Never Split the Difference Quotes

“If you approach a negotiation thinking that the other party thinks like you, you're wrong. That's not empathy; that's projection.”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

“The problem is that conventional questioning and research techniques are designed to confirm known knowns and reduce uncertainty.”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“In Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain,2 neuroscientist Antonio Damasio explained a groundbreaking discovery he made. Studying people who had damage in the part of the brain where emotions are generated, he found that they all had something peculiar in common: They couldn’t make decisions. They could describe what they should do in logical terms, but they found it impossible to make even the simplest choice. In other words, while we may use logic to reason ourselves toward a decision, the actual decision making is governed by emotion.”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“The researchers could predict how well people were communicating by observing how much their brains were aligned. And they discovered that people who paid the most attention—good listeners—could actually anticipate what the speaker was about to say before he said it. If”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“If you take a pit bull approach with another pit bull, you generally end up with a messy scene and lots of bruised feelings and resentment. Luckily, there’s another way without all the mess. It’s just four simple steps:         1.”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“hope is not a strategy.”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“Set your target price (your goal).         2.      Set your first offer at 65 percent of your target price.         3.      Calculate three raises of decreasing increments (to 85, 95, and 100 percent).         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 nonmonetary item (that they probably don’t want) to show you’re at your limit. The”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“Some people are Accommodators; others—like me—are basically Assertive; and the rest are data-loving Analysts.”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“The first time they agree to something or give you a commitment, that’s No. 1. For No. 2 you might label or summarize what they said so they answer, “That’s right.” And No. 3 could be a calibrated “How” or “What” question about implementation that asks them to explain what will constitute success, something like “What do we do if we get off track?”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“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. Look at this from the most basic level. 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 language that will resonate.”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“No” starts conversations and creates safe havens to get to the final “Yes” of commitment. An early “Yes” is often just a cheap, counterfeit dodge. About”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“We’ve instrumentalized niceness as a way of greasing the social wheels, yet it’s often a ruse. We’re polite and we don’t disagree to get through daily existence with the least degree of friction. But by turning niceness into a lubricant, we’ve leeched it of meaning. A smile and a nod might signify “Get me out of here!” as much as it means “Nice to meet you.” That’s”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“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. One”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“In fact, “No” often opens the discussion up. The sooner you say “No,” the sooner you’re willing to see options and opportunities that you were blind to previously. Saying “No” often spurs people to action because they feel they’ve protected themselves and now see an opportunity slipping away. Since”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard and we risk undermining the rapport and trust we’ve built. There’s plenty of research that now validates the passage of time as one of the most important tools for a negotiator. When you slow the process down, you also calm it down. After all, if someone is talking, they’re not shooting. We”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“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. The latter will help you discover the former. Wants are easy to talk about, representing the aspiration of getting our way, and sustaining any illusion of control we have as we begin to negotiate; needs imply survival, the very minimum required to make us act, and so make us vulnerable. But neither wants nor needs are where we start; it begins with listening, making it about the other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin. We”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“Great negotiators are able to question the assumptions that the rest of the involved players accept on faith or in arrogance, and thus remain more emotionally open to all possibilities, and more intellectually agile to a fluid situation. Unfortunately,”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

“Cognitive Bias, that is, unconscious—and irrational—brain processes that literally distort the way we see the world. Kahneman and Tversky discovered more than 150 of them. There’s the 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, even though they’re both ten percentage points). Prospect Theory explains why we take unwarranted risks in the face of uncertain losses. And the most famous is Loss Aversion, which shows how people are statistically more likely to act to avert a loss than to achieve an equal gain. Kahneman”
― Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It