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Never Split the Difference | Chris Voss | Talks at Google

Everything we’ve previously been taught about negotiation is wrong: people are not rational; there is no such thing as ‘fair’; compromise is the worst thing you can do; the real art of negotiation lies in mastering the intricacies of No…

Mairin ChesneyhostChris Vossguest
May 27, 201650mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:03 – 0:54

    Chris Voss’s background and the event setup

    1. MC

      Hello everyone. My name is Mairin Chesney, and welcome to this Talks at Google event. For much of his career, Chris Voss has been at the forefront of negotiation technique. He was a member of the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force for 14 years, and lead crisis negotiator for the New York City division of the FBI before becoming the FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator. He currently teaches business negotiation in the MBA programs at the University of Southern California and Georgetown University, as well as having taught at Harvard University and guest lectured at Northwestern University. He is the founder and CEO of the Black Swan group, and author of the new book, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It. Talks at Google is welcome, is honored to welcome him here today.

    2. CV

      Thank you very much. I gotta, and I gotta tell you, with that introduction, it makes it sound like I can't keep a job, doesn't it?

    3. MC

      [laughs]

  2. 0:54 – 2:19

    Turning a “no” into momentum: the director’s chairs example

    1. MC

      So to begin, uh, you and I were, were talking earlier, and I was telling you about how I, I read your book, and it is full of incredibly practical tips and great stories.

    2. CV

      [laughs]

    3. MC

      And I, I told you, uh, about something that happened to me this morning.

    4. CV

      Right.

    5. MC

      Uh, in, in preparing for this talk, I was going through, you know, all of my notes and all of the tickets and making sure that everything was in line, and I realized that I had forgotten to request director's chairs for us to sit in. And so I, I sent out a quick, quick email of, "Oh, shoot, I'm so sorry. I forgot to, I forgot to request these chairs. Is there any way that we, we can get some chairs for the day?" And, and the response was, "No, we're cleaning up from IO. You know, sorry, but we can't get them to you today." And, and one of the, the lessons in the book is that no is not the end of the conversation, it's the beginning of a conversation. And me, [laughs] before reading this book, would've said, "Oh, okay, I got a no. That must be, that must be the end." But I really did think of the book and think, okay, no, no does not mean absolutely not. It means what's, what's a different approach? What's a different question that can be asked? And so I responded, "Well, is there any way that I can go pick them up somewhere? You know, I understand you can't drop them off, but can I go pick them up?" Uh, to which I got a response, "Actually, I was able to arrange it so that they can be dropped off for you." And it was, it was, it worked. It was amazing. [laughs] Uh, so, um, yeah, that was just one of the, the many, many topics that you highlight in this book.

  3. 2:19 – 4:52

    Why “no” helps: autonomy, safety, and giving people space to think

    1. CV

      All right. So first of all, thanks for getting me a chair. I appreciate that.

    2. MC

      [laughs]

    3. CV

      Now, the, the interesting thing about that story though is, is, is two really important points. First of all, there's a lot more space between yes and no than most of us realize. You know, sometimes we get into sort of a binary on/off, yes/no sort, sort of thinking, and we don't realize how much space there really is there. If we just give the other side, uh, a little bit of time to sort of think, a moment, if you will. Um, there's some data out there that indicates to us that a moment is just three seconds, and three, three seconds can be an eternity for mind process. So the other thing that's also really interesting about that, and I think it's one of the, uh, completely different approaches we take in the book, is what happens after the other side says no. Now, early on in my career, I came across a book that I, that I still refer to all the time called Start With No by a guy named Jim Camp. And, and Camp's theory was, if you make the other side feel free that they can say no at any time, then it respects their autonomy, they'll, they'll relax a little bit more, they'll be more willing to work with you just knowing that it's okay to say no. So we decided to take it one step further and see what happens when someone actually says no. And since yes is protection, or no, yes is commitment, and we don't know what we've gotten ourselves into, which is why we're scared to say yes, but no is protection. That typically what we find is as soon as somebody says no, if they feel protected, they tend to relax, they center a little bit more, and they can think more quickly, which is exactly what happened with you. You inadvertently triggered a no. You, you remained very pleasant in the way you talked to her, and we know that if we're pleasant to interact with, it actually helps the other person think better because your mind works up to 31% more effectively if you're in a positive frame of mind. So when you're in a positive frame of mind, it triggers it in somebody else and it makes them smarter just by smiling at them, having a, having... You, you've got a wonderful tone of voice. So she's already making this person smarter by the way she interacts with her. She says, "Your counterpart says no," which she now sort of centers herself and triggers. You give her a moment in time, and the next thing you know, she's throwing ideas at you and working it out. And that's finding that space between yes and no, and many times it's triggered when the other person actually says no because they feel protected and they feel safe. And people are more likely, once they feel protected and safe, to interact with you. So just in a few sort moments, you were brilliant.

    4. MC

      [laughs] Thank you.

    5. CV

      [laughs]

  4. 4:52 – 8:19

    What to do after “no”: calibrated questions and getting to “That’s right”

    1. MC

      So, so after that first no, what's... Kind of in general, what's the, what's the correct response? You know, you, you earlier when we were chatting, you said, well, you don't, you, you don't wanna ask a, you don't want to attack in any way. You don't want to-

    2. CV

      Right. Right.

    3. MC

      So what's, what's the right, the right approach after that initial no?

