Never Split The Difference
By Chris Voss
đź“š The Book in 3 Bullets
Negotiating is a part of everyday life. Don’t be afraid to embrace conflict directly.
Ask lots of open-ended questions that start with “how” or “what” to give your counterpart the illusion of control and to find out more information from them.
Emphasize the similarities you have with your counterpart by finding what you have in common and by using the mirroring technique.
✍️ My Top Quotes
No deal is better than a bad deal.
He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.
When the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion; you fall to your highest level of preparation.
đź“– Summary & Notes
Chapter 1: The new rules
People just want to be understood and accepted. Listening is the best way to make people feel this way.
In this world you get what you ask for, you just have to ask correctly.
You don’t need to like negotiating. You just need to understand how it works.
Ask questions that start with how or what, so that you can avoid a simple yes or no response. Make your opponent use brain power
You need to identify what your counterpart actually needs (money, emotionally, or otherwise) and get them feeling safe to talk about what they want.
Chapter 2: Be a mirror
Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard and we risk undermining the rapport and trust we’ve built.
Most of the time, you should be using a positive/playful voice. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking.
The late-night FM DJ voice works by reflecting your voice downward and you talk slowly and clearly to convey that you’re in control.
A mirror is when you repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said.
This will trigger your counterpart to elaborate on what was just said and help build rapport and insinuate similarity
Mirroring can be 70% more effective at building rapport than just positive reinforcement
How to confront—and get your way—without confrontation
Use the late-night FM DJ voice
Start with “I’m sorry…”
Mirror
Mirroring and labeling makes your counterpart consider their answer again and should be used if they give you answers that are unacceptable
Silence. At least four seconds, to let the mirror work its magic on your counterpart.
Repeat
The intention behind most mirrors should be “Please, help me understand.”
Mirroring will make you feel awkward as heck when you first try it. This technique takes practice
Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously.
Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible.
Smile. 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).
Chapter 3: Don’t feel their pain, label it
Once people get upset at one another, rational thinking goes out the window.
Empathy is paying attention to another human being, asking what they are feeling, and making a commitment to understanding their world.
Empathy is not about being nice or agreeing with the other side. It’s about understanding them. Empathy helps us learn the position the enemy is in, why their actions make sense (to them), and what might move them.
Labeling is a way of validating someone’s emotion by acknowledging it. Give someone’s emotion a name and you show you identify with how the person feels. It is a shortcut to intimacy.
Once you’ve spotted an emotion you want to highlight, the next step is to label it aloud. Labels can be phrased as statements or questions. No matter how they end, labels almost always begin with roughly the same words:
It seems like…
It sounds like…
It looks like…
The last rule of labeling is silence. Once you’ve thrown out a label, be quiet and listen.
Labeling addresses the underlying emotions. Labeling negatives diffuses them. Labeling positives reinforces them.
When you make a mistake, acknowledge the other person's anger. Say “look, I’m an asshole” and you’ll be amazed at how many of the problems go away.
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
The next time you find yourself following an angry customer at a store or the airport, take a moment and practice labels and mirror the service person. You might walk away with a little more than you expected.
By acknowledging the other person's situation, you immediately convey that you are listening. And when they know you’re listening, they may tell you something that you can use.
Denying barriers or negative influences gives them credence; get them into the open.
List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can.
Chapter 4: Beware “yes”—master “no’
Don’t try to push a bunch of yes answers from your counterpart. This will make their guard go up. A “no” answer starts the negotiation. Train yourself to hear “no” as something other than rejection. When someone tells you “no” think about what it really means:
I’m not yet ready to agree
You’re making me feel uncomfortable
I don’t understand
I don’t think I can afford it
I want something else
I need more information
Then after pausing, ask solution-based questions or simply label their effect:
What about this doesn’t work for you?
What would you need to make it work?
It seems like there’s something here that bothers you?
Saying no gives the speaker the feeling of safety, security, and control.
Good negotiators welcome a solid “No” to start, as a sign that the other party is engaged and thinking.
No isn’t the end of a negotiation, it’s the beginning.
If you get a “yes” straight off the bat, your counterpart gets defensive, wary, and skittish.
Say “Is now a bad time to talk?” instead of “do you have a few minutes to talk.”
If someone isn’t getting back to you, say “Have you given up on this project.”
Chapter 5: Trigger the two words that immediately transform any negotiation
Trigger a “that’s right!” with a summary
Effective pauses: silence is powerful
Minimal encourages: Besides silence, simple phrases, such as “Yes”, “Ok”, “Uh-huh”, to convey you’re paying attention.
Mirror
Labeling: Give feelings a name and identify how they feel
Paraphrase
Summarise: A good summary is a combination of rearticulating the meaning of what is said plus the acknowledgment of the emotions underlying what meaning (paraphrasing +labeling = summary)
Aim for “That’s right” not “You’re right.”
