Opinion
Chris Voss: Relying on penalty clauses reveals poor negotiation skills
“If you're putting penalty clauses in your contracts, that means you're not a good negotiator.”
Insight
Chris Voss says being corrected is a superpower that breaks barriers
“Being corrected is a superpower, and most people are horrified at being corrected, when in fact, when somebody corrects you, they're stepping to your side.”
Insight
Chris Voss: Inviting correction extracts closely held information from untrusting counterparts
“It's one of the best ways to tease out, maybe not proprietary, but closely held, because they don't trust you yet.”
Insight
Using verbal labels elicits the truth vastly better than direct questions
“Now, the label is much more likely to get a solid stream of consciousness response. It's so much better than asking questions. Once you learn how to convert over, we've got clients that say labels unlock the floodgates of truth talk. They're vastly superior to…”
Insight
Chris Voss: Negotiators should abandon yes-oriented questions to avoid commitment traps
“No one is comfortable referring to the following problems because they feel like everything they throw out is a commitment, is a trap, is a tie down, and nobody likes to get tied down. Having said no, you feel no obligation to continue even if you laid a whole…”
Insight
Chris Voss: Generational differences only apply to average performers, not elite talent
“Top performers are all alike across the generations.
It doesn't matter what generation they're a part of.
The top one to five percent, they're all curious, they're all ambitious, they're all learners.
When you start talking about difference in generations, you…”
Insight
Direct conversation can extract in minutes what external research takes months
“If you love research, if you love data, if you love information, you may spend a month gathering the information external to the conversation that you could have gotten
In five to 10 minutes.”
Insight
Pitching gains yields lower success rates than deactivating negative perceptions first
“Your pitch and gain, it's a very low percentage success rate. You're successful, just not anywhere near as successful as you could be by first deactivating the negatives, recognizing the elephants in a room.”
Insight
Publicly embarrassing a counterpart is the worst mistake in any negotiation
“The worst thing you can do to somebody, no matter how wrong they are, is embarrass them, especially in front of other people.”
Insight
Chris Voss: Cold reading facial expressions rapidly captures a counterpart's attention
“I'd make an observation. I'd do what we call a cold read. Take a look at their face, do a read, say, you look preoccupied. You look troubled. You look happy. You look like your thoughts are someplace else. Just kind of whatever my gut instinct, intuition tells…”
Insight
Chris Voss says effective negotiation mirrors should be one to three words
“We believe that a mirror is one to three words. Once you get north of five, that's too many words.”
Insight
Direct questions trigger defensive repetition, while mirroring prompts counterparts to elaborate
“The reason why it's superior to a question, if I say, what did you mean by that? You'll probably repeat what you just said with the exact words, possibly even louder, sort of like an American overseas. If you repeat the exact words louder, it automatically bec…”
Insight
Chris Voss: Negotiation is a perishable skill that goes dormant without practice
“There's no way around the fact that negotiations is a perishable skill. There just isn't. And anybody, if you're not working at your communication skills, you're keeping your emotional intelligence up, it goes dormant. It doesn't go away. But it does go dorman…”
Insight
Calling out the elephant in the room clears negative perceptions instantly
“There's nothing more effective to clearing negatives than just calling out the elephant in the room, not denying it, not explaining it, just calling it out. That is neuroscience, Proven the best way to get rid of negatives.”
Insight
Curiosity displaces fear and accelerates pattern recognition in intense negotiations
“When you're curious, you also have pushed fear out of your brain. You can't be afraid and curious simultaneously. When you're curious, you're in a positive state of mind, which is smarter. You hear better. You see patterns more quickly. You see deals faster. W…”
Insight
A negotiation 'no' targets either terms, price, behavior, or the person
“When you're saying no to one of four things. You're saying no to either the terms, the price, the behavior, or the person.”
Disclosure
An operations manual for 'Never Split the Difference' is releasing in 2023
“We're actually, about a year from now, I expect the operations manual for Never Split the Difference. We're working on that now. All the things that we've learned, how we've up-leveled the skills, we really are categorizing them at three levels now. Which we d…”
Chris Voss