    4. CV

      Well, um, it, it, first of all, just to hesitate, give them a chance to think. Um, because you never know what's going through the other person's mind when you start talking with them. There's probably four or five things that have been going through their mind throughout the day, so giving them a chance to sort of focus on you is the other thing that no does. And, and I'll give you, I'll give you another hint. Like a, we never call anybody on the phone and say, "Have you got a few minutes to talk?" Ever. Because if you say that to somebody, a whole bunch of things start going through their mind. How long is a few minutes? Do I have a few minutes? Do I wanna talk to you? Do I even like you? All these things go through their mind. We al- whenever we call someone, we say, "Is now a bad time to talk?" And w- you get one or two, uh, responses on that. The, uh, person will say, "No, no. It's never a bad time to talk." Or, "What do you wanna talk about?" And they're very focused. Or they'll say, "Yeah, as a matter of fact, it is, but I can talk at two o'clock tomorrow." And, and you get a, uh, you get a scheduled time to talk. Now, to follow up that, if nothing good happens in that space that happens after that, the next most important thing to do Is get the other person to say, "That's right." Not, "You're right," but, "That's right." And you get a, you get a that's right when you summarize a situation from the other person's point of view. Don't be afraid to summarize a situation that sounds like it's against your best interests. I mean, that's actually the, the key to it, and we've broken open a number of negotiations. But it's a summary of h- of what the other person, the facts and how the other person sees them. And a that's right will then move you forward in, like, ridiculously phenomenal ways. It's actually, there's a, there's a number of different reasons why we think that it works. One of the reasons is, uh, my co-writer, Tahl Raz, is brilliant. And read anything he's written. Tahl Raz. T-A-H-L R-A-Z. If he's written it, it's well-written and it's worth reading. But we were going through this, and he said, "I think it triggers a subtle epiphany." 'Cause think of the number of times when you've heard someone on TV or you've seen a slogan that you totally agreed with, and your reaction is, "That's right!" You know, that's right is when you completely agree with something and you think it's the complete truth. So that's a powerful thing to get somebody to say. The other thing I think it is, is, uh, we think it is, is if someone you're talking to says it to you, they're telling you they feel empathy with you for that, at that brief moment. And there's a difference between empath- empathy and sympathy. Um, but when they feel empathy from you, they feel connected with you, and they, and they want to collaborate. So if you get a no, the very next most important thing to try to get out of somebody is that's right.

    5. MC

      And so it sounds like the, the that's right is, is similar to, oh, you get it.

    6. CV

      Yeah, yeah.

    7. MC

      And, and there are-

    8. CV

      Yep

    9. MC

      ... there are a couple of times where, you know, in different ways you, you sort of highlight the importance of, of, of your, your counterpart feeling like you get it.

    10. CV

      Ah.

    11. MC

      You know, finding their religion and-

    12. CV

      Yes

    13. MC

      ... and, um, you know, triggering a that's right. And so how is, how is this, this empathy and the, oh, you, you understand, important in a negotiation?

  5. 8:19 – 10:12

    Empathy as the driver: conflict styles and what matters more than the deal

    1. CV

      You know, it, it's a great question because, um, w- we believe the world, the entire world breaks down into three basic approaches to conflict, and it's basically fight, flight, or make friends. And each one, something is more important to them than making the deal. The deal is secondary to each one of those three types. And one particular type that, that I happen to belong to, the, the assertive type, the natural born assertives, um, you know, we think of ourselves as being very direct and honest. Uh, it's more important that you actually understand where I'm coming from than you, than you agree with me. I wanna know you know what I mean. I want, if you know completely what my perspective is and I'm satisfied that you've heard me out, then there's a pretty good chance that I'm gonna agree to your deal, as long as you know where I'm coming from. I mean, it's sorta like if you work for a boss who wasn't doing what you want him or her to do. Well, if you understood, if they knew that you knew where you were coming from, if they accepted everything that you said, you'd actually wouldn't have a problem if they didn't follow your advice, just as long as you were 1000% sure they knew where you were coming from. So the other two types, uh, you know, the, um, uh, what we call the accommodator friend, friend-oriented person. They're, they wanna make sure that, that we have a great relationship. If we don't make a deal, it's fine, but as long as you know that I like you and I feel you like me, that's important. And then the third type is the analytical. Uh, and they're, they're highly pragmatic. Try very hard to make dispassionate decisions. As long as they have the opportunity to share their reason for what they want, their thinking, the results of their analysis, then they're also, they're happy also. So mo- there are things more important than making a deal to all of us.

  6. 10:12 – 13:15

    Adapting to personalities: how silence gets misread (and a co-writer story)

    1. MC

      Do you find that people usually fall into, pretty strongly into one of these three camps? Or, or are some people, you know, a combination of two or even a combination of all three?

    2. CV

      Well, you, you end up, the, the more experienced you get, you tend to pick up traits from the, the other two types because to be a complete negotiator or even a rainmaker, you need all three. You need to be able to, to assert your best position, you need to get along with people, and you need to be able to analyze. Um, so very few people are just, like, stone cold one of the three. And then as we learn, we, we begin to pick up, pick up the other types. So the, the, the assertives and the analysts tend to pick up the accommodators', um, characteristics because there's some solid data out there that indicates that you're so- six times more likely to make a deal with somebody you like. And as, as an assertive, I wanna know a better, a better way to come to agreement. So if, if you enjoy interacting with me, that increases the chances that I'll get what I want. I'm good with that.

    3. MC

      And then do you have to sort of, do you have to adapt your technique depending on who you're dealing with as well?

    4. CV

      Well, you, you learn and then you begin to understand, um, that if you, if you have impasse, if you have a disagreement, how the other person might be looking at it in, in really, in really broad, uh, s- uh, characteristics. Like for example, just silence. Dead silence. Um, each one of those three types looks at silen- silence very differently. As an assertive, if you're quiet, I think that means you wanna hear more from me. And so I talk. Where if you're an analyst and you're quiet, um, you just wanna, you just wanna think. And I could completely misinterpret that, you know? And, and you're happy when I go silent 'cause you're like, "Thank God he shut up so I can think." And then the, the, the accommodator, who's very relationship-focused, when there's silence, well, the only time the accommodator will go silent is when they're mad. So if we're talking and you go silent on me, I'm afraid you're mad at me. So the very, it, it, when there's an impasse, when there's a difference, when you're having a problem, it's usually r- a r- result of the, the th- the three types. My, uh, my co-writer, Tal, is, is, is an- highly analytical.

