36 pages • 1 hour read
Chris VossNever Split the Difference: Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Create the Illusion of Control”
A month after the 2001 Schilling case described in Chapter 5, the same terrorist organization takes more hostages. Tensions escalate as the Philippine army negotiates with Sabaya and initiates a manhunt; the kidnappers behead an American and release video of other hostages, including two American missionaries. Sabaya is replaced by another negotiator around the time that Voss arrives. They arrange to make a ransom payment, but the kidnappers refuse to release the hostages after receiving payment. Unknown to Voss, Sabaya arranged a separate deal with another party that fell through, then refused to release the prisoners. Two months later, the Philippine army marches into the kidnappers’ camp on a rescue mission; two of the three hostages are killed by the soldiers’ fire. From this experience, Voss learns that negotiation is more about “coaxing” or “nudging” than controlling. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to negotiate while engaged in open combat. Securing a deal with the negotiating individual is not enough—you must ensure that the entire team is on board.
Months later, Voss learns that, separate from his team’s negotiation, a political opponent of the Philippine president carried out negotiations for the hostages’ release, and this politician managed to speak with one of the hostages directly, which was more than Voss’s team accomplished. Voss realizes that his team’s literal, exchange-based approach only leads to power struggles. Around the same time, Voss works on a case in Pittsburgh. After one drug dealer kidnaps the girlfriend of another drug dealer, the first drug dealer asks, “How do I know she’s all right?” The second drug dealer voluntarily lets the girlfriend speak on the phone. Voss has an epiphany, recognizing that the open-ended question scored a major victory for the negotiators, allowing them to confirm that the girlfriend was okay while making the counterpart think he was in control.
This provides the basis for Voss’s new system of “calibrated questions,” which replace direct statements (“You can’t leave”) with open-ended requests (“What do you hope to accomplish by leaving?”) (155). Calibrated questions cannot be answered by a simple statement of fact, and they often start with “what,” “how,” or “why.” They are useful in almost every negotiation setting since they enlist counterparts’ help in solving your problems while giving them the illusion of control. Voss shares an example from one of his consulting clients, who nudges a corporation that owes her back pay to prioritize paying her. After summarizing the situation, she asks “How am I supposed to do that?”, referring to the request that she keep working without payment (152). They pay her promptly.
Voss ends with a warning: This technique only works with self-control. After preparing a plan to convince a stingy CEO to fulfill her invoice, a contractor gets into a heated argument with the CEO and ends up losing even more money. To keep a cool head, a negotiator can pause to think before speaking and apologize when appropriate.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Guarantee Execution”
When inmates take a warden and several staff hostage, negotiators try to coax them to surrender peacefully. Afraid of retribution, the inmates agree to send one man with a walkie-talkie to the officers; he can then tell them if he’s treated fairly. All goes well until a SWAT officer, unaware of the plan, takes away the messenger inmate’s radio. For 15 minutes the inmates panic and threaten to harm the hostages, until the negotiators find out what happened and return the radio. Making a deal isn’t enough; you must be able to carry it out.
When Colombian-American tour guide José is kidnapped in Ecuador, the kidnappers demand $5 million. Voss coaches José’s wife Julie to use calibrated “how” questions about implementation, including variations of “How am I supposed to do that?” (167). Voss later learns that Julie’s persistent questions forced her counterpart to regularly leave the location where José was held to confer with his accomplices in the jungle. Just as they are nearing a deal, José manages to escape. “How” questions provide a nonconfrontational way to decline while forcing counterparts to consider and address the situation from your perspective, all while thinking that the solution is their idea. Forcing the team of hostage-takers to work together reveals another advantage of such questions, since many deals hinge on approval from behind-the-scenes parties; Voss recalls missing out on a major business deal after a hidden decision-maker called it off at the last minute. Similar tactics can be used to wear down experienced or manipulative counterparts accustomed to getting their way. When a cab driver in the Philippines kidnaps a man and demands payment from his family, Voss works with the man’s brother to wear down the kidnapper until police can track him down.
Voss presents several related concepts. The “7-38-55 rule” (based on the finding that 7% of meaning comes from words, 38% from tone, and 55% from body language) is a reminder to look for discrepancies between a person’s words and their body language. The “rule of three” highlights the importance of getting a counterpart to agree to something three different times (with slight variation) to solidify commitment (177). The “Pinocchio effect” refers to a liar’s tendency to use more words, especially third-person pronouns, and more complex sentences than someone who is telling the truth. Pronoun use also correlates with authority: those who use “I,” “me,” and “my” frequently generally have less authority than those who use “we,” “they,” and “them” (179). Instead of overusing your counterparts’ names, consider using your own name to humanize yourself to them.
Voss concludes with an anecdote about a small business owner involved in a sensitive buyout getting his counterparts “to bid against themselves” by saying no gently, repeatedly, and in varied ways (181).
Chapters 7-8 Analysis
Chapters 7 and 8 build on previous chapters. Whereas Chapter 6 offers general terms for reshaping a counterpart’s perspective, Chapter 7 illustrates a specific change of perspective that has major consequences for a negotiation, which is the “illusion of control” (140). Chapter 8 expounds on Voss’s technique of asking calibrated questions, introduced in Chapter 7, by focusing on a specific use case for such questions: addressing implementation. Together, these chapters fit within the latter phases of the behavioral change model of negotiation practiced by Voss.
Voss’s experience in the Philippines can be viewed in the historical context of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, which resulted in nearly 3,000 fatalities. Voss notes that the group responsible for kidnapping Schilling and the American missionaries has ties to Al-Qaeda, the organization of Islamic extremists responsible for carrying out the 9/11 attacks. If anything would give Voss an excuse for taking a hard line against a set of hostage-takers, that would. Rather than allowing emotions to cloud his judgment, Voss takes the lead in ensuring that Benjie, who harbors ill will toward the hostage-takers, still tries to build rapport with them. Voss’s commitment to this principle echoes his earlier statement in Chapter 3 that tactical empathy involves understanding a counterpart’s views without necessarily agreeing with them. Coupled with Voss’s later anecdote about the contractor who argued with the CEO, this refines Voss’s insistence on practicing emotional intelligence. In addition to monitoring a counterpart’s emotional state, effective negotiators must avoid being overcome by emotion themselves.
In addition to broader structural patterns noted above, these chapters introduce an additional organizational principle. Specifically, Voss structures these two chapters, which center on the use of calibrated questions, to follow his journey of discovery. Chapter 7 opens with an anecdote revealing the failings of a too-confrontational approach to negotiation. It then details how Voss found a better method by accident. Chapter 8 continues this thread with the story of José’s capture and the associated negotiation. Voss informs readers that this was one of his chances to test calibrated questions in a real negotiation. Arranging and connecting these anecdotes in this way allows readers to join Voss on his process of discovery and to feel they have pieced together these principles themselves.
