From my bookshelf: Never split the difference

 I have always hated negotiating. During the years I grew up, online shopping hadn't come into existence yet. Therefore, whatever you wanted to buy, be it vegetables, clothes, or gadgets, you had to visit an actual shop and negotiate. Of course, you could always buy without negotiating, but the chances were that you'd have paid way more. This would be because the salesperson, having expected you to bargain, would always quote a price that left him/her some wiggle room. Needless to say, I hated the whole ordeal. Just thinking of negotiating made me sweat. When the world transitioned to online shopping, I sighed in relief.

But as I grew up, I realized that negotiation wasn't just limited to this sphere of life. Negotiation is everywhere. At every job, your salary involves a negotiation. Buying/renting a house. Dividing up responsibilities among people. Pick any activity of your life, and you will find some amount of negotiation involved in it. I observed people who negotiated well, and I noticed that they got exactly what they wanted from almost any situation. It was like this magic wand they wielded. Just to watch such people in action was fascinating.

My own negotiation skills didn't improve much though. I introspected a little and concluded that my desire for conflict avoidance was at the root of why I hated negotiations. As a woman, a large part of my social conditioning has been to maintain amicable relationships, and avoid disagreements. Even on the rare occasion that I actually negotiated, I would fold at the first counter offer I got, believing in the philosophy of meeting in the middle. I would never, ever push a point. I came to the realization that this wasn't in my best interests at all, and was looking for a way to re-wire my thinking. Then, I found Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if your life depended on it.

To give you a little context, the author of this book, Chris Voss, had a glorious career at the FBI which culminated in him being FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. Take a moment to think about this. In our lives, if we are poor negotiators, what do we stand to lose? On the other hand, imagine a hostage negotiator, negotiating with a bunch of kidnappers. What happens if he/she is a bad negotiator? Lives are lost, and presumably his/her job too is in jeopardy. This is primarily why this book gained credibility in my mind. This guy had to know what he was talking about. He had spent decades negotiating as if his life depended on it. Quoting directly, it was this: Remember, a hostage negotiator plays a unique role: he has to win. Can he say to a bank robber, “Okay, you’ve taken four hostages. Let’s split the difference—give me two, and we’ll call it a day?”

The first rule of this book, the title, went against everything I've heard before. The author's philosophy is that no deal is better than a bad deal. He explains with an example: To make my point on compromise, let me paint you an example: A woman wants her husband to wear black shoes with his suit. But her husband doesn’t want to; he prefers brown shoes. So what do they do? They compromise, they meet halfway. And, you guessed it, he wears one black and one brown shoe. Is this the best outcome? No! In fact, that’s the worst possible outcome. Either of the two other outcomes—black or brown—would be better than the compromise. Next time you want to compromise, remind yourself of those mismatched shoes.

I will not spoil the rest of the book for you by giving away too much. But this was a fantastic read, and gave me several insights into the psychology of negotiation. Anchoring, loss aversion, mirrors, the likes. The author has peppered the book with ample anecdotes, both from his career and from his students' lives. The book also has a strong focus on implementation strategies. What remains to be seen is applying these techniques in real life, and where that gets me :D. Regardless, if you love behavioral economics, this book is a must-read!