    5. MC

      Mm-hmm.

    6. CV

      He's brilliant. I mean, he's, he's a, he's, he's a brilliant guy. And, um, I sent him an email once when we were working on the, on the book, and there was some wording that I wanted to have changed in, in what we were working on. I want it written a little bit differently. And you know, a writer will say, "Change whatever you want." But it's, you know, that's their baby. You start changing words [laughs] they don't like that. So I sent him the email, and I didn't hear anything from him, like four or five days. And I'm, and now I'm like, "Oh my God, oh my God," you know? This has gotta be bad. So I call him on the phone, and he'd been on vacation with his family. And he could tell that I was concerned. And he goes, he goes, "Well, what's with all the concern?" You know, "Why are you... You never get worried about anything. Why are you worried?" And I go, "It's four or five days since we spoke, and I sent you this email." And, uh, he said, "Oh, okay. Yeah, look, well, a lot of people tell me going silent don't bothers them too, so." [laughs] I just interpreted it wrong.

  7. 13:15 – 16:43

    From SWAT to hostage negotiation: the indirect path and early success

    1. MC

      You started your negotiation career in, in hostage negotiation. Is that, is that correct?

    2. CV

      Well, I started it actually-

    3. MC

      Okay

    4. CV

      ... when I was about three trying to-

    5. MC

      I was gonna say-

    6. CV

      ... get out of trouble with my parents

    7. MC

      ... pr- professionally. [laughs]

    8. SP

      [laughs]

    9. MC

      Professionally.

    10. CV

      Professionally, yes. Technically.

    11. MC

      And so I was wondering if you might, you might talk a little bit about how you found, uh, hostage negotiation, and then how that's led into the rest of your career, you know, founding the Black Swan group, and sort of how, how negotiation has been a part of your life.

    12. CV

      Sure. Um, yeah, completely indirectly. Everything, everything sort of fell out of the sky. I was on a SWAT team with the FBI. Um, had a recurring knee injury, and then just decided, uh, before the knee was completely shot, while I could still put it back together, to try something different. And in, in the crisis response, I always like crisis response. We had hostage negotiators, and that sounded cool. I didn't know what they did, but how hard could it be? Talk to people, right? That can't be hard. And so I decided I was gonna be a host... And I, I de- very definitely, distinctly remember th- thinking, uh, yeah, I'll talk to terrorists. I could do that. Um, so I went to the, the head of the New York office, uh, this team, a woman named Amy. Phenomenal, tough New York agent. And, uh, she said, "You got any experience?" I was like, "No." "Do you have any training?" "No." "Do you have any education in the area?" "No." "You have any background whatsoever in this that would make you a good negotiator?" I was like, "Nope." She's like, "Go away." I'm like, [laughs] "Come on." She says, "No, go away. Everybody wants to be a hostage negotiator. Everybody wants to do it. No, go away." And I said, "There's gotta be something I could do." And she said, "There is. Go volunteer at a suicide hotline." Which I did. I recontacted Amy recently, 'cause I wanted to put the story in the book, and she said, "You know, I had to have told 1,000 people to volunteer at suicide hotlines, and two people did, and you were one of them." You know, one of the things I learned was, you know, ask the right person, do what they tell you to do. You gotta ask the right person, but be willing to do it. And so I volunteered at the hotline. I came back five, six months later and I said, "Yeah, I've been volunteering." She said, "You're kidding me." She says, "I tell everybody to do that and nobody does it. Where, where are you volunteering?" I told her it was a suicide hotline that was, uh, founded by Norman Vincent Peale, the power positive thinking guy in New York. She says, "That's where I volunteered, too." So I was the only one that did what I was told to do. She moved me past five other people. I get, I get the next training slot. I went down to the, the FBI's, um, crisis hostage negotiation school. It was phenomenal. Um, uh, phenomenal experience. It's almost moving. And, um, then came back and was lucky enough, short, not terribly long after I got back, there was a bank robber- bank robbery with hostages in Brooklyn, which is actually a very rare event. They happen in the movies. Yeah, they happen on TV every other week. Uh, in the real life, it happens in the entire country about once every 20 years. And, uh, we showed up, and it was a, it was a great operation. The first bank robber to surrender, surrendered to me personally. Uh, so it went well. We got everybody out. And, um, then I started to, to teach that incident and tell everybody how it went, and found out I like teaching. And then one thing led to another, and next thing I know, I'm sitting here in N- in Google.

  8. 16:43 – 20:36

    Black Swan Group and subtle tactics: “That’s right” in a kidnapping case

    1. MC

      Wondering if you also might talk about the, the Black Swan group a little bit, and what, what you do there.

