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Notes #

• The author was the lead international kidnapping hostage negotiator
• Asking open questions buys you time in the negotiation, as the other party has to figure out how to answer
  • You can keep asking the same few open-ended questions in a row over and over, and the other party might get worn out answering them
• Humans are not purely rational
  • Loss Aversion - people are more likely to act to avert a loss than to acheive an equal gain
  • Framing Effect - people react differently based on how something is framed (e.g. going from 90 to 100% vs. 45 to 55%)
• Because of this, you cannot rely on a purely rational model for negotiation (e.g. the book Getting to Yes)
• Often times emotional situations drive negotiations, rather than rational situations
  • This is especially true in hostage negotiations
• You need to calm people down, establish rapport, gain trust, elicit the verbalization of needs, and persuade the other party of your empathy
• Listening is the key – people want to be understood and accepted
• Negotiation does not mean browbeating someone down
• "Negotiation is not a battle, it’s a process of discovery
• Negotiation is everywhere
  • From talking to airport counter agents
  • To business deals
  • To general sales
  • Car sales
  • It doesn’t have to feel like a negotiation to use these tactics
  • It’s just about getting to an outcome you want in any situation!
• Good negotiators recognize that their job is to gently guide their coutnerpart to discover their goal as his own
  • A lot of times you want your counterpart to think they came up with the goals themselves
    • Kinda like inception
• Silence is powerful. Use effective pauses
  • People feel awkward and compelled to speak
• It’s important to train yourself to recognize the situations that are negotiations – and that you can use these tactics in
• If you approach a negotiation thinking the other party will think just like you you’re wrong. That’s projection – not empathy
• All negotiation is an information gathering process
• The listener has control in a negotiation, not the talker
  • This is because the talker is revealing information about themselves
  • And the listener is guiding the talker with their questions
• Humanize yourself. What’s the Sean discount?
• Whoever can be the most uncomfortable in a deal will win out in the end because you can hold out the longest
  • No deal is better than a bad deal
• From this book it seems like the best strategy in a monetary negotation is just to keep politely saying no in not so many words and have the counterparty bid against themselves
• Smiling when you speak is huge
• People trust you more when they find you as similar or familiar
• Negotiation is about becoming okay with conflict and handling it with empathy
• Ask calibrated questions to lead your counterpart to get to your goals and have them think they discovered it themselves

Be a Mirror #

• Your goal at the outset should be to extract as much information and observations as possible
  • Go in without any assumptions, but some hypothesis that each new piece of information tests
• Until you know who you are dealing with, don’t make assumptions about them (they could be the real decision maker, etc.)
• Negotiation is not a battle of arguments – you should be listening, not thinking of the arguments in your head
• The goal is to get your counterparts to tell you what they actually need, and make them feel safe in doing so
• Take the negotation slowly. Don’t go too fast or you risk the other party not feeling heard and you undermine the rapport
• Often times your demeanor (calm, collected, etc.) is more important than the words you say
  • You generally want to be friendly and positive, relax and smile, etc.
  • If something isn’t up for a matter of discussion, use a calm, but not aggresive tone that states it matter of factly. Don’t offer an alternative
• Mirroring refers to just repeating the last three words (or critical words) back to the person you are talking to when they say something
  • This causes them to elaborate
  • e.g. “I’m sorry and then pause”
  • The intention behind this is to inform the other party, I’m sorry help me please understand
• Mirroring is really powerful
  • It gets your counterparty to keep talking and elaborating

