The New Art of Negotiation

For years, the Harvard negotiation booklet, based on principles and mutual interests, was the global reference on the subject. Until former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss was called in to try out his techniques on university students. 

The result was shocking. Challenging one of the prestigious university's student prodigies, Chris shaved his opponent's budget down to the last penny in a simulated buyer-seller negotiation. The gulf between rational tradition and the effectiveness of emotional manipulation in the trenches of negotiating with criminals was evident. Once seen, there no way to unsee it.

The Harvard technique was based on premises of a rational brain and practical and logical concepts, such as BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement). After the rise of behavioral economics disciplines, techniques like these began to look like cracked concrete. 

The Voss technique focuses on emotional intelligence and psychology. In his book Negotiate As If Your Life Depends On It ("Never Split the Difference"), Chris explains all his strategies.

In this article we will dive deeper into some of the negotiating principles that can be applied in building a relationship with the potential to evolve into an M&A. That's right, we're not talking about applying these principles only during deal negotiation. Learning what Voss teaches changed the way I deal with people on a daily basis and helped me become more convincing with everyone I interact with, from my children to my prospects.

Insights in Focus

There is a huge amount of behavioral science insights that can be used on your MVP journey. Some of them were presented in the Spectrum of Relationships and some will come in the next articles.

Here I want to focus on two of them, which I consider most powerful for transforming relationships:
- Good use of open and calibrated questions

- The search for "No", as opposed to the search for "Yes"

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Open Questions

There is a terrain where the sense of ownership is inalienable: the realm of ideas. No one can be forced to do anything. You can't be convinced of anything, you can only convince yourself. The ideas in your head are yours and you can only change your mind on your own. Keep this. When we talk about the Implantable Idea Pitch, this understanding will be essential.

So how can you influence your interlocutor? Well, this principle breaks down into two communication directives.

1- Find out what your interlocutor is looking for 

The end result of a good negotiation will be very different from what you initially imagined. This is because at the beginning you don't know what your interlocutor is looking for. And by discovering what is important to him and what is not, the ideal negotiation emerges in surprising ways.

2- Let your interlocutor build ideas

In a good negotiation, solutions will emerge organically and be built. For your interlocutor to be convinced of something, he must be the author of the idea. Conducting this process means facilitating the construction of the solution by the other party.

Avoid yes or no

Creating space for this construction means asking questions that cannot be answered simply with “yes” or “no”. The amount of bytes of information contained in a two or three-letter answer is too small to build anything. 

This is what we mean by open-ended questions. Questions that invite a longer but mostly revealing answer. But there is a difference between your interlocutor feeling invited to build on your question and feeling cornered by it.

Avoid the Why 

Why? The electrical impulses fired by our brain when we hear this little word immediately take the path of self-defense. The why makes us feel questioned, pressured to justify ourselves. This activates a defensive mode where your interlocutor places himself in opposition to you.

Your intention may be good, but imagine being asked “why do you want to sell your company” or “why did you decide to focus on this niche”. Did you feel it? You're probably already bubbling with justifications in your head. Or rather, you are justifying yourself. This is exactly the feeling you get when you ask questions in this format.

It's possible to use why in a calibrated question, but it's very easy to make things go wrong that way, so I prefer to avoid it. 

Now let's get to safe ground. What words should your questions begin with?