Reading people
Chris Voss
Label it first
Chris Voss (2016 · Never Split the Difference) — Label it first.
What actually happened?
A kidnapping in Haiti. The gang opened with a ransom the family could not come close to and set a deadline, the standard shape of the trade. Voss did not counter-offer and did not argue about the sum. His people kept returning one question in a calm, unhurried voice: how am I supposed to do that? Not a refusal, not a plea, just a problem handed back across the table. Each time, the kidnappers had to answer it themselves, and each time the number came down. The hostage came home for a fraction of the opening demand, and nobody had won an argument.
Label the feeling, do not judge it
It seems like, it sounds like, it looks like. Voss calls the move labelling, and the sentence opening matters more than the content. It seems like is an observation and can be denied. I think you are is an assertion and provokes a defence. Get the label right and they add to it; get it wrong and they correct you. Both are progress.
When a client goes quiet, it sounds like something in here is worrying you works far better than how do you feel about it, because it gives them a specific door.
Aim for that's right, not for yes
Yes is the cheapest word available; people produce it to get out of a conversation. The valuable answer is that's right, which means the other side believes you have understood their position in full. Negotiation begins after those two words, not before.
Fine, fine, no problem usually means they want the meeting to end. That's exactly it means you have reached the thing they care about.
Calibrated questions hand the problem back
Replace closed questions that want a nod with open ones starting how and what. How am I supposed to do that moves the pressure across the table without any confrontation in it. Either they produce a way, or they hear for themselves that the demand does not work.
When someone pushes the price below your cost, do not argue. Ask how you are supposed to hold the quality at that number. Most of the time they retreat unprompted.
No deal beats a bad deal
The strongest position in any negotiation is being able to walk away at any moment. Hostage negotiators never have that option, which is why he knows exactly what it is worth. Someone genuinely willing to end without agreement cannot be pushed into damaging terms by a deadline or by what they have already spent.
Write your alternative down before you walk in: what happens if this collapses. The more concrete it is, the calmer you are at the table.
How do I use it today?
Next time a conversation jams, stop adding arguments and label the other person instead: it seems like you are worried about something here. You are not trying to get a yes, you are trying to get a that's right. And when you are pushed into a corner, hand it back with how am I supposed to do that.
Deep read
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Lines to keep
Negotiation is not an act of battle; it's a process of discovery.
That's right is better than yes.
No is the start of the negotiation, not the end of it.