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

THE F-WORD: WHY IT’S SO POWERFUL, WHEN TO
USE IT, AND HOW
The most powerful word in negotiations is “Fair.” As human
beings, we’re mightily swayed by how much we feel we
have been respected. People comply with agreements if they
feel they’ve been treated fairly and lash out if they don’t.
A decade of brain-imaging studies has shown that
human neural activity, particularly in the emotion-regulating
insular cortex, reflects the degree of unfairness in social
interactions. Even nonhuman primates are hardwired to
reject unfairness. In one famous study, two capuchin
monkeys were set to perform the same task, but one was
rewarded with sweet grapes while the other received
cucumbers. In response to such blatant unfairness, the
cucumber-fed monkey literally went bananas.
In the Ultimatum Game, years of experience has shown
me that most accepters will invariably reject any offer that is
less than half of the proposer’s money. Once you get to a
quarter of the proposer’s money you can forget it and the
accepters are insulted. Most people make an irrational
choice to let the dollar slip through their fingers rather than
to accept a derisory offer, because the negative emotional
value of unfairness outweighs the positive rational value of
the money.
This irrational reaction to unfairness extends all the way
to serious economic deals.
Remember Robin Williams’s great work as the voice of
the genie in Disney’s Aladdin? Because he wanted to leave

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something wonderful behind for his kids, he said, he did the
voice for a cut-rate fee of $75,000, far below his usual $8
million payday. But then something happened: the movie
became a huge hit, raking in $504 million.
And Williams went ballistic.
Now look at this with the Ultimatum Game in mind.
Williams wasn’t angry because of the money; it was the
perceived unfairness that pissed him off. He didn’t complain
about his contract until Aladdin became a blockbuster, and
then he and his agent went loud and long about how they
got ripped off.
Lucky for Williams, Disney wanted to keep its star
happy. After initially pointing out the obvious—that he’d
happily signed the deal—Disney made the dramatic gesture
of sending the star a Picasso painting worth a reported $1
million.
The nation of Iran was not so lucky.
In recent years, Iran has put up with sanctions that have
cost it well over $100 billion in foreign investment and oil
revenue in order to defend a uranium-enriching nuclear
program that can only meet 2 percent of its energy needs. In
other words, like the students who won’t take a free $1
because the offer seems insulting, Iran has screwed itself out
of its chief source of income—oil and gas revenue—in order
to pursue an energy project with little expected payoff.
Why? Again, fairness.
For Iran, it’s not fair that the global powers—which
together have several thousand nuclear weapons—should be

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able to decide if it can use nuclear energy. And why, Iran
wonders, is it considered a pariah for enriching uranium
when India and Pakistan, which clandestinely acquired
nuclear weapons, are accepted members of the international
community?
In a TV interview, former Iranian nuclear negotiator
Seyed Hossein Mousavian hit the nail on the head. “The
nuclear issue today for Iranians is not nuclear,” he said, “it’s
defending their integrity [as an] independent identity against
the pressure of the rest.”
You may not trust Iran, but its moves are pretty clear
evidence that rejecting perceived unfairness, even at
substantial cost, is a powerful motivation.
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.
In fact, of the three ways that people drop this F-bomb,
only one is positive.
The most common use is a judo-like defensive move that
destabilizes the other side. This manipulation usually takes
the form of something like, “We just want what’s fair.”
Think back to the last time someone made this implicit
accusation of unfairness to you, and I bet you’ll have to
admit that it immediately triggered feelings of defensiveness
and discomfort. These feelings are often subconscious and
often lead to an irrational concession.
A friend of mine was selling her Boston home in a bust

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market a few years back. The offer she got was much lower
than she wanted—it meant a big loss for her—and out of
frustration she dropped this F-bomb on the prospective
buyer.
“We just want what’s fair,” she said.
Emotionally rattled by the implicit accusation, the guy
raised his offer immediately.
If you’re on the business end of this accusation, you
need to realize that the other side might not be trying to pick
your
pocket;
like my friend, they might just be
overwhelmed by circumstance. The best response either
way is to take a deep breath and restrain your desire to
concede. Then say, “Okay, I apologize. Let’s stop
everything and go back to where I started treating you
unfairly and we’ll fix it.”
The second use of the F-bomb is more nefarious. In this
one, your counterpart will basically accuse you of being
dense or dishonest by saying, “We’ve given you a fair
offer.” It’s a terrible little jab meant to distract your attention
and manipulate you into giving in.
Whenever someone tries this on me, I think back to the
last NFL lockout.
Negotiations were getting down to the wire and the NFL
Players Association (NFLPA) said that before they agreed to
a final deal they wanted the owners to open their books. The
owners’ answer?
“We’ve given the players a fair offer.”
Notice the horrible genius of this: instead of opening

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their books or declining to do so, the owners shifted the
focus to the NFLPA’s supposed lack of understanding of
fairness.
If you find yourself in this situation, the best reaction is
to simply mirror the “F” that has just been lobbed at you.
“Fair?” you’d respond, pausing to let the word’s power do
to them as it was intended to do to you. Follow that with a
label: “It seems like you’re ready to provide the evidence
that supports that,” which alludes to opening their books or
otherwise handing over information that will either
contradict their claim to fairness or give you more data to
work with than you had previously. Right away, you declaw
the attack.
The last use of the F-word is my favorite because it’s
positive and constructive. It sets the stage for honest and
empathetic negotiation.
Here’s how I use it: Early on in a negotiation, I say, “I
want you to feel like you are being treated fairly at all times.
So please stop me at any time if you feel I’m being unfair,
and we’ll address it.”
It’s simple and clear and sets me up as an honest dealer.
With that statement, I let people know it is okay to use that
word with me if they use it honestly. As a negotiator, you
should strive for a reputation of being fair. Your reputation
precedes you. Let it precede you in a way that paves
success.