    2. CV

      While I was still with the Bureau, uh, talked my way into Harvard Law School's negotiation course. I'm the only agent that ever did that. And while I was there collaborating with my, uh, now colleagues at Harvard, we decided we were doing the same thing, only same techniques, different stakes. Basically that means I had better stories. And then after that I decided that this was an area that hostage negotiation does apply to business and personal negotiations. Did very well with it there, and I was encouraged by, uh, by my colleagues there, um, Sheila Heen, um, John Richardson, Doug Stone. Phenomenal people. Have been very supportive of me ever since I, I came across them. Very good friends to this day. And so just decided it would be something new to do because, um, most of my career I've liked going in new directions, trying stuff that other people hadn't tried. So when, uh, about the time I g- I, uh, retired, which was in 2007, which I know already seems like a long time ago, um, there was a book out called The Black Swan, and it was, it was about very small, little innocuous things that had massive impacts. And that's the whole design of these skills. I mean, ho- these skills, even if the other guy knows, uh, that you're negotiating with them, uh, they're still okay with it. It, it's, it's very subtle. Uh, one, one of the cases I talk about in the book It was a very long kidnapping in the Philippines, and ultimately one of the turning points was getting the terrorist to say, "That's right," on the phone. Changed everything. There was a $10 million ransom demand on the table. Went from $10 million to zero in one conversation, the space of about five minutes. It'd been going on for a while, and our negotiator got the bad guy to say, "That's right." And this was a bad, bad guy. Murdering, raping, head-chopping bad guy. Got him to say, "That's right," and it changed everything. So a couple of weeks after that case was over, I was back in the Philippines, [clears throat] excuse me, on another case. And, uh, the negotiator that I was coaching, this phenomenal, patriotic, wonderful human being, a guy named Benji. He says, "Hey, you're never gonna guess who called me on the phone two weeks ago." So I was like, "I don't know." And he said, "It was our terrorist, bad guy named Sabaya." He said, "Sabaya called me." "Really? What'd he say?" 'Cause he, he didn't know who Benji was. He just knew Benji had to be th- the government, military cop, some high-ranking official, just... But didn't know who he was. He said, "Hey, have you been promoted yet? I don't know what you said to me on the phone. I was gonna kill Jeffrey. You kept me from doing it. They should promote you." He hangs up.

    3. MC

      [laughs]

    4. CV

      See, even when they know, they're still okay with it. And that, and that was the whole approach to negotiation. If someone will deal with you and, um, they won't feel worse as a result of it. Most people I know, if they got a negotiation story they'll be like, "Oh, yeah, you know, I had these guys over a barrel. Boy, I really hammered them. You know, there was nothing they could do." Well, the problem with that kind of approach is if you hammer somebody in a negotiation, they're gonna wait for the rest of their life to pay you back. And you don't hammer people that you never see again. There's no such thing as a one-off. They're gonna be people that stay in your world one way or another, either your day-to-day life or they will see you again. So you want, you wanna negotiate successfully with people where afterwards they call you up on the phone and they say, "Nice job. Nice job. I'd talk to you again." Which is exactly what happened in the Philippines.

  9. 20:36 – 23:37

    Partnering against the situation: why compromise and “splitting the difference” fails

    1. MC

      You do make the point in this book that your counterpart is also your partner, which I thought was, was an interesting point in the negotiation, of that you're not, you're not necessarily going head-to-head. You're, um, you know, you're trying to, to work towards, towards a conclusion. But you also make the point that, that compromise is a little bit of a, a dirty word in, sometimes in negotiation.

    2. CV

      It's a horrible word, and I hope they don't bleep that out on the tape, right? You said, you said, "It's compromise."

    3. MC

      So what a- what about compromise? What about negotiations involves, do you think involves working together, and then what about compromise, um, is, is so negative?

    4. CV

      You know, and there's a difference between a high-value trade and compromise. Compromise, split- splitting the difference, meeting halfway, that's usually kind of a... I'm sorry, but it's usually kind of a lazy approach. And you leave money on the table. You leave better outcomes on the table when you compromise or you meet in the middle. You know, we, I, I like to say never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn't take something better. And so you want to interact with someone because the adversary is the situation. If you're talking to someone, actually you both have a problem that the two of you talking together will likely solve. And even if it's what's the most effective high-value trade, what can I give you that's really valuable to you that might be fairly easy for me to give? Um, I did a talk for the, uh, the Memphis, uh, Dispute Resolution for the Memphis Bar Association a number of years ago. They were putting out a magazine. They gotta put somebody on the cover of the magazine. They said, "We'll put your picture on the cover of the magazine." Getting my picture on a cover of a, a magazine that gets some, some distribution is extremely valuable to me. Something very hard for me to get, that I, I don't get it on a regular basis. Something they get, they've got anyway that they've gotta do every month. So that's a perfect definition of a high-value trade. And the idea was they wanted some training on negotiation, and they wanted to hear somebody that came in from a different point of view, and some stuff that's fairly easy to understand. I mean, I've had a lot of people tell me that the ideas are digestible, they're easy to apply, they're not hard to figure out. You know, everything is designed to be very, um, user-friendly. That you can figure it out and you can use it, and you start making a difference right away. So yeah, the adversary is the situation. A person you're talking to, they might feel like that they've gotta be your adversary, and you can get them out of that eventually with, with enough time. People are really far more defensive than they are attacking. But the adversary is the situation, so I gotta partner up with this person. So I'm gonna engage in behaviors that's gonna make you tend to wanna collaborate with me. And if we get into some really serious hard bargaining, I can do that, too. Um, you know, I can, I can hold a really strong line. But ideally, um, you're still gonna feel good about the entire interaction.

  10. 23:37 – 27:56

    Hostage-takers aren’t “crazy”: emotion, framing, and tactical empathy

    1. MC

      Hostage-takers and kidnappers are crazy, so there's no way that, that those same techniques are going to work on-

    2. CV

      Right

    3. MC

      ... on, you know, sane people.

    4. CV

      You know, but yeah, the perception is that hostage-takers are crazy, and, and they're not. I mean, everybody has patterns. Um, everybody is driven by emotions. You know, now that there's much more of a recognition of emotional intelligence, it's not that hard to make that case. But if we were, if we were in a business meeting and I, and I were to say, "It sounds like you're emotional about this," that still would be an insult. Uh, but if I were to say, "It sounds like you're passionate about this," you'd be like, "That's right. I am."

