Never Split The Difference (Chris Voss) - Summary

CHAPTER 1 | THE NEW RULES 
How to Become the Smartest Person . . . in Any Room  

I was intimidated.
I’d spent more than two decades in the FBI, including fifteen years negotiating hostage situations from New York to the Philippines and the Middle East, and I was on top of my game. At any given time, there are ten thousand FBI agents in the Bureau, but only one lead international kidnapping negotiator. That was me.
But I’d never experienced a hostage situation so tense, so personal.
“We’ve got your son, Voss. Give us one million dollars or he dies.”
Pause. Blink. Mindfully urge the heart rate back to normal.
Sure, I’d been in these types of situations before. Tons of them. Money for lives. But not like this.
Not with my son on the line. Not $1 million. And not against people with fancy degrees and a lifetime of negotiating expertise.
You see, the people across the table—my negotiating counterparts—were Harvard Law School negotiating professors.

I’d come up to Harvard to take a short executive negotiating course, to see if I could learn something from the business world’s approach. It was supposed to be quiet and calm, a little professional development for an FBI guy trying to widen his horizons.
But when Robert Mnookin, the director of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project, learned I was on campus, he invited me to his office for a coffee. Just to chat, he said. 
I was honored. And scared. Mnookin is an impressive guy whom I’d followed for years: not only is he a Harvard law professor, he’s also one of the big shots of the conflict resolution field and the author of Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight.

To be honest, it felt unfair that Mnookin wanted me, a former Kansas City beat cop, to debate negotiation with him. But then it got worse. Just after Mnookin and I sat down, the door opened and another Harvard professor walked in. It was Gabriella Blum, a specialist in international negotiations, armed conflict, and counterterrorism, who’d spent eight years as a negotiator for the Israeli National Security Council and the Israel Defense Forces. The tough-as-nails IDF.

On cue, Mnookin’s secretary arrived and put a tape recorder on the table. Mnookin and Blum smiled at me.
I’d been tricked.
“We’ve got your son, Voss. Give us one million dollars or he dies,” Mnookin said, smiling. “I’m the kidnapper. What are you going to do?”
I experienced a flash of panic, but that was to be expected. It never changes: even after two decades negotiating for human lives you still feel fear. Even in a role-playing situation.I calmed myself down. Sure, I was a street cop turned FBI agent playing against real heavyweights. And I wasn’t a genius. But I was in this room for a reason. Over the years I had picked up skills, tactics, and a whole approach to human interaction that had not just helped me save lives but, as I recognize now looking back, had also begun to transform my own life. My years of negotiating had infused everything from how I dealt with customer service reps to my parenting style. “C’mon. Get me the money or I cut your son’s throat right now,” Mnookin said. Testy.
I gave him a long, slow stare. Then I smiled.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
Mnookin paused. His expression had a touch of amused pity in it, like a dog when the cat it’s been chasing turns around and tries to chase it back. It was as if we were playing different games, with different rules.
Mnookin regained his composure and eyed me with arched brows as if to remind me that we were still playing.
“So you’re okay with me killing your son, Mr. Voss?”
“I’m sorry, Robert, how do I know he’s even alive?” I said, using an apology and his first name, seeding more warmth into the interaction in order to complicate his gambit to bulldoze me. “I really am sorry, but how can I get you any money right now, much less one million dollars, if I don’t even know he’s alive?”
It was quite a sight to see such a brilliant man flustered by what must have seemed unsophisticated foolishness. On the contrary, though, my move was anything but foolish. I was employing what had become one of the FBI’s most potent negotiating tools: the open-ended question.
Today, after some years evolving these tactics for the private sector in my consultancy, The Black Swan Group, we call this tactic calibrated questions: queries that the other side can respond to but that have no fixed answers. It buys you time. It gives your counterpart the illusion of control—they are the one with the answers and power after all—and it does all that without giving them any idea of how constrained they are by it.
Mnookin, predictably, started fumbling because the frame of the conversation had shifted from how I’d respond to the threat of my son’s murder to how the professor would deal with the logistical issues involved in getting the money. How he would solve my problems. To every threat and demand he made, I continued to ask how I was supposed to pay him and how was I supposed to know that my son was alive.
After we’d been doing that for three minutes, Gabriella Blum interjected.
“Don’t let him do that to you,” she said to Mnookin.
“Well, you try,” he said, throwing up his hands.
Blum dove in. She was tougher from her years in the Middle East. But she was still doing the bulldozer angle, and all she got were my same questions.
Mnookin rejoined the session, but he got nowhere either. His face started to get red with
frustration. I could tell the irritation was making it hard to think.
“Okay, okay, Bob. That’s all,” I said, putting him out of his misery.
He nodded. My son would live to see another day.
“Fine,” he said. “I suppose the FBI might have something to teach us.”
I had done more than just hold my own against two of Harvard’s distinguished leaders. I had taken on the best of the best and come out on top.

HEART VS. MIND 
Through decades of research with Tversky, Kahneman proved that humans all suffer from Cognitive Bias, that is, unconscious—and irrational—brain processes that literally distort the way we see the world. Kahneman and Tversky discovered more than 150 of them.

There’s the Framing Effect, which demonstrates that people respond differently to the same choice depending on how it is framed (people place greater value on moving from 90 percent to 100 percent—high probability to certainty—than from 45 percent to 55 percent, even though they’re both ten percentage points). Prospect Theory explains why we take unwarranted risks in the face of uncertain losses. And the most famous is Loss Aversion, which shows how people are statistically more likely to act to avert a loss than to achieve an equal gain.

Kahneman later codified his research in the 2011 bestseller Thinking, Fast and Slow. Man, he wrote, has two systems of thought: System 1, our animal mind, is fast, instinctive, and emotional; System 2 is slow, deliberative, and logical. And System 1 is far more influential. In fact, it guides and steers our rational thoughts.

System 1’s inchoate beliefs, feelings, and impressions are the main sources of the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of System 2. They’re the spring that feeds the river. We react emotionally (System 1) to a suggestion or question. Then that System 1 reaction informs and in effect creates the System 2 answer.

Now think about that: under this model, if you know how to affect your counterpart’s System 1 thinking, his inarticulate feelings, by how you frame and deliver your questions and statements, then you can guide his System 2 rationality and therefore modify his responses. That’s what happened to Andy at Harvard: by asking, “How am I supposed to do that?” I influenced his System 1 emotional mind into accepting that his offer wasn’t good enough; his System 2 then rationalized the situation so that it made sense to give me a better offer.

If you believed Kahneman, conducting negotiations based on System 2 concepts without the tools to read, understand, and manipulate the System 1 emotional underpinning was like trying to make an omelet without first knowing how to crack an egg. 

THE FBI GETS EMOTIONAL 

As the new hostage negotiating team at the FBI grew and gained more experience in problem-solving skills during the 1980s and ’90s, it became clear that our system was lacking a crucial ingredient. At the time, we were deep into Getting to Yes. And as a negotiator, consultant, and teacher with decades of experience, I still agree with many of the powerful bargaining strategies in the book. When it was published, it provided groundbreaking ideas on cooperative problem solving and originated absolutely necessary concepts like entering negotiations with a BATNA: the Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement.

It was genius.

But after the fatally disastrous sieges of Randy Weaver’s Ruby Ridge farm in Idaho in 1992 and David Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993, there was no denying that most hostage negotiations were anything but rational problem-solving situations.

It was clear: if emotionally driven incidents, not rational bargaining interactions, constituted the bulk of what most police negotiators had to deal with, then our negotiating skills had to laser-focus on the animal, emotional, and irrational.

...

Psychotherapy research shows that when individuals feel listened to, they tend to listen to themselves more carefully and to openly evaluate and clarify their own thoughts and feelings. In addition, they tend to become less defensive and oppositional and more willing to listen to other points of view, which gets them to the calm and logical place where they can be good Getting to Yes problem solvers.

The whole concept, which you’ll learn as the centerpiece of this book, is called Tactical Empathy. This is listening as a martial art, balancing the subtle behaviors of emotional intelligence and the assertive skills of influence, to gain access to the mind of another person. Contrary to popular opinion, listening is not a passive activity. It is the most active thing you can do.

CHAPTER 2 | BE A MIRROR 
How to Quickly Establish Rapport

ASSUMPTIONS BLIND, HYPOTHESES GUIDE 

Good negotiators, going in, know they have to be ready for possible surprises; great negotiators aim to use their skills to reveal the surprises they are certain exist.

Experience will have taught them that they are best served by holding multiple hypotheses—about the situation, about the counterpart’s wants, about a whole array of variables—in their mind at the same time. Present and alert in the moment, they use all the new information that comes their way to test and winnow true hypotheses from false ones.

In negotiation, each new psychological insight or additional piece of information revealed heralds a step forward and allows one to discard one hypothesis in favor of another. You should engage the process with a mindset of discovery. Your goal at the outset is to extract and observe as much information as possible. Which, by the way, is one of the reasons that really smart people often have trouble being negotiators—they’re so smart they think they don’t have anything to discover. 

Too often people find it easier just to stick with what they believe. Using what they’ve heard or their own biases, they often make assumptions about others even before meeting them. They even ignore their own perceptions to make them conform to foregone conclusions. These assumptions muck up our perceptual windows onto the world, showing us an unchanging—often flawed—version of the situation.

Great negotiators are able to question the assumptions that the rest of the involved players accept on faith or in arrogance, and thus remain more emotionally open to all possibilities, and more intellectually agile to a fluid situation.

CALM THE SCHIZOPHRENIC 

For those people who view negotiation as a battle of arguments, it’s the voices in their own head that are overwhelming them. When they’re not talking, they’re thinking about their arguments, and when they are talking, they’re making their arguments. Often those on both sides of the table are doing the same thing, so you have what I call a state of schizophrenia: everyone just listening to the voice in their head (and not well, because they’re doing seven or eight other things at the same time). It may look like there are only two people in a conversation, but really it’s more like four people all talking at once.

There’s one powerful way to quiet the voice in your head and the voice in their head at the same time: treat two schizophrenics with just one pill. Instead of prioritizing your argument—in fact, instead of doing any thinking at all in the early goings about what you’re going to say—make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say. In that mode of true active listening—aided by the tactics you’ll learn in the following chapters—you’ll disarm your counterpart. You’ll make them feel safe. The voice in their head will begin to quiet down.

The goal is to identify what your counterparts actually need (monetarily, emotionally, or otherwise) and get them feeling safe enough to talk and talk and talk some more about what they want. The latter will help you discover the former. Wants are easy to talk about, representing the aspiration of getting our way, and sustaining any illusion of control we have as we begin to negotiate; needs imply survival, the very minimum required to make us act, and so make us vulnerable. But neither wants nor needs are where we start; it begins with listening, making it about the other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin.

THE VOICE 
- Late-Night, FM DJ Voice: deep, soft, slow, and reassuring.

This soothing voice is the key to easing the confrontation.

I said, “Joe’s gone. This is Chris. You’re talking to me now.” I didn’t put it like a question. I made a downward-inflecting statement, in a downward-inflecting tone of voice. The best way to describe the late-night FM DJ’s voice is as the voice of calm and reason.

When we radiate warmth and acceptance, conversations just seem to flow. When we enter a room with a level of comfort and enthusiasm, we attract people toward us. Smile at someone on the street, and as a reflex they’ll smile back. Understanding that reflex and putting it into practice is critical to the success of just about every negotiating skill there is to learn.

When we radiate warmth and acceptance, conversations just seem to flow. When we enter a room with a level of comfort and enthusiasm, we attract people toward us. Smile at someone on the street, and as a reflex they’ll smile back. Understanding that reflex and putting it into practice is critical to the success of just about every negotiating skill there is to learn.

There are essentially three voice tones available to negotiators: the late-night FM DJ voice, the positive/playful voice, and the direct or assertive voice. Forget the assertive voice for now; except in very rare circumstances, using it is like slapping yourself in the face while you’re trying to make progress. You’re signaling dominance onto your counterpart, who will either aggressively, or passive-aggressively, push back against attempts to be controlled.

Most of the time, you should be using the positive/playful voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking. A smile, even while talking on the phone, has an impact tonally that the other person will pick up on.

The effect these voices have are cross-cultural and never lost in translation.

When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). It applies to the smile-er as much as to the smile-ee: a smile on your face, and in your voice, will increase your own mental agility.

The way the late-night FM DJ voice works is that, when you inflect your voice in a downward way, you put it out there that you’ve got it covered. Talking slowly and clearly you convey one idea: I’m in control. When you inflect in an upward way, you invite a response. Why? Because you’ve brought in a measure of uncertainty. You’ve made a statement sound like a question. You’ve left the door open for the other guy to take the lead, so I was careful here to be quiet, self-assured.

MIRRORING 

Mirroring, also called isopraxism, is essentially imitation. It’s another neurobehavior humans (and other animals) display in which we copy each other to comfort each other. It can be done with speech patterns, body language, vocabulary, tempo, and tone of voice. It’s generally an unconscious behavior — we are rarely aware of it when it’s happening — but it’s a sign that people are bonding, in sync, and establishing the kind of rapport that leads to trust.

It’s a phenomenon (and now technique) that follows a very basic but profound biologicalprinciple: We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. Mirroring, then, when practiced consciously, is the art of insinuating similarity. “Trust me,” a mirror signals to another’s unconscious, “You and I—we’re alike.”

Once you’re attuned to the dynamic, you’ll see it everywhere: couples walking on the street with their steps in perfect synchrony; friends in conversation at a park, both nodding their heads and crossing the legs at about the same time. These people are, in a word, connected.

While mirroring is most often associated with forms of nonverbal communication, especially body language, as negotiators a “mirror” focuses on the words and nothing else. Not the body language. Not the accent. Not the tone or delivery. Just the words.

It’s almost laughably simple: for the FBI, a “mirror” is when you repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. Of the entirety of the FBI’s hostage negotiation skill set, mirroring is the closest one gets to a Jedi mind trick. Simple, and yet uncannily effective.

By repeating back what people say, you trigger this mirroring instinct and your counterpart will inevitably elaborate on what was just said and sustain the process of connecting. Psychologist Richard Wiseman created a study using waiters to identify what was the more effective method of creating a connection with strangers: mirroring or positive reinforcement.

One group of waiters, using positive reinforcement, lavished praise and encouragement on patrons using words such as “great,” “no problem,” and “sure” in response to each order. The other group of waiters mirrored their customers simply by repeating their orders back to them. The results were stunning: the average tip of the waiters who mirrored was 70 percent more than of those who used positive reinforcement.

HOW TO CONFRONT—AND GET YOUR WAY—WITHOUT CONFRONTATION 

I only half-jokingly refer to mirroring as magic or a Jedi mind trick because it gives you the ability to disagree without being disagreeable.

To consider just how useful that can be, think of the average workplace: invariably there is still someone in a position of authority who arrived at that position through aggressive assertiveness, sometimes outright intimidation, with “old school” top-down, command-and-control assumptions that the boss is always right. And let’s not delude ourselves: whatever the enlightened rules of the “new school,” in every environment (work or otherwise) you will always have to deal with forceful type A people who prefer consent to collaboration.

If you take a pit bull approach with another pit bull, you generally end up with a messy scene and lots of bruised feelings and resentment. Luckily, there’s another way without all the mess.

It’s just four simple steps:
1. Use the late-night FM DJ voice.
2. Start with “I’m sorry . . .”
3. Mirror.
4. Silence. At least four seconds, to let the mirror work its magic on your counterpart.
5. Repeat.

KEY LESSONS 

The language of negotiation is primarily a language of conversation and rapport: a way of quickly establishing relationships and getting people to talk and think together. Which is why when you think of the greatest negotiators of all time, I’ve got a surprise for you—think Oprah Winfrey.

Her daily television show was a case study of a master practitioner at work: on a stage face-toface with someone she has never met, in front of a crowded studio of hundreds, with millions more watching from home, and a task to persuade that person in front of her, sometimes against his or her own best interests, to talk and talk and keep talking, ultimately sharing with the world deep, dark secrets that they had held hostage in their own minds for a lifetime.

Look closely at such an interaction after reading this chapter and suddenly you’ll see a refined set of powerful skills: a conscious smile to ease the tension, use of subtle verbal and nonverbal language to signal empathy (and thus security), a certain downward inflection in the voice, embrace of specific kinds of questions and avoidance of others—a whole array of previously hidden skills that will proveinvaluable to you, once you’ve learned to use them.

Here are some of the key lessons from this chapter to remember:
■ A good negotiator prepares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find.

■ Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously.

■ People who view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible.

■ To quiet the voices in your head, make your sole and all-encompassing focus the other person and what they have to say.

■ Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust you’ve built.

■ Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve (instead of fight and resist). Positivity creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart.

There are three voice tones available to negotiators:

1. The late-night FM DJ voice: Use selectively to make a point. Inflect your voice downward, keeping it calm and slow. When done properly, you create an aura of authority and trustworthiness without triggering defensiveness.

2. The positive/playful voice: Should be your default voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking.

3. The direct or assertive voice: Used rarely. Will cause problems and create pushback.

■ Mirrors work magic. Repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar. Mirroring is the art of insinuating similarity, which facilitates bonding. Use mirrors to encourage the other side to empathize and bond with you, keep people talking, buy your side time to regroup, and encourage your counterparts to reveal their strategy.

CHAPTER 3 | DON’T FEEL THEIR PAIN, LABEL IT 
How to Create Trust with Tactical Empathy

TACTICAL EMPATHY 
Tactical empathy is understanding the feelings and mindset of another in the moment and also hearing what is behind those feelings so you increase your influence in all the moments that follow. It’s bringing our attention to both the emotional obstacles and the potential pathways to getting an agreement done.

Empathy is a classic “soft” communication skill, but it has a physical basis. When we closely observe a person’s face, gestures, and tone of voice, our brain begins to align with theirs in a process called neural resonance, and that lets us know more fully what they think and feel.

In an fMRI brain-scan experiment,1 researchers at Princeton University found that neural resonance disappears when people communicate poorly. The researchers could predict how well people were communicating by observing how much their brains were aligned. And they discovered that people who paid the most attention—good listeners—could actually anticipate what the speaker was about to say before he said it.

If you want to increase your neural resonance skills, take a moment right now and practice. Turn your attention to someone who’s talking near you, or watch a person being interviewed on TV. As they talk, imagine that you are that person. Visualize yourself in the position they describe and put in as much detail as you can, as if you were actually there.

Empathy is not about being nice or agreeing with the other side. It’s about understanding them. Empathy helps us learn the position the enemy is in, why their actions make sense (to them), and what might move them.

As negotiators we use empathy because it works. Empathy is why the three fugitives came out after six hours of my late-night DJ voice. It’s what helped me succeed at what Sun Tzu called “the supreme art of war”: to subdue the enemy without fighting.

LABELING 

We employ our tactical empathy by recognizing and then verbalizing the predictable emotions of the situation. We don’t just put ourselves in the fugitives’ shoes. We spotted their feelings, turned them into words, and then very calmly and respectfully repeated their emotions back to them. In a negotiation, that’s called labeling.

Labeling is a way of validating someone’s emotion by acknowledging it. Give someone’s emotion a name and you show you identify with how that person feels. It gets you close to someone without asking about external factors you know nothing about (“How’s your family?”). Think of labeling as a shortcut to intimacy, a time-saving emotional hack.

Labeling has a special advantage when your counterpart is tense. Exposing negative thoughts to daylight—“It looks like you don’t want to go back to jail”—makes them seem less frightening.

In one brain imaging study,2 psychology professor Matthew Lieberman of the University of California, Los Angeles, found that when people are shown photos of faces expressing strong emotion, the brain shows greater activity in the amygdala, the part that generates fear. But when they are asked to label the emotion, the activity moves to the areas that govern rational thinking. In other words, labeling an emotion—applying rational words to a fear—disrupts its raw intensity.

Labeling is a simple, versatile skill that lets you reinforce a good aspect of the negotiation, or diffuse a negative one. But it has very specific rules about form and delivery. That makes it less like chatting than like a formal art such as Chinese calligraphy.

Let me let you in on a secret: people never even notice.
The first step to labeling is detecting the other person’s emotional state. Most of the time you’ll have a wealth of information from the other person’s words, tone, and body language. We call that trinity “words, music, and dance.”

