This is a very interesting book that may help you understand how to best face all the negotiations you may be involved in your life, because, after all
Life is a series of negotiations you should be prepared for: buying a car; negotiating a pay hike; buying a home; renegotiating rent; deliberating with your partner.
In Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It , Chris Voss, a former international hostage negotiator for the FBI, offers a new and tested approach to high-stakes negotiations. But the principles of the book can be applied to every negotiations of our lives.
After a season policing the streets of Kansas City, Missouri, Chris Voss joined the FBI, where he became a hostage negotiator who had to face many criminals, including bank robbers and terrorists. He later became the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiato
The book Never Split the Difference reveals the skills that helped Voss and his colleagues to succeed in saving lives. The book is a practical guide in which he shares the nine effective principles—counterintuitive tactics and strategies—that can be used to become more persuasive in both professional and personal life.
According to Voss,
“Everything we’ve previously been taught about negotiation is wrong: people are not rational; there is no such thing as ‘fair’; compromise is the worst thing you can do; the real art of negotiation lies in mastering the intricacies of No, not Yes.
Voss draws on his experiences in truly life-or-death situations to illustrate these negotiation techniques, and offers many examples of how they can be applied into our lives.
Because we spend most of our days at work and in our personal lives negotiating for something, it is extremely valuable to understand the most successful and crisis-tested approaches to the negotiation process.
What sets the strategies in this book apart from other negotiation theories (like those which approach negotiation as logical and sequential problems to be solved) is the injection of emotional intelligence and empathy into the negotiation process. This was the game-changer for the FBI, according to Voss.
10 Quotes from “Never Split the Difference”
“He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.”
“Conflict brings out truth, creativity, and resolution.”
“The Rule of Three is simply getting the other guy to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation. It’s tripling the strength of whatever dynamic you’re trying to drill into at the moment. In doing so, it uncovers problems before they happen. It’s really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction.”
“Hope is not a strategy”
“Negotiate in their world. Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea. So don’t beat them with logic or brute force. Ask them questions that open paths to your goals. It’s not about you.”
“Playing dumb is a valid negotiating technique, and”
“I was employing what had become one of the FBI’s most potent negotiating tools: the open-ended question. Today,”
“If you approach a negotiation thinking the other guy thinks like you, you are wrong. That’s not empathy, that’s a projection.”
“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.”
“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”
Praise for Never Split The Difference
“Chris Voss’s NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE is a different kind of business book —one that emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence without sacrificing deal-making power. It comes from the pen of a former hostage negotiator — someone who couldn’t take no for an answer — which makes it fascinating reading. But it’s also eminently practical. In these pages, you will find the techniques for getting the deal you want.” —Daniel H. Pink, author of TO SELL IS HUMAN and DRIVE
“This book blew my mind. It’s a riveting read, full of instantly actionable advice—not just for high-stakes negotiations, but also for handling everyday conflicts at work and at home.” —Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of ORIGINALS and GIVE AND TAKE
“Former FBI Hostage Negotiator Chris Voss has few equals when it comes to high stakes negotiations. Whether for your business or your personal life, his techniques work.” —Joe Navarro, FBI Special Agent (Ret.) and author of the international bestseller, What Every BODY is Saying.
“Your business, basically your entire life, comes down to your performance in crucial conversations, and these tools will give you the edge you need. . . It’s required reading for my employees because I use the lessons in this book every single day, and I want them to, too.“ —Jason McCarthy, CEO of GORUCK
Summary of Never Split the Difference
Chapter 1: The New Rules
How to Become the Smartest Person…in Any Room
Negotiators must be active listeners in order to gain the trust of the other party.
Humans want to be accepted and understood. By being active listeners, we demonstrate empathy and show a sincere desire to better understand what the other side would possibly experience.
Chapter 2: Be a Mirror
How to Quickly Establish Rapport
Good negotiators should learn how to practice empathy with the other party so they can uncover obstacles and gain trust
People often view negotiation as a battle of arguments and soon become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. But negotiation isn’t a battle, instead it is an act of discovery and the objective is to uncover as much information as is available.
If you want to conquer the voices in your head, the best strategy is to focus on the other party and what they have to say. You need to make sure you understand what the other party actually needs and help them feel safe enough to talk about what they really want. Negotiation starts with listening to the other party, validating their concerns and emotions, building trust and creating a safety net that allows for real conversations.
The Summary Will Continue In The Next Blog Post
