Link to the class: https://www.masterclass.com/classes/chris-voss-teaches-the-art-of-negotiation

Book by Chris Voss: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

1. Tactical empathy

(→ tactical application of EQ)

What of their rules did they violate? “I can live by your rules, can you?”

Example:

Jill Stewart: hair uncovered by criminals.

Jill’s dad said: “Her life as a reporter, will better support your purposes than her death. ” → my daughter Jill is not your enemy.

Say things that are indisputably true, but align interests of both sides.

As long as you say your daughter is innocent, whether it’s true or not, you are feeding them the justification of killing her.

Most of the ideas you are going to learn in this lesson is to demonstrate your understanding of the other side’s position, by doing so, you build rapport, and ultimately, gain trust.

2. Mirroring

You need to gauge the other side of what their thoughts are, so that they feel involved in the process, and consequently, they want the deal to happen.

Make the other side propose your deal which they think it’s their idea.

Mirror is critical of information gathering.

Repeat the last 2-3 words of what the other person said.

Example:

“Do you have your notebook ready?”

“What do you mean by notebook?”

“Notebook!!”

“Notebook?”

By mirroring, people usually go on elaborate, people love that you are listening.

Mirror shows that you are interested, people will like you if you are interested in them.

Be genuinely interested in the other person, not judgmental, genuine curiosity is the reason why people want to say more.

“Your price is too high.”

“Your price is too high?”

(they elaborate why price is too high)

Keep mirroring, let the other party say more, make people feel like you are collaborate with them.

• Great tone of voice
• Genuine curiosity
• Mirror them a few times
• … And see if they will change their tone

Silence is golden

A lot of people are afraid of silence, because they think silence means anger. But you want to go silence after your words, and let the other people think.

Also show the other person know you really wanna hear, you gonna shut up until they do.

Keep mirroring

If these tools make you feel awkward, that means you are learning. → Awkwardness means you are learning.

As you practice the tools I’m gonna teach you, you gonna feel awkward, but that means you are learning.

Practice for 3 weeks, and you’ll pass the awkwardness.

3. Labeling

(Most useful tool with most different applications to solve unwind and solve tricky problems. )

Steps of labeling

• Aware of the other person’s emotion. Use your gut feeling
• Label emotion: “It seems that… it feels that… “
  • e.g. Seems that you are upset about this… What happens in your brain is…
  • Sounds like… seems that…
  • You sound… you seem
• Trigger contemplation, this deactivates the negative.
• Build relationship. Help me get information. Influence increase → Trust based influence increase. → Lowest maintenance, most endurable influencen.

How not to label

• Say “What I’m hearing is…” → It means “I’m more interested in my perspective than yours.”
• Can’t help to explain your label, or add some follow-up, or talk in any way after you labeled. → A good label you gotta let it sink in. You gotta let it have the effect, you gotta let it trigger the contemplation. You gotta fully deactivate the negatives.
  • After you give a great label, you gotta shut up!

Label more than once

• Labels are cumulative
• If you label sth and there’s not response, it means you are on the right track, and you need more labels, so just keep going. Observe, and add to your labels:
  • “Sounds like I haven’t gong far enough”
  • Sounds like there’s more than there’s what I see in the eye (?)
  • Sounds like there’s some feelings you have about this that I haven’t quite touched yet.

Re-enforce the positive emotions

• You can’t be happy when you call airlines / CS agents. They know you are mad. Empathy is the other side’s point of view. For example, you can talk to airlines CS agent like this:
  • “I appreciate you are being generous with your time.” → I want more generosity from her.

Mirroring and building a tandem

• Sounds like you are upset about …
• Mirror last few words of what the other person says

4. Practice: Exercise mirroring and labeling

• Label people, makes the other person discover about themselves, also make people feel like you are listening
• Though I don’t talk about anything about myself, no common ground, the other person feels close and engaged

5. Mastering delivery

(What’s your tone of voice?)

Your tone of voice can destroy your choice of words.

