Agreement must be accompanied by implementation in a negotiation. I.e. “Yes” is nothing without “how”1.
- Calibrated Questions can politely say no, while getting the counter party to focus on arriving at a solution.
- There are two key questions you can ask to push your counterparts to think they are defining success their way: “How will we know we’re on track?” and “How will we address things if we find we’re off track?”
- Use the 7-38-55 Percent Rule to determine if there is incongruence, indicating lying or at least dissonance with the decision.
- Rule of Three Yeses
- Mind the use of pronouns, the more someone says “I”, “me”, “my” the less important they likely are. Savvy operators will use “we”, “they”, “them” so as not to be backed into making a decision.
- Saying No pattern while avoiding no allows you to get the opponent to bid against themselves.
1. Voss, C. & Raz, T. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It. (Harper Business, New York, 2016).