    5. MC

      [laughs]

    6. CV

      You know? It's, "That's right." That's right, remember? So, uh, what's the difference between passion and emotions? I don't know. It's a, it's a, it's a matter of, of terminology. And then also, uh, we were talking about, uh, Danny Kahneman's book, Thinking Fast and Slow. There's more and more data out there that indicates there's an emotional component to every, every decision we make, each and every decision. We make our, our mind up based on what we care about. Therefore, what you care about is an emotion, how you feel about things. So let's start with the idea that we're emotional to begin with. A hostage taker, if he's upset, is just more of himself or herself. They're not different. They're just more themselves intensely. So hostage negotiations is a set of tools and skills that can deal with people in very intense emotions. They're equally effective when the emotions are less intense. And the flip side is half the time we act like things are the end of the world anyway. I mean, an- anybody that's had trouble getting to sleep at night means you were tossing and turning over something that was bothering you. It bothered you enough so that you couldn't get to sleep. Anybody that's ever felt stress, you're just taking yourself hostage because you're worried about losing something. So when we start running it backward, then actually there's some emotional wiring in everything that happens. So let's, let's start from the premise to begin with it. Let's have some tools that work really well, our emotional intelligence tools. You know, there's still a very intense drive to be rational.

    7. MC

      Mm-hmm.

    8. CV

      You know, Getting to Yes, which is a fundamentally phenomenally sound book, but it really is based on a drive to become rational.

    9. MC

      Mm-hmm.

    10. CV

      Or even the recognition says, "Separate a person's positions from their interests." Um, okay. Wow, that sounds very rational. Why don't you tell me why you want what you want? Well, most people think, "If I tell you why I want it, then you've just got all the power over me. You've just gotten at my deepest, darkest secrets, or I've revealed all my weaknesses, and I've revealed all my vulnerabilities." So that is an idea that just doesn't work. You know, tell me why you want this. Oh, because I'm, can't pay my bills. Oh, you know, then I've got leverage. Quote, leverage. And most of the books that have come out have been along this drive for rationality. How can we approach this in this methodical, pragmatic, rational approach to negotiation? You know, more and more comes out in, in different degrees in other ideas. Um, again, Jim Camp's book, Start with No, uh, it's still got a phenomenal chapter about open-ended questions, and it's, it's a completely different approach, and it's written from a layman's point of view. His philosophy is a combination. He was a football coach, he was a, a fighter pilot in the Air Force, and he was a salesman, so it's got [laughs] all this, all that kind of terminology mixed in together, which, which makes it entertaining. Um, uh, Bob Mnookin, the head of the program on negotiation, and the, the, the first story is me negotiating with him in a simulated kidnapping negotiation. Uh, his book, Beyond Winning, it, um, has still got a fantastic chapron-- chapter on empathy, the tension between empathy and assertiveness. I still assign it, I still review it every, every now and then. And my, uh, my Harvard brothers and sisters are now very much more recognizing that empathy is, is, is the tool for negotiation effectiveness. And we, uh, my book, you know, we call it actual tactical empathy, understanding what we can do with someone's emotions and, and help sort of frame their decision-making.

  11. 27:56 – 34:20

    Finding “unknown unknowns”: getting to what the other side can’t articulate

    1. MC

      You, you highlight in here that there are these, these unknown unknowns that really can be the, the answer to, to finalizing negotiation and to figuring out what, what it is that both of you want. Um, and so I was wondering if you could talk about, you know, finding these unknowns, uh, these unknown unknowns, what, what it means to be an unknown unknown, and, and how we become better at, at really tracking those down in a negotiation.

    2. CV

      All right. So there's two kinds of pieces of information that, that your counterpart or the other side has that are really important to you. It's the stuff that they know is important to you and the stuff that they have no idea it's important, but it is. And that's why detecting deception is not that helpful. Because detecting deception in, in an interaction, you only know to cover up what you know is important. And I got to trigger a lot more conversation with you to get the sorta accidental stuff. Now, the other thing is, there's, there's never a negotiation that anybody is ever in when they're not, uh, holding cards, if you will. If you're not, you're not hiding pieces of information. There will never come a time when you're in a negotiation that you don't have proprietary, important information to you that you're worried about letting the other side have. Ever. So if that's true for you, it's also true for the other side. So here's two people holding pieces of information that they're not showing the other side, they know the other side doesn't have. And the unknown unknowns are kind of when those two things overlap. Because I don't know what you're hiding, and you don't know what I'm hiding. There's gonna be a lot of stuff in the space there that could be huge if we could just figure it out. Some of it might be just why you want what you want, which again, never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn't take something better. One of my students, um, uh, a male, is negotiating with his wife over a Christmas tree. Very practical guy. Practical guy. Wants, wants an artificial tree. Lots of practical reasons for an artificial tree. Doesn't catch on fire. You buy it once. You never have to... You know, all the reasons. And he can't understand why she won't go along with having the artificial tree. It makes so much sense. And so sometimes it's like, well, why is this person crazy? Where are they coming from? And he searched his mind a little bit and he thought, "Well, the only thing that could possibly be driving her was, you know, maybe something from when she was a kid." So he said to her, he, he used a tool that we call label, and he just labeled it. He said, "It seems like maybe you had real trees grow- growing up?" And immediately she starts to tell him about her memories of Christmas as a child, and how they stuck with her, and how important it was to her that their children have those same kind of memories through life, and they get a real tree. 'Cause as soon as he found out why she wanted what she wanted, he completely came over to her side. He knew that that was a better outcome. Nearly every negotiation is like that, if we give it a chance, and getting to the point where the other side is comfortable with show- sharing that information is really what the point of everything in the book is about. There's always going to be information you don't have-

    3. MC

      Mm-hmm

    4. CV

      ... and that the other person since doesn't know it's important. Which is why the more the conversations get, gets going, the, the stuff that comes out, the innocuous information is could, could make all the difference in the world. And make, make not just little differences. The black swan is something little that makes a huge difference, and that, that's really what you're looking for. It also saves time. It, uh, keeps you from having to renegotiate.

