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four basic tenets. One, separate the person—the emotion—from the problem; two, don’t get wrapped up in the other side’s position (what they’re asking for) but instead focus on their interests (why they’re asking for it) so that you can find what they really want; three, work cooperatively to generate win-win options; and, four, establish mutually agreed-upon standards for evaluating those possible solutions.
Framing Effect, which demonstrates that people respond differently to the same choice depending on how it is framed (people place greater value on moving from 90 percent to 100 percent—high probability to certainty—than from 45 percent to 55 percent,
Prospect Theory explains why we take unwarranted risks in the face of uncertain losses.
people are statistically more likely to act to avert a loss than to a...
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System 1, our animal mind, is fast, instinctive, and emotional; System 2 is slow, deliberative, and logical. And System 1 is far more influential. In fact, it guides and steers our rational thoughts.
System 1’s inchoate beliefs, feelings, and impressions are the main sources of the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of System 2.
The goal is to identify what your counterparts actually need (monetarily, emotionally, or otherwise) and get them feeling safe enough to talk and talk and talk some more about what they want.
“Let’s make two copies of all the paperwork.” “I’m sorry, two copies?”
“Yes,” her boss responded, “one for us and one for the customer.” “I’m sorry, so you are saying that the client is asking for a copy and we need a copy for internal use?”
“It’s fine. You can store it anywhere,” he said, slightly perturbed now. “Anywhere?”
long pause—something he did not often do. My student sat silent. “As
Here are some of the key lessons from this chapter to remember: A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find. Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously. People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible. To quiet the voices in your head, make
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supreme art of war”: to subdue the enemy
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
inflection. But no matter how they end, labels almost always begin with roughly the same words: It seems like … It sounds like … It looks like … Notice we said “It sounds like …”
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” I repeated. “It’s Chris Voss.”
“Look, I’m an asshole” to be an amazingly effective way to make problems go away.
“I’m sensing some hesitation with these projects,”
“I want my gift to directly support programming for Girl Scouts and not anything else.”
“It seems that you are really passionate about this gift and want to find the right project reflecting the opportunities and life-changing experiences the Girl Scouts gave you.”
That’s why labels are so powerful and so potentially transformative to the state of any conversation. By digging beneath what seems like a mountain of quibbles, details, and logistics, labels help to uncover and identify the primary emotion driving almost all of your counterpart’s behavior, the emotion that, once acknowledged, seems to miraculously solve everything else.
“In case you’re worried about volunteering to role-play with me in front of the class, I want to tell you in advance … it’s going to be horrible.” After the laughter dies down, I then say, “And those of you who do volunteer will probably get more out of this than anyone else.”
“What about this doesn’t work for you?” “What would you need to make it work?” “It seems like there’s something here that bothers you.”
As you can see, “No” has a lot of skills. “No” allows the real issues to be brought forth; “No” protects people from making—and lets them correct—ineffective decisions; “No” slows things down so that people can freely embrace their decisions and the agreements they enter into; “No” helps people feel safe, secure, emotionally comfortable, and in control of their decisions; “No” moves everyone’s efforts forward.
RAISER: Hello, can I speak with Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH: Yes, this is he. FUND-RAISER: I’m calling from the XYZ Committee, and I wanted to ask you a few important questions about your views on our economy today. Do you believe that gas prices are currently too high? MR. SMITH: Yes, gas prices are much too high and hurting my family. FUND-RAISER: Do you believe that the Democrats are part of the problem when it comes to high gas prices? MR. SMITH: Yes, President Obama is a bad person FUND-RAISER: Do you think we need change in November? MR. SMITH: Yes, I do. FUND-RAISER: Can you give me your
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FUND-RAISER: Hello, can I speak with Mr. Smith? MR. SMITH: Yes, this is he. FUND-RAISER: I’m calling from the XYZ Committee, and I wanted to ask you a few important questions about your views on our economy today. Do you feel that if things stay the way they are, America’s best days are ahead of it? MR. SMITH: No, things will only get worse. FUND-RAISER: Are you going to sit and watch President Obama take the White House in November without putting up a fight? MR. SMITH: No, I’m going to do anything I can to make sure that doesn’t happen. FUND-RAISER: If you want do something today to make
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Have you given up on this project?
