NSTD Flashcards
1
Q
We reaction emotionally to a suggestion or question.
A
Then that system 1 reaction informs and in effect creates the system 2 answer.
2
Q
Under this model if you know how to affect your counterpart’s system 1 thinking,
A
his inarticulate feelings, by how you frame and deliver your questions and statements, then you can guide his system 2 rationality and therefore modify his responses.
3
Q
By Listening intensely, a negotiator demonstrates empathy and shows a sincere desire
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to better understand what the other side is experiencing.
4
Q
Tactical Empathy:
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balancing the subtle behaviours of emotional intelligence and the assertive skills of influence, to gain access to the mind of another person.
5
Q
Negotiation serves two distinct, vital functions—
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information gathering and behaviour influencing— and includes almost any interaction where one party wants something from the other side.
6
Q
negotiation is communication with results
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negotiating means playing the emotional game that society is set up for. you get what you ask for, you just have to ask correctly.
7
Q
Experience will have taught them that they are best served by holding multiple hypotheses—about the situation, about the counterpart’s wants, about a whole array of variables—in their mind at the same time.
A
Present and alert in the moment, they use all the new information that comes their way to test and winnow true hypotheses from false ones.
In negotiation, each new psychological insight or additional piece of information revealed heralds a“step forward and allows one to discard one hypothesis in favor of another. You should engage the process with a mindset of discovery. Your goal at the outset is to extract and observe as much information as possible
8
Q
For those people who view negotiation as a battle of arguments, it’s the voices in their own head that are overwhelming them.
A
When they’re not talking, they’re thinking about their arguments, and when they are talking, they’re making their arguments.
9
Q
instead of prioritizing your argument—in fact, instead of doing any thinking at all in the early goings about what you’re going to say—make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say.
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. In that mode of true active listening—aided by the tactics you’ll learn in the following chapters—you’ll disarm your counterpart. You’ll make them feel safe. The voice in their head will begin to quiet down.
10
Q
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.
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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.
11
Q
But neither wants nor needs are where we start; it begins with listen“ing, making it about the other people
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validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin
12
Q
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.
A
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.
13
Q
When deliberating on a negotiating strategy or approach, people tend to focus all their energies on what to say or do, but it’s how we are (our general demeanor and delivery) that is both the easiest thing to enact and the most immediately effective mode of influence.
A
Our brains don’t just process and understand the actions and words of others but their feelings and intentions too, the social meaning of their behavior and their emotions. On a mostly unconscious level, we can understand the minds of others not through any kind of thinking but through quite literally grasping what the other is feeling.
14
Q
There are essentially three voice tones available to negotiators:
A
the late-night FM DJ voice, the positive/playful voice, and the direct or assertive voice. Forget the assertive voice for now; except in very rare circumstances, using it is like slapping yourself in the face while you’re trying to make progress. You’re signaling dominance onto your counterpart, who will either aggressively, or passive-aggressively, push back against attempts to be controlled.
Most of the time, you should be using the positive/playful voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking. A smile, even while talking on the phone, has an impact tonally that the other person will pick up on
15
Q
The way the late-night FM DJ voice works is that, when you inflect your voice in a downward way, you put it out there that you’ve got it covered.
A
Talking slowly and clearly you convey one idea: I’m in control. When you inflect in an upward way, you invite a response. Why? Because you’ve brought in a measure of uncertainty. You’ve made a statement sound like a question. You’ve left the door open for the other guy to take the lead, so I was careful here to be quiet, self-assured.
16
Q
Mirroring, also called isopraxism, is essentially imitation. It’s another neurobehavior humans (and other animals) display in which we copy each other to comfort each other.
A
It can be done with speech patterns, body language, vocabulary, tempo, and tone of voice. It’s generally an unconscious behavior—we are rarely aware of it when it’s happening—but it’s a sign that people are bonding, in sync, and establishing the kind of rapport that leads to trust.
17
Q
a “mirror” is when you repeat the last three words
A
(or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said.
18
Q
How to Confront and Get Your Way, Without Confrontation
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Luckily, there’s another way without all the mess.
It’s just four simple steps:
- Use the late-night FM DJ voice.
- Start with “I’m sorry . . .”
- Mirror.
- Silence. At least four seconds, to let the mirror work its magic on your counterpart.
- Repeat.”