    5. MC

      Mm-hmm.

    6. CV

      Keeps you from having to do it over again. You move forward in a better partnership. You know, a great summary from somebody is when you summarize it in a way that they would never be able to say themselves. The, the story in the book is when I got my son to change the way he was playing football, and he was a lineman. And lineman are, are great football players. It's, it's, uh, a very blue collar s- skill. Kind of a combination of a hard hat construction worker and a NASA scientist, 'cause they, they gotta hit things. They put their heads down, they crash into stuff, and the stuff they're trying to crash in is trying to get away from them, so it's like trying to shoot a missile with another missile. It's, uh, a football lineman is a very complicated, complicated job. And as a quarterback, I never appreciated how complicated [chuckles] the job was 'cause they just did it. And they moved him from lineman to linebacker, and he, he went from having, uh, being told to hit everything he saw to get out of the way of everything. You know, only hit one thing. It's the guy with the ball, everything else, you duck. He wouldn't do it. And the other re- the other way you know you're wrong is when you're, you're trying to explain something to somebody, and they look at you and say, "You're right?" Somebody says, "You're right" to you, what they're really asking you to do is shut up and go away.

    7. MC

      [laughs]

    8. CV

      They don't want you to talk anymore. And so as my coach, or as his coach and me are both explaining to him how he's supposed to be playing linebacker, guess what he would say to us?

    9. MC

      You're right.

    10. CV

      You're right. [laughs] And we'd be like, "Well, yeah." 'Cause we like hearing that. We love being told that we're right, and then he'd go right back to it the very next day, was do it the wrong way. And I thought, you know, "What, what is going through his mind?" What, you know, "What's the matter with him?" And finally, I, I took him off to the side one day, and I said, "You think that dodging a block is unmanly. You feel like getting out of the way of somebody who's trying to hit you makes you a coward." And he got real quiet for a second, and then he said, "That's right." And he started ducking blocks the next day, and he told me the other day wh- because we talk about this a lot, he said, "You know, I never would've been able to explain that for myself. Until you said it, I didn't know it was true, and never in a million years would I would've thought doing it was acting like a coward, but it was absolutely what was driving me." And so when you can summarize it again from the other... 'Cause I, if you say that to him like, like that, it was almost like I was trying to talk him into it. "Well, it's cowardly," but I was just recognizing it for him. Even though it sounded like it was against what I was trying to get, it just gave him an epiphany, and it was really a black swan for him.

  12. 34:20 – 37:56

    Negotiating with loved ones: accusations audits and the ‘You sound angry’ lesson

    1. SP

      How do negotiation strategies and tactics change when there's emotional entanglement with your adversary, such as your spouse?

    2. MC

      So the question was-

    3. CV

      [laughs]

    4. MC

      ... um, how do negotiation techniques change when there's, there's emotional entanglement with someone such as your spouse?

    5. CV

      Well, it's harder for us to fairly reward it in a way that they would say, "That's right," to. I mean, we get in our own way so much more the closer we are to someone emotionally, and it's harder to do that. There's, there's something we call, uh, I call an accusations audit. Um, it's very disarming, but I will take all the things that you might be harboring against me, you know, whatever names you might call me, and I would say, "Look, s- seems like I've been a jerk the entire time here. Seems like I've been in the wrong the entire time here." And the closer we are to someone, the harder it is for us to make those accusations. It could be a spouse. It could be a business partner where things have gone bad. I mean, I've, I've advised people that we're working on trying to, um, divide their business up with someone that they can no longer get along with. And I said, "Look, you gotta articulate everything bad that he would say about you." And, "I'm not doing that," you know. "I don't care. I'm not doing that." So that's us getting in our own way, and I get in my own way on a regular basis, and it's hard for me. I'm tr- I'm not trying to make it sound like it's easy. It's not. Most of the things that are simple are very, also very hard. And that, and the closer we are to someone, the harder that often is, is to completely recognize how, um, angry they are if the anger is at us, and, and, and we feel, uh, that we're not responsible, but we know they're holding us responsible. The, uh, I was... One of my first negotiations after I got trained on the hotline, uh, was with the woman who's now the ex Mrs. Voss. And I had learned on the hotline that when you heard anger in somebody's voice that you would say, "You sound angry," and it would make it go away. And it was like magic, you know? It worked for me on the hotline all the time. And someone, um, calling on a hotline, there's gonna be anger that's gonna be driving them one way or the other. So I'm in, in a conversation with the, uh, the now ex-Mrs. Voss, uh, over a discussion of something that was fundamental to our relationship at the time. And I heard anger, so, you know, I'm kinda like, ah, got my hostage negotiation skills here. I can handle this. It's gonna be easy. So I look at her and I say, "You sound angry." [laughs]

    6. MC

      [laughs]

    7. CV

      Yes, I see you shaking your head over there. You, you know, that probably didn't go well. [laughs] And her, she, like, blew up. She was like, "Ra, ra, ra, ra, angry, ra, ra, ra." And I remember it at the time going like, ah, but I'm a hostage negotiator.

    8. MC

      [laughs]

    9. CV

      That's not supposed to happen. Well, the problem was it wasn't just that she was angry. She was angry at me, and she held me responsible for it, and what I said stopped short of that. Now, a more accurate thing would've been, I-- it seems like I've been unreasonable. It seems like I've been unfair. It seems like I have never given you a chance. It seemed like I haven't respected you. It seems like I haven't respected your autonomy. Something closer that she could've said, "That's right," to. And it's harder when we're closer to them, or if we don't feel responsible, if they think we're responsible, it's harder for us to recognize that. So a long, long answer to your question. I hope that helped.