The trick to spotting feelings is to pay close attention to changes people undergo when they respond to external events. Most often, those events are your words.

If you say, “How is the family?” and the corners of the other party’s mouth turn down even when they say it’s great, you might detect that all is not well; if their voice goes flat when a colleague is mentioned, there could be a problem between the two; and if your landlord unconsciously fidgets his feet when you mention the neighbors, it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t think much of them (we’ll dig deeper into how to spot and use these cues in Chapter 9).

Once you’ve spotted an emotion you want to highlight, the next step is to label it aloud. Labels canbe phrased as statements or questions. The only difference is whether you end the sentence with a downward or upward inflection. But no matter how they end, labels almost always begin with roughly the same words:
It seems like . . .
It sounds like . . .
It looks like . . .

Notice we said “It sounds like . . .” and not “I’m hearing that . . .” That’s because the word “I” gets people’s guard up. When you say “I,” it says you’re more interested in yourself than the other person, and it makes you take personal responsibility for the words that follow—and the offense they might cause.

But when you phrase a label as a neutral statement of understanding, it encourages your counterpart to be responsive. They’ll usually give a longer answer than just “yes” or “no.” And if they disagree with the label, that’s okay. You can always step back and say, “I didn’t say that was what it was. I just said it seems like that.”

The last rule of labeling is silence. Once you’ve thrown out a label, be quiet and listen. We all have a tendency to expand on what we’ve said, to finish, “It seems like you like the way that shirt looks,” with a specific question like “Where did you get it?” But a label’s power is that it invites the other person to reveal himself.

If you’ll trust me for a second, take a break now and try it out: Strike up a conversation and put a label on one of the other person’s emotions—it doesn’t matter if you’re talking to the mailman or your ten-year-old daughter—and then go silent. Let the label do its work.

NEUTRALIZE THE NEGATIVE, REINFORCE THE POSITIVE 

Labeling is a tactic, not a strategy, in the same way a spoon is a great tool for stirring soup but it’s not a recipe. How you use labeling will go a long way in determining your success. Deployed well, it’s how we as negotiators identify and then slowly alter the inner voices of our counterpart’s consciousness to something more collaborative and trusting.

First, let’s talk a little human psychology. In basic terms, people’s emotions have two levels: the “presenting” behavior is the part above the surface you can see and hear; beneath, the “underlying” feeling is what motivates the behavior.

Imagine a grandfather who’s grumbly at a family holiday dinner: the presenting behavior is that he’s cranky, but the underlying emotion is a sad sense of loneliness from his family never seeing him.

What good negotiators do when labeling is address those underlying emotions. Labeling negatives diffuses them (or defuses them, in extreme cases); labeling positives reinforces them.

We’ll come back to the cranky grandfather in a moment. First, though, I want to talk a little bit about anger.

As an emotion, anger is rarely productive—in you or the person you’re negotiating with. It releases stress hormones and neurochemicals that disrupt your ability to properly evaluate and respond to situations. And it blinds you to the fact that you’re angry in the first place, which gives you a false sense of confidence.

That’s not to say that negative feelings should be ignored. That can be just as damaging. Instead, they should be teased out. Labeling is a helpful tactic in de-escalating angry confrontations, because itmakes the person acknowledge their feelings rather than continuing to act out.

CLEAR THE ROAD BEFORE ADVERTISING THE DESTINATION 

Remember the amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear in reaction to threats? Well, the faster we can interrupt the amygdala’s reaction to real or imaginary threats, the faster we can clear the road of obstacles, and the quicker we can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust.

We do that by labeling the fears. These labels are so powerful because they bathe the fears in sunlight, bleaching them of their power and showing our counterpart that we understand.

...

...The obstacle here wasn’t finding the right match for the woman. It wasn’t that she was this highly finicky, hard-to-please donor. The real obstacle was that this woman needed to feel that she was understood, that the person handling her money knew why she was in that office and understood thememories that were driving her actions. 

That’s why labels are so powerful and so potentially transformative to the state of any conversation. By digging beneath what seems like a mountain of quibbles, details, and logistics, labels help to uncover and identify the primary emotion driving almost all of your counterpart’s behavior, the emotion that, once acknowledged, seems to miraculously solve everything else.

DO AN ACCUSATION AUDIT 

...In court, defense lawyers do this properly by mentioning everything their client is accused of, and all the weaknesses of their case, in the opening statement. They call this technique “taking the sting out.” 

What I want to do here is turn this into a process that, applied systematically, you can use to disarm your counterpart while negotiating everything from your son’s bedtime to large business contracts.

The first step of doing so is listing every terrible thing your counterpart could say about you, in what I call an accusation audit.

The beauty of going right after negativity is that it brings us to a safe zone of empathy. Every one of us has an inherent, human need to be understood, to connect with the person across the table. 

...That explains why, after Anna labeled Angela’s fears, Angela’s first instinct was to add nuance and detail to those fears. And that detail gave Anna the power to accomplish what she wanted from the negotiation. 

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 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.

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

■ Label your counterpart’s fears to diffuse their power. We all want to talk about the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterpart’s amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust.

■ List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root. And because these accusations often sound exaggerated when said aloud, speaking them will encourage the other person to claim that quite the opposite is true.

■ Remember you’re dealing with a person who wants to be appreciated and understood. So use labels to reinforce and encourage positive perceptions and dynamics.

CHAPTER 4 | BEWARE “YES”—MASTER “NO” 
How to Generate Momentum and Make It Safe to Reveal the Real Stakes 

“NO” STARTS THE NEGOTIATION 

“No” is the start of the negotiation, not the end of it. We’ve been conditioned to fear the word “No.” But it is a statement of perception far more often than of fact. It seldom means, “I have considered all the facts and made a rational choice.” Instead, “No” is often a decision, frequently temporary, to maintain the status quo. Change is scary, and “No” provides a little protection from that scariness.

Jim Camp, in his excellent book, Start with NO,1 counsels the reader to give their adversary (his word for counterpart) permission to say “No” from the outset of a negotiation. He calls it “the right to veto.” He observes that people will fight to the death to preserve their right to say “No,” so give them that right and the negotiating environment becomes more constructive and collaborative almost immediately.

When I read Camp’s book, I realized this was something we’d known as hostage negotiators for years. We’d learned that the quickest way to get a hostage-taker out was to take the time to talk them out, as opposed to “demanding” their surrender. Demanding their surrender, “telling” them to come out, always ended up creating a much longer standoff and occasionally, actually contributed to death.

It comes down to the deep and universal human need for autonomy. People need to feel in control. When you preserve a person’s autonomy by clearly giving them permission to say “No” to your ideas, the emotions calm, the effectiveness of the decisions go up, and the other party can really look at your proposal. They’re allowed to hold it in their hands, to turn it around. And it gives you time to elaborate or pivot in order to convince your counterpart that the change you’re proposing is more advantageous than the status quo.

Great negotiators seek “No” because they know that’s often when the real negotiation begins. Politely saying “No” to your opponent (we’ll go into this in more depth in Chapter 9), calmly hearing “No,” and just letting the other side know that they are welcome to say “No” has a positive impact on any negotiation. In fact, your invitation for the other side to say “No” has an amazing power to bring down barriers and allow for beneficial communication.

This means you have to train yourself to hear “No” as something other than rejection, and respond accordingly. When someone tells you “No,” you need to rethink the word in one of its alternative— and much more real—meanings:

■ I am not yet ready to agree;
■ You are making me feel uncomfortable;
■ I do not understand;
■ I don’t think I can afford it;
■ I want something else;
■ I need more information; or
■ I want to talk it over with someone else.

Then, after pausing, ask solution-based questions or simply label their effect:
“What about this doesn’t work for you?”
“What would you need to make it work?”
“It seems like there’s something here that bothers you.”
People have a need to say, “No.” So don’t just hope to hear it at some point; get them to say it early.

PERSUADE IN THEIR WORLD 

In every negotiation, in every agreement, the result comes from someone else’s decision. And sadly, if we believe that we can control or manage others’ decisions with compromise and logic, we’re leaving millions on the table. But while we can’t control others’ decisions, we can influence them by inhabiting their world and seeing and hearing exactly what they want.

Though the intensity may differ from person to person, you can be sure that everyone you meet isdriven by two primal urges: the need to feel safe and secure, and the need to feel in control. If you satisfy those drives, you’re in the door.

As we saw with my chat with Daryl, you’re not going to logically convince them that they’re safe, secure, or in control. Primal needs are urgent and illogical, so arguing them into a corner is just going to push your counterpart to flee with a counterfeit “Yes.”

And being “nice” in the form of feigned sympathy is often equally as unsuccessful. We live in an age that celebrates niceness under various names. We are exhorted to be nice and to respect people’s feelings at all times and in every situation.

But nice alone in the context of negotiation can backfire. Nice, employed as a ruse, is disingenuous and manipulative. Who hasn’t received the short end of the stick in dealings with a “nice” salesman who took you for a ride? If you rush in with plastic niceness, your bland smile is going to dredge up all that baggage.

Instead of getting inside with logic or feigned smiles, then, we get there by asking for “No.” It’s the word that gives the speaker feelings of safety and control. “No” starts conversations and creates safe havens to get to the final “Yes” of commitment. An early “Yes” is often just a cheap, counterfeit dodge.

“NO” IS PROTECTION 

As you can see, “No” has a lot of skills.
■ “No” allows the real issues to be brought forth;
■ “No” protects people from making—and lets them correct—ineffective decisions;
■ “No” slows things down so that people can freely embrace their decisions and the agreements they enter into;
■ “No” helps people feel safe, secure, emotionally comfortable, and in control of their decisions;
■ “No” moves everyone’s efforts forward.

There is a big difference between making your counterpart feel that they can say “No” and actually getting them to say it. Sometimes, if you’re talking to somebody who is just not listening, the only way you can crack their cranium is to antagonize them into “No.”

One great way to do this is to mislabel one of the other party’s emotions or desires. You say something that you know is totally wrong, like “So it seems that you really are eager to leave yourjob” when they clearly want to stay. That forces them to listen and makes them comfortable correcting you by saying, “No, that’s not it. This is it.”

Another way to force “No” in a negotiation is to ask the other party what they don’t want. “Let’s talk about what you would say ‘No’ to,” you’d say. And people are comfortable saying “No” here because it feels like self-protection. And once you’ve gotten them to say “No,” people are much more open to moving forward toward new options and ideas.

“No”—or the lack thereof—also serves as a warning, the canary in the coal mine. If despite all your efforts, the other party won’t say “No,” you’re dealing with people who are indecisive or confused or who have a hidden agenda. In cases like that you have to end the negotiation and walk away.

Think of it like this: No “No” means no go.

KEY LESSONS 
Using this chapter’s tools in daily life is difficult for many people because they go directly against one of society’s biggest social dictums. That is, “Be nice.”

We’ve instrumentalized niceness as a way of greasing the social wheels, yet it’s often a ruse.We’re polite and we don’t disagree to get through daily existence with the least degree of friction. But by turning niceness into a lubricant, we’ve leeched it of meaning. A smile and a nod might signify “Get me out of here!” as much as it means “Nice to meet you.”

That’s death for a good negotiator, who gains their power by understanding their counterpart’s situation and extracting information about their counterpart’s desires and needs. Extracting that information means getting the other party to feel safe and in control. And while it may sound contradictory, the way to get there is by getting the other party to disagree, to draw their own boundaries, to define their desires as a function of what they do not want.

As you try to put the chapter’s methods to use, I encourage you to think of them as the anti–“niceness ruse.” Not in the sense that they are unkind, but in the sense that they are authentic.

Triggering “No” peels away the plastic falsehood of “Yes” and gets you to what’s really at stake.

Along the way, keep in mind these powerful lessons:

■ Break the habit of attempting to get people to say “yes.” Being pushed for “yes” makes people defensive. Our love of hearing “yes” makes us blind to the defensiveness we ourselves feel when someone is pushing us to say it.

■ “No” is not a failure. We have learned that “No” is the anti-“Yes” and therefore a word to be avoided at all costs. But it really often just means “Wait” or “I’m not comfortable with that.” Learn how to hear it calmly. It is not the end of the negotiation, but the beginning.

■ “Yes” is the final goal of a negotiation, but don’t aim for it at the start. Asking someone for “Yes” too quickly in a conversation—“Do you like to drink water, Mr. Smith?”—gets his guard up and paints you as an untrustworthy salesman.

■ Saying “No” makes the speaker feel safe, secure, and in control, so trigger it. By saying what they don’t want, your counterpart defines their space and gains the confidence and comfort to listen to you. That’s why “Is now a bad time to talk?” is always better than “Do you have a few minutes to talk?”

■ Sometimes the only way to get your counterpart to listen and engage with you is by forcing them into a “No.” That means intentionally mislabeling one of their emotions or desires or asking a ridiculous question—like, “It seems like you want this project to fail”—that can only be answered negatively.

■ Negotiate in their world. Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea. So don’t beat them with logic or brute force. Ask them questions that open paths to your goals. It’s not about you.

■ If a potential business partner is ignoring you, contact them with a clear and concise “No”-oriented question that suggests that you are ready to walk away. “Have you given up on this project?” works wonders.

CHAPTER 5 | TRIGGER THE TWO WORDS THAT IMMEDIATELY TRANSFORM ANY NEGOTIATION 
How to Gain the Permission to Persuade 

TRIGGER A “THAT’S RIGHT!” WITH A SUMMARY 

I wrote a two-page document that instructed Benjie to change course. We were going to use nearly every tactic in the active listening arsenal:

1. Effective Pauses: Silence is powerful. We told Benjie to use it for emphasis, to encourage Sabaya to keep talking until eventually, like clearing out a swamp, the emotions were drained from the dialogue.

2. Minimal Encouragers: Besides silence, we instructed using simple phrases, such as “Yes,” “OK,” “Uh-huh,” or “I see,” to effectively convey that Benjie was now paying fullattention to Sabaya and all he had to say.

3. Mirroring: Rather than argue with Sabaya and try to separate Schilling from the “war damages,” Benjie would listen and repeat back what Sabaya said.

4. Labeling: Benjie should give Sabaya’s feelings a name and identify with how he felt. “It all seems so tragically unfair, I can now see why you sound so angry.”

5. Paraphrase: Benjie should repeat what Sabaya is saying back to him in Benjie’s own words. This, we told him, would powerfully show him you really do understand and aren’t merely parroting his concerns.

6. Summarize: A good summary is the combination of rearticulating the meaning of what is said plus the acknowledgment of the emotions underlying that meaning (paraphrasing + labeling = summary). We told Benjie he needed to listen and repeat the “world according to Abu Sabaya.” He needed to fully and completely summarize all the nonsense that Sabaya had come up with about war damages and fishing rights and five hundred years of oppression. And once he did that fully and completely, the only possible response for Sabaya, and anyone faced with a good summary, would be “that’s right.”

KEY LESSONS 
“Sleeping in the same bed and dreaming different dreams” is an old Chinese expression that describes the intimacy of partnership (whether in marriage or in business) without the communication necessary to sustain it.

Such is the recipe for bad marriages and bad negotiations.

With each party having its own set of objectives, its own goals and motivations, the truth is that the conversational niceties—the socially lubricating “yeses” and “you’re rights” that get thrown out fast and furious early in any interaction—are not in any way a substitute for real understandingbetween you and your partner.

The power of getting to that understanding, and not to some simple “yes,” is revelatory in the art of negotiation. The moment you’ve convinced someone that you truly understand her dreams and feelings (the whole world that she inhabits), mental and behavioral change becomes possible, and the foundation for a breakthrough has been laid.

Use these lessons to lay that foundation:

■ Creating unconditional positive regard opens the door to changing thoughts and behaviors. Humans have an innate urge toward socially constructive behavior. The more a person feels understood, and positively affirmed in that understanding, the more likely that urge for constructive behavior will take hold.

■ “That’s right” is better than “yes.” Strive for it. Reaching “that’s right” in a negotiation creates breakthroughs.

■ Use a summary to trigger a “that’s right.” The building blocks of a good summary are a label combined with paraphrasing. Identify, rearticulate, and emotionally affirm "the world according to . . ."

CHAPTER 6 | BEND THEIR REALITY 
How to Shape What Is Fair 

DON’T COMPROMISE 

I’m here to call bullshit on compromise right now. We don’t compromise because it’s right; we compromise because it is easy and because it saves face. We compromise in order to say that at least we got half the pie. Distilled to its essence, we compromise to be safe. Most people in a negotiation are driven by fear or by the desire to avoid pain. Too few are driven by their actual goals.

So don’t settle and—here’s a simple rule—never split the difference. Creative solutions are almost always preceded by some degree of risk, annoyance, confusion, and conflict. Accommodation and compromise produce none of that. You’ve got to embrace the hard stuff. That’s where the great deals are. And that’s what great negotiators do.

DEADLINES: MAKE TIME YOUR ALLY 

Moore discovered that when negotiators tell their counterparts about their deadline, they get better deals. It’s true. First, by revealing your cutoff you reduce the risk of impasse. And second, when an opponent knows your deadline, he’ll get to the real deal- and concession-making more quickly.

I’ve got one final point to make before we move on: Deadlines are almost never ironclad. What’s more important is engaging in the process and having a feel for how long that will take. You may see that you have more to accomplish than time will actually allow before the clock runs out.

NO SUCH THING AS FAIR 

In the third week of my negotiations class, we play my favorite type of game, that is, the kind that shows my students how much they don’t understand themselves (I know—I’m cruel).

It’s called the Ultimatum Game, and it goes like this: After the students split into pairs of a “proposer” and an “accepter,” I give each proposer $10. The proposer then has to offer the accepter a round number of dollars. If the accepter agrees he or she receives what’s been offered and the proposer gets the rest. If the accepter refuses the offer, though, they both get nothing and the $10 goes back to me.

Whether they “win” and keep the money or “lose” and have to give it back is irrelevant (except to my wallet). What’s important is the offer they make. The truly shocking thing is that, almost without exception, whatever selection anyone makes, they find themselves in a minority. No matter whether they chose $6/$4, $5/$5, $7/$3, $8/$2, etc., they look around and are inevitably surprised to find no split was chosen far more than any other. In something as simple as merely splitting $10 of “found” money, there is no consensus of what constitutes a “fair” or “rational” split.

After we run this little experiment, I stand up in front of the class and make a point they don’t like to hear: the reasoning each and every student used was 100 percent irrational and emotional.

THE F-WORD: WHY IT’S SO POWERFUL, WHEN TO USE IT, AND HOW 

Once you understand what a messy, emotional, and destructive dynamic “fairness” can be, you can see why “Fair” is a tremendously powerful word that you need to use with care.

In fact, of the three ways that people drop this F-bomb, only one is positive.

The most common use is a judo-like defensive move that destabilizes the other side. This manipulation usually takes the form of something like, “We just want what’s fair.”

Think back to the last time someone made this implicit accusation of unfairness to you, and I bet you’ll have to admit that it immediately triggered feelings of defensiveness and discomfort. These feelings are often subconscious and often lead to an irrational concession.

A friend of mine was selling her Boston home in a bust market a few years back. The offer she got was much lower than she wanted—it meant a big loss for her—and out of frustration she dropped this F-bomb on the prospective buyer.

“We just want what’s fair,” she said.

Emotionally rattled by the implicit accusation, the guy raised his offer immediately.

If you’re on the business end of this accusation, you need to realize that the other side might not be
trying to pick your pocket; like my friend, they might just be overwhelmed by circumstance. The best
response either way is to take a deep breath and restrain your desire to concede. Then say, “Okay, I
apologize. Let’s stop everything and go back to where I started treating you unfairly and we’ll fix it.”

The second use of the F-bomb is more nefarious. In this one, your counterpart will basically accuse you of being dense or dishonest by saying, “We’ve given you a fair offer.” It’s a terrible little jab meant to distract your attention and manipulate you into giving in.

Whenever someone tries this on me, I think back to the last NFL lockout.

Negotiations were getting down to the wire and the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) said that before they agreed to a final deal they wanted the owners to open their books. The owners’ answer?

“We’ve given the players a fair offer.”