Don’t Feel Their Pain, Label It #

• Good negotiators identify emotions, label them, and influence them
• You want to recognize the perspective of a counterpart and vocalize that recognition
• Labeling is the way of validating someone’s emotions by acknowledging it
  • “It seems like…”
  • “It sounds like…”
• After labeling something you want to go quiet and listen
  • The labels power is it gives the other person a chance to reveal themselves
  • “I’m sensing some hesitations with…”
• Sometimes the best way to diffuse a negative situation is to label the negative and lead with it
  • “Bless me father for I have sinned”
  • “I know you’re scared”
  • “Look, I know I was wrong here”
• Never deny the negative (e.g. “I don’t want this to sound harsh”) and instead affirm it (“this is going to sound harsh”)
• This can be a super powerful way to extract concessions from people that you need to extract
  • Premptively diffuse the situation (“You’re going to think I’m the bad guy here”)
  • Ask for their input with open ended questions and find out what they really want
• e.g. after an angry customer at a register: “Seems like they were quite angry”, then start mirroring

Master Saying “No” #

• “No” starts the negotiation
  • It maintains the status quo and gives you a minute to pause and reconsider
  • If your counterparty says “no” that is a good thing! It can kick off the negotiation
  • You have to train yourself to hear “no” as something other than rejection
    • I am not ready to agree yet
    • I do not understand
    • I don’t think I can afford it
    • I want something else
    • You are making me uncomfortable
    • etc.
• Sometimes you can disarm a negotiation from the start by telling someone they have the right to say no
  • Not sure how I feel about this
• After pausing when hearing a no, ask solution-based questions or simple label the no
• Getting a no out of the way quickly is a good way to let your counterpart feel like they are in control
  • This is why “is now a bad time to talk?” is always better than “is now a good time to talk”
• Email response trick
  • If someone has already ignored you once or twice, you can prompt a no “have you given up on this project?”

Say the Most Two Important Words – “That’s Right” #

• One crucial aspect of any negotation is to figure out how your adversary came to their position
• You have to get your counterpart to a position that will get them to say "that’s right"
  • e.g. they know you understand their position
  • that’s right is obviously just an example – there are many other ways someone can affirm you know what they are feeling
• One way to do this is to summarize – not parrot – what the person you are negotiating with is feeling
• Hearing “you’re right” is a disaster
  • Someone may agree in theory but they don’t own the conclusion
  • If you tell someone “you’re right” it’s an easy way to get them to go away so people do that

Bend Their Reality #

• There is always leverage, hidden blind spots, and undeveloped notions in a negotation
  • Even when you think you don’t have leverage – you have to find out what the other party wants/needs
• Compromising is never the best strategy (e.g. splitting the difference)
  • People compromise because it is safe
  • Never split the difference
• Deadlines are powerful in a negotiation
  • These are the screws that pressure deals to a conclusion
  • Resist the urge to force yourself into a deal at the deadline and take advantage of it in others
  • No deal is better than a bad deal
  • e.g. car dealers are prone to give you the best deal at the end of the month
    • Corportate salespeople who get paid quaterly are most vulnerable at the end of the month
• Deadlines are almost always arbitrary even when they feel immovable
• Judge threats by the specifics and specific timeline mentioned
  • If they are arbitrary, it’s probably an early stage threat
• Hiding your deadlines is conventional wisdom but is actually wrong
  • Hiding your deadline pushes you to speed up concessions without the other party knowing where they hold out for more
• “Fairness” is a tricky concept. People tend to drop their rationality if they don’t see a deal as fair
  • If someone says “we just want what’s fair” the best response is to
    • Take a deep breath and restrain your desire to concede
    • Say let’s stop everything and go back to where I started treating you unfairly and we’ll fix it"
• You can start a negotiation by telling your counterparty you want them to feel treated fairly at all times
  • This helps disarm the negotiation ahead of time
  • As a negotiator you want you reputation to be one of being fair
• You can play on loss aversion – persuade the other side that they have something concrete to lose if the deal falls through
• The context of a situation matters a ton
  • e.g. if you frame someone’s pay dropping from 2k to $500 that’s terrible!
  • but if you frame it as an opportunity to not let the $500 go to someone else that’s a better proposition
• Going second in a price negotiation is often the best, just make sure if they throw out a low offer that doesn’t anchor you to a lower value
  • You don’t need to make adjustments relative to the reference point
  • Sometimes it’s worth it to go first if you both have experience and have a general idea of what the price should be
  • You can always use a range and allude to something else or someone in a similar situation besides yourself
    • If you offer a range expect them to come in at the low end
  • You can often pivot to non-monetary terms to get the negotiation in a place that both parties are happy with
• Sometimes giving a “gift” of some form (a small concession, a non-concession but nice thing) can be a good way to get your counterparty to feel like they have to repay you in some kind
• Before you make an offer, you can emotionally anchor them by saying how bad it will be (if the offer has to be bad)
• Good negotiators typically go in for an extreme anchor (extremely high or extremely low value) right off the bat to rattle you
  • Either don’t let that rattle you, or use this to your advantage if moving first