Chapter 6: Bend their reality
We don’t compromise because it’s right; we compromise because it is easy and saves face. Never split the difference.
Deadlines are often arbitrary, almost always flexible, and hardly ever trigger the consequences we think—or are told—they will.
Car dealers are prone to give you the best price near the end of the month when their transactions are assessed.
Early on in negotiations, say, “I want you to feel like you are being treated fairly at all times. So please stop me at any time if you feel I’m being unfair, and we’ll address it.”
People will take greater risks to avoid losses than to achieve gains. That’s called loss aversion.
You need to persuade your counterpart that they have something concrete to lose if the deal falls through.
You should offer your counterpart a range in negotiation. Just expect them to come in on the low end.
When you talk numbers, use odd ones. Numbers that end in 0 seem like temporary placeholders or guesstimates. But anything less round like 84,738 feels like a figure that you came to as a result of thoughtful calculation.
How to negotiate a better salary
Be pleasantly persistent on nonsalary terms
Ask with a big smile for an extra week of vacation. Be delightful.
Salary terms without success terms is Russian roulette.
Once you’ve negotiated a salary, make sure to define success for your position—as well as metrics for your next raise.
Spark their interest in your success and gain an unofficial mentor.
When you’re selling yourself to a manager, sell yourself as more than a body for a job; sell yourself, and your success, as a way they can validate their own intelligence and broadcast it to the rest of the company.
Ask “what does it take to be successful here?”
Doing this gives the manager a personal stake in seeing you succeed.
Meeting halfway often leads to bad deals for both sides.
The word “Fair” is an emotional term people usually exploit to put the other side on the defensive and gain concessions. If your counterpart tries to use this on you, ask them to explain how you’re mistreating them.
Before you make an offer, emotionally anchor them by saying how bad it will be. When you get to numbers, set an extreme anchor to make your “real” offer seem reasonable, or use a range to seem less aggressive.
Make sure your counterpart sees that there is something to lose by inaction.
Chapter 7: Create the illusion of control
When you go into a store, instead of telling the salesclerk what you “need”, you can describe what you’re looking for and ask for suggestions
Then, once you’ve picked something out, instead of hitting them with a hard offer, you can say the price is a bit more than you budgeted and hit them with the “How am I supposed to do that?”
Calibrated questions avoid verbs like can, is, are, do, or does. Those are closed-ended questions. Instead, use questions that start with “what,” or “how,” and sometimes “why.” Here are some examples:
What about this is important to you?
How can I help to make this better for us?
How would you like me to proceed?
How can we solve this problem?
What are we trying to accomplish here?
How am I supposed to do that?
How am I supposed to accept that?
Asking calibrated questions can give your counterpart the illusion of control.
Don’t try to force your opponent to admit that you are right. Aggressive confrontation is the enemy of constructive negotiation.
Bite your tongue. When you’re attacked in a negotiation, pause and avoid angry emotional reactions. Instead, ask your counterpart a calibrated question.
Chapter 8: Guarantee execution
Calibrated “how” questions can be graceful ways to say no and guide your counterpart to generate a better solution.
Body language and tone of voice—not words—are our most powerful assessment tools. Meeting face-to-face is always better than over the phone or email.
Liars use more words than truth tellers and use far more third-person pronouns like him, her, it, one, they, rather than I, in order to put distance between themselves and the lie.
“How can I do that” is a gentle version of no.
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.
Chapter 9: Bargain hard
A great line to get more money is “I think your offer is very reasonable and I understand your restrictions, but I need more money in order to be the best person for the job.”
Once you’re clear on what your bottom line is, you have to be willing to walk away. Never be needy for a deal.
The person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is. So focus on the issue. Avoid emotional escalations.
Use the Ackerman model for offer-counteroffer situations
Set your target price (your goal)
Set your first offer at 65% of your target price
Calculate three raises of decreasing increments (to 85, 95, and 100 percent)
Use lots of empathy and different ways of saying “No” to get the other side to counter before you increase your offer.
When calculating the final amount, use precise, nonround numbers like $37,934 rather than $38000.
On your final number, throw in a nonmonetary item (that they probably don’t want) to show you’re at your limit.
Chapter 10: Find the black swan
To uncover unknowns in negotiations, you must listen intensely and ask lots of questions.
Leverage is the ability to inflict loss and withhold gain.
To get leverage, you have to persuade your counterpart that they have something real to lose if the deal falls through.
People operating with incomplete information appear crazy to those who have different information.
In any aspect of your life whether it’s in the office or at the family dinner table, don’t avoid honest, clear conflict. It will get you the best price, a higher salary, and improve your relationships.
Dig into worldviews as this implies moving beyond the negotiation table and into the life, emotional and otherwise, of your counterpart. That’s where Black Swans live.
Exploit the similarity principle. People are more apt to concede to someone they share a cultural similarity with, so dig for what you share in common.
When someone seems irrational or crazy, they most likely aren’t. Search for constraints, hidden desires, and bad information.