Notice the horrible genius of this: instead of opening their books or declining to do so, the owners shifted the focus to the NFLPA’s supposed lack of understanding of fairness.

If you find yourself in this situation, the best reaction is to simply mirror the “F” that has just been lobbed at you. “Fair?” you’d respond, pausing to let the word’s power do to them as it was intended to do to you. Follow that with a label: “It seems like you’re ready to provide the evidence that supports that,” which alludes to opening their books or otherwise handing over information that will either contradict their claim to fairness or give you more data to work with than you had previously.

Right away, you declaw the attack.

The last use of the F-word is my favorite because it’s positive and constructive. It sets the stage for honest and empathetic negotiation.
Here’s how I use it: Early on in a negotiation, I say, “I want you to feel like you are being treated fairly at all times. So please stop me at any time if you feel I’m being unfair, and we’ll address it.” It’s simple and clear and sets me up as an honest dealer. With that statement, I let people know it is okay to use that word with me if they use it honestly. 

As a negotiator, you should strive for a reputation of being fair. Your reputation precedes you. Let it precede you in a way that paves success.

BEND THEIR REALITY 

By far the best theory for describing the principles of our irrational decisions is something called Prospect Theory. Created in 1979 by the psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, prospect theory describes how people choose between options that involve risk, like in a negotiation.The theory argues that people are drawn to sure things over probabilities, even when the probability is a better choice. That’s called the Certainty Effect. And people will take greater risks to avoid losses than to achieve gains. That’s called Loss Aversion.

That’s why people who statistically have no need for insurance buy it. Or consider this: a person who’s told he has a 95 percent chance of receiving $10,000 or a 100 percent chance of getting $9,499 will usually avoid risk and take the 100 percent certain safe choice, while the same person who’s told he has a 95 percent chance of losing $10,000 or a 100 percent chance of losing $9,499 will make the opposite choice, risking the bigger 95 percent option to avoid the loss. The chance for loss incites more risk than the possibility of an equal gain.

1. ANCHOR THEIR EMOTIONS 

To bend your counterpart’s reality, you have to start with the basics of empathy. So start out with an accusation audit acknowledging all of their fears. By anchoring their emotions in preparation for a loss, you inflame the other side’s loss aversion so that they’ll jump at the chance to avoid it.

2. LET THE OTHER GUY GO FIRST . . . MOST OF THE TIME. 

The tendency to be anchored by extreme numbers is a psychological quirk known as the “anchor and adjustment” effect. Researchers have discovered that we tend to make adjustments from our first reference points. For example, most people glimpsing 8 × 7 × 6 × 5 × 4 × 3 × 2 × 1 estimate that it yields a higher result than the same string in reverse order. That’s because we focus on the first numbers and extrapolate.

3. ESTABLISH A RANGE 

In a recent study, Columbia Business School psychologists found that job applicants who named a range received significantly higher overall salaries than those who offered a number, especially if their range was a “bolstering range,” in which the low number in the range was what they actually wanted.

Understand, if you offer a range (and it’s a good idea to do so) expect them to come in at the low end.

4. PIVOT TO NONMONETARY TERMS 

Stimulate your counterpart’s brainstorming to see what valuable nonmonetary gems they might have that are cheap to them but valuable to you.

5. WHEN YOU DO TALK NUMBERS, USE ODD ONES 

The biggest thing to remember is that numbers that end in 0 inevitably feel like temporary placeholders, guesstimates that you can easily be negotiated off of. But anything you throw out that sounds less rounded—say, $37,263—feels like a figure that you came to as a result of thoughtful calculation. Such numbers feel serious and permanent to your counterpart, so use them to fortify your offers.

6. SURPRISE WITH A GIFT 

HOW TO NEGOTIATE A BETTER SALARY

1. BE PLEASANTLY PERSISTENT ON NONSALARY TERMS

2. SALARY TERMS WITHOUT SUCCESS TERMS IS RUSSIAN ROULETTE
Once you’ve negotiated a salary, make sure to define success for your position—as well as metrics for your next raise. That’s meaningful for you and free for your boss, much like giving me a magazine cover story was for the bar association. It gets you a planned raise and, by defining your success in relation to your boss’s supervision, it leads into the next step . . .

3. SPARK THEIR INTEREST IN YOUR SUCCESS AND GAIN AN UNOFFICIAL MENTOR

KEY LESSONS 
Compared to the tools discussed in previous chapters, the techniques here seem concrete and easy to use. But many people shy away from them because they seem manipulative. Something that bends your counterpart’s reality must be cheating, right?

In response, let me just say that these tools are used by all the best negotiators because they simply recognize the human psyche as it is. We are emotional, irrational beasts who are emotional and irrational in predictable, pattern-filled ways. Using that knowledge is only, well, rational.

As you work these tools into your daily life, remember the following powerful lessons:

■ All negotiations are defined by a network of subterranean desires and needs. Don’t let yourself be fooled by the surface. Once you know that the Haitian kidnappers just want party money, you will be miles better prepared.

■ Splitting the difference is wearing one black and one brown shoe, so don’t compromise. Meeting halfway often leads to bad deals for both sides.

■ Approaching deadlines entice people to rush the negotiating process and do impulsive things that are against their best interests.

■ The F-word—“Fair”—is an emotional term people usually exploit to put the other side on the defensive and gain concessions. When your counterpart drops the F-bomb, don’t get suckered into a concession. Instead, ask them to explain how you’re mistreating them.

■ You can bend your counterpart’s reality by anchoring his starting point. Before you make an offer, emotionally anchor them by saying how bad it will be. When you get to numbers, set an extreme anchor to make your “real” offer seem reasonable, or use a range to seem less aggressive. The real value of anything depends on what vantage point you’re looking at it from.

■ People will take more risks to avoid a loss than to realize a gain. Make sure your counterpart sees that there is something to lose by inaction.

CHAPTER 7 | CREATE THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL
How to Calibrate Questions to Transform Conflict into Collaboration

THERE IS ALWAYS A TEAM ON THE OTHER SIDE 

SUSPEND UNBELIEF 
The genius of this technique is really well explained by something that the psychologist Kevin Dutton says in his book Split-Second Persuasion. He talks about what he calls “unbelief,” which is active resistance to what the other side is saying, complete rejection. That’s where the two parties in a negotiation usually start.

If you don’t ever get off that dynamic, you end up having showdowns, as each side tries to impose its point of view. You get two hard skulls banging against each other, like in Dos Palmas. But if you can get the other side to drop their unbelief, you can slowly work them to your point of view on the back of their energy, just like the drug dealer’s question got the kidnapper to volunteer to do what the drug dealer wanted. You don’t directly persuade them to see your ideas. Instead, you ride them to your ideas. As the saying goes, the best way to ride a horse is in the direction in which it is going.

CALIBRATE YOUR QUESTIONS 

First off, calibrated questions avoid verbs or words like “can,” “is,” “are,” “do,” or “does.” These are closed-ended questions that can be answered with a simple “yes” or a “no.” Instead, they start with a list of words people know as reporter’s questions: “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” and “how.” Those words inspire your counterpart to think and then speak expansively.

But let me cut the list even further: it’s best to start with “what,” “how,” and sometimes “why.” Nothing else. “Who,” “when,” and “where” will often just get your counterpart to share a fact without thinking. And “why” can backfire. Regardless of what language the word “why” is translated into, it’s accusatory. There are very rare moments when this is to your advantage.

The only time you can use “why” successfully is when the defensiveness that is created supports the change you are trying to get them to see. “Why would you ever change from the way you’ve always done things and try my approach?” is an example. “Why would your company ever change from your long-standing vendor and choose our company?” is another. As always, tone of voice, respectful and deferential, is critical.

Otherwise, treat “why” like a burner on a hot stove—don’t touch it.

Having just two words to start with might not seem like a lot of ammunition, but trust me, you can use “what” and “how” to calibrate nearly any question. “Does this look like something you would like?” can become “How does this look to you?” or “What about this works for you?” You can even ask, “What about this doesn’t work for you?” and you’ll probably trigger quite a bit of useful information from your counterpart.

Even something as harsh as “Why did you do it?” can be calibrated to “What caused you to do it?” which takes away the emotion and makes the question less accusatory.

You should use calibrated questions early and often, and there are a few that you will find that you will use in the beginning of nearly every negotiation. “What is the biggest challenge you face?” is one of those questions. It just gets the other side to teach you something about themselves, which is critical to any negotiation because all negotiation is an information-gathering process.

Here are some other great standbys that I use in almost every negotiation, depending on the situation:

■ What about this is important to you?
■ How can I help to make this better for us?
■ How would you like me to proceed?
■ What is it that brought us into this situation?
■ How can we solve this problem?
■ What’s the objective? / What are we trying to accomplish here?
■ How am I supposed to do that?

HOW NOT TO GET PAID

Let’s pause for a minute here, because there’s one vitally important thing you have to remember when you enter a negotiation armed with your list of calibrated questions. That is, all of this is great, but there’s a rub: without self-control and emotional regulation, it doesn’t work.

The very first thing I talk about when I’m training new negotiators is the critical importance of self-control. If you can’t control your own emotions, how can you expect to influence the emotions of another party?

To show you what I mean, let me tell you a story.

Not long ago, a freelance marketing strategist came to me with a problem. One of her clients had hired a new CEO, a penny pincher whose strategy was to cut costs by offshoring everything he could.

He was also a male chauvinist who didn’t like the assertive style in which the strategist, a woman, conducted herself.

Immediately my client and the CEO started to go at each other on conference calls in that passive-aggressive way that is ever present in corporate America. After a few weeks of this, my client decided she’d had enough and invoiced the CEO for the last bit of work she’d done (about $7,000) and politely said that the arrangement wasn’t working out. The CEO answered by saying the bill was too high, that he’d pay half of it and that they would talk about the rest.

After that, he stopped answering her calls.

The underlying dynamic was that this guy didn’t like being questioned by anyone, especially a woman. So she and I developed a strategy that showed him she understood where she went wrong and acknowledged his power, while at the same time directing his energy toward solving her problem.

The script we came up with hit all the best practices of negotiation we’ve talked about so far.

Here it is by steps:
1. A “No”-oriented email question to reinitiate contact: “Have you given up on settling this amicably?”

2. A statement that leaves only the answer of “That’s right” to form a dynamic of agreement: “It seems that you feel my bill is not justified.”

3. Calibrated questions about the problem to get him to reveal his thinking: “How does this bill violate our agreement?”

4. More “No”-oriented questions to remove unspoken barriers: “Are you saying I misled you?” “Are you saying I didn’t do as you asked?” “Are you saying I reneged on our agreement?” or “Are you saying I failed you?”

5. Labeling and mirroring the essence of his answers if they are not acceptable so he has to consider them again: “It seems like you feel my work was subpar.” Or “. . . my work was subpar?”

6. A calibrated question in reply to any offer other than full payment, in order to get him to offer a solution: “How am I supposed to accept that?”

7. If none of this gets an offer of full payment, a label that flatters his sense of control andpower: “It seems like you are the type of person who prides himself on the way he does business—rightfully so—and has a knack for not only expanding the pie but making the ship run more efficiently.”

8. A long pause and then one more “No”-oriented question: “Do you want to be known as someone who doesn’t fulfill agreements?”

From my long experience in negotiation, scripts like this have a 90 percent success rate. That is, if the negotiator stays calm and rational. And that’s a big if.

Another simple rule is, when you are verbally assaulted, do not counterattack. Instead, disarm your counterpart by asking a calibrated question. The next time a waiter or salesclerk tries to engage you in a verbal skirmish, try this out. I promise you it will change the entire tenor of the conversation.

The basic issue here is that when people feel that they are not in control, they adopt what psychologists call a hostage mentality. That is, in moments of conflict they react to their lack of power by either becoming extremely defensive or lashing out.

Neurologically, in situations like this the fight-or-flight mechanism in the reptilian brain or the emotions in the limbic system overwhelm the rational part of our mind, the neocortex, leading us to overreact in an impulsive, instinctive way.

In a negotiation, like in the one between my client and the CEO, this always produces a negative outcome. So we have to train our neocortex to override the emotions from the other two brains. That means biting your tongue and learning how to mindfully change your state to something more positive. And it means lowering the hostage mentality in your counterpart by asking a question or even offering an apology. (“You’re right. That was a bit harsh.”)

KEY LESSONS 
Who has control in a conversation, the guy listening or the guy talking?
The listener, of course.
That’s because the talker is revealing information while the listener, if he’s trained well, is directing the conversation toward his own goals. He’s harnessing the talker’s energy for his own ends.

When you try to work the skills from this chapter into your daily life, remember that these are listener’s tools. They are not about strong-arming your opponent into submission. Rather, they’re about using the counterpart’s power to get to your objective. They’re listener’s judo.

As you put listener’s judo into practice, remember the following powerful lessons:

■ Don’t try to force your opponent to admit that you are right. Aggressive confrontation is the enemy of constructive negotiation.

■ Avoid questions that can be answered with “Yes” or tiny pieces of information. These require little thought and inspire the human need for reciprocity; you will be expected to give something back.

■ Ask calibrated questions that start with the words “How” or “What.” By implicitly asking the other party for help, these questions will give your counterpart an illusion of control and will inspire them to speak at length, revealing important information.

■ Don’t ask questions that start with “Why” unless you want your counterpart to defend a goal that serves you. “Why” is always an accusation, in any language.

■ Calibrate your questions to point your counterpart toward solving your problem. This will encourage them to expend their energy on devising a solution.

■ Bite your tongue. When you’re attacked in a negotiation, pause and avoid angry emotional reactions. Instead, ask your counterpart a calibrated question.

■ There is always a team on the other side. If you are not influencing those behind the table, you are vulnerable.

CHAPTER 8 | GUARANTEE EXECUTION 
How to Spot the Liars and Ensure Follow-Through from Everyone Else

“YES” IS NOTHING WITHOUT “HOW” 

Calibrated “How” questions are a surefire way to keep negotiations going. They put the pressure on your counterpart to come up with answers, and to contemplate your problems when making their demands.

With enough of the right “How” questions you can read and shape the negotiating environment in such a way that you’ll eventually get to the answer you want to hear. You just have to have an idea of where you want the conversation to go when you’re devising your questions.

The trick to “How” questions is that, correctly used, they are gentle and graceful ways to say “No” and guide your counterpart to develop a better solution—your solution. A gentle How/No invites collaboration and leaves your counterpart with a feeling of having been treated with respect.

Besides saying “No,” the other key benefit of asking “How?” is, quite literally, that it forces your counterpart to consider and explain how a deal will be implemented. A deal is nothing without good implementation. Poor implementation is the cancer that eats your profits.

By making your counterparts articulate implementation in their own words, your carefully calibrated “How” questions will convince them that the final solution is their idea. And that’s crucial. People always make more effort to implement a solution when they think it’s theirs. That issimply human nature. That’s why negotiation is often called “the art of letting someone else have your way.”

There are two key questions you can ask to push your counterparts to think they are defining success their way: “How will we know we’re on track?” and “How will we address things if we find we’re off track?” When they answer, you summarize their answers until you get a “That’s right.” Then you’ll know they’ve bought in.

On the flip side, be wary of two telling signs that your counterpart doesn’t believe the idea is theirs. As I’ve noted, when they say, “You’re right,” it’s often a good indicator they are not vested in what is being discussed. And when you push for implementation and they say, “I’ll try,” you should get a sinking feeling in your stomach. Because this really means, “I plan to fail.”

When you hear either of these, dive back in with calibrated “How” questions until they define the terms of successful implementation in their own voice. Follow up by summarizing what they have said to get a “That’s right.”

Let the other side feel victory. Let them think it was their idea. Subsume your ego. Remember:
“Yes” is nothing without “How.” So keep asking “How?” And succeed.

SPOTTING LIARS, DEALING WITH JERKS, AND CHARMING EVERYONE ELSE 

As a negotiator, you’re going to run into guys who lie to your face and try to scare you into agreement.Aggressive jerks and serial fabricators come with the territory, and dealing with them is something you have to do.

But learning how to handle aggression and identify falsehood is just part of a larger issue: that is, learning how to spot and interpret the subtleties of communication—both verbal and nonverbal—that reveal the mental states of your counterparts.

Truly effective negotiators are conscious of the verbal, paraverbal (how it’s said), and nonverbal communications that pervade negotiations and group dynamics. And they know how to employ those subtleties to their benefit. Even changing a single word when you present options—like using “not lose” instead of “keep”—can unconsciously influence the conscious choices your counterpart makes.

THE 7-38-55 PERCENT RULE 

In two famous studies on what makes us like or dislike somebody, UCLA psychology professor Albert Mehrabian created the 7-38-55 rule. That is, only 7 percent of a message is based on the words while 38 percent comes from the tone of voice and 55 percent from the speaker’s body language and face.

While these figures mainly relate to situations where we are forming an attitude about somebody, the rule nonetheless offers a useful ratio for negotiators. You see, body language and tone of voice— not words—are our most powerful assessment tools. That’s why I’ll often fly great distances to meet someone face-to-face, even when I can say much of what needs to be said over the phone.

So how do you use this rule? First, pay very close attention to tone and body language to make sure they match up with the literal meaning of the words. If they don’t align, it’s quite possible that thespeaker is lying or at least unconvinced.

When someone’s tone of voice or body language does not align with the meaning of the words they say, use labels to discover the source of the incongruence.

Here’s an example:
You: “So we’re agreed?”
Them: “Yes . . .”
You: “I heard you say, ‘Yes,’ but it seemed like there was hesitation in your voice.”
Them: “Oh, it’s nothing really.”
You: “No, this is important, let’s make sure we get this right.”
Them: “Thanks, I appreciate it.”

This is the way to make sure your agreement gets implemented with no surprises. And your counterpart will be grateful. Your act of recognizing the incongruence and gently dealing with it through a label will make them feel respected. Consequently, your relationship of trust will be improved.

THE RULE OF THREE 

I’m positive that sometime in your life you’ve been involved in a negotiation where you got a “Yes” that later turned out to be a “No.” Maybe the other party was lying to you, or maybe they were just engaged in wishful thinking. Either way, this is not an uncommon experience. This happens because there are actually three kinds of “Yes”: Commitment, Confirmation, and Counterfeit.

The Rule of Three is simply getting the other guy to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation. It’s tripling the strength of whatever dynamic you’re trying to drill into at the moment. In doing so, it uncovers problems before they happen. It’s really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction.

When I first learned this skill, my biggest fear was how to avoid sounding like a broken record or coming off as really pushy.

The answer, I learned, is to vary your tactics.

The first time they agree to something or give you a commitment, that’s No. 1. For No. 2 you might label or summarize what they said so they answer, “That’s right.” And No. 3 could be a calibrated “How” or “What” question about implementation that asks them to explain what will constitute success, something like “What do we do if we get off track?”

Or the three times might just be the same calibrated question phrased three different ways, like “What’s the biggest challenge you faced? What are we up against here? What do you see as being the most difficult thing to get around?”

Either way, going at the same issue three times uncovers falsehoods as well as the incongruences between words and body language we mentioned in the last section. So next time you’re not sure your counterpart is truthful and committed, try it.

THE PINOCCHIO EFFECT 

With Carlo Collodi’s famous character Pinocchio, it was easy to tell when he was lying: you just had to watch the nose. It turns out that Collodi wasn’t far off reality. Most people offer obvious telltale signs when they’re lying. Not a growing nose, but close enough. In a study of the components of lying, Harvard Business School professor Deepak Malhotra and his coauthors found that, on average, 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 what W. C. Fields meant when he talked about baffling someone with bullshit. The researchers dubbed this the Pinocchio Effect because, just like Pinocchio’s nose, the number of words grew along with the lie. People who are lying are, understandably, more worried about being believed, so they work harder—too hard, as it were—at being believable.

PAY ATTENTION TO THEIR USAGE OF PRONOUNS 

The use of pronouns by a counterpart can also help give you a feel for their actual importance in the decision and implementation chains on the other side of the table. The more in love they are with “I,” “me,” and “my” the less important they are.

Conversely, the harder it is to get a first person pronoun out of a negotiator’s mouth, the more important they are. Just like in the Malhotra study where the liar is distancing himself from the lie, in a negotiation, smart decision makers don’t want to be cornered at the table into making a decision. They will defer to the people away from the table to keep from getting pinned down.

