes people in movies and politics, which creates the mentality that if we only got rid of the person then everything would be okay. But this dynamic is toxic to any negotiation.
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Playing dumb is a valid negotiating technique, and
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The Rule of Three is simply getting the other guy to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation. Its tripling the strength of whatever dynamic youre trying to drill into at the moment. In doing so, it uncovers problems before they happen. Its really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction.
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Identify your counterparts negotiating style. Once you know whether they are Accommodator, Assertive, or Analyst, youll know the correct way to approach them. Prepare, prepare, prepare. When the pressure is on, you dont rise to the occasion; you fall to your highest level of preparation. So design an ambitious but legitimate goal and then game out the labels, calibrated questions, and responses youll use to get there. That way, once youre at the bargaining table, you wont have to wing it. Get ready to take a punch. Kick-ass negotiators usually lead with an extreme anchor to knock you off your game. If youre not ready, youll flee to your maximum without a fight. So prepare your dodging tactics to avoid getting sucked into the compromise trap. Set boundaries, and learn to take a punch or punch back, without anger. The guy across the table is not the problem; the situation is. Prepare an Ackerman plan. Before you head into the weeds of bargaining, youll need a plan of extreme anchor, calibrated questions, and well-defined offers. Remember: 65, 85, 95, 100 percent. Decreasing raises and ending on nonround numbers will get your counterpart to believe that hes squeezing you for all youre worth when youre really getting to the number you want.
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Truly effective negotiators are conscious of the verbal, paraverbal (how its said), and nonverbal communications that pervade negotiations and group dynamics. And they know how to employ those subtleties to their benefit. Even changing a single word when you present optionslike using not lose instead of keepcan unconsciously influence the conscious choices your counterpart makes.
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Creating unconditional positive regard opens the door to changing thoughts and behaviors. Humans have an innate urge toward socially constructive behavior. The more a person feels understood, and positively affirmed in that understanding, the more likely that urge for constructive behavior will take hold. Thats right is better than yes. Strive for it. Reaching thats right in a negotiation creates breakthroughs. Use a summary to trigger a thats right. The building blocks of a good summary are a label combined with paraphrasing. Identify, rearticulate, and emotionally affirm the world according to . . .
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The last rule of labeling is silence. Once youve thrown out a label, be quiet and listen.
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A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find. Dont commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously. People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; its a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible. To quiet the voices in your head, make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If were too much in a hurry, people can feel as if theyre not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust youve built. Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart.
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What does a good babysitter sell, really? Its not child care exactly, but a relaxed evening. A furnace salesperson? Cozy rooms for family time. A locksmith? A feeling of security. Know the emotional drivers and you can frame the benefits of any deal in language that will resonate. BEND
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As you can see, No has a lot of skills. No allows the real issues to be brought forth; No protects people from makingand lets them correctineffective decisions; No slows things down so that people can freely embrace their decisions and the agreements they enter into; No helps people feel safe, secure, emotionally comfortable, and in control of their decisions; No moves everyones efforts forward.
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Yes, as I always say, is nothing without How?
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There are actually three kinds of Yes: Counterfeit, Confirmation, and Commitment.
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I was employing what had become one of the FBIs most potent negotiating tools: the open-ended question. Today,
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THATS RIGHT IS GREAT, BUT IF YOURE RIGHT, NOTHING CHANGES
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after pausing, ask solution-based questions or simply label their effect: What about this doesnt work for you? What would you need to make it work? It seems like theres something here that bothers you. People have a need to say, No. So dont just hope to hear it at some point; get them to say it early.
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No deal is better than a bad deal.
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In my short stay I realized that without a deep understanding of human psychology, without the acceptance that we are all crazy, irrational, impulsive, emotionally driven animals, all the raw intelligence and mathematical logic in the world is little help in the fraught, shifting interplay of two people negotiating.
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Ive spent a lot of time talking about the psychological judo that Ive made my stock in trade: the calibrated questions, the mirrors, the tools for knocking my counterpart off his game and getting him to bid against himself.
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In my negotiating course, I tell my students that empathy is the ability to recognize the perspective of a counterpart, and the vocalization of that recognition. Thats an academic way of saying that empathy is paying attention to another human being, asking what they are feeling, and making a commitment to understanding their world. Notice I didnt say anything about agreeing with the other persons values and beliefs or giving out hugs. Thats sympathy. What Im talking about is trying to understand a situation from another persons perspective. One step beyond that is tactical empathy. Tactical empathy is understanding the feelings and mindset of another in the moment and also hearing what is behind those feelings so you increase your influence in all the moments that follow. Its bringing our attention to both the emotional obstacles and the potential pathways to getting an agreement done. Its emotional intelligence on steroids.
