Synopsis – A book about how to negotiate in life and how also to say No the right way.
Page 16 – It all starts with the universally applicable premise that people want to be understood and accepted. Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make to get there
Be A Mirror
Page 25 – Your goal at the outset is to extract and observe as much information as possible. Which, by the why, is one of the reasons that really smart people often have trouble being negotiators – they’re so smart they think they don’t have anything to discover.
Page 28 – make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say.
Page 32 – When we radiate warmth and acceptance, conversations just seem to flow. When we enter a room, with a level of comfort and enthusiasm, we attract people toward us. Smile at someone on the street, and as a reflex they’ll smile back. Understanding that reflex and putting it into practice is critical to the success of just about every negotiating skill there is to learn
Page 34 – You can be very direct and to the point as long as you create safety by a tone of voice that says I’m okay, you’re okay, lets figure things out
Page 36 – It almost laughably simple: for the FBI, a “mirror”, is when you repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said.
Page 44
- Use the late-night FM DJ voice
- Start with “I’m sorry…..”
- Mirror.
- Silence. At least four seconds, to let the mirror work its magic on your counterpart
- Repeat
Don’t Feel Their Pain, Label It
Page 55 – Think of labelling as shortcut to intimacy, a time-saving emotional hack. Applying rational words to a fear – disrupts its intensity.
Page 56 – It seems like …, It sounds like….., It looks like………
Page 58 – Try this the next time you have to apologize for a bone-headed mistake. Go right at it. The fastest and most efficient means of establishing a quick working relationship is to acknowledge the negative and diffuse it.
Beware “Yes” – Master “No”
Page 76 – People need to feel in control. When you preserve a person’s autonomy by clearly giving them permission to say “No” to your ideas
Page 80 – I’ll let you in on a secret. There are actually three kinds of “Yes” Counterfeit, Confirmation and Commitment
Page 84 – Everyone you meet is driven by two primal urges: the need to feel safe and secure, and the need to feel in control. If you satisfy those drives, you’re in the door
Trigger The Two Words That Immediately Transform Any Negotiation
Page 97 – The origins of the model can be traced back to the great American psychologist Carl Rogers, who proposed that real change can only come when a therapist accepts the client as he or she is – an approach known as unconditional positive regard. The vast majority of us, however, as Rogers explained, come to expect that love, praise and approval are dependent on saying and doing the things people (initially, our parents) consider correct. That is, because for most of us the positive regard we experience is conditional, we develop a habit of hiding who we really are and what we really think, instead calibrating our words to gain approval but disclosing little.
Page 106 – Why is “your right” the worst answer? 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”
Page 116 – Passing of time and its sharper cousin, the deadline, are the screw that pressures every deal to a conclusion
Page 117 – Deadlines regularly make people say and do impulsive things that are against their best interests, because we all have a natural tendency to rush as a deadline approaches.
Page 120 – Moore discovered that when negotiators tell their counterparts about their deadline, they get better deals. Its true. First, by revealing your cut-off you reduce the risk of impasse. And second, when an opponent knows your deadline, he’ll get to the real deal – concession making more quickly
Pahe 124 – Once you understand what a messy, emotional, and destructive dynamic, “fairness” can be, you can see why “Fair” is a tremendously powerful word that you need to use with care
Page 126 – If you can get at what people are really buying – then you can sell them a vision of their problem that leaves your proposal as the perfect solution
Page 127 – The theory argues that people are drawn to sure things over probabilities, even when the probability is a better choice
Page 128 – You inflame the other sides loss aversion so that they’ll jump at the chance to avoid it
Page 130 – That’s why I suggest you let the other side anchor monetary negotiations
Page 133 – Say $37,263 – feels like a figure that you came to as a result of thoughtful calculation. Such numbers feel serious and permanent to your counterpart, so use them fortify your offers.
Page 136 – Ask: “What does it take to be successful here?
Page 141 – We learned that negotiation was coaxing, not overcoming, co-opting, not defeating. It involved giving him illusion of control while you, in fact, were the one defining the conversation. The tool we developed is something I call the calibrated or open-ended question. What it does is remove aggression from conversations by acknowledging the other side openly, without resistance.
Page 148 – That is communication with reciprocity. I sat back and wondered to myself, How the hell do we do that?
Page 149 – Instead of asking some close ended question with a single correct answer, he’d asked an open ended, yet calibrated one that forces the other guy to pause and actually think about how to solve the problem. I thought to myself, This is perfect! It’s a natural and normal question, not a request for a fact. It a “how” question, and “how” engages because “how” asks for help. “Unbelief” which is active resistance to what the other side is saying, complete rejection. Thats where the two parties in a negotiation usually start.
Page 151 – He who as learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.
Page 151 – Summarise the situation and ask, “How am I supposed to do that?”
Page 153 – How am I am supposed to do that?
Page 153 – Who, what, when, where, why and how. Tose words inspire your counterpart to think and then speak expansively
Page 154 –
How does this look to you?
What about this works for you?
What caused you to do it?
What about this is important to you?
How can I help to make this better for us?
How would you like me to proceed?
What is it that brought us into this situation?
How can we solve this problem?
What the objective/ What are we trying to accomplish here?
How am supposed to do that?
Guarantee Execution
Page 169 – How will we know we’re on track? And How will we address things if we find we’re off track? When they answer, you summarize their answers until you get a “that right”. Then you’ll know they’ve brought you in
Page 171 – How does this affect the rest of your team?, How on board are the people not on this call?, or simply “What do your colleagues see as their main challenges in this area?
Page 172 – How does this affect everybody else? How on board is the rest of your team? How do we make sure the we deliver the right material to the right people? How do we ensure the managers of those we’re training are fully on board?
Page 173 – Like using “not lose” instead of “keep”
Page 174 – How? How am I supposed to? How do we know? How can we?
Page 175 – How and what are dodge and weave.
Page 175 – When we run out of money,what will happen?
Page 177 – Get yes three times
Page 178 – The pincchio effect – the number of words grow along with the lie
Page 180 – Humanize yourself. Use your name to introduce yourself. Say it in a fun friendly way. Let them enjoy the interaction, too. And get your own special price.
Page 181 – How to say no
How am I supposed to do that?
Your offer is very generous, I’m sorry it just doesn’t work for me
I’m sorry but I’m afraid I just can’t do that
I’m sorry, no
No
Find The Black Swan
Page 221 – Positive leverage is to provide your counterpart things your counterpart wants
Page 222 – Negative leverage is your ability to make your counterpart pay
Page 224 – Normative Leverage is using the other party’s norms and standards to advance your position
Final Thoughts – A really good book that I have come back to multiple times. The lessons in here are simple but will take allot of work to implement. I recently tried and failed. But I will try again and hopefully with practise these approaches become natural to me. 9/10
Stranger in Sydney 