Our cabdriver kidnapper in the Philippines of Alastair Onglingswan used “we,” “they,” and “them” so rigorously early on in the kidnapping I was convinced we were engaged with their leader. I just never knew how literally true it was until the rescue. In the Chase Manhattan Bank robbery from Chapter 2, the bank robber Chris Watts consistently talked out how dangerous the “others” were and how little influence he had on them, all a lie.

THE CHRIS DISCOUNT 

People always talk about remembering and using (but not overusing) your counterpart’s name in a negotiation. And that’s important. The reality though is people are often tired of being hammered with their own name. The slick salesman trying to drive them to “Yes” will hit them with it over and over. 

Instead, take a different tack and use your own name. That’s how I get the Chris discount.

Just as using Alastair’s name with the kidnapper and getting him to use it back humanized the hostage and made it less likely he would be harmed, using your own name creates the dynamic of “forced empathy.” It makes the other side see you as a person.

Humanize yourself. Use your name to introduce yourself. Say it in a fun, friendly way. Let them enjoy the interaction, too. And get your own special price.

HOW TO GET YOUR COUNTERPARTS TO BID AGAINST THEMSELVES 

...Look at this closely: see how the mixture of mirroring and open-ended questions dragged out the information about Bruno’s financial problems, and then the “No” method exploited his desperation? It might not have been a great idea to use this method if there’d been another buyer, but with no one else it was a brilliant way to get Bruno to bid against himself.

KEY LESSONS 
Superstar negotiators—real rainmakers—know that a negotiation is a playing field beneath the words, where really getting to a good deal involves detecting and manipulating subtle, nonobvious signals beneath the surface. It is only by visualizing and modifying these subsurface issues that you can craft a great deal and make sure that it is implemented.

As you put the following tools to use, remember this chapter’s most important concept. That is, “Yes” is nothing without “How.” Asking “How,” knowing “How,” and defining “How” are all part of the effective negotiator’s arsenal. He would be unarmed without them.

■ Ask calibrated “How” questions, and ask them again and again. Asking “How” keeps your counterparts engaged but off balance. Answering the questions will give them the illusion of control. It will also lead them to contemplate your problems when making their demands.

■ Use “How” questions to shape the negotiating environment. You do this by using “How can I do that?” as a gentle version of “No.” This will subtly push your counterpart to search for other solutions—your solutions. And very often it will get them to bid against themselves.

■ Don’t just pay attention to the people you’re negotiating with directly; always identify the motivations of the players “behind the table.” You can do so by asking how a deal will affect everybody else and how on board they are.

■ Follow the 7-38-55 Percent Rule by paying close attention to tone of voice and body language. Incongruence between the words and nonverbal signs will show when your counterpart is lying or uncomfortable with a deal.

■ Is the “Yes” real or counterfeit? Test it with the Rule of Three: use calibrated questions, summaries, and labels to get your counterpart to reaffirm their agreement at least three times. It’s really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction.

■ A person’s use of pronouns offers deep insights into his or her relative authority. If you’re hearing a lot of “I,” “me,” and “my,” the real power to decide probably lies elsewhere. Picking up a lot of “we,” “they,” and “them,” it’s more likely you’re dealing directly with a savvy decision maker keeping his options open.

■ Use your own name to make yourself a real person to the other side and even get your own personal discount. Humor and humanity are the best ways to break the ice and remove roadblocks.

CHAPTER 9 | BARGAIN HARD 
How to Get Your Price 

WHAT TYPE ARE YOU? 

Your personal negotiation style—and that of your counterpart—is formed through childhood, schooling, family, culture, and a million other factors; by recognizing it you can identify your negotiating strengths and weaknesses (and those of your counterpart) and adjust your mindset and strategies accordingly.

Negotiation style is a crucial variable in bargaining. If you don’t know what instinct will tell you or the other side to do in various circumstances, you’ll have massive trouble gaming out effective strategies and tactics. You and your counterpart have habits of mind and behavior, and once you identify them you can leverage them in a strategic manner.

There’s an entire library unto itself of research into the archetypes and behavioral profiles of all the possible people you’re bound to meet at the negotiating table. It’s flat-out overwhelming, so much so that it loses its utility. Over the last few years, in an effort primarily led by my son Brandon, we’ve consolidated and simplified all that research, cross-referencing it with our experiences in the field and the case studies of our business school students, and found that people fall into three broad categories. Some people are Accommodators; others—like me—are basically Assertive; and the rest are data-loving Analysts.

Hollywood negotiation scenes suggest that an Assertive style is required for effective bargaining, but each of the styles can be effective. And to truly be effective you need elements from all three.

A study of American lawyer-negotiators1 found that 65 percent of attorneys from two major U.S. cities used a cooperative style while only 24 percent were truly assertive. And when these lawyers were graded for effectiveness, more than 75 percent of the effective group came from the cooperative type; only 12 percent were Assertive. So if you’re not Assertive, don’t despair. Blunt assertion is actually counterproductive most of the time.

And remember, your personal negotiating style is not a straitjacket. No one is exclusively one style. Most of us have the capacity to throttle up our nondominant styles should the situation call for it.But there is one basic truth about a successful bargaining style: To be good, you have to learn to beyourself at the bargaining table. To be great you have to add to your strengths, not replace them.

Here’s a quick guide to classifying the type of negotiator you’re facing and the tactics that will be most fitting for you.

1. ANALYST 

Analysts are methodical and diligent. They are not in a big rush. Instead, they believe that as long as they are working toward the best result in a thorough and systematic way, time is of little consequence. Their self-image is linked to minimizing mistakes. Their motto: As much time as it takes to get it right.

Classic analysts prefer to work on their own and rarely deviate from their goals. They rarely show emotion, and they often use what is very close to the FM DJ Voice I talked about in Chapter 3, slow and measured with a downward inflection. However, Analysts often speak in a way that is distant and cold instead of soothing. This puts people off without them knowing it and actually limits them from putting their counterpart at ease and opening them up.

Analysts pride themselves on not missing any details in their extensive preparation. They will research for two weeks to get data they might have gotten in fifteen minutes at the negotiating table, just to keep from being surprised. Analysts hate surprises.

They are reserved problem solvers, and information aggregators, and are hypersensitive to reciprocity. They will give you a piece, but if they don’t get a piece in return within a certain period of time, they lose trust and will disengage. This can often seem to come out of nowhere, but remember, since they like working on things alone the fact that they are talking to you at all is, from their perspective, a concession. They will often view concessions by their counterpart as a new piece of information to be taken back and evaluated. Don’t expect immediate counterproposals from them. People like this are skeptical by nature. So asking too many questions to start is a bad idea, because they’re not going to want to answer until they understand all the implications. With them, it’s vital to be prepared. Use clear data to drive your reason; don’t ad-lib; use data comparisons to disagree and focus on the facts; warn them of issues early; and avoid surprises. Silence to them is an opportunity to think. They’re not mad at you and they’re not trying to give you a chance to talk more. If you feel they don’t see things the way you do, give them a chance to think first.

Apologies have little value to them since they see the negotiation and their relationship with you as a person largely as separate things. They respond fairly well in the moment to labels. They are not quick to answer calibrated questions, or closed-ended questions when the answer is “Yes.” They may need a few days to respond.

If you’re an analyst you should be worried about cutting yourself off from an essential source of data, your counterpart. The single biggest thing you can do is to smile when you speak. People will be more forthcoming with information to you as a result. Smiling can also become a habit that makes it easy for you to mask any moments you’ve been caught off guard.

2. ACCOMMODATOR 

The most important thing to this type of negotiator is the time spent building the relationship. Accommodators think as long as there is a free-flowing continuous exchange of information time is being well spent. As long as they’re communicating, they’re happy. Their goal is to be on great termswith their counterpart. They love the win-win.

Of the three types, they are most likely to build great rapport without actually accomplishing anything.

Accommodators want to remain friends with their counterpart even if they can’t reach an agreement. They are very easy to talk to, extremely friendly, and have pleasant voices. They will yield a concession to appease or acquiesce and hope the other side reciprocates.

If your counterparts are sociable, peace-seeking, optimistic, distractible, and poor time managers, they’re probably Accommodators.

If they’re your counterpart, be sociable and friendly. Listen to them talk about their ideas and use calibrated questions focused specifically on implementation to nudge them along and find ways to translate their talk into action. Due to their tendency to be the first to activate the reciprocity cycle, they may have agreed to give you something they can’t actually deliver.

Their approach to preparation can be lacking as they are much more focused on the person behind the table. They want to get to know you. They have a tremendous passion for the spirit of negotiation and what it takes not only to manage emotions but also to satisfy them.

While it is very easy to disagree with an Accommodator, because they want nothing more that to hear what you have to say, uncovering their objections can be difficult. They will have identified potential problem areas beforehand and will leave those areas unaddressed out of fear of the conflict they may cause.

If you have identified yourself as an Accommodator, stick to your ability to be very likable, but do not sacrifice your objections. Not only do the other two types need to hear your point of view; if you are dealing with another Accommodator they will welcome it. Also be conscious of excess chitchat: the other two types have no use for it, and if you’re sitting across the table from someone like yourself you will be prone to interactions where nothing gets done.

3. ASSERTIVE 

The Assertive type believes time is money; every wasted minute is a wasted dollar. Their self-image is linked to how many things they can get accomplished in a period of time. For them, getting the solution perfect isn’t as important as getting it done.

Assertives are fiery people who love winning above all else, often at the expense of others. Their colleagues and counterparts never question where they stand because they are always direct and candid. They have an aggressive communication style and they don’t worry about future interactions. Their view of business relationships is based on respect, nothing more and nothing less.

Most of all, the Assertive wants to be heard. And not only do they want to be heard, but they don’t actually have the ability to listen to you until they know that you’ve heard them. They focus on their own goals rather than people. And they tell rather than ask. When you’re dealing with Assertive types, it’s best to focus on what they have to say, because once they are convinced you understand them, then and only then will they listen for your point of view.

To an Assertive, every silence is an opportunity to speak more. Mirrors are a wonderful tool with this type. So are calibrated questions, labels, and summaries. The most important thing to get from an Assertive will be a “that’s right” that may come in the form of a “that’s it exactly” or “you hit it on the head.”When it comes to reciprocity, this type is of the “give an inch/take a mile” mentality. They will have figured they deserve whatever you have given them so they will be oblivious to expectations of owing something in return. They will actually simply be looking for the opportunity to receive more. If they have given some kind of concession, they are surely counting the seconds until they get something in return.

If you are an Assertive, be particularly conscious of your tone. You will not intend to be overly harsh but you will often come off that way. Intentionally soften your tone and work to make it more pleasant. Use calibrated questions and labels with your counterpart since that will also make you more approachable and increase the chances for collaboration.

We’ve seen how each of these groups views the importance of time differently (time = preparation; time = relationship; time = money). They also have completely different interpretations of silence. I’m definitely an Assertive, and at a conference this Accommodator type told me that he blew up a deal. I thought, What did you do, scream at the other guy and leave? Because that’s me blowing up a deal.

But it turned out that he went silent; for an Accommodator type, silence is anger. For Analysts, though, silence means they want to think. And Assertive types interpret your silence as either you don’t have anything to say or you want them to talk. I’m one, so I know: the only time I’m silent is when I’ve run out of things to say.

The funny thing is when these cross over. When an Analyst pauses to think, their Accommodator counterpart gets nervous and an Assertive one starts talking, thereby annoying the Analyst, who thinks to herself, Every time I try to think you take that as an opportunity to talk some more. Won’t you ever shut up?

Before we move on I want to talk about why people often fail to identify their counterpart’s style. The greatest obstacle to accurately identifying someone else’s style is what I call the “I am normal” paradox. That is, our hypothesis that the world should look to others as it looks to us. After all, who wouldn’t make that assumption?

But while innocent and understandable, thinking you’re normal is one of the most damaging assumptions in negotiations. With it, we unconsciously project our own style on the other side. But with three types of negotiators in the world, there’s a 66 percent chance your counterpart has a different style than yours. A different “normal.”

TAKING A PUNCH 

PUNCHING BACK: USING ASSERTION WITHOUT GETTING USED BY IT 
When a negotiation is far from resolution and going nowhere fast, you need to shake things up and get your counterpart out of their rigid mindset. In times like this, strong moves can be enormously effective tools. Sometimes a situation simply calls for you to be the aggressor and punch the other side in the face.

That said, if you are basically a nice person, it will be a real stretch to hit the other guy like Mike Tyson. You can’t be what you’re not. As the Danish folk saying goes, “You bake with the flour you have.” But anyone can learn a few tools.
Here are effective ways to assert smartly:

1. REAL ANGER, THREATS WITHOUT ANGER, AND STRATEGIC UMBRAGE 

Marwan Sinaceur of INSEAD and Stanford University’s Larissa Tiedens found that expressions of anger increase a negotiator’s advantage and final take. Anger shows passion and conviction that can help sway the other side to accept less. However, by heightening your counterpart’s sensitivity to danger and fear, your anger reduces the resources they have for other cognitive activity, setting them up to make bad concessions that will likely lead to implementation problems, thus reducing your gains.

Also beware: researchers have also found that disingenuous expressions of unfelt anger—you know, faking it—backfire, leading to intractable demands and destroying trust. For anger to be effective, it has to be real, the key for it is to be under control because anger also reduces our cognitive ability.

And so when someone puts out a ridiculous offer, one that really pisses you off, take a deep breath, allow little anger, and channel it—at the proposal, not the person—and say, “I don’t see how that would ever work.”

Such well-timed offense-taking—known as “strategic umbrage”—can wake your counterpart to the problem. In studies by Columbia University academics Daniel Ames and Abbie Wazlawek, people on the receiving end of strategic umbrage were more likely to rate themselves as overassertive, even when the counterpart didn’t think so. The real lesson here is being aware of how this might be used on you. Please don’t allow yourself to fall victim to “strategic umbrage.”

Threats delivered without anger but with “poise”—that is, confidence and self-control—are great tools. Saying, “I’m sorry that just doesn’t work for me,” with poise, works.

2. “WHY” QUESTIONS 
Back in Chapter 7, I talked about the problems with “Why?” Across our planet and around the universe, “Why?” makes people defensive.

As an experiment, the next time your boss wants something done ask him or her “Why?” and watch what happens. Then try it with a peer, a subordinate, and a friend. Observe their reactions and tell me if you don’t find some level of defensiveness across the spectrum. Don’t do this too much, though, or you’ll lose your job and all your friends.

The only time I say, “Why did you do that?” in a negotiation is when I want to knock someone back. It’s an iffy technique, though, and I wouldn’t advocate it.
There is, however, another way to use “Why?” effectively. The idea is to employ the defensiveness the question triggers to get your counterpart to defend your position. I know it sounds weird, but it works. The basic format goes like this: When you want to flip a dubious counterpart to your side, ask them, “Why would you do that?” but in a way that the “that” favors you. Let me explain. If you are working to lure a client away from a competitor, you might say, “Why would you ever do business with me? Why would you ever change from your existing supplier? They’re great!”
In these questions, the “Why?” coaxes your counterpart into working for you.

3. “I” MESSAGES 
Using the first-person singular pronoun is another great way to set a boundary without escalating into confrontation.

When you say, “I’m sorry, that doesn’t work for me,” the word “I” strategically focuses your counterpart’s attention onto you long enough for you to make a point.

The traditional “I” message is to use “I” to hit the pause button and step out of a bad dynamic.When you want to counteract unproductive statements from your counterpart, you can say, “I feel ___ when you ___ because ___,” and that demands a time-out from the other person.
But be careful with the big “I”: You have to be mindful not to use a tone that is aggressive or creates an argument. It’s got to be cool and level.

NO NEEDINESS: HAVING THE READY-TO-WALK MINDSET 
We’ve said previously that no deal is better than a bad deal. If you feel you can’t say “No” then you’ve taken yourself hostage.
Once you’re clear on what your bottom line is, you have to be willing to walk away. Never be needy for a deal.

ACKERMAN BARGAINING 

The Ackerman model is an offer-counteroffer method, at least on the surface. But it is a very effective system for beating the usual lackluster bargaining dynamic, which has the predictable result of meeting in the middle.
The systematized and easy-to-remember process has only four steps:
1. Set your target price (your goal).
2. Set your first offer at 65 percent of your target price.
3. Calculate three raises of decreasing increments (to 85, 95, and 100 percent).
4. Use lots of empathy and different ways of saying “No” to get the other side to counter before you increase your offer.
5. When calculating the final amount, use precise, nonround numbers like, say, $37,893 rather than $38,000. It gives the number credibility and weight.
6. On your final number, throw in a nonmonetary item (that they probably don’t want) to show you’re at your limit.

KEY LESSONS 
When push comes to shove—and it will—you’re going to find yourself sitting across the table from a bare-knuckle negotiator. After you’ve finished all the psychologically nuanced stuff—the labeling and mirroring and calibrating—you are going to have to hash out the “brass tacks.” For most of us, that ain’t fun.

Top negotiators know, however, that conflict is often the path to great deals. And the best find ways to actually have fun engaging in it. Conflict brings out truth, creativity, and resolution. So the next time you find yourself face-to-face with a bare-knuckle bargainer, remember the lessons in this chapter.

■ 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 out the labels, calibrated questions, and responses you’ll use to get there. That way, once you’re at the bargaining table, you won’t have to wing it.

■ Get ready to take a punch. Kick-ass negotiators usually lead with an extreme anchor to knock you off your game. If you’re not ready, you’ll flee to your maximum without a fight. So prepare your dodging tactics to avoid getting sucked into the compromise trap.

■ Set boundaries, and learn to take a punch or punch back, without anger. The guy across the table is not the problem; the situation is.

■ Prepare an Ackerman plan. Before you head into the weeds of bargaining, you’ll need a plan of extreme anchor, calibrated questions, and well-defined offers. Remember: 65, 85, 95, 100 percent. Decreasing raises and ending on nonround numbers will get your counterpart to believe that he’s squeezing you for all you’re worth when you’re really getting to the number you want.

CHAPTER 10 | FIND THE BLACK SWAN 
How to Create Breakthroughs by Revealing the Unknown Unknowns 

Black Swan theory tells us that things happen that were previously thought to be impossible—or never thought of at all. This is not the same as saying that sometimes things happen against one-in-amillion odds, but rather that things never imagined do come to pass.

Black Swans are events or pieces of knowledge that sit outside our regular expectations and therefore cannot be predicted.

This is a crucial concept in negotiation. In every negotiating session, there are different kinds of information. There are those things we know, like our counterpart’s name and their offer and our experiences from other negotiations. Those are known knowns. There are those things we are certain that exist but we don’t know, like the possibility that the other side might get sick and leave us with another counterpart. Those are known unknowns and they are like poker wild cards; you know they’re out there but you don’t know who has them. But most important are those things we don’t know that we don’t know, pieces of information we’ve never imagined but that would be game changing if uncovered. Maybe our counterpart wants the deal to fail because he’s leaving for a competitor. These unknown unknowns are Black Swans.

UNCOVERING UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS 

Every case is new. We must let what we know—our known knowns—guide us but not blind us to what we do not know; we must remain flexible and adaptable to any situation; we must always retain a beginner’s mind; and we must never overvalue our experience or undervalue the informational and emotional realities served up moment by moment in whatever situation we face.

But those were not the only important lessons of that tragic event. If an overreliance on known knowns can shackle a negotiator to assumptions that prevent him from seeing and hearing all that a situation presents, then perhaps an enhanced receptivity to the unknown unknowns can free that same negotiator to see and hear the things that can produce dramatic breakthroughs.

Finding Blacks Swans is no easy task, of course. We are all to some degree blind. We do not know what is around the corner until we turn it. By definition we do not know what we don’t know.

That’s why I say that finding and understanding Black Swans requires a change of mindset. You have to open up your established pathways and embrace more intuitive and nuanced ways of listening.

This is vital to people of all walks of life, from negotiators to inventors and marketers. What you don’t know can kill you, or your deal. But to find it out is incredibly difficult. The most basic challenge is that people don’t know the questions to ask the customer, the user . . . the counterpart. Unless correctly interrogated, most people aren’t able to articulate the information you want. The world didn’t tell Steve Jobs that it wanted an iPad: he uncovered our need, that Black Swan, without us knowing the information was there.