19
Q
Every time you mirror someone, they will reword what they’ve said. They will never say it exactly the same way they said it the first time.
A
Ask someone, “What do you mean by that?” and you’re likely to incite irritation or defensiveness. A mirror, however, will get you the clarity you want while signaling respect and concern for what the other person is saying.
20
Q
The language of negotiation is primarily a language of conversation and rapport
A
a way of quickly establishing relationships and getting people to talk and think together
21
Q
A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises;
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a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find.
22
Q
Don’t commit to assumptions;
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instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously.
23
Q
Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist).
A
Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart.
24
Q
Mirrors work magic. Repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar.
A
Mirroring is the art of insinuating similarity, which facilitates bonding. Use mirrors to encourage the other side to empathize and bond with you, keep people talking, buy your side time to regroup, and encourage your counterparts to reveal their strategy.
25
That’s why, if a corrections officer approaches an inmate expecting him to resist, he often wil
But if he approaches exuding calm, the inmate will be much more likely to be peaceful
26
Empathy helps us learn the position the enemy is in,
why their actions make sense (to them), and what might move them.
27
Once you’ve spotted an emotion you want to highlight, the next step is to label it aloud. Labels can be phrased as statements or questions. The only difference is whether you end the sentence with a downward or upward 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 . . .” and not “I’m hearing that . . .” That’s because the word “I” gets people’s guard up
28
Research shows that the best way to deal with negativity is to observe it, without reaction and without judgment.
Then consciously label each negative feeling and replace it with positive, compassionate, and solution-based thoughts
29
I encourage you to think of them as extensions of natural human interactions and not artificial conversational tics.
In any interaction, it pleases us to feel that the other side is listening and acknowledging our situation. Whether you are negotiating a business deal or simply chatting to the person at the supermarket butcher counter, creating an empathetic relationship and encouraging your counterpart to expand on their situation is the basis of healthy human interaction.
30
Imagine yourself in your counterpart’s situation. The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas (you may well find them crazy).
But by acknowledging the other person’s situation, you immediately convey that you are listening. And once they know that you are listening, they may tell you something that you can use.
31
The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement.
Denying barriers or negative influences gives them credence; get them into the open.
32
Pause. After you label a barrier or mirror a statement, let it sink in
Don’t worry, the other party will fill the silence.
33
Label your counterpart’s fears to diffuse their power. We all want to talk about“the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterpart’s amygdala,
the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust.
34
List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root.
And because these accusations often sound exaggerated when said aloud, speaking them will encourage the other person to claim that quite the opposite is true.
35
Remember you’re dealing with a person who wants to be appreciated and understood
So use labels to reinforce and encourage positive perceptions and dynamics.”
36
A trap into which many fall is to take what other people say literally.
I started to see that while people played the game of conversation, it was in the game beneath the game, where few played, that all the leverage lived.
37
“No” is often a decision, frequently temporary, to maintain the status quo.
It comes down to the deep and universal human need for autonomy. People need to feel in control. When you preserve a person’s autonomy by clearly giving them permission to say “No” to your ideas, the emotions calm, the effectiveness of the decisions go up, and the other party can really look at your proposal.
38
This means you have to train yourself to hear “No” as something other than rejection, and respond accordingly.
When someone tells you “No,” you need to rethink the word in one of its alterna“tive—and much more real—meanings:
■I am not yet ready to agree;
■You are making me feel uncomfortable;
■I do not understand;
■I don’t think I can afford it;
■I want something else;
■I need more information; or
■I want to talk it over with someone else.
after pausing, ask solution-based questions or simply label their effect:
“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.”
39
Whether you call it “buy-in” or “engagement” or something else, good negotiators know that their job isn’t to put on a great performance
but to gently“guide their counterpart to discover their goal as his own.
40
In every negotiation, in every agreement, the result comes from someone else’s decision.
if we believe that we can control or manage others’ decisions with compromise and logic, we’re leaving millions on the table. But while we can’t control others’ decisions, we can influence them by inhabiting their world and seeing and hearing exactly what they want.
41
that everyone you meet is“driven by two primal urges:
the need to feel safe and secure, and the need to feel in control. If you satisfy those drives, you’re in the door.
42
“No” slows things down so that people“can freely embrace their decisions
and the agreements they enter into
43
great way to do this is to mislabel one of the other party’s emotions or desires. You say something that you know is totally wrong, like “So it seems that you really are eager to leave your job” when they clearly want to stay.
