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

KEY LESSONS
As you try to insert the tools of tactical empathy into your
daily life, I encourage you to think of them as extensions of
natural human interactions and not artificial conversational
tics.
In any interaction, it pleases us to feel that the other side
is listening and acknowledging our situation. Whether you
are negotiating a business deal or simply chatting to the
person at the supermarket butcher counter, creating an
empathetic relationship and encouraging your counterpart to
expand on their situation is the basis of healthy human
interaction.
These tools, then, are nothing less than emotional best
practices that help you cure the pervasive ineptitude that

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marks our most critical conversations in life. They will help
you connect and create more meaningful and warm
relationships. That they might help you extract what you
want is a bonus; human connection is the first goal.
With that in mind, I encourage you to take the risk of
sprinkling these in every conversation you have. I promise
you that they will feel awkward and artificial at first, but
keep at it. Learning to walk felt awfully strange, too.
As you internalize these techniques, turning the artifice
of tactical empathy into a habit and then into an integral part
of your personality, keep in mind these lessons from the
chapter you’ve just read:
■
Imagine yourself in your counterpart’s situation.
The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand
that you agree with the other person’s ideas (you
may
well
find
them
crazy).
But
by
acknowledging the other person’s situation, you
immediately convey that you are listening. And
once they know that you are listening, they may
tell you something that you can use.
■
The reasons why a counterpart will not make an
agreement with you are often more powerful
than why they will make a deal, so focus first on
clearing the barriers to agreement. Denying
barriers or negative influences gives them
credence; get them into the open.

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■
Pause. After you label a barrier or mirror a
statement, let it sink in. Don’t worry, the other