The problem is that conventional questioning and research techniques are designed to confirm known knowns and reduce uncertainty. They don’t dig into the unknown.

THE THREE TYPES OF LEVERAGE 
At a taxonomic level, there are three kinds: Positive, Negative, and Normative.

POSITIVE LEVERAGE 

Positive leverage is quite simply your ability as a negotiator to provide—or withhold—things that your counterpart wants. Whenever the other side says, “I want . . .” as in, “I want to buy your car,” you have positive leverage.
When they say that, you have power: you can make their desire come true; you can withhold it and thereby inflict pain; or you can use their desire to get a better deal with another party.

NEGATIVE LEVERAGE 

Negative leverage is what most civilians picture when they hear the word “leverage.” It’s a negotiator’s ability to make his counterpart suffer. And it is based on threats: you have negative leverage if you can tell your counterpart, “If you don’t fulfill your commitment/pay your bill/etc., I will destroy your reputation.”

This sort of leverage gets people’s attention because of a concept we’ve discussed: loss aversion. As effective negotiators have long known and psychologists have repeatedly proved, potential losses loom larger in the human mind than do similar gains. Getting a good deal may push us toward making a risky bet, but saving our reputation from destruction is a much stronger motivation.

So what kind of Black Swans do you look to be aware of as negative leverage? Effective negotiators look for pieces of information, often obliquely revealed, that show what is important to their counterpart: Who is their audience? What signifies status and reputation to them? What most worries them? To find this information, one method is to go outside the negotiating table and speak to a third party that knows your counterpart. The most effective method is to gather it from interactions with your counterpart.

NORMATIVE LEVERAGE 

Every person has a set of rules and a moral framework.

Normative leverage is using the other party’s norms and standards to advance your position. If you can show inconsistencies between their beliefs and their actions, you have normative leverage. No one likes to look like a hypocrite.

For example, if your counterpart lets slip that they generally pay a certain multiple of cash flow when they buy a company, you can frame your desired price in a way that reflects that valuation.

Discovering the Black Swans that give you normative valuation can be as easy as asking what your counterpart believes and listening openly. You want to see what language they speak, and speak it back to them.

KNOW THEIR RELIGION 

Access to this hidden space very often comes through understanding the other side’s worldview,their reason for being, their religion. Indeed, digging into your counterpart’s “religion” (sometimes involving God but not always) inherently implies moving beyond the negotiating table and into the life, emotional and otherwise, of your counterpart.

Once you’ve understood your counterpart’s worldview, you can build influence.

While the importance of “knowing their religion” should be clear from Watson’s story, here are two tips for reading religion correctly:

■ Review everything you hear. You will not hear everything the first time, so double-check. Compare notes with your team members. You will often discover new information that will help you advance the negotiation.

■ Use backup listeners whose only job is to listen between the lines. They will hear things you miss.

In other words: listen, listen again, and listen some more.

We’ve seen how a holistic understanding of your counterpart’s “religion” — a huge Black Swan — can provide normative leverage that leads to negotiating results. But there are other ways in which learning your counterpart’s “religion” enables you to achieve better outcomes.

RELIGION AS A REASON 

Research studies have shown that people respond favorably to requests made in a reasonable tone of voice and followed with a “because” reason.

In a famous study from the late 1970s, Harvard psychology professor Ellen Langer and her colleagues approached people waiting for copy machines and asked if they could cut the line. Sometimes they gave a reason; sometimes they didn’t. What she found was crazy: without her giving a reason, 60 percent let her through, but when she did give one, more than 90 percent did. And it didn’t matter if the reason made sense. (“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I cut in line because I have to make copies?” worked great.) People just responded positively to the framework.

While idiotic reasons worked with something simple like photocopying, on more complicated issues you can increase your effectiveness by offering reasons that reference your counterpart’s religion. Had that Christian CEO offered me a lowball offer when he agreed to hire my firm, I might have answered, “I’d love to but I too have a duty to be a responsible steward of my resources.”

IT’S NOT CRAZY, IT’S A CLUE 
In their great book Negotiation Genius, Harvard Business School professors Deepak Malhotra and Max H. Bazerman provide a look at the common reasons negotiators mistakenly call their counterparts crazy. I’d like to talk through them here.

MISTAKE #1: THEY ARE ILL-INFORMED

Often the other side is acting on bad information, and when people have bad information they make bad choices. There’s a great computer industry term for this: GIGO—Garbage In, Garbage Out.

MISTAKE #2: THEY ARE CONSTRAINED

In any negotiation where your counterpart is acting wobbly, there exists a distinct possibility that they have things they can’t do but aren’t eager to reveal. Such constraints can make the sanest counterpart seem irrational. The other side might not be able to do something because of legal advice, or because of promises already made, or even to avoid setting a precedent. Or they may just not have the power to close the deal.

MISTAKE #3: THEY HAVE OTHER INTERESTS

Think back to William Griffin, the first man ever to kill a hostage on deadline. What the FBI and police negotiators on the scene simply did not know was that his main interest was not negotiating a deal to release the hostages for money. He wanted to be killed by a cop. Had they been able to dig up that hidden interest, they might have been able to avoid some of that day’s tragedy.
The presence of hidden interests isn’t as rare as you might think. Your counterpart will often reject offers for reasons that have nothing to do with their merits.

GET FACE TIME 

Black Swans are incredibly hard to uncover if you’re not literally at the table.

OBSERVE UNGUARDED MOMENTS 
While you have to get face time, formal business meetings, structured encounters, and planned negotiating sessions are often the least revealing kinds of face time because these are the moments when people are at their most guarded.

Hunting for Black Swans is also effective during unguarded moments at the fringes, whether at meals like my client had with his Coca-Cola contact, or the brief moments of relaxation before or after formal interactions.

During a typical business meeting, the first few minutes, before you actually get down to business, and the last few moments, as everyone is leaving, often tell you more about the other side than anything in between. That’s why reporters have a credo to never turn off their recorders: you always get the best stuff at the beginning and the end of an interview.

Also pay close attention to your counterpart during interruptions, odd exchanges, or anything that interrupts the flow. When someone breaks ranks, people’s façades crack just a little. Simply noticing whose cracks and how others respond verbally and nonverbally can reveal a gold mine.

KEY LESSONS 
What we don’t know can kill us or our deals. But uncovering it can totally change the course of a negotiation and bring us unexpected success.
Finding the Black Swans—those powerful unknown unknowns—is intrinsically difficult, however, for the simple reason that we don’t know the questions to ask. Because we don’t know what the treasure is, we don’t know where to dig.
Here are some of the best techniques for flushing out the Black Swans—and exploiting them.
Remember, your counterpart might not even know how important the information is, or even that they shouldn’t reveal it. So keep pushing, probing, and gathering information.

■ Let what you know—your known knowns—guide you but not blind you. Every case is new, so remain flexible and adaptable. Remember the Griffin bank crisis: no hostagetaker had killed a hostage on deadline, until he did.

■ Black Swans are leverage multipliers. Remember the three types of leverage: positive (the ability to give someone what they want); negative (the ability to hurt someone); and normative (using your counterpart’s norms to bring them around).

■ Work to understand the other side’s “religion.” Digging into worldviews inherently implies moving beyond the negotiating table and into the life, emotional and otherwise, of your counterpart. That’s where Black Swans live.

■ Review everything you hear from your counterpart. You will not hear everything the first time, so double-check. Compare notes with team members. Use backup listeners whose job is to listen between the lines. They will hear things you miss.

■ Exploit the similarity principle. People are more apt to concede to someone they share a cultural similarity with, so dig for what makes them tick and show that you share common ground.

■ When someone seems irrational or crazy, they most likely aren’t. Faced with this situation, search for constraints, hidden desires, and bad information.

■ Get face time with your counterpart. Ten minutes of face time often reveals more than days of research. Pay special attention to your counterpart’s verbal and nonverbal communication at unguarded moments—at the beginning and the end of the session or when someone says something out of line.

33 Body Language Clues You Should Look For On Your Next Date

They say a man’s body language tells you literally everything you need to know about him-even if he never explicitly says anything. And luckily for you, if your boo struggles expressing his ~emotions~ for things other than sports, his mannerisms and what he does with his hands, legs, feet, eyes, and every other part of his body while talking with you, can reveal if he’s actually got the hots for someone other than Tom Brady. 

“Unconscious body language signals can be extremely telling,” says body language expert, Patti Wood, author of Success Signals, A Guide to Reading Body Language. You can figure out what a guy is thinking-or how much he's into you, by the way he moves when he's around you.
So in the early stages of a new relationship when you’re too scared to initiate the DTR convo, pay attention to these body language cues to reaffirm that your guy is totally into you. 

1. His breathing is relaxed. When his breathing is at a slow pace, this indicates that he is relaxed and can fully be himself around you. “This is a good sign, as men like to feel comfortable around their partners,” says relationship expert and psychotherapist, Melissa Divaris Thompson, LMFT. 

2. He has clammy hands. If his palms feel a bit sweaty when you’re strolling down the street, this could mean that he’s hot, yes-but it could also indicate that he’s nervous. “Being nervous is a sign that they could potentially have interest and not want to mess anything up,” says Thompson. 

3. He inadvertently grazes or touches you. Whether he accidentally touches your hand, or can’t stop hitting your foot underneath the table, it’s a great sign of contact because it shows he wants to be close to you physically, says Thompson. 

4. He plays with his necktie. “When people get nervous, they often touch the visible dip area where the neck meets the collarbones as a form of self-soothing,” says David Bennett, counselor and relationship expert. “Since the knot of the necktie is in this area, guys will often play with their neckties when really into a woman and bothered by it.” 

5. He stumbles over his words. If he stumbles over his words a lot when he’s most often the life of the party, he’s nervous around you. “When you know he’s not normally awkward, but he’s being awkward, and can’t seem to formulate sentences around you, this could be a sign of interest says Bennett. 

6. His face gets flushed… and not because it’s warm. “When someone is really into someone, it can cause a stress reaction and the adrenaline that gets released can lead to facial flushing,” says Bennett. Before you read too far into this though, make sure it’s not 90 degrees out and he’s not on his third tequila drink. 

7. He stands inches from you when you’re face-to-face. In line at a restaurant, on a subway car, saying goodbye, whatever the situation may be, he just can’t resist the urge to be as close to your face as possible. “If he’s not afraid of body closeness and makes his desires clear but not creepy, it’s likely he wants to take advantage of being as close to you as possible” says online dating coach, Andi Forness. 

8. His pupils are huge. Either you're in a super-dark place, or this subtle signal means he's into you. "Dilation is a brain response that occurs when you like and are attracted to something," Wood says.

9. His eyebrows raise up when he sees you. "If you likes you and he likes what he sees as soon as he sees you, he wants more of you and soon the aperture of his eyes increases, making his eyebrows raise," Wood says. This also means that he's interested in whatever you're saying.

10. He shows you his front teeth when he smiles. "Guys stop smiling like this around the age of 5 - unless they're really happy," Wood says. He might not show off a toothy grin while casually flirting, but on a really awesome date when he's having loads of fun? Look for teeth: "When he feels really happy, he's not covering that up," Wood says. 

11. He smiles above the mouth. Real smiles extend well beyond the mouth: They lift the forehead and give you slightly squinty eyes. If his smile involves his whole face, it means you're genuinely affecting him in a good way.

12. He licks his lips in a cute (not creepy) way. When you're attracted to someone, your mouth produces extra saliva, Wood says. In response, he might quickly lick his lips or press them together. 

13. He locks eyes with your face - not your eyes. You might think that a guy who is totally enamored by you will find it hard to peel his eyes away. But now that everyone is used to being glued to their phones, nonstop eye contact can make people feel uncomfortable. So, new rule: If he spends about 80 percent of your interaction looking from your eyes to your nose and lips, he's into you, Wood says. 

14. He takes a deep breath when he sees you. Yes, men do require oxygen. But when he subconsciously takes a deep breath - he'll pull in his stomach and puff out his chest - it's a subconscious way to make his upper body look broader and his waist look smaller, two qualities that make him look more fit and (from an evolutionary perspective) more desirable, Wood says. In other words, he's into you and he's trying to attract you.

15. The moment he sees you, he wants to touch you or really look at you. "What someone does as soon as they come through the door says a lot about what’s important to them," Wood says. He won't just walk in to your place and settle down without a hug, kiss, or long glance first.

16. He leans toward you when you talk. In a noisy bar, this sign might not hold much weight, but when he can physically hear you perfectly well and leans in anyway, it means he's interested in what you have to say - and you, in general.

17. He puts his hands on his hips with his elbows out to the sides. This stance takes up more space than standing with his arms against your sides, so this is a male power signal, Wood says. They use it to show physical superiority over other men. In this situation, and if he's angled toward you, it means he's seeking attention from you.

18. He touches your knee or tucks your hair behind your ear. When he initiates physical contact under the guise of another reason (like say, to compliment how soft your pants are), it's a test to see how you respond to his touch, Wood says. Touch is a tool he can use to test your limits, so this could mean he's only interested in sex, Wood says. If he really likes you, though, he might pull back extra slowly and smile sweetly as he does it, which means he wants to take the time to get closer to you. 

19. He sits with his legs spread. This exposes his man parts, which are full of sensitive nerve endings. It's a vulnerable position that could mean he's willing to put himself out there (literally and emotionally) to get to know you. (Or, he could just be manspreading, tbh.)

20. He angles his pelvis toward you. Because it's an overtly sexual body part, it often signals sexual interest-or lack thereof, Wood says. If he moves his hips away from you, it's probably the latter. 

21. He points his toes toward you. Feet are involved in the fight-or-flight response that kicks in when you're in danger, so they're largely controlled by the unconscious mind-and can be very telling in social interactions. "The feet tend to point where the heart wants to go," Wood says. Of course, timing is super important here: If you're talking to a guy who seems interested, you touch his arm, and then see his feet angle away from you, the context says he's no longer interested.

22. He crosses his legs. If he crosses them in a way that turns his torso and upper body away from you, he might be disinterested. But if he crosses his legs away and turns the rest of his body toward you, it could just mean that he's shy. But this depends on the guy. 

23. He shuffles toward you while you're talking. Duh, he obviously wants to get closer to you.

24. He talks to you without facing you. While this might be a sign he's keeping his options open, Wood says, don't rush to judge a great conversationalist just because he chats you up while he's looking elsewhere. If he makes an effort to find a common thread or asks you lots of questions, his body language may reflect his personality (shy), and he could actually be totally enthralled by you. 

25. He touches his throat. The throat represents communication and vulnerability, says Wood says. If he reaches up to touch it during your interaction, he's interested in you and worried about coming across well. But again, context can play a key role: If you're talking to a player, a throat touch could signal dishonesty. So feel him out, and look for other signs on this list before you go reassure him.

26. When he holds your hand, he presses his palm against yours. This kind of full-on hand-holding signifies a desire to connect. The same goes for interlocking fingers. On the other hand, an arched palm means he's scared or may be holding something back.

27. He grazes your forearm while he's talking. The message is loud and clear: He wants your attention, be it to impress you or to make sure you're listening - because he wants to be heard. 

28. He walks beside you. If he's constantly two steps ahead of you, it means he's more concerned about himself than you, Wood says. If he's not leading you through a scary or crowded space, he should be adjusting his pace to match yours. 

29. He sits side-by-side with you as often as he can. Even if you have a comfy armchair next to your tiny couch, he's opting to squeeze next to you instead. If you're at a restaurant that has booths, he won't shy away from sitting on the same side instead of across from you. This is symbolic of him being on the same "team" as you, says Wood. 

30. He plays with his glass. Wood says this can be a sign of nervousness - or attraction. A caress could suggest he wants to touch you. 

31. His voice changes into a slower, sweeter tone. According to Wood, by doing this, he's showing you he can let down his guard and be vulnerable with you. 

32. He minimizes interruptions and distractions. Beyond just putting his phone away when he's with you (the absolute lowest bar of courtesy on a date), he resists interjecting your story to comment on the football game playing behind you or the Cajun fries being too spicy. However, even if he does interrupt you (we're all human!), an interested guy will quickly apologize and touch you to make the effort to reconnect with you, Wood says.

33. He treats your possessions with respect. Even if does everything to make you feel like a queen on a first date, pay attention to how he handles your stuff. Does he throw you your jacket instead of hand it to you? Does he grab gum from your purse and then drop it on the floor? Wood says that reckless treatment of your things reveals the amount of respect he has for you (it also gives you a clear picture of what it'd be like if you lived together). 

Courtesy: Elizabeth Narins, Julia Pugachevsky, Taylor Andrews 

How To Talk TO Anyone (92 Little Tricks For Big Success In Relationships, by Leil Lowndes) - Book Summary

There are two kinds of people in this life:
Those who walk into a room and say, “Well, here I am!”
And those who walk in and say, “Ahh, there you are.”

Dale Carnegie Was GREAT for the Twentieth Century, but This Is the Twenty-First 

Reason One: Suppose a sage told you, “When in China, speak Chinese,” but gave you no language lessons? Dale Carnegie and many communications experts are like that sage. They tell us what to do but not how to do it. In today’s sophisticated world, it’s not enough to say “smile” or “give sincere compliments.” Cynical businesspeople today see more subtleties in your smile, more complexities in your compliment.

Reason Two: The world is a very different place than it was in 1936, and we need a new formula for success. To find it, I observed the superstars of today. I explored techniques used by top salespeople to close the sale, speakers to convince, clergy to convert, performers to engross, sex symbols to seduce, and athletes to win. I found concrete building blocks to the elusive qualities that lead to their success. Then I broke them down into easily digestible, news-you-can-use techniques. I gave each a name that will quickly come to mind when you find yourself in a communications conundrum.

Part One: How to Intrigue Everyone Without Saying a Word: You Only Have Ten Seconds to Show You’re a Somebody 

CH 1. How to Make Your Smile Magically Different 

In 1936, one of Dale Carnegie’s six musts in How to Win Friends and Influence People was SMILE! 

How to Fine-Tune Your Smile 

Technique #1
The Flooding Smile

Don’t flash an immediate smile when you greet someone, as though anyone who walked into your line of sight would be the beneficiary. Instead, look at the other person’s face for a second. Pause. Soak in their persona. Then let a big, warm, responsive smile flood over your face and overflow into your eyes. It will engulf the recipient like a warm wave. The split-second delay convinces people your flooding smile is genuine and only for them. 

CH 2. How to Strike Everyone as Intelligent and Insightful by Using Your Eyes

A Boston center conducted a study to learn the precise effect. The researchers asked opposite-sex individuals to have a twominute casual conversation. They tricked half their subjects into maintaining intense eye contact by directing them to count the number of times their partner blinked. They gave the other half of the subjects no special eye-contact directions for the chat. When they questioned the subjects afterward, the unsuspecting blinkers reported significantly higher feelings of respect and fondness for their colleagues who, unbeknownst to them, had simply been counting their blinks.

Make Your Eyes Look Even More Intelligent 

Technique #2
Sticky Eyes

Pretend your eyes are glued to your conversation partner’s with sticky warm taffy. Don’t break eye contact even after he or she has finished speaking. When you must look away, do it ever so slowly, reluctantly, stretching the gooey taffy until the tiny string finally breaks. 

CH 3. How to Use Your Eyes to Make Someone Fall in Love with You 

Technique #3
Epoxy Eyes

This brazen technique packs a powerful punch. Watch your target person even when someone else is talking. No matter who is speaking, keep looking at the man or woman you want to impact.

CH 4. How to Look Like a Big Winner Wherever You Go 

Your Posture Is Your Biggest Success Barometer 

Technique #4
Hang by Your Teeth

Visualize a circus iron-jaw bit hanging from the frame of every door you walk through. Take a bite and, with it firmly between your teeth, let it swoop you to the peak of the big top. When you hang by your teeth, every muscle is stretched into perfect posture position.

CH 5. How to Win Their Heart by Responding to Their "Inner Infant" 

You’re on Trial—and You Only Have Ten Seconds

Like attorneys deciding whether they want you on their case, everybody you meet makes a subconscious judgment on whether they want you in their lives. They base their verdict greatly on the same signals, your body-language answer to their unspoken question, “Well, how do you like me so far?”

