Never Split The Difference

When I first read the title of this book, I thought the author was crazy. I mean, we've always learned that to reach an agreement, you should meet your counterpart halfway. How come he's giving such a contrarian advice?

Well, it turned out that Chris Voss is not crazy. This former FBI hostage negotiator learned throughout decades of experience that you can (almost) always get what you want from a negotiation. And in his case, it was all about saving lives, i.e., a situation where the difference cannot be split.

The book is full of practical negotiation techniques that one can use in any situation: at work, at the car dealership, with their kids, or in life in general. While the idea behind every negotiation is to maximize your gain, I appreciated how the author stressed on the importance for every negotiator to have a reputation of being fair. A good reputation will help you negotiate for success.

I would divide the book's key takeaways into three parts: before negotiation, during negotiation, and post-agreement.

Prepare for negotiation

"When the pressure is on, you don't rise to the occasion; you fall to your highest level of preparation." This statement by Voss sets the tone about the importance of being well prepared before negotiating.

Study your counterpart's position - and more importantly - your position. Define your best case and worst case scenarios, and how you will move between them.

Know well your counterpart's values and their culture. People are more apt to concede to someone they share a cultural similarity with.

Train on open-ended questions. These questions usually start with "How" or "What" and help you counteract unproductive statements from your counterpart. For example, you can use "How am I supposed to accept that?" and "What are we trying to achieve here?" to implicitly ask for your counterpart help in getting to YOUR solution.

Negotiate and convince

We humans make decisions mostly based on emotion. A Gallup study showed that 70% of brand-related decisions are based on emotional factors and only 30% are based on rational factors (think of the $1,000-phone in your hand). The emotional contribution is surprisingly higher for financial decisions: 90% of them are based on emotion and 10% on logic.

Practice empathy with your counterpart. Understand how they see the situation from their perspective, how "the world is according to them". Then proceed according to this guide:

1. Anchor their emotions in preparation for a loss which they will want to avoid. No one wants to lose, but loss is relative. Let it be clear that if the deal falls though, your counterpart has something concrete to lose.
2. Let the other party go first... unless you're a shark.
3. Offer a range and expect them to come in at the low end.
4. Increase your offer with small and decreasing increments. If you next offer is 10% higher than the previous one, the subsequent one should be 5% higher.
5. Pivot to nonmonetary terms when you feel the situation has reached a deadlock: offer benefits that bring value but do not have a direct financial impact.
6. Surprise with a gift: everyone loves gifts, including tough negotiators.

Always try to stick to the plan, even when it's hard. Mike Tyson once said: "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." Be ready as much as you can for that punch.

Implement!

"A good deal is nothing without good implementation." When negotiating, make sure you identify the deal makers or killers who are not sitting at the table. You can ask calibrated questions such as "How does this affect the rest of your team?", "How on board are the people not in this meeting?", and "What do your colleagues see as their main challenges in this area?".

Voss recommends using the Rule of Three to assess if a Yes is real or counterfeit. The objective is to get your counterpart to reaffirm their agreement at least three times. It's really hard to repeatedly fake conviction.

Have you read this book? Do you use other negotiation techniques? Drop them in the comments ????