That forces them to listen and makes them comfortable correcting you by saying, “No, that’s not it. This is it.”
44
Another way to force “No” in a negotiation is to ask the other party what they don’t want.
Let’s talk about what you would say ‘No’ to,” you’d say. And“people are comfortable saying “No” here because it feels like self-protection. And once you’ve gotten them to say “No,” people are much more open to moving forward toward new options and ideas.
45
You provoke a “No” with this one-sentence email.”
Have you given up on this project?
46
a good negotiator, who gains their power by understanding their counterpart’s situation and extracting information about their counterpart’s desires and needs. Extracting that information means getting the other party to feel safe and in control.
And while it may sound contradictory, the way to get there is by getting the other party to disagree, to draw their own boundaries, to define their desires as a function of what they do not want.
47
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.
48
Saying “No” makes the speaker feel safe, secure, and in control, so trigger it. By saying what they don’t want, your counterpart defines their space and gains the confidence and comfort to listen to you
That’s why “Is now a bad time to talk?” is always better than “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”
49
Negotiate in their world. Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea.
So don’t beat“them with logic or brute force. Ask them questions that open paths to your goals. It’s not about you.
50
Behavioral Change Stairway Model (BCSM). The model proposes five stages—
active listening, empathy, rapport, influence, and behavioral change—that take any negotiator from listening to influencing behavior.
51
the sweetest two words in any negotiation
are actually “That’s right
52
Before you convince them to see what you’re trying to accomplish, you have to say the things to them that will get them to say, “That’s right.”
The “that’s right” breakthrough usually doesn’t come at the beginning of a negotiation. It’s invisible to the counterpart when it occurs, and they embrace what you’ve said. To them, it’s a subtle epiphany.
53
1.Effective Pauses:
like clearing out a swamp, the emotions were drained from the dialogue.
54
2. 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.
55
3. Mirroring
Rather than argue with Sabaya and try to separate Schilling from the “war damages,” Benjie would listen and repeat back what Sabaya said.
56
4. Labeling
Benjie should give Sabaya’s feelings a name and identify with how he felt. “It all seems so tragically unfair, I can now see why you sound so angry.”
57
5. Paraphrase
Benjie should repeat what Sabaya is saying back to him in Benjie’s own words. This, we told him, would powerfully show him you really do understand and aren’t merely parroting his concerns.
58
6. Summarize
A good summary is the combination of rearticulating the meaning of what is said plus the acknowledgment of the emotions underlying that meaning (paraphrasing + labeling = summary). “We told Benjie he needed to listen and repeat the “world according to Abu Sabaya.” He needed to fully and completely summarize all the nonsense that Sabaya had come up with about war damages and fishing rights and five hundred years of oppression. And once he did that fully and completely, the only possible response for Sabaya, and anyone faced with a good summary, would be “that’s right.”
59
The power of getting to that understanding, and not to some simple “yes,” is revelatory in the art of negotiation.
The moment you’ve convinced someone that you truly understand her dreams and feelings (the whole world that she inhabits), mental“and behavioral change becomes possible, and the foundation for a breakthrough has been laid.
60
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.
61
Use a summary to trigger a “that’s right.” The building blocks of a good summary are a label combined with paraphrasing. Identify, rearticulate,
and emotionally affirm “the world according to . . .”
62
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—here’s a simple rule—never split the difference. Creative solutions are almost always preceded by some degree of risk, annoyance, confusion, and conflict. Accommodation and compromise produce none of that. You’ve got to embrace the hard stuff.
63
To gauge the level of a particular threat, we’d pay attention to how many of the four questions—What? Who? When? And how?—were addressed.
When people issue threats, they consciously or subconsciously create ambiguities and loopholes they fully intend to exploit. ”
64
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.”
It’s simple and clear and sets me up as an honest dealer. With that statement, I let people know it is okay to use that word with me if they use it honestly.
65
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.
66
In a tough negotiation, it’s not enough to show the other party that you can deliver the thing they want.
To get real leverage, you have to persuade them that they have something concrete to lose if the deal falls through.
67
To bend your counterpart’s reality, you have to start with the basics of empathy. So start out with an accusation audit acknowledging all of their fears.
By anchoring their emotions in preparation for a loss, you inflame the other side’s loss aversion so that they’ll jump at the chance to avoid it.”