Treat People Like Big Babies 

Technique #5
The Big-Baby Pivot

Give everyone you meet The Big-Baby Pivot. The instant the two of you are introduced, reward your new acquaintance. Give the warm smile, the total-body turn, and the undivided attention you would give a tiny tyke who crawled up to your feet, turned a precious face up to yours, and beamed a big toothless grin. Pivoting 100 percent toward the new person shouts “I think you are very, very special.” 

CH 6. How to Make Someone Feel Like an Old Friend at Once 

A very wise man with the funny name of Zig once told me, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care . . . about them.” Zig Ziglar is right. The secret to making people like you is showing how much you like them!

How to Trick Your Body into Doing Everything Right 

Technique #6
Hello Old Friend

When meeting someone, imagine he or she is an old friend (an old customer, an old beloved, or someone else you had great affection for). How sad, the vicissitudes of life tore you two asunder. But, holy mackerel, now the party (the meeting, the convention) has reunited you with your long-lost old friend! 

The joyful experience starts a remarkable chain reaction in your body from the subconscious softening of your eyebrows to the positioning of your toes—and everything between.

Not a Word Need Be Spoken 
The Hello Old Friend technique even supersedes language. 

A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 
An added benefit to the Hello Old Friend technique is it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

CH 7. How to Come Across as 100 Percent Credible to Everyone 

When the average person tells a lie, he or she is emotionally aroused and bodily changes do take place. When that happens, the individual might fidget. Experienced or trained liars, however, can fool the polygraph.

Beware of the Appearance of Lying— Even When You’re Telling the Truth 

Technique #7
Limit the Fidget

Whenever your conversation really counts, let your nose itch, your ear tingle, or your foot prickle. Do not fidget, twitch, wiggle, squirm, or scratch. And above all, keep your paws away from your puss. Hand motions near your face and all fidgeting can give your listener the gut feeling you’re fibbing. 

CH 8. ow to Read People Like You Have ESP 

ESP: Extrasensory perception or ESP, also called sixth sense, includes claimed reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses, but sensed with the mind.

Technique #8
Hans’s Horse Sense

Make it a habit to get on a dual track while talking. Express yourself, but keep a keen eye on how your listener is reacting to what you’re saying. Then plan your moves accordingly.
If a horse can do it, so can a human. People will say you pick up on everything. You never miss a trick. You’ve got horse sense.

CH 9. How to Make Sure You Don’t Miss a Single Beat 

Technique #9
Watch the Scene Before You Make the Scene

Rehearse being the Super Somebody you want to be ahead of time. SEE yourself walking around with Hang by Your Teeth posture, shaking hands, smiling the Flooding Smile, and making Sticky Eyes. HEAR yourself chatting comfortably with everyone. FEEL the pleasure of knowing you are in peak form and everyone is gravitating toward you. VISUALIZE yourself a Super Somebody. Then it all happens automatically.

PART TWO: HOW TO KNOW WHAT TO SAY AFTER YOU SAY “HI” 

Is Small-Talk-a-Phobia Curable? 

CH 10. How to Start Great Small Talk 

Matching Their Mood Can Make or Break the Sale 

Technique #10
Make a Mood Match

Before opening your mouth, take a “voice sample” of your listener to detect his or her state of mind. Take a “psychic photograph” of the expression to see if your listener looks buoyant, bored, or blitzed. If you ever want to bring people around to your thoughts, you must match their mood and voice tone, if only for a moment.

CH 11. How to Sound Like You’ve Got a Super Personality (No Matter What You’re Saying!) 

“What’s a Good Opening Line When I Meet People?” 

Why Banal Makes a Bond 

Ascent from Banality 

Technique #11
Prosaic with Passion

Worried about your first words? Fear not, because 80 percent of your listener’s impression has nothing to do with your words anyway. Almost anything you say at first is fine. No matter how prosaic the text, an empathetic mood, a positive demeanor, and passionate delivery make you sound exciting.

“Anything, Except Liverwurst!” 

Here’s my “anything, except liverwurst” on small talk. Anything you say is fine as long as it is not complaining, rude, or unpleasant. 

CH 12. How to Make People Want to Start a Conversation with You 

The Whatzit Way to Love 

Your Whatzit is a social aid whether you seek business rewards or new romance. My friend Alexander carries Greek worry beads with him wherever he goes. He’s not worried. He knows any woman who wants to talk to him will come up and say, “What’s that?”

Think about it, gentlemen. Suppose you’re at a party. An attractive woman spots you across the room. She wants to talk to you but she’s thinking, “Well, Mister, you’re attractive. But, golly, what can I say to you? You just ain’t got no Whatzit.”

Be a Whatzit Seeker, Too 

Likewise, become proficient in scrutinizing the apparel of those you wish to approach. Why not express interest in the handkerchief in the tycoon’s vest pocket, the brooch on the bosom of the rich divorcée, or the school ring on the finger of the CEO whose company you want to work for?

The big spender who, you suspect, might buy a hundred of your widgets has a tiny golf-club lapel pin? Say, “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice your attractive lapel pin. Are you a golfer? Me, too. What courses have you played?”

Your business cards and your Whatzit are crucial socializing artifacts. Whether you are riding in the elevator, climbing the doorstep, or traversing the path to the party, make sure your Whatzit is hanging out for all to see.

Technique #12
Always Wear a Whatzit

Whenever you go to a gathering, wear or carry something unusual to give people who find you the delightful stranger across the crowded room an excuse to approach. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice your . . . what IS that?”

CH 13. How to Meet the People You Want to Meet 

Technique #13
Whoozat

Whoozat is the most effective, least used (by nonpoliticians) meeting-people device ever contrived. Simply ask the party giver to make the introduction, or pump for a few facts that you can immediately turn into icebreakers.

CH 14. How to Break into a Tight Crowd 

Technique #14
Eavesdrop In

No Whatzit? No host for Whoozat? No problem! Just sidle up behind the swarm of folks you want to infiltrate and open your ears. Wait for any flimsy excuse and jump in with “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear. . . .”

Will they be taken aback? Momentarily.
Will they get over it? Momentarily.
Will you be in the conversation? Absolutely!

CH 15. How to Make “Where Are You From?” Sound Exciting 

Technique #15
Never the Naked City

Whenever someone asks you the inevitable, “And where are you from?” never, ever, unfairly challenge their powers of imagination with a one-word answer. Learn some engaging facts about your hometown that conversational partners can comment on. Then, when they say something clever in response to your bait, they think you’re a great conversationalist.

Different Bait for Shrimp or Sharks 

Where do you get your conversational bait? Start by phoning the chamber of commerce or historical society of your town. Search the World Wide Web and click on your town, or open an old-fashioned encyclopedia—all rich sources for future stimulating conversations. Learn some history, geography, business statistics, or perhaps a few fun facts to tickle future friends’ funny bones.  

CH 16. How to Come Out a Winner Every Time They Ask, “And What Do You Do?” 

Technique #16
Never the Naked Job

When asked the inevitable “And what do you do,” you may think “I’m an economist/an educator/an engineer” is giving enough information to engender good conversation. However, to one who is not an economist, educator, or an engineer, you might as well be saying “I’m a paleontologist/psychoanalyst/pornographer.” 

Flesh it out. Throw out some delicious facts about your job for new acquaintances to munch on. Otherwise, they’ll soon excuse themselves, preferring the snacks back at the cheese tray.

Painful Memories of Naked Job Flashers 

Just last month a new acquaintance bragged, “I’m planning to teach Tibetan Buddhism at Truckee Meadows Community College,” and then clammed up. I knew less about Truckee Meadows than I did about Tibetan Buddhism. Whenever people ask you what you do, give them some mouth-to-ear resuscitation so they can catch their breath and say something.

CH 17. How to Introduce People Like the Host(ess) with the Most(est) 

Technique #17
Never the Naked Introduction

When introducing people, don’t throw out an unbaited hook and stand there grinning like a big clam, leaving the newlymets to flutter their fins and fish for a topic. Bait the conversational hook to get them in the swim of things. Then you’re free to stay or float on to the next networking opportunity.

CH 18. How to Resuscitate a Dying Conversation 

Be a Sleuth on Their Slips of the Tongue 

Technique #18
Be a Word Detective

Like a good gumshoe, listen to your conversation partner’s every word for clues to his or her preferred topic. The evidence is bound to slip out. Then spring on that subject like a sleuth on to a slip of the tongue. Like Sherlock Holmes, you have the clue to the subject that’s hot for the other person.

CH 19. How to Enthrall ’Em with Your Choice of Topic—Them! 

Sell Yourself with a Top Sales Technique 

Several months ago at a speaker’s convention, I was talking with a colleague Brian Tracy. Brian does a brilliant job of training top salespeople. He tells his students of a giant spotlight that, when shining on their product, is not as interesting to the prospect.

When they shine the spotlight on the prospect, they make the sale. Salespeople, this technique is especially crucial for you. Keep your “Swiveling Spotlight” aimed away from you, only lightly on your product, and most brightly on your buyer. You’ll do a much better job of selling yourself and your product.

Technique #19
The Swiveling Spotlight

When you meet someone, imagine a giant revolving spotlight between you. When you’re talking, the spotlight is on you. When the new person is speaking, it’s shining on him or her. If you shine it brightly enough, the stranger will be blinded to the fact that you have hardly said a word about yourself. The longer you keep it shining away from you, the more interesting he or she finds you.

CH 20. How to Never Need to Wonder, “What Do I Say Next?” 

Technique #20
Parroting

Never be left speechless again. Like a parrot, simply repeat the last few words your conversation partner says. That puts the ball right back in his or her court, and then all you need to do is listen.

CH 21. How to Get ’Em Happily Chatting (So You Can Slip Away if You Want To!) 

“Tell ’Em About the Time You...” 

Play It Again, Sam 

Technique #21
Encore!

The sweetest sound a performer can hear welling up out of the applause is “Encore! Encore! Let’s hear it again!” The sweetest sound your conversation partner can hear from your lips when you’re talking with a group of people is “Tell them about the time you . . .”

Whenever you’re at a meeting or party with someone important to you, think of some stories he or she told you. Choose an appropriate one from their repertoire that the crowd will enjoy. Then shine the spotlight by requesting a repeat performance.

CH 22. How to Come Across as a Positive Person 

Technique #22
Ac-cen-tu-ate the Pos-i-tive

When first meeting someone, lock your closet door andsave your skeletons for later. You and your new good friend can invite the skeletons out, have a good laugh, and dance over their bones later in the relationship. But now’s the time, as the old song says, to “ac-cen-tu-ate the pos-i-tive and elim-i-nate the neg-a-tive.

CH 23. How to Always Have Something Interesting to Say 

Technique #23
The Latest News . . . Don’t Leave Home Without It

The last move to make before leaving for the party— even after you’ve given yourself final approval in the mirror—is to turn on the radio news or scan your newspaper. Anything that happened today is good material. Knowing the big-deal news of the moment is also a defensive move that rescues you from putting your foot in your mouth by asking what everybody’s talking about. Foot-in-mouth is not very tasty in public, especially when it’s surrounded by egg-on-face.

PART THREE: HOW TO TALK LIKE A VIP

Be familiar with the U.S. Census Bureau’s recent survey showing employers choose candidates with good communications skills and attitude way over education, experiCopyright 2003 by Leil Lowndes. Click Here for Terms of Use.ence, and training. But they know communications skills get people to the top. Thus, by observing each other carefully during casual conversing, it becomes almost immediately evident to both which is the bigger cat in the human jungle.

CH 24. How to Find Out What They Do (Without Even Asking!) 

Technique #24
What Do You Do—NOT!

A sure sign you’re a Somebody is the conspicuous absence of the question, “What do you do?” (You determine this, of course, but not with those four dirty words that label you as either a ruthless networker, a social climber, a gold-digging husband or wife hunter, or someone who’s never strolled along Easy Street.)

The Right Way to Find Out 

So how do you find out what someone does for a living? (I thought you’d never ask.) You simply practice the following eight words. All together now: “How . . . do . . . you . . . spend . . . most . . . of . . . your . . . time?

CH 25. How to Know What to Say When They Ask, “What DoYou Do?" 

To make the most of every encounter, personalize your verbal résumé with just as much care as you would your written curriculum vitae. Instead of having one answer to the omnipresent “What do you do?” prepare a dozen or so variations, depending on who’s asking. For optimum networking, every time someone asks about your job, give a calculated oral résumé in a nutshell. Before you submit your answer, consider what possible interest the asker could have in you and your work.

“Here’s How My Life Can Benefit Yours" 

For example, here are some descriptions various people might put on their tax return:
Real estate agent
Financial planner
Martial arts instructor
Cosmetic surgeon
Hairdresser

Any practitioner of the above professions should reflect on the benefit his or her job has to humankind. (Every job has some benefit or you wouldn’t get paid to do it.) The advice to the folks above is:

Don’t say “real estate agent.” Say “I help people moving into our area find the right home.”

Don’t say “financial planner.” Say “I help people plan their financial future.”

Don’t say “martial arts instructor.” Say “I help people defend themselves by teaching martial arts.”

Don’t say “cosmetic surgeon.” Say “I reconstruct people’s faces after disfiguring accidents.” (Or, if you’re talking with a woman “of a certain age,” as the French so gracefully say, tell her, “I help people to look as young as they feel through cosmetic surgery.”)

Don’t say “hairdresser.” Say “I help a woman find the right hairstyle for her particular face.” (Go, Gloria!)

A Nutshell Résumé for Your Private Life 

The Nutshell Résumé works in nonbusiness situations, too. Since the new acquaintances will always ask you about yourself, prepare a few exciting stock answers. When meeting a potential friend or loved one, make your life sound like you will be a fun person to know.

Technique #25
The Nutshell Résumé

Just as job-seeking top managers roll a different written résumé off their printers for each position they’re applying for, let a different true story about your professional life roll off your tongue for each listener. Before responding to “What do you do?” ask yourself, “What possible interest could this person have in my answer? Could he refer business to me? Buy from me? Hire me? Marry my sister? Become my buddy?” Wherever you go, pack a nutshell about your own life to work into your communications bag of tricks.

CH 26. How to Sound Even Smarter Than You Are 

The startling good news is that the difference between a respected vocabulary and a mundane one is only about fifty words! You don’t need much to sound like a big winner. A mere few dozen wonderful words will give everyone the impression that you have an original and creative mind.

Acquiring this super vocabulary is easy. You needn’t pore over vocabulary books or listen to tapes of pompous pontificators with impossible British accents. You don’t need to learn two-dollar words that your grandmother, if she heard, would wash out of your mouth with soap.

All you need to do is think of a few tired, overworked words you use every day—words like smart, nice, pretty, or good. Then grab a thesaurus or book of synonyms off the shelf. Look up that common word even you are bored hearing yourself utter every day. Examine your long list of alternatives.

For example, if you turn to the word smart, you’ll find dozens of synonyms. Some words are colorful and rich like ingenious, resourceful, adroit, shrewd, and many more. Run down the list and say each out loud. Which ones fit your personality? Which ones seem right for you? Try each on like a suit of clothes to see which feel comfortable. Choose a few favorites and practice saying them aloud until they become a natural staple of your vocabulary. The next time you want to compliment someone on being smart, say, you’ll be purring

“Oh, that was so clever of you.”
“My how resourceful.”
“That was ingenious.”
Or maybe, "How astute of you."

And Now, for Men Only 

During my seminars, to help men avoid doing mistake of sounding trite, I ask every male to think of a synonym for pretty or great. Then I bring up one woman and several men. I ask each to pretend he is her husband. She has just come down the stairs ready to go out to dinner. I ask each to take her hand and deliver his compliment.

“Darla,” one says, “you look elegant.”
“Ooh!” Every woman in the room sighs.
“Darla,” says another, taking her hand, “you look stunning.”
“Ooh!” Every woman in the room swoons.
“Darla,” says the third, putting her hand between his, “you look ravishing.”
“Ooooh!” By now every woman in the room has gone limp.
Pay attention men! Words work on us women.

More Unisex Suggestions 

Suppose you’ve been at a party and it was wonderful. Don’t tell the hosts it was wonderful. Everybody says that. Tell them it was a splendid party, a superb party, an extraordinary party. Hug the hosts and tell them you had a magnificent time, a remarkable time, a glorious time.

Technique #26
Your Personal Thesaurus
Look up some common words you use every day in the thesaurus. Then, like slipping your feet into a new pair of shoes, slip your tongue into a few new words to see how they fit. If you like them, start making permanent replacements.

Remember, only fifty words makes the difference between a rich, creative vocabulary and an average, middle-of-the-road one. Substitute a word a day for two months and you’ll be in the verbally elite.

CH 27. How to Not Sound Anxious (Let Them Discover Your Similarity)

Tigers prowl with tigers; lions lurk with lions; and little alley cats scramble around with other little alley cats. Similarity breeds attraction. But in the human jungle, big cats know a secret. When you delay revealing your similarity, or let them discover it, it has much more punch. Above all, you don’t want to sound anxious to have rapport.

Technique #27
Kill the Quick “Me, Too!”

Whenever you have something in common with someone, the longer you wait to reveal it, the more moved (and impressed) he or she will be. You emerge as a confident big cat, not a lonely little stray, hungry for quick connection with a stranger.

P.S.: Don’t wait too long to reveal your shared interest or it will seem like you’re being tricky.

CH 28. How to Be a “You Firstie” to Gain Their Respect and Affection 

“SEX! Now that I have your attention. . . . ” Two-bit comics have been using that gag from the days when two bits bought a foursquare meal. However, big winners know there’s a three-letter word more potent then SEX to get people’s attention. That word is YOU.

Comm-YOU-nicate When You Want a Favor 

Putting you first gets a much better response, especially when you’re asking a favor, because it pushes the asker’s pride button. Suppose you want to take a long weekend. You decide to ask your boss if you can take Friday off. Which request do you think he or she is going to react to more positively? “Can I take Friday off, Boss?” Or this one: “Boss, can you do without me Friday?”

Comm-YOU-nicate Your Compliments 

Comm-YOU-nication also enriches your social conversation. Gentlemen, say a lady likes your suit. Which woman gives you warmer feelings? The woman who says, “I like your suit.” Or the one who says, “You look great in that suit.”

Technique #28
Comm-YOU-nication

Start every appropriate sentence with you. It immediately grabs your listener’s attention. It gets a more positive response because it pushes the pride button and saves them having to translate it into “me” terms.

When you sprinkle you as liberally as salt and pepper throughout your conversation, your listeners find it an irresistible spice.

Comm-YOU-nication Is a Sign of Sanity 
Therapists calculate inmates of mental institutions say I and me twelve times more often than residents of the outside world. As patients’ conditions improve, the number of times they use the personal pronouns also diminishes.

Continuing up the sanity scale, the fewer times you use I, the more sane you seem to your listeners. If you eavesdrop on big winners talking with each other, you’ll notice a lot more you than I in their conversation.

CH 29. How to Make Them Feel You “Don’t Smile at Just Anybody” 

How to Make Them Feel You “Don’t Smile at Just Anybody” 

Technique #29
The Exclusive Smile

If you flash everybody the same smile, like a Confederate dollar, it loses value. When meeting groups of people, grace each with a distinct smile. Let your smiles grow out of the beauty big players find in each new face.

If one person in a group is more important to you than the others, reserve an especially big, flooding smile just for him or her.

CH 30. How to Avoid Sounding Like a Jerk 

Technique #30
Don’t Touch a Cliché with a Ten-Foot Pole

Be on guard. Don’t use any clichés when chatting with big winners. Don’t even touch one with a ten-foot pole. Never? Not even when hell freezes over? Not unless you want to sound dumb as a doorknob.

Instead of coughing up a cliché, roll your own clever phrases by using the next technique.

CH 31. How to Use Motivational Speakers’ Techniques to Enhance Your Conversation 

A Gem for Every Occasion 

If stirring words help make your point, ponder the impact of powerful phrases. They’ve helped politicians get elected (“Read my lips: no new taxes.”) and defendants get acquitted (“If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”).

