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

“How does this affect the rest of your team?”

liars use more words than truth tellers and use far more third-person pronouns. They start talking about him, her, it, one, they, and their rather than I, in order to put some distance between themselves and the lie. And they discovered that liars tend to speak in more complex sentences in an attempt to win over their suspicious counterparts. It’s

Every engineer, every executive, every child—all of us want to believe we are capable of the extraordinary.

“Your offer is very generous, I’m sorry, that just doesn’t work for me”

“I’m sorry but I’m afraid I just can’t do that.”

Set your target price (your goal). Set your first offer at 65 percent of your target price. Calculate three raises of decreasing increments (to 85, 95, and 100 percent). Use lots of empathy and different ways of saying “No” to get the other side to counter before you increase your offer. When calculating the final amount, use precise, nonround numb

(“How am I supposed to accept that?”)

Identify your counterpart’s negotiating style. Once you know whether they are Accommodator, Assertive, or Analyst, you’ll know the correct way to approach them. Prepare, prepare, prepare. When the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion; you fall to your highest level of preparation. So design an ambitious but legitimate goal and then game o

people fall into three broad categories. Some people are Accommodators; others—like me—are basically Assertive; and the rest are data-loving Analysts.