Manipulate mirror neurons

• If you hear anger, you speak anger; you tend to mirror the emotions you perceived in negotiation.
• In hostage negotiation, we use late night FM DJ voice to tempt down their emotions
• Smile when you talk to people
• Make them like you
• Make them feel like you are worthy of collaboration simply by smiling at them

Different ways to deliver:

• Ditch the “assertive” voice
  • Assertive: Direct, honest, blunt → listener will feel like they got punched in the nose
  • Anger always destroy the negotiation
• Use the “playful” voice
  • The playful voice, or comedy voice, you should use it 80% of the time
  • So that you make sure the line is soft
  • Everybody loves about other people telling them the truth, as long as this person is worried about how it lands.
  • Using this voice will help people collaborate with you, like you.
• Use the “analyst” voice
  • Downward, soothing voice. You are determined in the contract, and you are not gonna move. Use to deliver the messages that are unmovable. Your integrity should be your calling card.
  • “We are not gonna accept a change in this clause.”
  • Use this voice rarely, may make people feel cold, not good for relationship. May make people not enthusiastic in changing the deal.
• Use the “late night FM DJ” voice
  • Diff with analyst voice is that analyst voice doesn’t have warmth.
  • Use FM DJ voice 10-15% of the time
  • This is the quickest way to calm the other person down
  • If the other party is always anxious (real estate transaction, commission driven businesses), this voice is effective
• Inflections
  • Declarative: stating an effect
  • inquisitive: genuine curious
• Digital communication
  • Don’t make any way of communications too long
  • Always end positively
  • Use a combination of different digital communication
  • Make one good move in each way of communication
    • Make sure your words end softly, and end positively
    • “I’m afraid… I’m sorry…”

6. Case study: Chase Manhattan bank robbery

“We agree that we are going to get everybody out safely.”

Control-free negotiation.

Genuinely concerned about the other side

7. Body Language – Speech Patterns

Lie detector?

What somebody looks like when they are telling the truth, or they are lying?

The 7/38/55 rule

7+38+55=100. 7% Content, 38% tone, 55% body language. What people like and notice.

• Does their tone and body language line up with the content?
• I’m gonna look hard at their tone of voice and body language to see if they are lying.
  • “I hear you say yes, but I also heard something in your tone of voice that made you hesitate.” → observe, and label

Watch the sideliness

• The people who are extremely on guard are not the ones you are going to talk to
• The people who are silent, are the ones who will be insanely honest
• The people who are not in the focus will be ridiculously honest with their body language because they are not used to being paid attention to, they gonna be very honest with their body language
• Takeaway: observe people who are not the primary point of attention

Identify baselines and spot deviations

• When you tell the truth, you only have one way to tell the truth, but if you lie you have hundreds of ways to lie
• Ask control questions (“unimportant questions” like what day is it, what’s your name, what’s the first name of your dog, etc), so that you know how people look like when they are telling the truths
• When you lie, you’ll look different compared to when you are telling the truth

As the negotiator, what do I do with the information that the other person is lying?

The Pinocchio Effect

• What? When someone use more words than necessary to give you an answer
  • If sb is lying to you, they know they are lying, and they need to work harder to convince you that they are telling the truth, the more likely they are lying.
  • They might even say “why would I lie?”, “why it would be my interest to not telling you the truth?”.
  • The more efforts they put in to convince you, the more likely they are lying.

How to respond to a lie?

• You’ll feel uncomfortable if you come out of truth telling
• Label the other person — “Well, I hear you say you are okay with the deal but… seems like something is bothering you?”, “seems like there’s something are missed?”, “seems like there’s more than meat in the eye?” — not accusatory, the tone of voice is curious, collaborative, interested
• There’s no guarantee of success, but what tactical empathy can give you is the best guarantee of success
• “You look scared, you don’t trust me with the truth.” They perceive you as a threat. Their assessment of the situation is they got their guard up.
• You wanna use this information to divert your actions.
• What you should do now is use the late night DJ voice, be predictable – not trying to attack them, not trying to corner them, you are aware of their perspective, and you don’t have a problem with them though you may not agree with them. you continue to show them, you are worthy of them being unguarded.

8. Creating the illusion of control

Get the upper hand in negotiation

The secret of doing … is to give the other side the illusion of control

How to give the other side the illusion of control?

Ask “how” and “what” questions

• People love to be asked what to do and how to do
• Change our “why” to “what”
  • Wrong: “Why do you need 3 weeks in delivery?” (make people worry about what’s wrong)→ “what makes it necessary to get it deliver in 3 weeks?” (take the sense of accusation off it, change into a collaboration question)

Ask questions to force empathy

• We want to demonstrate empathy and we also want empathy in return
• Ask the other person for empathy, force the other person to think through what you are going through, can be as simple as:
  • “How am I supposed to do that?” → shape the other side’s thinking

Use calibrated questions to shape thinking

• “How am I supposed to do that?” → shape the other side’s thinking
• “What’s gonna happen if i do that? “
• How do I overcome the challenges I’m having here?

