Chris Voss: BATNA is a horrible negotiation strategy that leaves money on the table
Chris Voss · #27 Chris Voss: The Art of Letting Other People Have Your Way · Jan 3, 2018 · at 18:00
Host Shane Parrish and former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss discuss the Harvard concept of BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement).
0:00 / 0:24exact quote · 24.7s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“An intellectually brilliant idea in practice, a horrible idea... Here's, here's the problem with Batman. That becomes your goal, and so therefore, if you say to yourself, and the vast majority of people who calculate their BATNA, you know, as long as I do better than my worst alternative, as soon as I get past that, I'm good, and I can quit. Shane Parrish: Right. Chris Voss: Which leaves massive amounts of money on the table.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Chris Voss
Chris Voss: 'Getting to Yes' fails because humans make decisions emotionally
“Getting to yes is intellectually sound. There's nothing intellectually to be challenged on getting to yes. And unfortunately, that does you no good as soon as you involve human beings because none of us are intellectually sound.”
Voss: Letting the other side speak first speeds up negotiations
“You know, seek first to understand, then be understood is a mercenary's tool. I mean, if you want to get to an out, if you want to get to your outcome faster, Let the other side go first. It'll take a lot less time. You don't waste time spinning your wheels, o…”
Voss: Fear impedes deals 3x to 9x more than benefits create them
“Fear gets in the way of deals anyway from three to nine times more than benefits make deals.”
Chris Voss: Tactical empathy is a tool to save time in negotiation
“You don't use empathy because you're a missionary, because you're soft touch. Use empathy because you want to get stuff done faster, and you've got other stuff to do to get after.”
Chris Voss: Every negotiator, including business sociopaths, is driven by loss aversion
“Everybody's driven by loss. You know, our sociopaths, which there's no shortage of them functioning in the business world. They're self-interested. They have desires. They're driven by loss, loss aversion. There's no getting around that.”