If George H. W. Bush had said, “I promise not to raise taxes,” or Johnny Cochran, during O. J. Simpson’s criminal trial, had said, “If the glove doesn’t fit, he must be innocent,” their bulky sentences would have slipped in and out of the voter’s or juror’s consciousness. As every politician and trial lawyer knows, neat phrases make powerful weapons. (If you’re not careful, your enemies will later use them against you—read my lips!)

One of my favorite speakers is a radio broadcaster named Barry Farber who brightens up late-night radio with sparkling similes. Barry would never use a cliché like “nervous as a cat on a hot tin roof.” He’d describe being nervous about losing his job as “I felt like an elephant dangling over a cliff with his tail tied to a daisy.” Instead of saying he looked at a pretty woman, he’d say, “My eyeballs popped out and dangled by the optic nerve.”

When I first met him, I asked, “Mr. Farber, how do you come up with these phrases?”

“My daddy’s Mr. Farber. I’m Barry,” he chided (his way of saying, “Call me Barry”). He then candidly admitted, although some of his phrases are original, many are borrowed. (Elvis Presley used to say, “My daddy’s Mr. Presley. Call me Elvis.”) Like all professional speakers, Barry spends several hours a week gleaning through books of quotations and humor. All professional speakers do. They collect bon mots they can use in a variety of situations— most especially to scrape egg off their faces when something unexpected happens.

Many speakers use author’s and speaker’s agent Lilly Walters’s face-saver lines from her book, What to Say When You’re Dying on the Platform.16 If you tell a joke and no one laughs, try “That joke was designed to get a silent laugh—and it worked.” If the microphone lets out an agonizing howl, look at it and say, “I don’t understand. I brushed my teeth this morning.” If someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, “Could you save that question until I’m finished—and well on my way home?” All pros think of holes they might fall into and then memorize great escape lines. You can do the same.

Look through books of similes to enrich your day-to-day conversations. Instead of “happy as a lark” try “happy as a lottery winner” or “happy as a baby with its first ice cream cone.” Instead of “bald as an eagle,” try “bald as a new marine” or “bald as a bullfrog’s belly.” Instead of “quiet as a mouse,” try “quiet as an eel swimming in oil” or “quiet as a fly lighting on a feather duster.”

Find phrases that have visual impact. Instead of a cliché like “sure as death and taxes,” try “as certain as beach traffic in July” or “as sure as your shadow will follow you.” Your listeners can’t see death or taxes. But they sure can see beach traffic in July or their shadow following them down the street.

Try to make your similes relate to the situation. If you’re riding in a taxi with someone, “as sure as that taxi meter will rise” has immediate impact. If you’re talking with a man walking his dog, “as sure as your dog is thinking about that tree” adds a touch of humor.

Make ’Em Laugh, Make ’Em Laugh, Make ’Em Laugh 
Humor enriches any conversation. But not jokes starting with, “Hey didja hear the one about . . . ?” Plan your humor and make it relevant. For example, if you’re going to a meeting on the budget, look up money in a quotation book. In an uptight business situation, a little levity shows you’re at ease.

Technique #31
Use Jawsmith’s Jive
Whether you’re standing behind a podium facing thousands or behind the barbecue grill facing your family, you’ll move, amuse, and motivate with the same skills.

Read speakers’ books to cull quotations, pull pearls of wisdom, and get gems to tickle their funny bones. Find a few bon mots to let casually slide off your tongue on chosen occasions. If you want to be notable, dream up a crazy quotable.

Make ’em rhyme, make ’em clever, or make ’em funny. Above all, make ’em relevant.

CH 32. How to Banter Like the Big Shots Do (Big Winners Tell It Like It Is) 

Technique #32
Call a Spade a Spade
Don’t hide behind euphemisms. Call a spade a spade. That doesn’t mean big cats use tasteless four-letter words when perfectly decent five- and six-letter ones exist. They’ve simply learned the King’s English, and they speak it.

Here’s another way to tell the big players from the little ones just by listening to a few minutes of their conversation.

CH 33. How to Avoid the World’s Worst Conversational Habit 

Technique #33
Trash the Teasing

A dead giveaway of a little cat is his or her proclivity to tease. An innocent joke at someone else’s expense may get you a cheap laugh. Nevertheless, the big cats will have the last one. Because you’ll bang your head against the glass ceiling they construct to keep little cats from stepping on their paws.

Never, ever, make a joke at anyone else’s expense. You’ll wind up paying for it, dearly.

CH 34. How to Give Them the Bad News (and Have Them Like You All the More) 

Technique #34
It’s the Receiver’s Ball

A football player wouldn’t last two beats of the time clock if he made blind passes. A pro throws the ball with the receiver always in mind. 

Before throwing out any news, keep your receiver in mind. Then deliver it with a smile, a sigh, or a sob. Not according to how you feel about the news, but how the receiver will take it.

CH 35. How to Respond When You Don’t Want to Answer (and Wish They’d Shut the Heck Up) 

Technique #35
The Broken Record

Whenever someone persists in questioning you on an unwelcome subject, simply repeat your original response. Use precisely the same words in precisely the same tone of voice. Hearing it again usually quiets them down. If your rude interrogator hangs on like a leech, your next repetition never fails to flick them off.

CH 36. How to Talk to a Celebrity 

“I Love What You Used to Be [You Has-Been]”

Another sensitivity: the film star is probably obsessed with his last film, the politician with her last election, a corporate mogul with his last takeover, an author with her last novel—and so forth. So when discussing the star’s, the politician’s, the mogul’s, the author’s, or any VIP’s work, try to keep your comments to current or recent work. Telling Woody Allen how much you loved his 1980 film Stardust Memories would not endear you to him. “What about all my wonderful films since?” thinks he. Stick to the present or very recent past if possible.

Technique #36
Big Shots Don’t Slobber

People who are VIPs in their own right don’t slobber over celebrities. When you are chatting with one, don’t compliment her work, simply say how much pleasure or insight it’s given you. If you do single out any one of the star’s accomplishments, make sure it’s a recent one, not a memory that’s getting yellow in her scrapbook.

If the queen bee has a drone sitting with her, find a way to involve him in the conversation.

CH 37. How to Make Them Want to Thank You

Whenever the occasion warrants more than an unconscious acknowledgment, dress up your “thank you” with the reason:
Thank you for coming.
Thank you for being so understanding.
Thank you for waiting.
Thank you for being such a good customer.
Thank you for being so loving.

Technique #37
Never the Naked Thank You

Never let the phrase “thank you” stand alone. From A to Z, always follow it with for: from “Thank you for asking” to "Thank you for zipping me up."

PART FOUR: HOW TO BE AN INSIDER IN ANY CROWD: WHAT ARE THEY ALL TALKING ABOUT? 

What Are They All Talking About? 

CH 38. How to Be a Modern-Day Renaissance Man or Woman 

Go Fly a Kite! 

Scramble Therapy is, quite simply, scrambling up your life and participating in an activity you’d never think of indulging in. Just one out of every four weekends, do something totally out of your pattern. Do you usually play tennis on weekends? This weekend, go hiking. Do you usually go hiking? This weekend, take a tennis lesson. Do you bowl? Leave that to your buddies this time. Instead, go white-water rafting. Oh, you were planning on running some rapids like you do every warm weekend? Forget it, go bowling.

Technique #38
Scramble Therapy

Once a month, scramble your life. Do something you’d never dream of doing. Participate in a sport, go to an exhibition, hear a lecture on something totally out of your experience. You get 80 percent of the right lingo and insider questions from just one exposure.

CH 39. How to Sound Like You Know All About Their Job or Hobby 

Every job, every sport, every interest has insider opening questions that everybody in the same field asks—and its dumb outsider questions that they never ask each other. When an astronaut meets another astronaut, he asks, “What missions have you been on?” (Never “How do you go to the bathroom up there?”) A dentist asks another dentist, “Are you in general practice or do you have a specialty?” (Never “Heard any good pain jokes lately?”)

Technique #39
Learn a Little Jobbledygook
Big winners speak Jobbledygook as a second language. What is Jobbledygook? It’s the language of other professions.

Why speak it? It makes you sound like an insider. How do you learn it? You’ll find no Jobbledygook cassettes in the language section of your bookstore, but the lingo is easy to pick up. Simply ask a friend who speaks the lingo of the crowd you’ll be with to teach you a few opening questions. The words are few and the rewards are manifold.

CH 40. How to Bare Their Hot Button (Elementary Doc-Talk) 

Technique #40
Baring Their Hot Button

Before jumping blindly into a bevy of bookbinders or a drove of dentists, find out what the hot issues are in their fields. Every industry has burning concerns the outside world knows little about. Ask your informant to bare the industry buzz. Then, to heat the conversation up, push those buttons.

CH 41. How to Secretly Learn About Their Lives 

Technique #41
Read Their Rags

Is your next big client a golfer, runner, swimmer, surfer, or skier? Are you attending a social function filled with accountants or Zen Buddhists—or anything in between? There are untold thousands of monthly magazines serving every imaginable interest. You can dish up more information than you’ll ever need to sound like an insider with anyone just by reading the rags that serve their racket. (Have you read your latest copy of Zoonooz yet?)

CH 42. How to Talk When You’re in Other Countries 

Technique #42
Clear “Customs”

Before putting one toe on foreign soil, get a book on dos and taboos around the world. Before you shake hands, give a gift, make gestures, or even compliment anyone’s possessions, check it out. Your gaffe could gum up your entire gig.

CH 43. How to Talk Them into Getting the “Insider’s Price” (on Practically Anything You Buy) 

Technique #43
Bluffing for Bargains

The haggling skills used in ancient Arab markets are alive and well in contemporary America for big-ticket items. Your price is much lower when you know how to deal.

Before every big purchase, find several vendors—a few to learn from and one to buy from. Armed with a few words of industryese, you’re ready to head for the store where you’re going to buy.

PART FIVE: HOW TO SOUND LIKE YOU’RE PEAS IN A POD: “WHY, WE’RE JUST ALIKE!” 

CH 44. How to Make Them Feel You’re of the Same “Class”

Technique #44
Be a Copyclass

Watch people. Look at the way they move. Small movements? Big movements? Fast? Slow? Jerky? Fluid? Old? Young? Classy? Trashy?

Pretend the person you are talking to is your dance instructor. Is he a jazzy mover? Is she a balletic mover? Watch his or her body, then imitate the style of movement. That makes your conversation partner subliminally real comfy with you.

CH 45. How to Make Them Feel That You’re Like “Family

The Linguistic Device That Says “We’re on the Same Wavelength” 

When you want to give someone the subliminal feeling you’re just alike, use their words, not yours. Suppose you are selling a car to a young mother who tells you she is concerned about safety because she has a young “toddler.” When explaining the safety feaHow to Make Them Feel That You’re Like “Family” 177tures of the car, use her word. Don’t use whatever word you call your kids. Don’t even say child-protection lock, which was in your sales manual. Tell your prospect, “No toddler can open the window because of the driver’s control device.” Even call it a toddlerprotection lock. When Mom hears toddler coming from your lips, she feels you are “family” because that’s how all her relatives refer to her little tyke. Suppose your prospect had said kid or infant. Fine, echo any word she used. (Well, almost any word. If she’d said my brat, you might want to pass on Echoing this time.

Technique #45
Echoing

Echoing is a simple linguistic technique that packs a powerful wallop. Listen to the speaker’s arbitrary choice of nouns, verbs, prepositions, adjectives—and echo them back. Hearing their words come out of your mouth creates subliminal rapport. It makes them feel you share their values, their attitudes, their interests, their experiences.

CH 46. How to Really Make It Clear to Them

Technique #46
Potent Imaging
Does your customer have a garden? Talk about “sowing the seeds for success.” Does your boss own a boat? Tell him or her about a concept that will “hold water” or “stay afloat.” Maybe he is a private pilot? Talk about a concept really “taking off.” She plays tennis? Tell her it really hits the “sweet spot.”

Evoke your listener’s interests or lifestyle and weave images around it. To give your points more power and punch, use analogies from your listener’s world, not your own. Potent Imaging also tells your listeners you think like them and hints you share their interests.

CH 47. How to Make Them Feel You Empathize (Without Just Saying “Yep, Uh Huh, Yeah”) 

Technique #47
Employ Empathizers

Don’t be an unconscious ummer. Vocalize complete sentences to show your understanding. Dust your dialogue with phrases like “I see what you mean.” Sprinkle it with sentimental sparklers like “That’s a lovely thing to say.” Your empathy impresses your listeners and encourages them to continue.

CH 48. How to Make Them Think You See/Hear/Feel It Just the Way They Do 

Technique #48
Anatomically Correct Empathizers

What part of their anatomy are your associates talking through? Their eyes? Their ears? Their gut?

For visual people, use visual empathizers to make them think you see the world the way they do. For auditory folks, use auditory empathizers to make them think you hear them loud and clear. For kinesthetic types, use kinesthetic empathizers to make them think you feel the same way they do.

...

What about the other two senses, taste and smell? Well, I’ve never run up against any gustatory or olfactory types. But you could always compliment a chef by saying, “That’s a delicious idea.” And if you are talking to your dog (olfactory, of course), tell him “The whole idea stinks.”

CH 49. How to Make ’Em Think We (Instead of You vs. Me) 

A fascinating progression of conversation unfolds as people become closer. Here’s how it develops:

Level One: Clichés

Two strangers talking together primarily toss clichés back and forth. For instance, when chatting about the universally agreedupon world’s dullest subject—the weather—one stranger might say to the other, “Beautiful sunny weather we’ve been having.” Or, “Boy, some rain, huh?” That’s level one, clichés.

Level Two: Facts

People who know each other but are just acquaintances often discuss facts. “You know, Joe, we’ve had twice as many sunny days this year to date as last.” Or, “Yeah, well, we finally decided to put in a swimming pool to beat the heat.”

Level Three: Feelings and Personal Questions

When people become friends, they often express their feelings to each other, even on subjects as dull as the weather. “George, I just love these sunny days.” They also ask each other personal questions: “How about you, Betty? Are you a sun person?”

Level Four: We Statements

Now we progress to the highest level of intimacy. This level is richer than facts and creates more rapport than feelings. It’s we and us statements. Friends discussing the weather might say, “If we keep having this good weather, it’ll be a great summer.” Lovers might say, “I hope this good weather keeps up for us so we can go swimming on our trip.”

A technique to achieve the ultimate verbal intimacy grows out of this phenomenon. Simply use the word we prematurely. You can use it to make a client, a prospect, a stranger feel you are already friends. Use it to make a potential romantic partner feel the two of you are already an item. I call it the “Premature We.” In casual conversation, simply cut through levels one and two. Jump straight to three and four.

Ask your prospect’s feelings on something the way you would query a friend. (“George, how do you feel about the new governor?”) Then use the pronoun we when discussing anything that might affect the two of you. (“Do you think we’re going to prosHow to Make ’Em Think We (Instead of You vs. Me) 193per during his administration?”) Make it a point to concoct we sentences, the kind people instinctively reserve for friends, lovers, and other intimates. (“I think we’ll survive while the governor’s in office.”)

The word we fosters togetherness. It makes the listener feel connected. It gives a subliminal feeling of “you and me against the cold, cold world.” When you prematurely say we or us, even to strangers, it subconsciously brings them closer. It subliminally hints you are already friends. At a party, you might say to someone standing behind you at the buffet line, “Hey, this looks great. They really laid out a nice spread for us.” Or, “Uh-oh, we’re going to get fat if we let ourselves enjoy all of this.

Technique #49
The Premature WE

Create the sensation of intimacy with someone even if you’ve met just moments before. Scramble the signals in their psyche by skipping conversational levels one and two and cutting right to levels three and four. Elicit intimate feelings by using the magic words we, us, and our.

CH 50. How to Create a Friendly “Private Joke” with Them 

Technique #50
Instant History

When you meet a stranger you’d like to make less a stranger, search for some special moment you shared during your first encounter. Then find a few words that reprieve the laugh, the warm smile, the good feelings the two of you felt. Now, just like old friends, you have a history together, an Instant History.

With anyone you’d like to make part of your personal or professional future, look for special moments together. Then make them a refrain.

PART SIX: HOW TO DIFFERENTIATE THE POWER OF PRAISE FROM THE FOLLY OF FLATTERY 

CH 51. How to Compliment Someone (Without Sounding Like You’re Brownnosing) 

Technique #51
Grapevine Glory

A compliment one hears is never as exciting as the one he overhears. A priceless way to praise is not by telephone, not by telegraph, but by tell-a-friend. This way you escape possible suspicion that you are an apple-polishing, bootlicking, egg-sucking, backscratching sycophant trying to win brownie points. You also leave recipients with the happy fantasy that you are telling the whole world about their greatness.

CH 52. How to Be a “Carrier Pigeon” of Good Feelings 

Technique #52
Carrier Pigeon Kudos

People immediately grow a beak and metamorphosize themselves into carrier pigeons when there’s bad news. (It’s called gossip.) Instead, become a carrier of good news and kudos. Whenever you hear something complimentary about someone, fly to them with the compliment. Your fans may not posthumously stuff you and put you on display in a museum like Stumpy Joe. But everyone loves the carrier pigeon of kind thoughts.

CH 53. How to Make ’Em Feel Your Admiration “Just Slipped Out” 

Technique #53
Implied Magnificence

Throw a few comments into your conversation that presuppose something positive about the person you’re talking with. But be careful. Don’t blow it like the wellintentioned maintenance man. Or the southern boy who, at the prom, thought he was flattering his date when he told her, “Gosh, Mary Lou, for a fat gal you dance real good.

CH 54. How to Win Their Hearts by Being an “Undercover Complimenter” 

Technique #54
Accidental Adulation

Become an undercover complimenter. Stealthily sneak praise into the parenthetical part of your sentence.

Just don’t try to quiz anyone later on your main point. The joyful jolt of your accidental adulation strikes them temporarily deaf to anything that follows.

CH 55. How to Make ’Em Never Forget You with a “Killer Compliment” 

Technique #55
Killer Compliment

Whenever you are talking with a stranger you’d like to make part of your professional or personal future, search for one attractive, specific, and unique quality he or she has.

At the end of the conversation, look the individual right in the eye. Say his or her name and proceed to curl all ten toes with the Killer Compliment.

...

Rule #1: Deliver your Killer Compliment to the recipient in private. If you are standing with a group of four or five people and you praise one woman for being fit, every other woman feels like a barrel of lard. If you tell one man he has wonderful carriage, every other feels like a hunchback. You also make the blushing recipient uncomfortable.

Rule #2: Make your Killer Compliment credible. For example, I’m tone-deaf. If I’m forced to sing even a simple song like “Happy Birthday,” I sound like a sick pig. If anyone in earshot were foolish enough to tell me they liked my voice, I’d know it was hogwash.

Rule #3: Confer only one Killer Compliment per half year on each recipient. Otherwise you come across as insincere, groveling, obsequious, pandering, and a thoroughly manipulative person. Not cool.

With careful aim, the Killer Compliment captures everyone. It works best, however, when you use it judiciously on new acquaintances. If you want to praise friends every day, employ the next technique.

CH 56. How to Make ’Em Smile with “Itty-Bitty Boosters” 

Technique #56
Little Strokes

Don’t make your colleagues, your friends, your loved ones look at you and silently say, “Haven’t I been pretty good today?” Let them know how much you appreciate them by caressing them with verbal Little Strokes like “Nice job!” “Well done!” “Cool!”

CH 57. How to Praise with Perfect Timing 

Technique #57
The Knee-Jerk “Wow!”

Quick as a blink, you must praise people the moment they a finish a feat. In a wink, like a knee-jerk reaction say, “You were terrific!” Don’t worry that they won’t believe you. The euphoria of the moment has a strangely numbing effect on the achiever’s objective judgment.

CH 58. How to Make ’Em Want to Compliment You 

“Vous Êtes Gentil” 
Leave it to French folks to come up with a congenial catchall phrase. Upon receiving a compliment, they say, “Vous êtes gentil.” Loosely translated, that is “How kind of you.”

An American saying “How kind of you” could sound stilted— like the little flower girl in My Fair Lady trying to be cultured. Nevertheless, we Yanks can express the French gentil sentiment with a technique I call “Boomeranging.

Technique #58
Boomeranging

Just as a boomerang flies right back to the thrower, let compliments boomerang right back to the giver. Like the French, quickly murmur something that expresses “That’s very kind of you.”

