Learn how to apply counter-intuitive techniques from hostage negotiation into any situation - business or personal.
For those who are ready for a deeper dive into Never Split the Difference but can’t make it to a live event,
Get equipped with the tactical empathy tools you need to be heard, overcome objections, and close deals with fewer counter-offers.
Never Split the Difference
Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
Everything we’ve previously been taught about negotiation is wrong: you are not rational; there is no such thing as ‘fair’; compromise is the worst thing you can do; the real art of negotiation lies in mastering the intricacies of No, not Yes. These surprising tactics—which radically diverge from conventional negotiating strategy—weren’t cooked up in a classroom, but are the field-tested tools FBI agents used to talk criminals and hostage-takers around the world into (or out of) just about any scenario you can imagine. In NEVER SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It former FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator Chris Voss and co-author Tahl Raz break down these strategies so that anyone can use them in the workplace, in business, or at home.
This book blew my mind. It’s a riveting read, full of instantly actionable advice—not just for high-stakes negotiations, but also for handling everyday conflicts at work and at home.
—Adam Grant, Wharton professor and New York Times bestselling author of ORIGINALS and GIVE AND TAKE
Our Latest Posts
Where smart communicators go to get the negotiation edge.
-
How Cultural Barriers Can Impact Negotiations
The most obvious cultural barrier that impacts negotiation is the language barrier. But beyond that, there are nearly 200 countries on the planet, and each has its own unique culture.
If you were to spend your time trying to learn every detail about each culture, you would be inundated with notebooks full of material. This would keep you from focusing on the true cultural barrier: one-on-one communication.
It’s not by accident that hostage negotiators in Tokyo, Tel Aviv, London, Johannesburg, Montreal, and Colombia are all trained in the same skill set.
-
The First Steps to Becoming a Skilled Negotiator
If you’re new to negotiation and The Black Swan Method™, the first step to becoming a skilled negotiator is enrolling in our online class, Negotiation 9™ (N9™). This class teaches the nine core skills that are foundational to becoming a world-class negotiator.
-
Navigating Language Barriers in International Negotiations
As we continue coaching clients all around the world, there’s a tendency we see over and over again in which folks think that certain negotiation tactics only work in the United States.
We remind these people that hostage negotiators are all trained the same way, whether they work in Tokyo, Jakarta, Berlin, Johannesburg, or Santiago. The underlying Black Swan skills are universal because human nature is the same regardless of where you go.
That said, international negotiations are not without their challenges. Chief among them is the fact that language barriers exist. Certain words don’t have the same meaning when translated into different languages.
Keep reading to learn more about the challenges inherent in international negotiations and what you can do to get your desired outcomes.