I’m sure many of you read the negotiation guidebook Never Split the Difference. For those who didn’t, it’s a book by Chris Voss, a hostage negotiator who took his experience to teach and coach people in the everyday negotiation conversations we all have – with our customers, peers, and even in our personal lives. 

Given the title, you would think that it’s a book about how to fight someone who wants things that you can’t or aren’t willing to give them. But despite Chris’s military background, it’s not a book about fighting. It talks much more about how to reveal what the other person really wants and work with that. It’s about how to build trust, even with terrorists.

One of the most useful tips there is that in most cases it is much quicker to talk the other person through their needs and find a solution than to force them to accept yours. I have been using this for years at work and at home, and it really works. Let alone the fact that you don’t really want to fight those you work with or live with so that in and of itself is worth giving it a try.

The thing that is important to understand in order to make this magic happen is that oftentimes underneath what people say they want there is another thing they want and don’t say. And that’s why in most cases it’s not a zero-sum game. They talk to you about a specific solution, which seems to contradict what you want and can’t co-exist with it. But if what they really want is something else, and their proposed solution is just an example of giving them that, it’s much easier to find other solutions that would answer both what you need and what they need. If even in hostage situations they can find a solution based on trust and mutual understanding, you can for sure find one in your everyday life situations.

It’s not easy though to get to what the other person really wants and doesn’t tell you. In most cases, by the way, it’s because they haven’t thought about it this way before, and you reveal it together. Here are the core principles that will help you do that.

You Can Always Say No

To even allow yourself to stop fighting and start seeking a mutually acceptable solution, you need to feel comfortable and confident enough that you will succeed. As you practice it you will see that it works, which will allow you to enter the situation more confidently in the future. But when you are just starting, it might seem scary.

In a way, to enter this new type of negotiation, you need first to put yourself and your needs aside. That’s the scary part. In order to help you overcome the fear, it’s important to remember that it’s only temporary. You put your own point of view on hold for some time, to be able to truly understand the other side’s point of view. Once you got it, you can recompile it with your original point of view and suggest a solution that answers your needs as much as the other side’s.

To feel comfortable starting the discussion with the right mindset, remind yourself that the ‘no’ that you wanted to say initially is still there. If it comes to that, you can always bring it back. My experience, as well as those I have coached and mentored over the years, shows that in most cases you wouldn’t need to. But still, it makes it much easier to get there if you know you have a solid plan B.

Radical listening

Now that you have created the right space and mindset, you can start listening to the other side and trying to figure out – together with them – what they really care about. You need to make sure that you are truly willing to learn new things and make sense of how they see the world. It means that you must eliminate being judgmental of the other side, which often reveals itself in arguing with them. You want to listen and let them talk without interrupting, other than to ask clarifying questions. You don’t need to agree with them, but you can’t disagree either. That’s what it means to put judgment aside. You must be willing to engage in a different kind of conversation, one in which it doesn’t matter if anyone is right or wrong, all you want is to understand how they see things.

It had been almost 20 years since I learned this technique, and it never failed me. It did, however, require a lot of practice to master. Recently I learned that this concept is called radical listening. If you find yourself arguing, responding to what the other person says, or saying (and even thinking) things like ‘no’, and ‘but’ – that means you are not applying radical listening. No worries though – once you realize that you are not listening (and it happens to all of us, even to me after having practiced it for years), you can always go back. Simply remind yourself that the purpose of this specific conversation is to understand the other person without judging them. You can always bring your judgment back later.

One other tip that I found really useful is to redefine the purpose of the conversation. In many cases, we listen to people trying to understand if they are right. Radical listening means listening to the other person while trying to understand why they are right. You might be thinking now – who says that they are right at all? Well, in most cases there is a grain of truth in their point of view. Even if they took it too far, and offer solutions that make no sense, they are usually not completely out of their minds. Especially in the work environment, most of us are rational people and truly want what’s best for the company. Business success is tricky though, and there are multiple ways to get there.

An Offer They Can Accept

Once you have revealed how the other person sees the world it’s time to bring yourself back to the conversation. I say conversation although it might as well be a good time to stop, think about suggestions that make sense, and start a new conversation when you are ready. As you practice this more and more, these cycles would become shorter and eventually you would be able to make a suggestion in real time.

In the process of radically listening to the other person, usually a few things happen. First, you understand what they really want, and often times this is something you agree is important. For example, a salesperson might tell you that they need a certain feature. Of course, what they really want is to win the deal, and from what they know the feature is what’s needed to do so. Now you can ask yourself if it’s a deal worth winning, and at what cost. Since asking for features isn’t a very pleasant process, in most cases, salespeople would only do that for truly important deals. 

Another thing that might happen, is that they start to understand that their solution isn’t the only one or in some cases isn’t even the right one. I see this a lot when partnering with CEOs to understand why they think a certain strategic move is right. They have used their intuition, and when we break it down trying to find what led them to this direction, they realize that there is a bigger thing that is important, and actually with this bigger goal there are multiple ways to get there.

But even if the other side didn’t realize all by themselves that there is a better solution, you can now offer something that will answer their needs as well as yours. One of the most common cases is when people ask you to add a certain feature, now. Most product leaders I work with usually agree that these features make sense. The thing that worries them is that there are other things that would be postponed if we do it now. But that’s a big step forward! Shifting the discussion from “should we do this” to “when should we do this” helps everyone be more flexible and together you can now find a solution that works for everyone.

Remember that even if you are right, and they are wrong, to move forward you need them to agree to your proposed solution. You don’t need to make them an offer they can’t refuse, but you must make sure it’s an offer they can accept. Although counterintuitive, and it’s much easier to believe that they should come up with something you can both work with, if you make it your goal to find that offer that they can accept, your life will be much easier. It’s a much faster and easier way to get to an agreement. Less frustration is guaranteed.