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This manipulation usually takes the form of something like, We just want whats fair.
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In a negotiation, thats called labeling. Labeling is a way of validating someones emotion by acknowledging it. Give someones emotion a name and you show you identify with how that person feels. It gets you close to someone without asking about external factors you know nothing about (Hows your family?). Think of labeling as a shortcut to intimacy, a time-saving emotional hack.
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Labeling has a special advantage when your counterpart is tense. Exposing negative thoughts to daylightIt looks like you dont want to go back to jailmakes them seem less frightening.
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It all starts with the universally applicable premise that people want to be understood and accepted. Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make to get there. By listening intensely, a negotiator demonstrates empathy and shows a sincere desire to better understand what the other side is experiencing. Psychotherapy
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First, lets talk a little human psychology. In basic terms, peoples emotions have two levels: the presenting behavior is the part above the surface you can see and hear; beneath, the underlying feeling is what motivates the behavior. Imagine a grandfather whos grumbly at a family holiday dinner: the presenting behavior is that hes cranky, but the underlying emotion is a sad sense of loneliness from his family never seeing him. What good negotiators do when labeling is address those underlying emotions. Labeling negatives diffuses them (or defuses them, in extreme cases); labeling positives reinforces them.
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That is, Yes is nothing without How. Asking How, knowing How, and defining How are all part of the effective negotiators arsenal. He would be unarmed without them. Ask calibrated How questions, and ask them again and again. Asking How keeps your counterparts engaged but off balance. Answering the questions will give them the illusion of control. It will also lead them to contemplate your problems when making their demands. Use How questions to shape the negotiating environment. You do this by using How can I do that? as a gentle version of No. This will subtly push your counterpart to search for other solutionsyour solutions. And very often it will get them to bid against themselves. Dont just pay attention to the people youre negotiating with directly; always identify the motivations of the players behind the table. You can do so by asking how a deal will affect everybody else and how on board they are. Follow the 7-38-55 Percent Rule by paying close attention to tone of voice and body language. Incongruence between the words and nonverbal signs will show when your counterpart is lying or uncomfortable with a deal. Is the Yes real or counterfeit? Test it with the Rule of Three: use calibrated questions, summaries, and labels to get your counterpart to reaffirm their agreement at least three times. Its really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction. A persons use of pronouns offers deep insights into his or her relative authority. If youre hearing a lot of I, me, and my, the real power to decide probably lies elsewhere. Picking up a lot of we, they, and them, its more likely youre dealing directly with a savvy decision maker keeping his options open. Use your own name to make yourself a real person to the other side and even get your own personal discount. Humor and humanity are the best ways to break the ice and remove roadblocks.
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But let me cut the list even further: its best to start with what, how, and sometimes why. Nothing else. Who, when, and where will often just get your counterpart to share a fact without thinking. And why can backfire. Regardless of what language the word why is translated into, its accusatory. There are very rare moments when this is to your advantage. The only time you can use why successfully is when the defensiveness that is created supports the change you are trying to get them to see. Why would you ever change from the way youve always done things and try my approach? is an example. Why would your company ever change from your long-standing vendor and choose our company? is another. As always, tone of voice, respectful and deferential, is critical.
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the Black Swan symbolizes the uselessness of predictions based on previous experience. Black Swans are events or pieces of knowledge that sit outside our regular expectations and therefore cannot be predicted.
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SECTION IV: CALIBRATED QUESTIONS Prepare three to five calibrated questions to reveal value to you and your counterpart and identify and overcome potential deal killers. Effective negotiators look past their counterparts stated positions (what the party demands) and delve into their underlying motivations (what is making them want what they want). Motivations are what they are worried about and what they hope for, even lust for. Figuring out what the other party is worried about sounds simple, but our basic human expectations about negotiation often get in the way. Most of us tend to assume that the needs of the other side conflict with our own. We tend to limit our field of vision to our issues and problems, and forget that the other side has its own unique issues based on its own unique worldview. Great negotiators get past these blinders by being relentlessly curious about what is really motivating the other side. Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling has a great quote that sums up this concept: You must accept the reality of other people. You think that reality is up for negotiation, that we think its whatever you say it is. You must accept that we are as real as you are; you must accept that you are not God. There will be a small group of What and How questions that you will find yourself using in nearly every situation. Here are a few of them: What are we trying to accomplish? How is that worthwhile? Whats the core issue here? How does that affect things? Whats the biggest challenge you face? How does this fit into what the objective is? QUESTIONS TO IDENTIFY BEHIND-THE-TABLE DEAL KILLERS When implementation happens by committee, the support of that committee is key. Youll want to tailor your calibrated questions to identify and unearth the motivations of those behind the table, including: How does this affect the rest of your team? How on board are the people not on this call? What do your colleagues see as their main challenges in this area? QUESTIONS TO IDENTIFY AND DIFFUSE DEAL-
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setting boundaries. Your response must always be expressed in the form of strong, yet empathic, limit-setting boundariesthat is, tough lovenot as hatred or violence.
