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

INFLUENCING THOSE BEHIND THE TABLE
A few weeks after José got back to the United States, I
drove to his family’s place in upstate New York.
I was thrilled when José escaped, but the case left me
with one nagging worry: Had my new strategy failed? You
see, José had gotten home safely, but not because we’d
negotiated his release. I worried that our winning had less to
do with our brilliant strategy than with dumb luck.
After being greeted warmly by Julie and her parents,
José and I grabbed some coffee and sat down. I’d gone
there to do what CNU referred to as a hostage survival
debriefing. I was after insights into how to better advise
people facing potential kidnappings how best to survive, not
just physically, but psychologically. I was also burning to
find out what had occurred behind the scenes because it
seemed as if my new strategy hadn’t worked.
Finally the conversation came around to our use of
calibrated questions.
“You know what?” he said. “The craziest thing was that
their negotiator was supposed to stay in town and negotiate
the deal but because Julie kept asking him questions he
didn’t really know for sure how to answer, he kept coming
out to the jungle. They all would get together and have a
huge discussion about how to respond. They even thought
about taking me into town and putting me on the phone
because Julie was so persistent with asking how did she
know if I was okay.”
Right then I knew we had the right tool. It was exactly

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the opposite of the Burnham case, where our negotiator cut
the deal with one of the guys and then the rest of them took
the $300,000 and said, “No, we’re not doing that.” Causing
the other side to work that hard and forcing that much
internal coordination in service of our own goals was
unprecedented.
Our negotiating strategy in Ecuador worked not just
because the questions contributed to the environment that let
José escape, but because they made sure the kidnappers—
our counterparts—were all on the same page.
Yes, few hostage-takers—and few business deal makers
—fly solo. But for the most part, there are almost always
other players, people who can act as deal makers or deal
killers. If you truly want to get to “Yes” and get your deal
implemented, you have to discover how to affect these
individuals.
When implementation happens by committee, the
support of that committee is key. You always have to
identify and unearth their motivations, even if you haven’t
yet identified each individual on that committee. That can be
easy as asking a few calibrated questions, like “How does
this affect the rest of your team?” or “How on board are the
people not on this call?” or simply “What do your
colleagues see as their main challenges in this area?”
The larger concept I’m explaining here is that in any
negotiation you have to analyze the entire negotiation space.
When other people will be affected by what is negotiated
and can assert their rights or power later on, it’s just stupid

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to consider only the interests of those at the negotiation
table. You have to beware of “behind the table” or “Level
II” players—that is, parties that are not directly involved but
who can help implement agreements they like and block
ones they don’t. You can’t disregard them even when
you’re talking to a CEO. There could always be someone
whispering into his ear. At the end of the day, the deal
killers often are more important than the deal makers.
Think back to the prison siege: it was almost ruined
because one bit player on our side was not totally on board.
That’s what our use of calibrated questions in Ecuador
avoided, and that’s why José’s case was a home run.
It only takes one bit player to screw up a deal.
A few years into private practice I’d lost sight of the
importance of assessing and influencing the hidden
negotiation that happens “behind the table,” and I paid a
substantial price.
We were closing a deal with a big company in Florida
that wanted negotiation training for one of its divisions.
We’d been on the phone a bunch of times with the CEO and
the head of HR, and they were both 100 percent gung ho on
our offering. We were elated—we had what we thought was
total buy-in from the top decision makers for an incredibly
lucrative deal.
And then, as we were figuring out the small print, the
deal fell off the table.
It turns out that the head of the division that needed the
training killed the deal. Maybe this guy felt threatened,

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slighted, or otherwise somehow personally injured by the
notion that he and his people “needed” any training at all.
(A surprisingly high percentage of negotiations hinge on
something outside dollars and cents, often having more to
do with self-esteem, status, and other nonfinancial needs.)
We’ll never know now.
The point is, we didn’t care until too late because we
convinced ourselves that we were on the phone with the
only decision makers that mattered.
We could have avoided all that had we asked a few
calibrated questions, like: How does this affect everybody
else? How on board is the rest of your team? How do we
make sure that we deliver the right material to the right
people? How do we ensure the managers of those we’re
training are fully on board?
If we had asked questions like that, the CEO and HR
head would have checked with this guy, maybe even
brought him into the conversation. And saved us all a lot of
pain.