Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

by Chris Voss

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.

The greatest obstacle to accurately identifying someone else’s style is what I call the “I am normal” paradox. That is, our hypothesis that the world should look to others as it looks to us. After all, who wouldn’t make that assumption?