Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

party will fill the silence.
■
Label your counterpart’s fears to diffuse their
power. We all want to talk about the happy stuff,
but remember, the faster you interrupt action in
your counterpart’s amygdala, the part of the
brain that generates fear, the faster you can
generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust.
■
List the worst things that the other party could
say about you and say them before the other
person can. Performing an accusation audit in
advance prepares you to head off negative
dynamics before they take root. And because
these accusations often sound exaggerated when
said aloud, speaking them will encourage the
other person to claim that quite the opposite is
true.
■
Remember you’re dealing with a person who
wants to be appreciated and understood. So use
labels to reinforce and encourage positive
perceptions and dynamics.

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CHAPTER 4
BEWARE “YES”—MASTER “NO”
L
et me paint a scenario we’ve all experienced: You’re at
home, just before dinner, and the phone rings. It is, no
surprise, a telemarketer. He wants to sell you magazine
subscriptions, water filters, frozen Argentine beef—to be
honest, it doesn’t matter, as the script is always the same.
After butchering your name, and engaging in some
disingenuous pleasantries, he launches into his pitch.
The hard sell that comes next is a scripted flowchart
designed to cut off your escape routes as it funnels you
down a path with no exit but “Yes.” “Do you enjoy a nice
glass of water from time to time.” “Well, yes, but . . .” “Me,
too. And like me I bet you like crisp, clean water with no
chemical aftertaste, like Mother Nature made it.” “Well, yes,
but . . .”
Who is this guy with a fake smile in his voice, you
wonder, who thinks he can trick you into buying something
you don’t want? You feel your muscles tighten, your voice
go defensive, and your heart rate accelerate.
You feel like his prey, and you are!
The last thing you want to do is say “Yes,” even when
it’s the only way to answer, “Do you drink water?”

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Compromise and concession, even to the truth, feels like
defeat. And “No,” well, “No” feels like salvation, like an
oasis. You’re tempted to use “No” when it’s blatantly
untrue, just to hear its sweet sound. “No, I do not need
water, carbon filtered or otherwise. I’m a camel!”
Now let’s think about this selling technique. It’s
designed to get to “Yes” at all costs, as if “No” were death.
And for many of us it is. We have all these negative
connotations with “No.” We talk about the rejection of
“No,” about the fear of hearing it. “No” is the ultimate
negative word.
But at the end of the day, “Yes” is often a meaningless
answer that hides deeper objections (and “Maybe” is even
worse). Pushing hard for “Yes” doesn’t get a negotiator any
closer to a win; it just angers the other side.
So if “Yes” can be so damn uncomfortable, and “No”
such a relief, why have we fetishized one and demonized
the other?
We have it backward. For good negotiators, “No” is pure
gold. That negative provides a great opportunity for you and
the other party to clarify what you really want by
eliminating what you don’t want. “No” is a safe choice that
maintains the status quo; it provides a temporary oasis of
control.
At some point in their development, all negotiators have to
come to grips with “No.” When you come to realize the real
psychological dynamic behind it, you’ll love the word. It’s
not just that you lose your fear of it, but that you come to

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learn what it does for you and how you can build deals out
of it.
“Yes” and “Maybe” are often worthless. But “No”
always alters the conversation.