Insights by Chris Voss zipped

In today’s newsletter, we delve into the negotiation tactics shared by Chris Voss during his appearance on Behind The Brand. Viss reveals his approach to nudging the other to get what you want. Find a poll for today’s newsletter at the bottom - would appreciate your feedback. Thank you for taking the time to read this edition.

_{Read Time: 4 minutes and 28 seconds}

Today's Feature Podcast Summary

Hosted By: Bryan Elliot
Podcast: Behind The Brand
Guest Spotlight: Chris Voss, former FBI agent leading negotiations in many high-risk, high-consequence cases and the author of the book “Never Split the Difference.”
Takeaways: Warn someone about the emotions they will feel, avoid the other to feel at a loss, mirror, label and exhaust to stear the conversation, use negotiation as a way to gather all the missing pieces.

Insightful Takeaways

Keeping negative emotions down

95% of our brain is inherently negative. Empathy enables others to find solutions. The word originates from a German term related to art perception, emphasizing individual understanding. You try to understand where the person is coming from but it might not be the same for all viewers.

What is tactical empathy?

Tactical empathy involves acknowledging how your words might negatively impact someone. Chris Voss suggests instead of asking them not to get upset, it’s more effective to empathize by saying, "What I have to say is probably going to offend you." This approach allows the other person to prepare and manage their reaction, tactically softening the impact of the news.

Transforming Negotiations through Collaborative Understanding

The essence of a negotiation is not about either side winning. It is a ground for finding a collaborative long-term solution. Interestingly, studies show that powerful people prefer collaboration whereas unpowerful people prefer competition (Researchgate).

Daniel Kahneman, the author of Thinking fast and slow, shows that a loss is perceived twice as much as a similar win. Thus, collaboration is important so that at least both sides emotionally feel they’ve won.

How human nature affects negotiations:

• The Perception of Loss: Recognize that the fear of losing outweighs the satisfaction of gaining twice.

• The influence on personal identity: Negotiations are related to one's self-image, your ego. You associate a value to your achievements, if that gets hurt, you can not accept the offer no matter what. Eg. You want a 10x multiple but get offered 6x. No matter what this value turns into in the future, you can not see past the fact that you got a low offer.

• The vision of the future: How someone wants to live in the near or far future affects the negotiation ground, such as the plan on wanting to buy a big mansion, which shortens the timeline until you need money.

Strategic Approaches to Negotiating Your Way

Negotiation is an art of nudging the other subtly to get your desired results. Foster a cooperative dialogue to extract the missing information that you could not have known beforehand – their loss, identity, and future perception – while subtly steering it towards desired outcomes.

The tactics:

• Mirroring: By repeating the exact last few words spoken, the other’s brain can not but think they need to elaborate to clarify what they meant. The person will reveal more as initially consciously intended. This further forces them to reflect on what they want/ can accept.

• Labeling: You share your understanding of the other’s feelings or statements by using empathetic labels ("It seems like you really need/ you feel..."). You acknowledge the other's emotions or underlying reasons without confrontation. Though, this can only be used when you do not know the emotion or reason. If you have been out all night together, saying “It seems like you are tired”, will get the other more emotional.

• The illusion of control: Asking open-ended "what" and "how" questions, such as “What do you want me to do?”, makes the other party feel in control of the conversation and lay out their thoughts and priorities. Then when they share the answer you want, you praise the answer making the other person feel good.

• Exhaustion: Using fatigue as a tactic by asking repetitive or exhaustive questions wears others down. Interestingly, a human, according to Voss, can only answer so many “what” and “how” questions per day. By asking those repetitively, the other party gets exhausted.

• The F-Bomb: When you use the word fair, there is a high chance there is no legitimacy but the tactic diverts the other. Eg. In the NFL the offices said “We give our players fair offers”, but they didn’t want to show proof of that. The players’ instinct might be that with fair offers, the offices would open their books. But now the word spreads that the offices are fair and you start to doubt your first instinct.

The Driver of Negotiation: Enhancing Information Acquisition

The need for negotiation is to gather all the necessary information to know what is possible to get and want. The focus of a negotiation is not about making your stance but actively uncovering your result versions by getting the necessary other party’s information.

• Recognize the Limitations of Pre-preparation: Accept that you cannot prepare perfectly because you don’t yet have all the necessary information.

• Utilize Optimal Timing for Cognitive Tasks: Recognize that people have limited energy levels at different times of the day. In the morning, people can answer a few “What” and “How” questions. Once you negotiate in the afternoon, you should utilize tactics of mirroring and labeling to get the “what and how”-questions answered.

• Diverting from Price to Information: Deciding whether to go first or second in revealing price points can be crucial. To determine the price you need all the information first, which is where you divert to when the price question is being asked. You might be willing to do something for free if the audience is worth your price tag.

Give it a listen here