Never Split the Difference BOOK REVIEW

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SYNOPSIS

Do you dread negotiations for fear of the conflict involved?

The fact is that every aspect of our lives involves some form of negotiation—from a salary discussion to a child’s bedtime, a business deal to a high-stakes hostage crisis.

In these situations, the only way to get what you think is right is to ask for it. In Never Split the Difference, former expert FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss details that the best way to do this is to use a set of tools that allows you to better connect with others, influence them, and negotiate for what you want.

TOP 20 INSIGHTS

  1. Never split the difference—it leads to dreadful outcomes. If you want to wear your black shoes, but your spouse wants you to wear the brown ones, splitting the difference means you end up wearing one black shoe and one brown. Compromising is a cop-out, a way to feel safe.
  2. Start any negotiation by listening; it’s the only way to create enough trust and safety for a real conversation, to identify what your counterpart actually needs and to get them to feel safe enough to talk about what they really want.
  3. Practice good listening—it will help you develop emotional empathy. Researchers at Princeton University used an fMRI brain-scan to discover that people who paid the most attention, i.e., really good listeners, could actually anticipate what a speaker was about to say.
  4. In her daily TV show, Oprah was a master listener. She was able to get the person she was interviewing to talk about their deepest secrets, using a smile to ease the tension, signaling empathy with subtle verbal and nonverbal signals, and speaking slowly.
  5. Use tactical empathy to encourage your counterpart to expand on their situation. You don’t have to agree with them, just acknowledge their situation. Once the other person realizes that you are listening, they are more likely to tell you something that you can use.
  6. Mirror what your counterpart says. People are drawn to what is similar and fear what is different. Mirroring encourages the other person to keep talking, and ultimately to reveal their strategy.
  7. Label your counterpart’s fears; it disrupts the power of a negative thought or emotion. Labeling essentially short-circuits the amygdala, the part of the brain that reacts to real or imaginary threats.
  8. Pushing for “yes” makes people defensive; you have to get past the counterfeit and confirmation yesses in order to get to the real commitment.
  9. As Mark Cuban, billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, remarks: “Every ‘No’ gets me closer to a ‘Yes.’” Often, the word “no” just means “wait” or “I’m not comfortable with that.” Once you hear that first “no,” the real negotiation begins.
  10. If you’re trying to work with someone and they keep ignoring your messages, provoke a “no” response with a simple one-sentence email: “Have you given up on this project?” Odds are, the other person will respond with something like, “No, it’s just that other issues have cropped up and…”
  11. Bend your counterpart’s reality. Psychologists Kahneman and Tversky discovered that people will take more risks to avoid a loss than to realize a gain. Use your counterpart’s loss aversion to persuade them that they will lose something if the deal falls through.
  12. Get your counterpart to say, “That’s right!” Once they say this, you’ve reached a breakthrough moment—they are acknowledging that you understand where they are coming from.
  13. Columbia Business School psychologists found that job applicants who named a range received significantly higher salaries than those who offered a single number. If your goal is $60,000, give the range of $60,000-$80,000 and they’ll likely come back with $60,000—or higher. Give the number $60,000, however, and they’ll likely offer you less.
  14. The person who is really in control in a conversation is the one who is listening—the talker is revealing information while the listener can direct the conversation toward his own goals.
  15. The first step to dealing with any counterpart is to identify their negotiating style. Are they an Accommodator, an Assertive, or an Analyst?
  16. Psychologist Kevin Dutton coined the phrase “unbelief”—active resistance to what the other side is saying. As a negotiator, your role is to stop the other side from unbelieving; give them the illusion of control through asking for help with calibrated questions.
  17. Calibrated questions such as, “How can I do that?” gently push your counterpart to search for other solutions. The negotiation becomes an information-gathering process where your counterpart is vested in creating the outcome that you want.
  18. Approaching deadlines—whether real or merely an arbitrary line in the sand—make people do impulsive things. Research by UC Berkeley professor Don A. Moore found that when negotiators tell their counterparts about their deadline, they get better deals.
  19. When someone seems irrational, they most likely are not—they’re just being driven by a constraint or hidden desire that you haven’t uncovered yet, or they’re operating on bad information.
  20. Any negotiation requires preparation, an outline of your tools. This is the “one sheet” that summarizes your approach.

SUMMARY

Negotiation is not about creating a win-win situation, finding a compromise, or getting to yes—it’s about connecting with your counterpart so that you can figure out what they really want and using that to get what you want. The key is to practice active listening and tactical empathy: make counterparts feel safe enough to reveal themselves. Frame the negotiation using tools like mirroring (repeating your counterpart’s key words), labeling your counterpart’s fears, and asking calibrated questions that start with “How…?” or “What…?” The first “no” is not the end of the negotiation, but the beginning. Once you get your counterpart to say, “That’s right!” you’ve reached a turning point. Figure out your counterpart’s negotiation style: are they an Analyst, an Accommodator, or an Assertive? Prepare for any negotiation by drawing up a one-sheet list of five key points that summarize your approach.

