Christopher Voss Quotes
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Whether we notice it or not, we spend our days negotiating for something: for our spouse to do more housework, a child to eat just three more bites or go to bed on time, an extended deadline on a project, a salary increase, a better rate on a vacation package.
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People who are lying are, understandably, more worried about being believed, so they work harder - too hard, as it were - at being believable.
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Every job that you take, the term that you should always include is, 'How can I be involved in the strategic projects that are critical to the future of the company?' You ask that question. It's a great 'how' question.
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There are three kinds of yeses. There's commitment, confirmation, and counterfeit. People are most used to giving the counterfeit yes because they've been trapped by the confirmation yes so many times. So the way you master no is understanding what really happens when somebody says 'no.' When yes is commitment, no is protection.
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If you're going to play the bargaining game, you just need to make the other side mad. You want them to get a little annoyed. Then you know that you've come in with a good price.
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What I really think of myself as is a person who's great at negotiation coaching and consulting.
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Remember Robin Williams's great work as the voice of the genie in Disney's 'Aladdin'? Because he wanted to leave something wonderful behind for his kids, he said, he did the voice for a cut-rate fee of $75,000, far below his usual $8 million payday. But then something happened: The movie became a huge hit, raking in $504 million.
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You're supposed to have a passionate purpose as a CEO.
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There's great power in deference. You ask somebody 'what' or 'how' questions. People love to be asked how to do something. They feel powerful, and from a deferential position, you've actually granted that power, and you're the one that now actually has the upper hand in the conversation.
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As human beings, we're powerfully swayed by how much we feel we're being respected. People comply with agreements if they feel they've been treated fairly and lash out if they don't.
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If your first objective in the negotiation, instead of making your argument, is to hear the other side out, that's the only way you can quiet the voice in the other guy's mind. But most people don't do that.
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Emotions are one of the main things that derail communication. Once people get upset at one another, rational thinking goes out of the window.
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In reality, every single negotiation involves another commodity that's far more important to us, which is time - minutes, hours, our investment in time. So even if you're talking about dollars, the commodity of time is always there because there has to be a discussion about how the commodity of dollars is moved.
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Since retiring from the FBI in 2007, I've traveled the world and worked with everyone from CEOs to their managers and everyday workers on how to apply techniques from hundreds of high-stakes, life-or-death negotiations to business negotiations.
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The 'that's right' breakthrough usually doesn't come at the beginning of a negotiation. It's invisible to the counterpart when it occurs, and they embrace what you've said. To them, it's a subtle epiphany.
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Emotions aren't the obstacles to a successful negotiation; they are the means.
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There is great power in deference. Deference works with everybody.
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'No' is a dynamic that you've got to master before you can ever master 'yes.'
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The No. 1 rule in any negotiation is don't take yourself hostage. People do this to themselves all the time by being desperate for 'yes' or afraid of 'no,' so they don't ask for what they really want. Instead, they ask for what they can realistically get. I've heard many people say, 'Well, that's a non-starter, so we won't even bring it up.'
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In Syria, for some time, they have been trading hostages for a number of things: for weapons, for money, for political influence, and for favors.
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Salary negotiations are particularly important because people are testing you as both a co-worker and an ambassador. They really don't want you to be a pushover, and they don't want you to be a jerk.
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The secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is to give the other side the illusion of control. Don't try to force your opponent to admit that you are right. Ask questions, that begin with 'How?' or 'What?' so your opponent uses mental energy to figure out the answer.
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How you use your voice is really important, and it's really driven by context more than anything else, and your tone of voice will immediately begin to impact somebody's mood and immediately how their brain functions.
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There are a lot of negotiators that really will give in on a deal because being understood is more important than getting what they want. And there's a particular type in particular, the assertive negotiator: being understood is actually more important to them than actually making the deal.