  13. 37:56 – 48:59

    Negotiation myths, leverage, and threats: why lying and reputational “wins” backfire

    1. MC

      Is there anything that you've encountered in, in popular media that you believe to be patently false about negotiation or negotiation technique?

    2. CV

      Well, um, in the, uh, in, in the movie The Negotiator, first of all, early, early on, there's a line between, uh, the Samuel Jackson character and a woman, woman playing his wife, and she says, "Well, you're a negotiator. You lie for a living." Lying is a really bad idea. And I don't believe, I never believed it in, in a hostage negotiation, a- and I don't believe in a business negotiation. One of the reasons that I hit it off with, uh, my friends at Harvard real early on, uh, Bob Mnookin running the program up there, they put a heavy emphasis on teaching people not to lie. And just off the top of his head while, while I was up there the first time, he said, "Chris, you know, what do, what do hostage negotiators think about lying?" And I said, "Don't lie to anybody you're not gonna kill." And they kinda laughed, you know, and they thought that was kinda funny, and then they got uncomfortable 'cause they realized I meant it.

    3. MC

      [laughs]

    4. CV

      But, uh, but then I said, "You know, but even then it's probably a bad idea because somebody that they know is gonna find out you lied." Um, so I, I, I, I don't believe in lying. I think lying is a bad approach in negotiation. The other side's gonna find out. In a business deal, you lie, they're gonna find out, and they're still in your world. Um, I also don't believe, um, you know, in, in the attacking kind of a negotiator. I mean, the tough pound the other side. Um, it's just bad for business long-term. People don't wanna make deals with you anymore after a while. I mean, when, when I first got up to the, uh, the Harvard program on negotiation in, in their, uh, in their class, I resorted to my hard bargaining techniques that I'd learned as a kidnapping negotiator. Kidnappers are businessmen. They're commodities businessmen. Whether we think it's horrific, they think it's a business, and I'd learned some very hard bargaining techniques that I used to just really pound people with, and they didn't know that I did it to them. I did it in a very invisible way. The problem was word got out. So the first two or three times, you know, I really slaughtered the other side, and then they started talking about it, and it's like your reputation getting out in the industry, and pretty soon, no one would talk to me. I mean, I'd sit down for a negotiation, and they'd stare at me-

    5. MC

      [laughs]

    6. CV

      ... 'cause they're afraid to say anything. Well, I spoke to a CEO in the energy business a couple of years after that, and he said, "I've got such a reputation in my industry as being a hard bargainer, nobody will deal with me. I got an agreement sitting on my desk right now. The other CEO was there with me the whole time. We negotiated every term. He's afraid to sign it because if you make a deal with me now, by definition, you've been beaten. And people now no longer want to admit that they've, they've dealt with me, so no one will make a deal." So if you're a hard bargainer, and you really beat the other side, word gets out, and it isn't long, and you can't make deals anymore.

    7. MC

      The question was, uh, how do you begin a negotiation? How do you start?

    8. CV

      I, I wanna hear where you're coming from first. Everybody shows up at a negotiation having rehearsed their argument, having rehearsed their talking points. The reality is until they get that out of their head, they're not gonna be able to listen to anything that I say. So while they're focused on what they have to say, I wanna hear what it is because they're not gonna be able to listen to me until they, they've had their say, number one. Number two, I now believe there's probably going to be some really important information for me to pick up that I didn't otherwise have. As a general rule, I can get in a negotiation in ten or fifteen minutes information that would've taken me at least two weeks to acquire otherwise, if I coulda ever have gotten it. And there are certain things about what's going on in your world that no matter how much research I do, I can never find that out. Your boss may have given you a hard time about the last deal that you cut. You may have internal pressures to get something done. You may have no pressures to get anything done. You might not be hungry at all. There's no amount of research that I can do that-- outside that I can find that out. I have to find it out from you. So I'm gonna get the conversation started so that we're talking, you're comfortable talking with, with me as soon as possible. And so yeah, I want you to go first. I wanna hear where you're coming from.

    9. MC

      If-- the question is if the person on the other end is a criminal that you wanna apprehend, what, what can you possibly give them? What leeway do you have?

    10. CV

      If somebody's talking to you, you've got something they want, period. You know, I, I always said there's always leverage. Um, there's a whole-- uh, you're asking what kind of leverage is there. What, what can I give them? Um, you know, my, my colleague Jim Camp liked to say there's no such thing as leverage 'cause it all exists in, in the eye of the beholder, in the mind of the beholder. I've got another colleague says it doesn't matter what leverage they have on you. What matters is what they think of the leverage you have on them. Again, it all ends up being in the eye of the beholder. If you're talking to me at all, I've got something you want, otherwise you wouldn't talk to me. Um, and you don't even necessarily have to be talking directly to me. If you're communicating about that, in a way is somewhat designed to get you something that you want, if you are complaining publicly, then there's something you want. And it's up to me to recognize that, and then take whatever that threat is, whatever that black swan is, and, and use it to establish a working relationship and find out what we can make happen together. So if the criminal's talking to me, I'm, uh, I've got leverage.

    11. MC

      Uh, the question is, what are the kinds of things that, that a kidnapper wants? You know, what, what are you negotiating with them?