Along the way, keep in mind these powerful lessons: Break the habit of attempting to get people to say “yes.” Being pushed for “yes” makes people defensive. Our love of hearing “yes” makes us blind to the defensiveness we ourselves feel when someone is pushing us to say it. “No” is not a failure. We have learned that “No” is the anti “Yes” and therefore a word to be avoided at all costs. But it really often just means “Wait” or “I’m not comfortable with that.” Learn how to hear it calmly. It is not the end of the negotiation, but the beginning. “Yes” is the final goal of a negotiation, but
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active listening arsenal: Effective Pauses: Silence is powerful. We told Benjie to use it for emphasis, to encourage Sabaya to keep talking until eventually, like clearing out a swamp, the emotions were drained from the dialogue. Minimal Encouragers: Besides silence, we instructed using simple phrases, such as “Yes,” “OK,” “Uh-huh,” or “I see,” to effectively convey that Benjie was now paying full attention to Sabaya and all he had to say. Mirroring: Rather than argue with Sabaya and try to separate Schilling from the “war damages,” Benjie would listen and repeat back what Sabaya said.
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Use these lessons to lay that foundation: Creating unconditional positive regard opens the door to changing thoughts and behaviors. Humans have an innate urge toward socially constructive behavior. The more a person feels understood, and positively affirmed in that understanding, the more likely that urge for constructive behavior will take hold. “That’s right” is better than “yes.” Strive for it. Reaching “that’s right” in a negotiation creates breakthroughs. Use a summary to trigger a “that’s right.” The building blocks of a good summary are a label combined with paraphrasing. Identify,
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Deadlines are almost never ironclad. What’s more important is engaging in the process and having a feel for how long that will take. You may see that you have more to accomplish than time will actually allow before the clock runs out.
Then say, “Okay, I apologize. Let’s stop everything and go back to where I started treating you unfairly and we’ll fix it.”
label: “It seems like you’re ready to provide the evidence that supports that,”
how I use it: Early on in a negotiation, I say, “I want you to feel like you are being treated fairly at all times. So please stop me at any time if you feel I’m being unfair, and we’ll address it.”
book How to Become a Rainmaker,
If you can get the other party to reveal their problems, pain, and unmet objectives—if you can get at what people are really buying—then you can sell them a vision of their problem that leaves your proposal as the perfect solution.
What does a good babysitter sell, really? It’s not child care exactly, but a relaxed evening. A furnace salesperson? Cozy rooms for family time. A locksmith? A feeling of security.
Know the emotional drivers and you can frame the benefits of any deal in lang...
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get real leverage, you have to persuade them that they have something concrete to lose
1. ANCHOR THEIR EMOTIONS
accusation audit. “I got a lousy proposition for you,” I said, and paused until each asked me to go on. “By the time we get off the phone, you’re going to think I’m a lousy businessman. You’re going to think I can’t budget or plan. You’re going to think Chris Voss is a big talker. His first big project ever out of the FBI, he screws it up completely. He doesn’t know how to run an operation. And he might even have lied to me.”
And then, once I’d anchored their emotions in a minefield of low expectations, I played on their loss aversion. “Still, I wanted to bring this opportunity to you before I took it to someone else,” I said.
Suddenly, their call wasn’t about being cut from $2,000 to $500 but how not to los...
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2. LET THE OTHER GUY GO FIRST … MOST OF THE TIME.
3. ESTABLISH A RANGE
higher levels. Research shows that people who hear extreme anchors unconsciously adjust their expectations
Understand, if you offer a range (and it’s a good idea to do so) expect them to come in at the low end.
4. PIVOT TO NONMONETARY TERMS
5. WHEN YOU DO TALK NUMBERS, USE ODD ONES
37,263—feels like a figure that you came to as a result of thoughtful calculation. Such numbers feel serious and permanent to your counterpart,
