Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
0062407805
Chris Voss and Tahl Raz
Notes
Calibrated question: queries that the other side can respond to but have no fixed answers. It buys you time. It gives your counterpart the illusion of control – they are the one with the answers and power after all – and it does all that without giving them any idea of how constrained they are by it…Giving your counterpart the illusion of control, by asking calibrated questions – by asking for help – is one of the most powerful tools for suspending unbelief.
…people want to be understood and accepted. Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make to get there. By listening intensely, a negotiator demonstrates empathy and shows a sincere desire to better understand what the other side is experiencing.
…counterpart’s overuse of pronouns -we / they or me / I. The less important he makes himself, the more important he probably is (and vice-versa).
When they’re not talking, they’re thinking about their arguments, and when they are talking, they’re making their arguments. Often those on both side of the table are doing the same thing, so you have what I call a state of schizophrenia: everyone just listening to the voice in their head (and not well because they’re doing seven or eight other things at the same time). It may look like there are only two people in a conversation, but really it’s more like four people all talking at once.
A mirror is when you repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said…By repeating back what people say, you trigger this mirroring instinct and your counterpart will inevitably elaborate on what was just said and sustain the process of connecting.
The first step of (disarming your counterpart) is listing every terrible thing your counterpart could say about you, in what I call an accusation audit.
Labeling is a way of validating someone’s emotion by acknowledging it. Give someone’s emotion a name and show you identify with how that person feels. It gets you close to someone without asking about external factors you know nothing about. Think of labeling as a shortcut to intimacy, a time-saving emotional hack. Labeling has a special advantage when your counterpart is tense. Exposing negative thoughts to daylight.
When your counterparts say “that’s right,” they feel they have assessed what you’ve said and pronounced it as correct of their own free will. They embrace it.
“Let’s just split the difference…That’ll make everyone happy.” No. Just, simply no. The win-win mindset pushed by so many negotiation experts is usually ineffective and often disastrous. As best, it satisfies neither side. And if you employ it with a counterpart who has a win-lose approach, you’re setting yourself up to be swindled…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. So don’t settle and never split the difference.
Ackerman model
- Set your price / goal
- Set your first offer at 65% of your target
- Calculate three raises of decreasing increments (85%, 95%, 100%)
- Use lots of empathy and different ways of saying “no” to get the other side to counter before you increase your offer
- When calculating the final amount, use precise, non-round numbers. It gives the number credibility and weight
- On your final number, throw in a nonmonetary item (that they probably don’t want) to show you’re at your limit
Negotiation One Sheet
The Goal – Think through best / worst-case scenarios but only write down a specific goal that represents the best case.
Summary – Summarize and write out in just a couple of sentences the known facts that have led to the negotiation.
- Get to “That’s Right”
Labels / Accusation Audit – Prepare three to five labels to perform an accusation audit.
- It seems like X is valuable to you
- It seems like you don’t like X
- It seems like you value X
- It seems like X makes it easier
- It seems like you’re reluctant to X
Calibrate Questions – Prepare three to five calibrate questions to reveal value to you and your counterpart and identify and overcome potential deal killers.
- Sample questions
- What are we trying to accomplish?
- How is that worthwhile?
- What’s the core issue here?
- How does that affect things?
- What’s the biggest challenge you face?
- How does this fit into what the objective is?
- Deal Killers
- How does this affect the rest of your team?
- How on board are the people not on this call?
- What do your colleagues see as their main challenges in this area?
- Unearth deal killers
- What are we up against here?
- How does making a deal with us affect things?
- What happens if you do nothing?
- What does doing nothing cost you?
- How does making this deal resonate with what your company prides itself on?
- Be ready to execute follow-up labels to their answers to your calibrated questions
- It seems like X is important
- It seems you feel like my company is in a unique position to X
- It seem like you are worried that X
Noncash Offers – Prepare a list of noncash items possessed by your counterpart that would be valuable.
Listening – Tactical Empathy
Accusation Audit
Mirror
Labeling
Silence
Calibrated questions
Late Night, FM DJ Voice
“No” – to establish illusion of their control
Unknown Unknowns
Ackerman Model