CH 59. How to Make a Loved One Feel You Are THE Partner for Life 

Technique #59
The Tombstone Game

Ask the important people in your life what they would like engraved on their tombstone. Chisel it into your memory but don’t mention it again. Then, when the moment is right to say “I appreciate you” or “I love you,” fill the blanks with the very words they gave you weeks earlier.

You take people’s breath away when you feed their deepest self-image to them in a compliment. “At last,” they say to themselves, "someone who loves me for who I truly am."

PART SEVEN: HOW TO DIRECT DIAL THEIR HEARTS 

CH 60. How to Sound More Exciting on the Phone 

Technique #60
Talking Gestures

Think of yourself as the star of a personal radio drama every time you pick up the phone. If you want to come across as engaging as you are, you must turn your smiles into sound, your nods into noise, and all your gestures into something your listener can hear. You must replace your gestures with talk. Then punch up the whole act 30 percent!

CH 61. How to Sound Close (Even if You’re Hundreds of Miles Away) 

Technique #61
Name Shower

People perk up when they hear their own name. Use it more often on the phone than you would in person to keep their attention. Your caller’s name re-creates the eye contact, the caress, you might give in person.

Saying someone’s name repeatedly when face-to-face sounds pandering. But because there is physical distance between you on the phone—sometimes you’re a continent apart—you can spray your conversation with it.

CH 62. How to Make ’Em Happy They Called You 

Brr-ing! No matter whether you hear the ring in the boardroom, the bedroom, or the bathroom, self-styled telephone experts tell you, “Smile before answering.” Some pros even suggest you perch a mirror right next to your phone to monitor your grin.

Technique #62
“Oh Wow, It’s You!”

Don’t answer the phone with an “I’m just sooo happy all the time” attitude. Answer warmly, crisply, and professionally. Then, after you hear who is calling, let a huge smile of happiness engulf your entire face and spill over into your voice. You make your caller feel as though your giant warm fuzzy smile is reserved for him or her.

CH 63. How to Sneak Past the Gatekeeper 

Technique #63
The Sneaky Screen

If you must screen your calls, instruct your staff to first say cheerfully, “Oh yes, I’ll put you right through. May I tell her who’s calling?” If the party has already identified himself, it’s “Oh of course, Mr. Whoozit. I’ll put you right through.”

When the secretary comes back with the bad news that Mr. or Ms. Bigwig is unavailable, callers don’t take it personally and never feel screened. They fall for it every time, just like I did.

CH 64. How to Get What You Want on the Phone from Big Shots 

Technique #64
Salute the Spouse

Whenever you are calling someone’s home, always identify and greet the person who answers. Whenever you call someone’s office more than once or twice, make friends with the secretary. Anybody who is close enough to answer the phone is close enough to sway the VIP’s opinion of you.

CH 65. How to Get What You Want—by Timing! 

Technique #65
What Color Is Your Time?

No matter how urgent you think your call, always begin by asking the person about timing. Either use the What Color Is Your Time? device or simply ask, “Is this a convenient time for you to talk?” When you ask about timing first, you’ll never smash your footprints right in the middle of your telephone partner’s sands of time. You’ll never get a “No!” just because your timing wasn’t right.

CH 66. How to Impress Everyone with Your Outgoing Voicemail Message 

Technique #66
Constantly Changing Outgoing Message

If you want to be perceived as conscientious and reliable, leave a short, professional, and friendly greeting as your outgoing message. No music. No jokes. No inspirational messages. No boasts, bells, or whistles. And here’s the secret: change it every day. Your message doesn’t have to be flawless. A little cough or stammer gives a lovely unpretentious reality to your message.

CH 67. How to Get Them to Call You Back 

Technique #67
Your Ten-Second Audition

While dialing, clear your throat. If an answering machine picks up, pretend the beep is a big Broadway producer saying “Nexxxt.” Now you’re on. This is Your Ten-Second Audition to prove you are worthy of a quick callback.

CH 68. How to Make the Gatekeeper Think You’re Buddy-Buddy with the VIP 

Technique #68
The Ho-Hum Caper

Instead of using your party’s name, casually let the pronoun he or she roll off your tongue. Forget “Uh, may I speak to Ms. Bigshot please?” Just announce, “Hi, Bob Smith here, is she in?” Tossing the familiar she off your tongue signals to the secretary that you and her boss are old buddies.

CH 69. How to Make Them Say You Have Super Sensitivity 

Technique #69
“I Hear Your Other Line”

When you hear a phone in the background, stop speaking—in midsentence, if necessary—and say “I hear your other line,” (or your dog barking, your baby crying, your spouse calling you). Ask whether she has to attend to it. Whether she does or not, she’ll know you’re a top communicator for asking.

CH 70. How to “Listen Between the Lines” on the Phone 

Technique #70
Instant Replay

Record all your business conversations and listen to them again. The second or third time, you pick up on significant subtleties you missed the first time. It’s like football fans who often don’t know if there was a fumble until they see it all over again in Instant Replay.

...

Forget What They Said, Hear What They Meant

Instant Replay also makes you sensitive to levels of communication far deeper than just your callers’ words. You tune in to their real enthusiasm or hesitation about an idea.

When we want something, our minds play funny tricks on us. If we desperately crave “yes” from someone, we hear “yes.” But “yes” isn’t always what it seems. A client’s forceful “YES” and her hesitant “yeee-sss” are different as heaven and hell. Last month I asked a woman who’d booked me for a speech if her office could reproduce my ten-page handout. She gave me the answer I wanted, which was “yes.” Later, however, I relistened to our conversation on tape. Her answer about the handouts had been a very hesitant,

“Hmm, well, yes.” I immediately called her back and said, “By the way, don’t worry about those handouts.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” she purred. “Because we really don’t have the budget for things like that.” I gained much more in my client’s goodwill than the value of reproducing a few sheets of paper.

PART EIGHT: HOW TO WORK A PARTY LIKE A POLITICIAN WORKS A ROOM: THE POLITICIAN’S SIXPOINT PARTY CHECKLIST 

When invited to a party, most of us waft into a fluffy thought process. Our random reverie goes something like this: “Hmm, this could be fun. . . . Wonder if they’re going to serve food. . . . Hope it’s good. . . . Might be some interesting people there. . . . Wonder if my friend so ’n’ so is coming. . . . Golly, what should I wear?”

That’s not the way a politician thinks about a party, however. While politicians, heavy-duty networkers, serious socializers, and big winners in the business world are staring at the invitation, they instinctively surf to a different channel. Before they RSVP with “yes” or “no,” their brains craft journalistic campaign questions. It’s the Six-Point Party Checklist. Who? When? What? Why? Where? And How?

Let’s take them one by one.

Who Is Going to Be at the Party? 
More specifically, who will be there that I should meet? Serious networkers calculate “Who must I meet for business? Who should I meet for political or social reasons?” And, if single and searching, “Who do I want to meet for possible love?” If they don’t know who is going to be in attendance, they ask. Politicians unabashedly telephone the host or hostess of the party and ask, “Who’s coming?” As the party giver chats casually about the guest list, politicians scribble the names of the people who interest them, then resolve to meet each.

When Should I Arrive? 
Politicians do not leave arrival time to whenever they finish getting dressed. They don’t ask themselves, “Hmm, should I be fashionably late?” They carefully calculate their estimated time of arrival and estimated time of departure.

If the party is bulging with contacts, biggies get there early to start hitting their marks as each arrives. VIPs frequently come early to get their business done before party regulars who “hate to be the first one there” start arriving. They are never embarrassed to arrive early. After all, the only people who see them are other early arrivals who are often heavy hitters like themselves.

Nor will you find politicians prowling around, the last to slink out the door. Once they’ve accomplished what they set out to do, they’re on their way to the next opportunity. If their agenda is more social, they try to leave their departure time open and their aprés-party schedule free. That way, if they make an important new contact, they can stay around and talk with him. Or drive her home. Or go somewhere else for coffee.

What Should I Take with Me? 

A politician’s checklist is not the usual, “Let’s see, my comb, cologne, and breath mints.” They pack more functional networking tools in their pockets or purses.

If corporate cats will be prowling the party, they pack a pocketful of business cards. If it’s a gala where people are gadding about on the social ladder and they want to exude old-world elegance, they grab a handful of social cards containing only their name and possibly an address and phone number. (Some feel giving out a business card in a purely social setting can be gauche.) The most vital tool in their party pack is a small pad and pen to keep track of important contacts.

Why Is the Party Being Given? 

The politician’s perpetual philosophy of “penetrate the ostensible” enters here. (That’s just a fancy way of saying “look under the rug.”) They ask themselves, “What is the ostensible reason for the party?” A big industrialist is giving his daughter a graduation party? A newly divorced executive is throwing himself a birthday bash? A floundering business is celebrating its tenth year?

“Nice,” politicians say to themselves, “that’s the ostensible. But what’s the real reason for the party?” Maybe the industrialist wants to get his daughter a good job so he’s invited dozens of potential employers. The birthday boy is single again so the guest list is heavy with attractive and accomplished females. The business desperately needs good PR if it’s going to stay around another ten years. So they’ve invited the press and community makers and shakers.

Politicians have expert under-rug vision to spot the host’s real agenda. They will, of course, never discuss it at the party. How ever, the insight elevates them to a shared state of higher consciousness with other heavy hitters at the bash.

Their knowledge also makes them valuable agents for the party giver. A savvy politician introduces the job-seeking daughter to some executives at the party or tells the most alluring women at the bash what a great guy birthday boy is. When chatting with reporters, he talks up the host’s business that needs good PR.

When people support the real why of the party, they become popular and sought-after guests for future events.

Where Is the Collective Mind? 

Often people from one profession or one interest group will comprise most of the guest list. A politician never accepts any invitation without asking herself, “What kind of people will be at this party, and what will they be thinking about?” Perhaps there will be a drove of doctors. So she clicks on the latest medical headlines and rehearses a little doc-talk. If the guests are a nest of new-age voters, the politician gets up to speed on telepathic healing, Tantric toning, and trance dancing. Politicians can’t afford to not be in the know.

How Am I Going to Follow Up on the Party? 
Now, the big finale. I call it “Contact Cement.” It’s cementing the contacts the politician has made. After meeting a good contact and exchanging cards, practically everyone says, “It’s been great talking to you. We’ll stay in touch.”

This good intention seldom happens without herculean effort. Politicians, however, make a science out of keeping up the contact. After the party, they sit at their desks and, like a game of solitaire, lay out the business cards of the people they’ve met. Using “The Business Card Dossier” technique described later in this section, they decide how, when, and if to deal with each. Does this person require a phone call? Should that one receive a handwritten note? Shall I E-mail or call the other one?

Use the Six-Point Party Checklist—the Who? When? Why? Where? What? and How? of a party—as your general game plan.

CH 71. How to Avoid the Most Common Party Blooper 

Technique #71
Munching or Mingling

Politicians want to be eyeball to eyeball and belly to belly with their constituents. Like any big winner well versed in the science of proxemics and spatial relationships, they know any object except their belt buckle has the effect of a brick wall between two people. Therefore they never hold food or drink at a party.

Come to munch or come to mingle. But do not expect to do both. Like a good politician, chow down before you come.

CH 72. How to Make an Unforgettable Entrance 

Technique #72
Rubberneck the Room

When you arrive at the gathering, stop dramatically in the doorway. Then s-l-o-w-l-y survey the situation. Let your eyes travel back and forth like a SWAT team ready in a heartbeat to wipe out anything that moves.

CH 73. How to Meet the People YOU Want to Meet 

Technique #73
Be the Chooser, Not the Choosee

The lifelong friend, the love of your life, or the business contact who will transform your future may not be at the party. However, someday, somewhere, he or she will be. Make every party a rehearsal for the big event.

Do not stand around waiting for the moment when that special person approaches you. You make it happen by exploring every face in the room. No more “ships passing in the night.” Capture whatever or whomever you want in your life.

CH 74. How to Subliminally Lure People to You at a Gathering 

Technique #74
Come-Hither Hands

Be a human magnet, not a human repellent. When standing at a gathering, arrange your body in an open position—especially your arms and hands. People instinctively gravitate toward open palms and wrists seductively arranged in the “come hither” position. They shy away from knuckles in the “get lost or I’ll punch you” position. Use your wrists and palms to say “I have nothing to hide,” “I accept you and what you’re saying,” or “I find you sexy.”

CH 75. How to Make ’Em Feel Like a Movie Star 

Technique #75
Tracking

Like an air-traffic controller, track the tiniest details of your conversation partners’ lives. Refer to them in your conversation like a major news story. It creates a powerful sense of intimacy.

When you invoke the last major or minor event in anyone’s life, it confirms the deep conviction that he or she is an old-style hero around whom the world revolves. And people love you for recognizing their stardom.

CH 76. How to Amaze Them with What You Remember About Them 

Technique #76
The Business Card Dossier

Right after you’ve talked to someone at a party, take out your pen. On the back of his or her business card write notes to remind you of the conversation: his favorite restaurant, sport, movie, or drink; whom she admires, where she grew up, a high school honor; or maybe a joke he told.

In your next communication, toss off a reference to the favorite restaurant, sport, movie, drink, hometown, high school honor. Or reprieve the laugh over the great joke.

CH 77. How to Make the Sale with Your Eyeballs 

How Jimmi Finds Out Where the Buck Stops 

The product Jimmi sells is expensive lighting equipment. Often he must make sales presentations to groups of ten, twenty, or more people. He says, “The first challenge in Eyeball Selling is discovering who the real decision maker is.” 

Jimmi meets his challenge in an unorthodox (not necessarily recommended) way. Right after “Good afternoon, gentlemen and ladies,” he says something slightly confusing. Why? Because the surprised group doesn’t know how to react. So their heads all twirl like weather vanes on a windy day to look at—guess who?—the honcho, the heavyweight, the head man or woman. Now Jimmi’s got his decision maker so he can continue Eyeball Selling to that person.

Technique #77
Eyeball Selling

The human body is a twenty-four-hour broadcasting station that transmits “You thrill me.” “You bore me.” “I love that aspect of your product.” “That one puts my feet to sleep.”

Set the hidden cameras behind your eyeballs to pick up on all your customers’ and friends’ signals. Then plan your pitch and your pace accordingly.

PART NINE: HOW TO BREAK THE MOST TREACHEROUS GLASS CEILING OF ALL: SOMETIMES PEOPLE ARE TIGERS 

CH 78. How to Win Their Affection by Overlooking Their Bloopers 

Technique #78
See No Bloopers, Hear No Bloopers

Cool communicators allow their friends, associates, acquaintances, and loved ones the pleasurable myth of being above commonplace bloopers and embarrassing biological functions. They simply don’t notice their comrades’ minor spills, slips, fumbles, and faux pas. They obviously ignore raspberries and all other signs of human frailty in their fellow mortals. Big winners never gape at another’s gaffes.

CH 79. How to Win Their Heart When Their Tongue Is Faltering 

Technique #79
Lend a Helping Tongue

Whenever someone’s story is aborted, let the interruption play itself out. Give everyone time to dote on the little darling, give their dinner order, or pick up the jagged pieces of china.

Then, when the group reassembles, simply say to the person who suffered story-interruptus, “Now please get back to your story.” Or better yet, remember where they were and then ask, “So what happened after the . . .” (and fill in the last few words).

CH 80. How to Let ’Em Know “What’s In It” for Them 

Technique #80
Bare the Buried WIIFM (and WIIFY)

Whenever you suggest a meeting or ask a favor, divulge the respective benefits. Reveal what’s in it for you and what’s in it for the other person—even if it’s zip. If any hidden agenda comes up later, you get labeled a sly fox.

CH 81. How to Make Them Want to Do Favors for You 

Technique #81
Let ’Em Savor the Favor

Whenever a friend agrees to a favor, allow your generous buddy time to relish the joy of his or her beneficence before you make them pay the piper. How long? At least twenty-four hours.

CH 82. How to Ask for Favors (and Get Them!) 

Technique #82
Tit for (Wait . . . Wait) Tat

When you do someone a favor and it’s obvious that “he owes you one,” wait a suitable amount of time before asking him to “pay.” Let him enjoy the fact (or fiction) that you did it out of friendship. Don’t call in your tit for their tat too swiftly.

CH 83. How to Know What Not to Say at Parties 

Technique #83
Parties Are for Pratter

There are three sacred safe havens in the human jungle where even the toughest tiger knows he must not
attack. The first of these is parties.

Parties are for pleasantries and good fellowship, not for confrontations. Big players, even when standing next to their enemies at the buffet table, smile and nod. They leave tough talk for tougher settings.

CH 84. How to Know What Not to Say at Dinner 

Technique #84
Dinner’s for Dining

The most guarded safe haven respected by big winners is the dining table. Breaking bread together is a time when they bring up no unpleasant matters. While eating, they know it’s OK to brainstorm and discuss the positive side of the business: their dreams, their desires, their designs. They can free associate and come up with new ideas. But no tough business.

CH 85. How to Know What Not to Say in a Chance Meeting 

Technique #85
Chance Encounters Are for Chitchat

If you’re selling, negotiating, or in any sensitive communication with someone, do NOT capitalize on a chance meeting. Keep the melody of your mistaken meeting sweet and light. Otherwise, it could turn into your swan song with Big Winner.

CH 86. How to Prepare Them to Listen to You 

Technique #86
Empty Their Tanks

If you need information, let people have their entire say first. Wait patiently until their needle is on empty and the last drop drips out and splashes on the cement. It’s the only way to be sure their tank is empty enough of their own inner noise to start receiving your ideas.

CH 87. How to Turn Their Anger Around (in Three Sentences or Less) 

Technique #87
Echo the Emo

Facts speak. Emotions shout. Whenever you need facts from people about an emotional situation, let them emote. Hear their facts but empathize like mad with their emotions. Smearing on the emo is often the only way to calm their emotional storm.

CH 88. How to Make ’Em Like You (Even When You’ve Messed Up) 

Technique #88
My Goof, Your Gain

Whenever you make a boner, make sure your victim benefits. It’s not enough to correct your mistake. Ask yourself, “What could I do for this suffering soul so he or she will be delighted I made the flub?” Then do it, fast! In that way, your goof will become your gain.

CH 89. How to Trap a Rat with Class 

Technique #89
Leave an Escape Hatch

Whenever you catch someone lying, filching, exaggerating, distorting, or deceiving, don’t confront the dirty duck directly. Unless it is your responsibility to catch or correct the culprit—or unless you are saving other innocent victims by doing so—let the transgressor out of your trap with his tricky puss in one piece. Then resolve never to gaze upon it again.

CH 90. How to Get Whatever You Want from Service Personnel 

A complimentary letter is called a “buttercup” because it butters up the recipient. Buttercups are nice. Even nicer are buttercups about someone to their boss.

Teechnique #90
Buttercups for Their Boss

Do you have a store clerk, accountant, law firm junior partner, tailor, auto mechanic, maître d’, massage therapist, kid’s teacher—or any other worker you want special attention from in the future? The surefire way to make them care enough to give you their very best is send a buttercup to their boss.

CH 91. How to Be a Leader in a Crowd, Not a Follower 

Technique #91
Lead the Listeners 

No matter how prominent the big cat behind the podium is, crouched inside is a little scaredy-cat who is anxious about the crowd’s acceptance.

Big winners recognize you’re a fellow big winner when they see you leading their listeners in a positive reaction. Be the first to applaud or publicly commend the man or woman you agree with (or want favors from).

CH 92. How to Make All the Right Moves 

Technique #92
The Great Scorecard in the Sky

Any two people have an invisible scorecard hovering above their heads. The numbers continually fluctuate, but one rule remains: player with lower score pays deference to player with higher score. The penalty for not keeping your eye on The Great Scorecard in the Sky is to be thrown out of the game. Permanently.

End Note 

Practice is also the fountainhead of all smooth communications moves. Excellence is not a single and solitary action. It is the outcome of many years of making small smooth moves, tiny ones like the ninety-two little tricks we’ve explored in How to Talk to Anyone. These moves create your destiny.

Remember, repeating an action makes a habit.
Your habits create your character.
And your character is your destiny.
May success be your destiny!