Review: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The author is a former hostage negotiator - and brings interesting illustrating stories from that dramatic past. The objective of the book is to shed a light on how to be more successful in negotiations (in reality, in any communication situation which involves arguing over some issue).

The central concept to me from the book was a tactical empathy. That is, how to use good communication tactics in order to understand another person's wishes, desires and fears - and make that person more predisposed to be listening to you. These tactics are fairly simple (but way too easy to forget when we want to get OUR point through):
- Listen, hold on talking
- When talking, slow it down
- Mirror (rephrase what another person has said in a form of a question)
- Label another person's emotions/fears/desires ("It seems like you...")
- Don't push people for "Yes" - understand the reasons behind their "No"
- Don't get stressed and create additional stress due to deadlines
- Do an accusation audit (list the reasons another person might dislike what you are offering)

Sometimes it all felt somewhat cynical and manipulative. On the other hand, many of the communication practices described there are actually helping to build relationships - either with your negotiation counterpart, a child, a colleague or anyone else. Everyone wants to be listened to and understood. If we play along with this for ultimately good reasons, it's not that bad communicative manipulation after all...