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

TACTICAL EMPATHY
We had one big problem that day in Harlem: no telephone
number to call into the apartment. So for six straight hours,
relieved periodically by two FBI agents who were learning
crisis negotiation, I spoke through the apartment door.
I used my late-night FM DJ voice.
I didn’t give orders in my DJ voice, or ask what the
fugitives wanted. Instead, I imagined myself in their place.
“It looks like you don’t want to come out,” I said
repeatedly. “It seems like you worry that if you open the
door, we’ll come in with guns blazing. It looks like you
don’t want to go back to jail.”
For six hours, we got no response. The FBI coaches
loved my DJ voice. But was it working?
And then, when we were almost completely convinced
that no one was inside, a sniper on an adjacent building
radioed that he saw one of the curtains in the apartment
move.
The front door of the apartment slowly opened. A
woman emerged with her hands in front of her.
I continued talking. All three fugitives came out. None
of them said a word until we had them in handcuffs.
Then I asked them the question that was most nagging

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me: Why did they come out after six hours of radio silence?
Why did they finally give in?
All three gave me the same answer.
“We didn’t want to get caught or get shot, but you
calmed us down,” they said. “We finally believed you
wouldn’t go away, so we just came out.”
There is nothing more frustrating or disruptive to any
negotiation than to get the feeling you are talking to
someone who isn’t listening. Playing dumb is a valid
negotiating technique, and “I don’t understand” is a
legitimate response. But ignoring the other party’s position
only builds up frustration and makes them less likely to do
what you want.
The opposite of that is tactical empathy.
In my negotiating course, I tell my students that empathy
is “the ability to recognize the perspective of a counterpart,
and the vocalization of that recognition.” That’s an
academic way of saying that empathy is paying attention to
another human being, asking what they are feeling, and
making a commitment to understanding their world.
Notice I didn’t say anything about agreeing with the
other person’s values and beliefs or giving out hugs. That’s
sympathy. What I’m talking about is trying to understand a
situation from another person’s perspective.
One step beyond that is tactical empathy.
Tactical empathy is understanding the feelings and
mindset of another in the moment and also hearing what is
behind those feelings so you increase your influence in all

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the moments that follow. It’s bringing our attention to both
the emotional obstacles and the potential pathways to
getting an agreement done.
It’s emotional intelligence on steroids.
As a cop in Kansas City, I was curious about how a
select handful of veteran cops managed to talk angry,
violent people out of fights or to get them to put down their
knives and guns.
When I asked how they did that, I rarely got more than a
shrug. They couldn’t articulate what they did. But now I
know the answer is tactical empathy. They were able to
think from another person’s point of view while they were
talking with that person and quickly assess what was driving
them.
Most of us enter verbal combat unlikely to persuade
anyone of anything because we only know and care about
our own goals and perspective. But the best officers are
tuned in to the other party—their audience. They know that
if they empathize, they can mold their audience by how they
approach and talk to them.
That’s why, if a corrections officer approaches an inmate
expecting him to resist, he often will. But if he approaches
exuding calm, the inmate will be much more likely to be
peaceful. It seems like wizardry, but it’s not. It’s just that
when the officer has his audience clearly in mind, he can
become who he needs to be to handle the situation.
Empathy is a classic “soft” communication skill, but it
has a physical basis. When we closely observe a person’s

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face, gestures, and tone of voice, our brain begins to align
with theirs in a process called neural resonance, and that lets
us know more fully what they think and feel.
In an fMRI brain-scan experiment,1 researchers at
Princeton University found that neural resonance disappears
when people communicate poorly. The researchers could
predict how well people were communicating by observing
how much their brains were aligned. And they discovered
that people who paid the most attention—good listeners—
could actually anticipate what the speaker was about to say
before he said it.
If you want to increase your neural resonance skills, take
a moment right now and practice. Turn your attention to
someone who’s talking near you, or watch a person being
interviewed on TV. As they talk, imagine that you are that
person. Visualize yourself in the position they describe and
put in as much detail as you can, as if you were actually
there.
But be warned, a lot of classic deal makers will think
your approach is softheaded and weak.
Just ask former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
A few years ago during a speech at Georgetown
University, Clinton advocated, “showing respect, even for
one’s enemies. Trying to understand and, insofar as
psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective
and point of view.”
You can predict what happened next. A gaggle of
pundits and politicians pounced on her. They called her

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statement inane and naïve, and even a sign she had
embraced the Muslim Brotherhood. Some said that she had
blown her chances at a presidential run.
The problem with all of that hot air is that she was right.
Politics aside, empathy is not about being nice or
agreeing with the other side. It’s about understanding them.
Empathy helps us learn the position the enemy is in, why
their actions make sense (to them), and what might move
them.
As negotiators we use empathy because it works.
Empathy is why the three fugitives came out after six hours
of my late-night DJ voice. It’s what helped me succeed at
what Sun Tzu called “the supreme art of war”: to subdue the
enemy without fighting.