68
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 lose $500 to some other guy.”
69
you’ve got to be careful when you let the other guy anchor. You have to prepare yourself psychically to withstand the first offer.
The tendency to be anchored by extreme numbers is a psychological quirk known as the “anchor and adjustment” effect.”
70
When confronted with naming your terms or price, counter by recalling a similar deal which establishes your “ballpark,” albeit the best possible ballpark you wish to be in.
Instead of saying, “I’m worth $110,000,” Jerry might have said, “At top places like X Corp., people in this job get between $130,000 and $170,000.
71
that job applicants who named a range received significantly higher overall salaries than those who offered a number, especially if their range was a “bolstering range
in which the low number in the range was what they actually wanted.
Understand, if you offer a range (and it’s a good idea to do so) expect them to come in at the low end.
72
One of the easiest ways to bend your counterpart’s reality to your point of view is by pivoting to nonmonetary terms. After you’ve anchored them high, you can make your offer seem reasonable by offering things that aren’t important to you but could be important to them.
Or if their offer is low you could ask for things that matter more to you than them. ”
“I want to stimulate my counterpart’s brainstorming to see what valuable nonmonetary gems they might have that are cheap to them but valuable to me.
73
The biggest thing to remember is that numbers “that end in 0 inevitably feel like temporary placeholders, guesstimates that you can easily be negotiated off of.
But anything you throw out that sounds less rounded—say, $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, so use them to fortify your offers.
74
You can get your counterpart into a mood of generosity by staking an extreme anchor and then, after their inevitable first rejection, offering them a wholly unrelated surprise gift.
Unexpected conciliatory gestures like this are hugely effective because they introduce a dynamic called reciprocity; the other party feels the need to answer your generosity in kind. They will suddenly come up on their offer, or they’ll look to repay your kindness in the future
75
Pleasant persistence is a kind of emotional anchoring that creates empathy with the boss and builds the right psychological environment for constructive discussion.
And the more you talk about nonsalary terms, the more likely you are to hear the full range of their options. If they can’t meet your nonsalary requests, they may even counter with more money
76
Once you’ve negotiated a salary, make sure to define success for your position—as well as metrics for your next raise.
That’s meaningful for you and free for your boss, much like giving me a magazine cover story was for the bar association. It gets you a planned raise and, by defining your success in relation to your boss’s supervision,
77
Remember the idea of figuring what the other side is really buying? Well, when you are selling yourself to a manager, sell yourself as more than a body for a job; sell yourself, and your success, as a way they
“can validate their own intelligence and broadcast it to the rest of the company. Make sure they know you’ll act as a flesh-and-blood argument for their importance. Once you’ve bent their reality to include you as their ambassador, they’ll have a stake in your success.
Ask: “What does it take to be successful here?”
78
All negotiations are defined by a network of subterranean desires and needs. Don’t let yourself be fooled by the surface.
Once you know that the Haitian kidnappers just want party money, you will be miles better prepared.
79
The F-word—“Fair”—is an emotional term people usually exploit to put the other side on the defensive and gain con“cessions.
When your counterpart drops the F-bomb, don’t get suckered into a concession. Instead, ask them to explain how you’re mistreating them.
80
You can bend your counterpart’s reality by anchoring his starting point. Before you make an offer, emotionally anchor them by saying how bad it will be. When you get to numbers, set an extreme anchor to make your “real” offer seem reasonable,
or use a range to seem less aggressive. The real value of anything depends on what vantage point you’re looking at it from.
81
People will take more risks to avoid a loss than to realize a gain
Make sure your counterpart sees that there is something to lose by inaction.”
82
We learned that negotiation was coaxing, not overcoming; co-opting, not defeating. Most important, we learned that successful negotiation involved getting your counterpart to do the work for you and suggest your solution himself.
It involved giving him the illusion of control while you, in fact, were the one defining the conversation.
The tool we developed is something I call the calibrated, or open-ended, question. What it does is remove aggression from conversations by acknowledging the other side openly, without resistance.
83
He talks about what he calls “unbelief,” which is active resistance to what the other side is saying, complete rejection. That’s where the two parties in a negotiation usually start.
if you can get the other side to drop their unbelief, you can slowly work them to your point of view on the back of their energy.“You don’t directly persuade them to see your ideas. Instead, you ride them to your ideas. As the saying goes, the best way to ride a horse is in the direction in which it is going.
