Never split the difference -

Chapter 1
Created @January 3, 2022 4:07 PM

Last Edited Time @January 3, 2022 4:59 PM

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Participants Chris Voss, Tahl Raz

Never split the difference - Negotiate as if your life depends on it

About the author Chris Voss: He has 2 decades of experience working with FBI, 15
years as their sole international negotiator lead. This book is the summary of
techniques that the FBI has learnt, applied in practice, what works, what doesn’t
work and he claim the techniques mentioned in the book can be applied in any of the
domain, be it buying a car or negotiating the salary or a child’s bedtime. These are
designed to help you disarm, redirect and dismantle your counterpart in virtually any
negotiation in a relationship affirming way.

Theories in the academia regarding the negotiation started with Harvard Negotiation
project founded in 1979, the output of which was “Getting to Yes” a book on
negotiation that acted as a based for the academic research/teaching going forward.

It had 4 basis tenets:

Separate the emotion from the problem

don’t get wrapped up in the other side’s position (what they are asking for) but
instead focus on their interests (why they are asking for it) so that you can find
what they really want

work cooperatively to generate win-win options

establish mutually agreed upon standards for evaluating possible solutions

This system/though process was based on the assumption that people are rational
and selfish and trying to maximize its position. Basically the goal was to take each
such situation as a problem solving approach.

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 Later, Kahneman, the author of thinking fast and slow, showed that the human is an
irrational beast. People are neither fully rational nor fully selfish and their
tastes/interests are not stable. He discovered more than 150 kinds of congnitive
biases - unconscious and irrational brain process that distort the way we see the
world. He came up with the concept of 2 systems of thoughs.

System 1, our animal mind, is fast, instinctive and emotional

System 2, is slow, deliberate and logical

System 1 is far more influencial. In fact, it guides and steers our rational thoughts

We react emotionally to a suggestion or question (system 1) and then that system 1

reaction informs and in effect creates the system 2 answer

If you know how to affect the counterpart’s system 1 thinking, his inarticulate
feelings, by how you frame and deliver the questions and statements, then you
can guide his system 2 rationality and therefore modify his responses

After a number of failures with the “Getting to Yes” system, FBI formulated a group to
reinvent crisis negotiation.

the moto was:

learn the psychological skills needed in the crisis intervention situations.

Emotions and emotional intelligence would have to be central to effective
negotiation, not things to overcome (contrast to “Getting to yes”)

simple psychological tactics and strategies that worked in the filed to calm
people down, establish communication, gain trust, elicit the verbalization of his
needs and persuade the other guys of our empathy.

Need something easy to teach, easy to learn and easy to execute

Basic premise of the techniques evolved is 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. When
individuals feel listened to, they tend to listen to themselves more carefully and to
openly evaluate and clarify their own thoughts and feelings. In addition they become
less defensive and oppositional and more willing to listen to other points of view

This concept, the centre of this book, is called Tactical Empathy. (listening as a
martial art, balancing the subtle behaviours of emotional intelligence and the
assertive skills of influence, to gain access to the mind of another person. Contrary

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 to the popular belief, listening is not a passive activity, it is the most active thing you
can do.
First step to achieve the mastery of daily negotiation is to get over your aversion to
negotiating. You don’t need to like it, you just need to understand that’s how the work
works. Negotiating doesn’t mean browbeating or grinding someone down. It simply
mean playing motional game that human society is setup for. In this world you get
what you ask for; you just have to ask correctly.

This book will make you accept negotiation and in doing so learn how to get what
you want in a psychologically aware way. You will learn to use your emotions,
instincts and insights in any encounter to connect better with others, influence them
and achieve more.

A hostage negotiator plays a unique role: he has to win. Can he say to a bank robber
- Okay, you have taken four hostages. Lets split the difference - give me two and
we’ll call it a day?

No. A successful hostage negotiator has to get everything he asks for without giving
anything back of substance and do so in a way that leaves the adversaries feeling as
if they have a great relationship. You will learn these tools in this books.

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