Avoid triggering reciprocity

• If we ask we tend to owe
• People are sensitive to reciprocity

Ask legitimate questions

• Proof of legitimacy
• Examples:
  • how do we move forward if we are good with this deal?
  • How do you make this deal in the past?
• Make the other person deal collaborators instead of deal breakers

9. Mock Negotiation: Teenager

Daughter negotiate with dad about going to Lake House with her boyfriend and his family during Labor Day.

Mirroring

Accusations audit

Calibrated question

• How am I supposed to go along with that?
• How do I know where you gonna stay?
• What makes it important?
• How does this affect your future?

Labeling

• Sounds like …
• Sounds like they are really not that around not that much
• Sounds like you don’t trust him
• Sounds like he is not dedicated to you

“I’m gonna be a horrible person if I don’t let you go.”

Really makes me think about Ryan, why it’s so important for you to go to the party?

10. The Accusations Audit

Taking a step back, taking an inventory, doing an audit, of all the negatives the other side might be thinking about.

“I don’t want you to feel… “

You start digging out the negative thinkings the other side hovering based on past experiences, past lives. “Elephant in the room” doesn’t go away by you pretending it’s not there.

Conduct in inventory, do an audit, make a list, and go after them, early on and quickly, fearlessly, unexpressed negative emotions never die, they fester like infections, and they get cancer.

Framing an accusation audit

e.g. Feels like we are wasting your time, feels like we are not being honest with you.

“You probably are asking yourself, why you are taking this meeting. Probably feels like everyone can do this line of work, and I’m not any different from other people.”

You are conveying to the other side you are being attentive, speculating. They are gonna appreciate your approach, and they will turn into straight-shooters as well.

e.g. Ask hotel for late checkout. You say: “I’m gonna make your day ridiculously difficult.” They are gonna think about horrible things. “I need a late checkout.”

Be exhaustive and fearless

Make the other person say “you are too hard on yourself”, when they say this, they are standing on your side of the table.

Low-stakes practice

Test drive by practicing on people near you (low-stake conversations).

11. The Value of No

“Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

“ughhhh…” → What am I letting myself in for?

The danger of “yes”

• Types of Yes: Commitment, confirmation, cannifer yes

The power of “No”

• “No” is so much more powerful than “Yes”. People feel safe and protected when you say no.
  • “Do you agree?” → “Do you disagree?”
  • “Is it a good idea?” → “Is it a ridiculous idea?”
• The additional information after the “no” is the most important
• When you say no, you feel there’s no commitment for me, you won’t have commitment fear, and you are more likely to share more information.
  • “No, here are the issues…”

Use “No” to get an answer

Email to get sales done at 5:03PM: “Are you against committing to 3 tickets now? Is it a ridiculous idea for you to pay before the biz day to start in NYC tmr? “

5:04PM: “No. We have no problem paying for 3 tickets right now.”

5:26PM: the other party paid.

Transition from “No” to “How”

A confirmation “Yes” without “how” will die.

Ways of asking “how”:

• How should we proceed?
• What are the next steps?
• How would you like to proceed?

12. Mock Negotiation Rival

Accusations audit: “I know I look like a jerk…”

Unarmed, make other people feel unarmed.

Calibration question: “How do we work our way through this?”

“How does that build our future?”

“What’s the value of human capital?”

“Is it a ridiculous idea?”

“I want a great community”

“I’m gonna seem very selfish.”

“Sounds like you still have some misgivings.” – “I don’t know how the money is gonna be spent.”

“We are collaborators.”

“I ask for your permission that we will use the $50k for education.”

13. Bending Reality

Logic: Fear of loss is what keep people a bad night. Keeps people up at night. Dominant factor in human decision making.

“Work with us, you’ll get 23% gain ROI.”

“Choose not to work with us, stay where you are, don’t change anything, this will cause you 23% every day. Not working with us, will cause you lose 23% day in and day out.”

Appeal to their sense of fairness

“Fair” comes up in almost every conversation. People use this to manipulate people.

People will destroy deals if they feel the deal is not fair.

Fair is the reason why people break deals.

Responding to the F-bomb

• If the other side accuses you being unfair. “I’m happy to be shown how I’m being unfair. I’m happy to learn. “
• Be proactive before the other side exploded on you. “It’s my intention to treat you fairly, if at any point in time I’m being unfair, let me know, we will go back to address it and fix it. “

Deadlines are meaningless

• DDLs are designed to get progress started. Very rarely deadlines are hard deadlines.

Responding to deadlines

First, label

• “It seems that you are under a lot of pressure here.”
• “It seems that the world is going to come to an end, if we don’t meet the deadline?”
• “It seems that you want to get this done by certain time.”