84
Our job as persuaders is easier than we think. It’s not to get others believing what we say
It’s just to stop them unbelieving. Once we achieve that, the game’s half-won. “Unbelief is the friction that keeps persuasion in check,
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.
85
The good news is that there are rules for that.
First off, calibrated questions avoid verbs or words like “can,” “is,” “are,” “do,” or “does.” These are closed-ended questions that can be answered with a simple “yes” or a “no.”
Instead, they start with“who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” and “how.” Those words inspire your counterpart to think and then speak expansively.
But let me cut the list even further: it’s best to start with “what,” “how,” and sometimes “why.” Nothing else
86
The only time you can use “why” successfully is when the defensiveness that is created supports the change you are trying to get them to see.
“Why would you ever change from the way you’ve always done things and try my approach?” is an example. “Why would your company ever change from your long-standing vendor and choose our company?” is another. As always, tone of voice, respectful and deferential, is critical.
87
Calibrated Questions
“Does this look like something you would like?” can become “How does this look to you?”
“What about this works for you?” You can even ask, “What about this doesn’t work for you?” and you’ll probably trigger quite a bit of useful information from your counterpart.”
88
You should use calibrated questions early and often, and there are a few that you will find that you will use in the beginning of nearly every negotiation.
“What is the biggest challenge you face?” is one of those questions. It just gets the other side to teach you something about themselves, which is critical to any negotiation because all negotiation is an information-gathering process.
89
Here are some other great standbys that I use in almost every negotiation, depending on the situation:
■What about this is important to you?
■How can I help to make this better for us?
■How would you like me to proceed?
“■What is it that brought us into this situation?
■How can we solve this problem?
■What’s the objective? / What are we trying to accomplish here?
■How am I supposed to do that?”
“The implication of any well-designed calibrated question is that you want what the other guy wants but you need his intelligence to overcome the problem. This really appeals to very aggressive or egotistical counterparts.
You’ve not only implicitly asked for help—triggering goodwill and less defensiveness—but you’ve engineered a situation in which your formerly recalcitrant counterpart is now using his mental and emotional resources to overcome your challenges
90
the key to getting people to see things your way is not to confront them on their ideas (“You can’t leave”)
but to acknowledge their ideas openly (“I understand why you’re pissed off”) and then guide them toward solving the problem (“What do you hope to accomplish by leaving?”).
91
Like I said before, the secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is giving the other side the illusion of control.
That’s why calibrated questions are ingenious: Calibrated questions make your counterpart feel like they’re in charge, but it’s really you who are framing the conversation. Your counterpart will have no idea how constrained they are by your questions
92
“The first and most basic rule of keeping your emotional cool is to bite your tongue. Not literally, of course. But you have to keep away from knee-jerk, passionate reactions.
Pause. Think. Let the passion dissipate. That allows you to collect your thoughts and be more circumspect in what you say. It also lowers your chance of saying more than you want to
93
Don’t try to force your opponent to admit that you are right.
Aggressive confrontation is the enemy of constructive negotiation.
94
Avoid questions that can be answered with “Yes” or tiny pieces of information.
These require little thought and inspire the human need for reciprocity; you will be expected to give something back.
95
Ask calibrated questions that start with the words “How” or “What.”
By implicitly asking the other party for help, these questions will give your counterpart an illusion of control and will inspire them to speak at length, revealing important information.
96
Don’t ask questions that start with “Why” unless you want your counterpart to defend a goal that serves you
“Why” is always an accusation, in any language.
97
Calibrate your questions to point your counterpart toward solving your problem.
This will encourage them to expend their energy on devising a solution.
98
your job as a negotiator isn’t just to get to an agreement. It’s getting to one that can be implemented and making sure that happens.
Negotiators have to be decision architects: they have to dynamically and adaptively design the verbal and nonverbal elements of the negotiation to gain both consent and execution.
99
The trick to “How” questions is that, correctly used, they are gentle and graceful ways to say “No” and guide your counterpart to develop a better solution—your solution
A gentle How/No invites collaboration and leaves your counterpart with a feeling of having been treated with respect.
100
By making your counterparts articulate implementation in their own words, your carefully calibrated “How” questions will convince them that the final solution is their idea.
And that’s crucial. People always make more effort to implement a solution when they think it’s theirs
101
the art of letting
someone else have your way.”