Zero to One BOOK Summary

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SYNOPSIS

Tap into a new way of thinking about business and ambition by reading this book summary. Zero to One will challenge you to think for yourself on topics such as technology verus globalization, business monopolies versus competitive markets, and the mindset you really need to make a difference in the world. Learn from tech superstar Peter Thiel (PayPal, Palantir) and his protégé Blake Masters why the only opportunities really worth pursuing are those that create something truly unique – that go from “zero to one” rather than from “one to n.” And, learn the seven questions you should be asking yourself to find out if what you’re working on passes that test.

TOP 20 INSIGHTS

  1. Creating truly innovative technology requires progressing from “zero to one” rather than from “one to n.” This means creating something entirely new rather than incrementally adding to what already exists.
  2. One way to move from “one to n” is globalization, or enabling new markets to access something that has already been created. But, because resources are not infinite, globalization needs to be accompanied by new technologies to make the consumption of goods more efficient and sustainable, or else global ills will result.
  3. The world needs startups as an engine to both envision and create the future. Though there has been new technology lately, there are still many aspects of everyday life that are begging for improvement, given the right vision and strategy.
  4. The dot-com crash of the 1990s taught entrepreneurs lessons about how to build a business that, when followed today, hinder the development of real technological innovations and sustainable growth. These “rules” should be ignored.
  5. Monopolies generate good for the world. If a business has achieved a monopoly, it indicates that the business has truly gone from “zero to one,” and created something for society that did not exist before or improved upon an existing technology to such a degree that it has made the old technology obsolete.
  6. To create this sort of change it is helpful to be a “definite optimist” – someone who believes that “the future will be better than the present if he plans and works to make it better.” This kind of worldview enables the vision, gumption, and persistence to go from zero to one.
  7. Monopolies also generate good for the world because of the privilege that major profits allot. “Since [Google] doesn’t have to worry about competing with anyone, it has wider latitude to care about its workers, its products, and its impact on the wider world.”
  8. Monopolies are more ubiquitous than we’re led to believe and shape their stories to avoid scrutiny and regulation. For example, if Google is seen primarily as a search engine company, they own 68% of that market. In contrast, if they’re described as playing in the global advertising market, they only own 3.4%.
  9. Monopolies are only bad when a business lingers in that position unchallenged for too long. Ideally, new monopolies take over, “adding entirely new categories of abundance to the world.” (Think of how Apple’s “mobile computing” replaced Microsoft’s hold on the PC market, who itself supplanted IBM’s “hardware monopoly” of the 1960s and 1970s.)
  10. The key to creating a monopoly is to resist copying others’ business models and instead to think for yourself. Prioritize four aspects of your business over a hyper-focus on growth: proprietary technology, network effects, economies of scale, and branding.
  11. Rather than initially painting a grandiose vision of global market dominance, the best way to build a monopoly is to start small. Capture a small, specific market with the tentacles to easily branch to related markets over time.
  12. Know that venture capital firms typically make their money by finding the one single startup that will outperform all their other investments. The bar really is that high for your pitch.
  13. The one single startup that will outperform all the others in a VC’s firm’s portfolio has solved a previously unaddressed problem or need in the world. In other words, they have unearthed and solved a “secret.” The good news is that, despite common knowledge, there are many secrets left to find and solve.
  14. The foundation you set for your startup is disproportionally important to the success of your company. The most crucial aspects to get right are related to personnel – selecting your co-founder and board.
  15. Offering equity as a form of compensation can be a good way to weed out those who lack the long-term commitment to and passion for the vision of your venture.
  16. The CEO of a startup should either receive the lowest salary at the company (and set an example of frugality) or the highest salary at the company (setting a maximum compensation), though if high it should be modest. If not, he or she risks getting too comfortable.
  17. While the fundamental innovation your business offers is crucial, sales and distribution tactics are necessary too. Sales acumen is a key distinguisher between success and failure. “Whatever the career, sales ability distinguishes superstars from also-rans.”
  18. Humans have nothing to fear from technology’s increasing presence in the marketplace. Instead, technology will create more opportunities for humans to do what they are uniquely good at, while the machine fills in the gaps by doing what is difficult for humans.
  19. Because it requires a distinctive vision to go from zero to one, successful founders are often eccentric individuals not afraid to pursue a seemingly eccentric vision. This explains both why founders are so successful and also why they can become scapegoats for corporate dysfunction.
  20. You don’t have to be the founder of a brilliant company to benefit from this knowledge. As an employee, search for these qualities in the companies and leaders you work for to ensure you have the right support to develop and to keep exploring new ideas.

SUMMARY

Zero to One is about the value of true innovation made accessible to the masses through startups. It outlines several tenets that keen-minded business people should hold dear, including why technology trumps globalization, why we should be supporting monopolies instead of “healthy competition,” why successful innovators have the worldview of a “definite optimist,” and why no one should be afraid of losing their job to a robot. Zero to One also delivers unique business insights, such as the four most important things to pay attention to about your product (hint: they’re not quantitative) and the seven questions every business must answer for itself.