# Never split the difference

*Negotiating as if your life depended on it*

2020-06-12 | `communication` `psychology` `leadership`

> From policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, to becoming the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator to teaching negotiation at leading universities, Chris Voss has tested the techniques in 'Never Split the Difference' across the full spectrum of human endeavor and proved their effectiveness.

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From policing the rough streets of Kansas City, Missouri, to becoming the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator
to teaching negotiation at leading universities, Chris Voss has tested the techniques in _Never Split the Difference_
across the full spectrum of human endeavor and proved their effectiveness.

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## Takeaways

1. Negotiation begins with listening, making it about the other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough
   trust and safety for a real conversation to begin.
2. Use mirrors to encourage the other side to empathize and bond with you, keep people talking, buy your side time to
   regroup, and encourage your counterparts to reveal their strategy.
3. Tactical empathy brings our attention to both the emotional obstacles and the potential pathways to getting an
   agreement done.
4. Giving someone's emotion a name, otherwise known as labeling, gets you close to someone without asking about external
   factors you know nothing about.
5. "No" provides a great opportunity for you, and the other party to clarify what you really want by eliminating what you
   don't want.

### Summary video

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