102
There are two key questions you can ask to push your counterparts to think they are defining success their way:
“How will we know we’re on track?” and “How will we address things if we find we’re off track?” When they answer, you summarize their answers until you get a “That’s right.” Then you’ll know they’ve bought in.
103
dive back in with calibrated “How” questions until they define the terms of successful implementation in their own voice.
Follow up by summarizing what they have said to get a “That’s right.”
Let the other side feel victory. Let them think it was their idea. Subsume your ego. Remember: “Yes” is nothing without “How.” So keep asking “How[
104
A surprisingly high percentage of negotiations hinge on something outside dollars and cents,
often having more to do with self-esteem, status, and other nonfinancial needs
105
That is, only 7 percent of a message is based on the words while 38 percent comes from the tone of voice and
55 percent from the speaker’s body language and face.
106
Use “How” questions to shape the negotiating environment. You do this by using “How can I do that?” as a gentle version of “No.”
This will subtly push your counterpart to search for other solutions—your solutions. And very often it will get them to bid against themselves.
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Is the “Yes” real or counterfeit? Test it with the Rule of Three:
use calibrated questions, summaries, and labels to get your counterpart to reaffirm their agreement at least three times. It’s really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction.
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Instead of naming a price, allude to an incredibly high number that someone else might charge.
Once when a hospital chain wanted me to name a price first, I said, “Well, if you go to Harvard Business School, they’re going to charge you $2,500 a day per student.
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when someone puts out a ridiculous offer, one that really pisses you off, take a deep breath, allow little anger, and channel it—at the proposal, not the person—and say, “I don’t see how that would ever work.
Such well-timed offense-taking—known as “strategic umbrage”—can wake your counterpart to the problem
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The systematized and easy-to-remember process has only four steps:
1. 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 genius of this system is that it incorporates the psychological tactics we’ve discussed—reciprocity, extreme anchors, loss aversion, and so on—without you needing to think about them.”
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Researchers have found that people getting concessions often feel better about the bargaining process than those who are given a single firm, “fair” offer.
In fact, they feel better even when they end up paying more—or receiving less—than they otherwise might.
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You fall to your highest
level of preparation
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Top negotiators know, however, that conflict is often the path to great deals. And the best find ways to actually have fun engaging in it.
Conflict brings out truth, creativity, and resolution.
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Identify your counterpart’s negotiating style. Once you know whether they are Accommodator, Assertive, or Analyst,
you’ll know the correct way to approach them.
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Prepare, prepare, prepare. When the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion; you fall to your highest level of preparation.
So design an ambitious but legitimate goal and then game out the labels, calibrated questions, and“responses you’ll use to get there. That way, once you’re at the bargaining table, you won’t have to wing it.
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Get ready to take a punch. Kick-ass negotiators usually lead with an extreme anchor to knock you off your game.
If you’re not ready, you’ll flee to your maximum without a fight. So prepare your dodging tactics to avoid getting sucked into the compromise trap.
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Set boundaries, and learn to take a punch or punch back, without anger.
The guy across the table is not the problem; the situation is.
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Prepare an Ackerman plan. Before you head into the weeds of bargaining, you’ll need a plan of extreme anchor, calibrated questions, and well-defined offers.
Remember: 65, 85, 95, 100 percent. Decreasing raises and ending on nonround numbers will get your counterpart to believe that he’s squeezing you for all you’re worth when you’re really getting to the number you want.
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By positioning your demands within the worldview your counterpart uses to make decisions, you“show them respect and that gets you attention and results.
Knowing your counterpart’s religion is more than just gaining normative leverage per se. Rather, it’s gaining a holistic understanding of your counterpart’s worldview and using that knowledge to inform your negotiating moves
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when someone displays a passion for what we’ve always wanted and conveys a purposeful plan of how to get there, we allow our perceptions of what’s possible to change.
We’re all hungry for a map to joy, and when someone is courageous enough to draw it for us, we naturally follow.
So when you ascertain your counterpart’s unattained goals, invoke your own power and follow-ability by expressing passion for their goals—and for their ability to achieve them.
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you can increase your effectiveness by offering .
reasons that reference your counterpart’s religion
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Black Swans are leverage multipliers. Remember the three types of leverage:
positive (the ability to give someone what they want); negative (the ability to hurt someone); and normative (using your counterpart’s norms to bring them around).