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When deliberating on a negotiating strategy or approach, people tend to focus all their energies on what to say or do, but its how we are (our general demeanor and delivery) that is both the easiest thing to enact and the most immediately effective mode of influence. Our brains dont just process and understand the actions and words of others but their feelings and intentions too, the social meaning of their behavior and their emotions. On a mostly unconscious level, we can understand the minds of others not through any kind of thinking but through quite literally grasping what the other is feeling. Think
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Review everything you hear. You will not hear everything the first time, so double-check. Compare notes with your team members. You will often discover new information that will help you advance the negotiation. Use backup listeners whose only job is to listen between the lines. They will hear things you miss. In other words: listen, listen again, and listen some more.
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Set your target price (your goal). 2.Set your first offer at 65 percent of your target price. 3.Calculate three raises of decreasing increments (to 85, 95, and 100 percent). 4.Use lots of empathy and different ways of saying No to get the other side to counter before you increase your offer. 5.When calculating the final amount, use precise, nonround numbers like, say, $37,893 rather than $38,000. It gives the number credibility and weight. 6.On your final number, throw in a nonmonetary item (that they probably dont want) to show youre at your limit.
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Great negotiators are able to question the assumptions that the rest of the involved players accept on faith or in arrogance, and thus remain more emotionally open to all possibilities, and more intellectually agile to a fluid situation.
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But let me cut the list even further: its best to start with what, how, and sometimes why.
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This really juices their self-esteem. Researchers have found that people getting concessions often feel better about the bargaining process than those who are given a single firm, fair offer. In fact, they feel better even when they end up paying moreor receiving lessthan they otherwise might.
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Instead ask, Is now a bad time to talk? Either you get Yes, it is a bad time followed by a good time or a request to go away, or you get No, its not and total focus.
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If you approach a negotiation thinking that the other guy thinks like you, youre wrong, I say. Thats not empathy; thats projection.
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We employed our tactical empathy by recognizing and then verbalizing the predictable emotions of the situation. We didnt just put ourselves in the fugitives shoes. We spotted their feelings, turned them into words, and then very calmly and respectfully repeated their emotions back to them.
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Remember, never be so sure of what you want that you wouldnt take something better. Once youve got flexibility in the forefront of your mind you come into a negotiation with a winning mindset.
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Then say, Okay, I apologize. Lets stop everything and go back to where I started treating you unfairly and well fix it.
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Imagine yourself in your counterparts situation. The beauty of empathy is that it doesnt demand that you agree with the other persons ideas (you may well find them crazy). But by acknowledging the other persons situation, you immediately convey that you are listening. And once they know that you are listening, they may tell you something that you can use. The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement. Denying barriers or negative influences gives them credence; get them into the open. Pause. After you label a barrier or mirror a statement, let it sink in. Dont worry, the other party will fill the silence. Label your counterparts fears to diffuse their power. We all want to talk about the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterparts amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust. List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root. And because these accusations often sound exaggerated when said aloud, speaking them will encourage the other person to claim that quite the opposite is true. Remember youre dealing with a person who wants to be appreciated and understood. So use labels to reinforce and encourage positive perceptions and dynamics.
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It comes down to the deep and universal human need for autonomy. People need to feel in control. When you preserve a persons autonomy by clearly giving them permission to say No to your ideas, the emotions calm, the effectiveness of the decisions go up, and the other party can really look at your proposal. Theyre allowed to hold it in their hands, to turn it around. And it gives you time to elaborate or pivot in order to convince your counterpart that the change youre proposing is more advantageous than the status quo.
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I switched into my Late-Night, FM DJ Voice: deep, soft, slow, and reassuring.
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