    12. CV

      Um, if they're talking, e- every kidnapping they want, they want money, they want recognition. If we can give them recognition, or the flip side is, if it's, if it's a, if it's public in any way, shape or form, that means that there's good publicity for them. They're trying to get publicity. Uh, and if there's good publicity, there's bad publicity. So if, if I understand that dynamic, they're expressing themselves in any way. There are things they want to have happen, there are things they don't want to have happen. All I've got to do is sort of flip it the other way around and make them worried about the things that they don't want to have happen, and then that changes their behavior because fear of loss is the number one driving, uh... Myself and a lot of psychologists believe that fear of loss is w- is the number one thing that drives our, our decisions. Psychologists, uh, usually fall into one of two camps. You make every decision based on either fear or love. Others say you make every decision based on fear of loss. Whichever of those two areas that you fall into, the bottom line is fear and fear of loss are a big determinant in how people think. So I just recognize that and then just use the tools that I'm, that I'm given.

    13. MC

      What do you say to people who say that there's no such thing as bad publicity if you don't have any to begin with?

    14. CV

      Um, most people don't like to be laughed at. And that seems to be the one thing that hurts. Ridicule seems to be the one thing that even people that take that philosophy, ridicule seems to be the one thing that they don't like. So I, I understand, um, the, the, the intellectual thought process behind it. The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. But I haven't seen anybody yet that likes ridicule. Anybody. So ridicule tends to be the one powerful sort of X factor black swan in publicity that makes a difference.

    15. MC

      The question is, uh, when is time for threat and retaliation if you're put in that position, and when should you do it? You know, should you do it? Should you wait?

    16. CV

      You know, I tend to think of both of those things as like a nuclear strike, and there's just long, toxic residue. And you, you have the capacity for a nuclear strike, and people like the idea. You know, I... But I don't know any time that people, after the fact, have said, "Yeah, that was the right thing to do." Um, I've had negotiations go bad, and, uh, one went bad earlier this year, and I still regret the loss of that relationship, and I will try to repair it. Um, one of the, one of our main core philosophies is no deal is better than a bad deal, and one of that was a, a bad deal that, that stretched out over three years and we made a lot of money. It was blood money. It was painful. Painful. And I ended up very angry and upset at a lot of the people that I blamed for that, and still want to do what I can do to repair those relationships. So the, i- it's hard. And, and emotionally, intellectually, I just don't want things going bad, and if they, if they did go bad, I'm gonna try to fix it at some point in time, 'cause we're all still in the same environment. I mean, the, the residue from negativity and people paying you back is brutal. It's just really... And on top of that, I, I don't want a reputation, 'cause then that reputation gets around. If you're quick to pull the trigger, even if somebody deserved it, people find out about it, and then, then they're reluctant to deal with you. So many more people judge your actions that are not directly involved in the action. I like to say the most important person watching me is not the person in the interaction, but somebody is watching how I conduct myself. And they're gonna try to... And the most powerful people sit back and study you for a long time before they trust you, to put you in really phenomenal deals. So I, I'm, I'm not a big believer in, you know, retaliation. I'm just not. Yeah, well, um, there's an old saying, it was attributed to Goldman Sachs, you know, "Greedy, yes, but long-term greedy." You know, short term, you can go after them. Long term, uh, your most valuable commodity is time. Everybody in here has one commodity. It's exactly equal to Warren Buffett's. Exactly equal. Every single day. He's got twenty-four hours, and we've got twenty-four hours. So your most valuable commodity is time. The, the... Step back and, and what's your rate of return on investment of chasing a bad debt versus cutting your losses and moving on? Um, it, it, psych- psychologically, you've been cheated, that person has hurt you, and you want to pay them back. And revenge is a dish best served cold, as they say. But if you're going to be long-term greedy, the best return on the investment of that scarce commodity of time that you have, that twenty-four hours a day, nothing more, chasing a bad debt or moving on and going on to, to a better, um, better, uh, opportunity. I've seen a lot of companies that have really begun to turn the corner in their profitability when they understood how to cut their losses and move on. Very easy to say, very hard to do. I'm still working on that now. I know intellectually that cutting my losses and moving on is a smarter move. I'm not saying I can always do it.

  14. 48:59 – 50:43

    Closing story: early lessons from an Iowa mom

    1. MC

      For the last few minutes, I'd like to turn it over to you. You said you have a, a story for us.

    2. CV

      All right. So yeah, um, I, I was asked, uh, not, not that long ago if I learned negotiation. Well, you know, I'm, I grew up in Iowa. I'm a small town Iowa boy, and I am the son of, uh, hardworking blue-collar parents, Richard and Joyce Voss. And, uh, I think my mom is a tough Midwestern woman. Tough Midwestern woman. I remember the, I think the first negotiation I was ever in, 'cause my dad was like the SWAT team and my mother was the nurturing. You know, Dad punished you, Mother was nice to you. And, uh, you know, he had the belt. And one time I got in trouble, you know. I'm sure it was my sisters got me in trouble. It probably wasn't my fault.

    3. MC

      [laughs]

    4. CV

      I had an older sister, two younger. Uh, and so I was, I was... My mom said, you know, "Do you, do you want me to punish you, or do you want Dad to punish you?" You know, Dad had the belt. And this, this seemed like a no-brainer. There's no way that Mom could hit as hard as he could, and on top of that, she didn't even have a belt as far as I knew. So, uh, I remember saying to her, "Well, yeah, you know, um, uh, you can punish me." And she's like, "Go to the closet and get the yardstick." [laughs] And I was kind of like, "Holy cow, this was not part of the original agreement." And I don't remember exactly what happened, but that was one of the things that I learned early on, you know, that the nurturing person can be a very tough person at the same time. Uh, so my, I will share with you one of my favorite jokes. Uh, what's the difference between an Iowa mom and a terrorist? You can negotiate with a terrorist.

    5. MC

      [laughs]

    6. CV

      And my mother hates that joke.

    7. MC

      [laughs] Well, thank you for sharing that. Thank you all for coming, and thank you for being here today. [clapping]

Episode duration: 50:43

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