Book of the Week: Never Split the Difference

09 Nov 2016

never_split_the_difference This week I read Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It, because I need to get in touch with my emotions. Doesn’t explicitly label and organize within a chapter since stories are mainly a narrative to illustrate techniques. The end of the chapter summarizes points. Can probably just read summary at end of very chapter if you’re busy. Sometimes theory doesn’t match up with the real world. Chris Voss’s real experience as an FBI hostage negotiator was gained by people dying. You can benefit from their deaths by reading this book and finding out what works in practice. Conflict

People generally fear conflict, so they avoid useful arguments out of fear that the tone will escalate into personal attacks they cannot handle. People in close relationships often avoid making their own interests known and instead compromise across the board to avoid being perceived as greedy or self-interested. They fold, they grow bitter, and they grow apart. We’ve all heard of marriages that ended in divorce and the couple never fought.

People run away from conflict, leading to problems. A good negotiator heads off possible accusations and listens to the other side. Negotiation is a process of discovery, your goal is not to make assumptions, but to test hypotheses. Don’t be in a hurry. I need to learn how to embrace conflict and become a great person in the process. Sometimes it can feel a bit manipulative to take advantage of psychological biases, but sometimes the stakes are too high not to. 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. It’s bringing our attention to both the emotional obstacles and the potential pathways to getting an agreement done. It’s emotional intelligence on steroids.

You can’t separate people from emotion. Taking things as a logical argument doesn’t work until you have dealt with the emotion around it. You need to listen and understand the person before you can reach a resolution. Voices Tones How you communicate can steer negotiations. It is as much as how you say it as what you say. Physically smiling can help you enter the positive / playful voice, which is used the most.

Mirroring Repeat the last few words that someone just said. This causes the person to keep talking and builds empathy. Labeling

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 that person feels. It gets you close to someone without asking about external factors you know nothing about (“How’s your family?”). Think of labeling as a shortcut to intimacy, a time-saving hack.

After throwing out a label, you need some silence, so the other party will start talking. Listen to what the other part says. Once you label the negative feelings, you need to replace them with positive thoughts. No

Every ‘No’ gets me closer to a ‘Yes’ —Mark Cuban

Usually when people negotiate they try to get a yes, but that is the wrong way to go. People will say yes when they don’t really mean yes. There are three kinds of “yes”.

Saying no makes the speaker feel in control. Going for yes makes people feel defensive and skittish. Some tested two scripts asking for donations and the no script generated more money. Even with that data, they still used the yes script, because that is what the longtime fund-raisers felt comfortable with. Your goal is not to get a yes, but to get them to say “that’s right”, which is different from a “you’re right”. Compromise is Bullshit

I’m here to call bullshit on compromise right now. We don’t compromise because it’s right; we compromise because it is easy and because it saves face. We compromise in order to say that at least we got half the pie. Distilled to its essence, we compromise to be safe. Most people in a negotiation are driven by fear or by the desire to avoid pain. Too few are driven by their actual goals.

Compromise is the easy way out, but it doesn’t really make everyone happy. You need to work through the conflict to get at what you really want. If you want a 32-bit system and someone else wants a 64-bit system, you don’t compromise and build a 48-bit system since that doesn’t help anyone. Don’t get suckered by people dropping the F-word, calling something fair. 7-38-55 Percent Rule

Very little of the communication comes from the words. You need to know how to be perceptive enough to pick up on signals you may be missing out on. The Rule of Three Get the counterparty to agree to the same thing three times during the same conversation. Calibrated Question Start with “How” or “What”. This implicitly asks the other party to help and solve your problems. This causes them to stop and think. They will start speaking, revealing more information. Calibrate the question to point your counterpart toward a solution. They will agree, because it is their idea. They proposed the solution. Avoid questions that can be answered with yes, because that will steer your counterpart toward reciprocity, tit for tat. Three Negotiating Styles There are three types of negotiating styles, which respond and behave differently. You need to know how your own style and theirs interact.

Ackerman Plan If you want a systematic way of negotiating, you can use the Ackerman plan.

  1. Set your target price (your goal)
  2. Set your first offer at 65% of your target price
  3. Calculate three raises of decreasing increments (85, 95, and 100%)
  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 nomonetary item (that they probably don’t want) to show you’re at your limit.

Biggest thing I learned is that I need to smile more.