People trust those who are in their in-group. Belonging is a primal instinct. And if you can trigger that instinct, that sense that, “Oh, we see the world the same way,” then you immediately gain influence. Use that to your advantage. Subtly highlight some similarities with your counterpart. –Never split the difference, p.229 Continue reading The similarity principle
–Never split the difference, p.198 Continue reading The Black Swan rule is don’t treat others the way you want to be treated; treat them the way they need to be treated.
Conversely, the harder it is to get a first person pronoun out of a negotiator’s mouth, the more important they are. They will defer to the people away from the table to keep from getting pinned down. –Never split the difference, p.179 Continue reading The more in love they are with “I”, “me”, and “my” the less important they are.
On average, liars use more words that truth tellers and use far more third-person pronouns. They start talking about him, her, it, one, they and their rather than I, in order to put some distance between themselves and the lie. And they discovered that liars tend to speak in more complex sentences in an attempt to win over their suspicious counterparts. –Never split the difference, p.178 Continue reading The pinocchio effect
Pay very close attention to tone and body language to make sure they match up with the literal meaning of the words. If they don’t align, it’s quite possible that the speaker is lying or at least unconvinced. When someone’s tone of voice or body language does not align with the meaning of the words they say, use labels to discover the source of the incongruence. You: “So we’re agreed?” Them: “Yes…” You:” I heard you say, ‘Yes,’ but it seemed like there was hesitation in your voice.” Them: “Ohh, it’s nothing really.” You: “No, this is important, let’s make … Continue reading 7% message-based, 38% tone of voice, 55% body language and face
No. Just, simply, no. Let me paint you an example: A woman wants her husband to wear black shoes with his suit. But her husband doesn’t want to; he prefers brown shoes. So what do they do? They compromise, they meet halfway. And, you guessed it, he wears one black and one brown shoe. Is this the best outcome? No! In fact, that’s the worst possible outcome. –Never split the difference, p.115 Continue reading Don’t compromise
When your adversary say “That’s right,” they feel they have assessed what you’ve said and pronounced it as correct of their own free will. They embrace it. Why is “You’re right” a disaster? Consider this: Whenever someone is bothering you, and they just won’t let up, and they won’t listen to anything you have to say, what do you tell them to get them to shut up and go away? “You’re right”. It works every time. Tell people “you’re right” and they get a happy smile on their face and leave you alone for at least twenty-four hours. But you … Continue reading Get your counterpart to say “That’s right” ✅ But make sure it’s not “You’re right” ❌
Send this one-sentence email. “Have you given up on this project?” The point is that this one-sentence email encapsulates the best of “No”-oriented questions and plays on your counterpart’s natural human aversion to loss. It offers the other party the feeling of safety and the illusion of control while encouraging them to define their position and explain it to you. Just as important, it makes the implicit threat that you will walk away on your own terms. –Never split the difference, p.92 Continue reading Someone ignores your emails?
To get to them, a great way is to mislabel one of the other party’s emotions or desires. You say something that you know is totally wrong, like “So it seems that you really are eager to leave your job” when they clearly want to stay. That forces them to listen and makes them comfortable correcting you by saying, “No, that’s not it. This is it.” –Never split the difference, p.91 Continue reading If you’re talking to someone who is just not listening.
But while we can’t control others’ decisions, we can influence them by inhabiting their world and seeing and hearing exactly what they want. –Never split the difference, p.84 Continue reading If we believe that we can control or manage others’ decisions with compromise and logic, we’re leaving millions on the table.
Roadmap to Billions 