By doing so, you make the other side think how hard the deadline truly is.

Second, use calibration questions

• What happens if we don’t get this done in time?
• How do we get back on track if we fall behind the schedule?
• How do we pull victory from the ashes of defeat if we don’t meet the deadline?

The last impression

The last impression is the lasting impression.

Make the last words positive.

Open it positively: When you open the conversation you say “Look, we are here because we want to make a deal.” “We are here because long-term relationship matters to us.” “We are here because we want our partners to be profitable.”

Close it positively: Make the opening the end. “We are here because we want long-term relationship, let us know how to proceed.”

14. Bargaining

If you negotiate great, you not gonna need to bargain, the deal will make it itself.

But if you need bargaining, here are some skills:

The Ackerman System

Kidnap negotiation.

Set target, give them the number as your target * 65%, +20%, +10%, 5%, Odd number, Object (non monetary object, e.g. your jacket)

• e.g. a chair with label price $200. You ask for $65. Then increase to $85. …

Ask for permission “I’m scared to give you the number, I’m afraid you’ll be mad.” Then throw your number. “Omg, this is ridiculous.” “Ah I’m sorry I offended you, yes I’m ridiculous” (tactical empathy)

What number they give you, you should be positive, “thank you, that’s great”.

Make people feel in progress, they are more likely to stay in the deal.

Always increase by decreasing the increments.

Pivot to non-monetary terms

A lot of people say “go first and go high”, but you lose a lot of information if you do this. Every bit of information I get in a negotiation makes me smarter.

If you go first, I get information on you. You haven’t gotten any information on me.

If somebody is really pushing you to go first, it’s also an opportunity to pivot to non-monetary terms.

“Alright, I’ll be happy to give you a number. Let’s set aside for a few minutes, and let’s first talk about what it’s gonna take to make a great deal. I mean, what looks like a great deal to you, what else you do have to have?”

It’s always good to prepare something beforehand so you are not caught off guard trying to think what those things might be.

Brainstorming list, trigger some thoughts?

Provide a range

When you offer a range, they will want the end favors them.

Range depends on:

• what’s going on in the market
• what you can pay

Anchor emotions, not dollars

If you wanna pay $100, but you throw something like $20. Make the other side feels that they want the deal to happen when the price really reached $100.

You want the other person feel relieved when you drop the number you truly want to pay. “I’m gonna give you a number really high, you are not going to like it…” You gave a high number, then decrease to the number you truly want.

15. Mock Negotiation Salary

When you ask for more — “How do I know if you get something will help me?”

Say to your manager: “How can I be more valuable to you?” – you come in to ask this question instead of asking things for themselves.

Aim high is the big lie out there.

How to do it correctly?

Am I live up to the expectation?

How have I done?

How do I negotiate my success for the future?

Then you start to talk about what that success worth.

You know many employers look at employees as selfish people. You can disarm that by saying “Look I don’t want you to think I’m selfish.” “But I’m going to have a conversation with you that may make me seem very selfish.” (Mini accusation audit)

Chris: “I got sth that you are not gonna want to hear.” (accusation audit)

“How can I be guaranteed to get involved in projects that are critical to the strategic future of the company?” (calibrated question)

get everything better on everyone’s behalf

Loss aversion

F-bomb

Respond to the F-bomb

Research market value

Key: “what’s gonna cost us if we stay in the status quo”

16. Black Swans

The black swan: sth nobody knows it exists, but it changes the outcome once is reveals

Black Swans in Business: Start to collect the information from you, and I can find the black swan and change the outcome.

Open yourself to the unknown:

Open your mind, be interested, be curious.

It’s not possible to know everything, so you should open yourself up.

Case study: the tractor man

Understand what’s making them want it.

His religion is the dominant factor in his thinking.

17. Mock Negotiation: “60 Seconds or She Dies”

Sounds like you want to stay safe…

Sounds like you wanna make sure you live

Sounds like you wanna see a life behind this

Calibrated questions: How did you get here?

Sounds like you regret about this

How did you get here? How did it start?

My job is make sure nothing happens to you.

I can absolutely guarantee you nobody will hurt your life.

Basic idea:

• Use FM DJ voice
• Label emotions
• Keep slowing the other side down, be calm
• Be caring
• Make the other side feels that I’m here to collaborate with you in anyway I could

18. The Power of Negotiation

“I teach negotiation because I hate bullies. Negotiation is a way to avoid bullies. When I was young I experienced a few bullies. That scared the hell out of me. Protecting people always matter to me. I want to protect people. ” — Chris Voss