Salary Negotations #

(Many of the above pieces of advice also apply here but in addition)

• Be pleasantly persistent with non-salary terms
  • If they can’t bump the non-salary terms they might be compelled to bump the salary
• When someone throws out a number, you don’t have to respond immediately
  • Label, mirror, etc.
  • Even if someone increases their offer, you can keep going since they are negotiating against themselves

Create the Illusion of Control #

• You want your counterpart to be coaxed into the conclusion you want, thinking they did it themselves
• Ask open ended questions to help drive your outcome
  • For example, in the hostage negotiation to get the hostage on the phone
    • Don’t say, is the hostage alive?
    • Ask, how do I know they are alright?
      • Your counterpart may drive this for you
  • “How am I supposed to do that?” then going silent is a classic (you have to legitamately ask for help, not in a bullying tone)
  • Open ended questions should not be accusational
• Calibrated open ended questions have a direction that you can use to help drive your counterparty to an outcome you agree on
  • Asking “why” questions often sound accusationary
• You can’t let your emotions control you in a negotiation
  • Always pause, think, and collect your thoughts
• When people don’t feel in control, they adopt a “hostage” mentality
• “How can we pay that much?”
  • This is an open ended question but denies the offer without saying “no”
• With how questions, you convince the counterparty that the solution is their ideas when they answer the how
• You can say “no” in many different ways without saying the word “no”
  • e.g. “That was a very generous offer but I can’t come up with the money”
  • e.g. “The price you offered was very fair but I can’t afford it”

Guarantee Execution #

• The goal isnt’ just to get to an agreement. It’s to get to an agreement that you know can be executed
• Implementation often requires more than just your negotiating counterparty. You have to get everyone bought in

Bargain Hard #

• You have to understand your counterparty’s style
  • Are they assertive?
  • Are they an analyst?
  • Are they an accomadator? Who wants to be friendly and is seeking a win-win?
• When a negotiation is far from resolved and is going nowehere, sometimes you have to be aggressive to get things moving
  • Calm anger + frustration if it is real can sometimes be warranted
• To get yourself out of a bad dynamic you can use “I”
  • e.g. "I feel when you "
• The person at the other end of the table is never your enemy – the unsolved issue is

Haggling #

• Sometimes you find yourself face-to-face with a hard haggler
• You can use the Ackerman method
  • Set your target price (what you want to pay, not the max you’ll pay)
  • Set your first offer at 65 percent of your target price
  • Calculate 3 raises to 85, 95, and 100%
  • Use lots of empathy and different ways of saying “No” to get the other side to counter before you increase your offer
  • At the final number use precise numbers (e.g. $1536 rather than $1500) to give the final number credibility and weight
    • On your final number throw in a nonmonetary item to show you’re at your limit

Find the Black Swan #

• These are the unknown unknowns whose unearthing has a game-changing effect on the negotiation dynamic
• When bits and pieces of a story don’t add up, it’s usually because our frames of reference are off and we need to break free of our expectations
• The author’s hypothesis is that in each negotiation each side has around 3 black swans that would change everything