ZackF
Puritan Board Professor
Voss, C., & Raz, T. (2016). Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended On It. London: Random House Business Books.
Chris Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator now with his own business The Black Swan Group LTD. In Never Split the Difference (NStD) Voss intersperses stories from his career as he lays out his negotiation strategy and tactics for better negotiation. This is also done from a perspective where he calls himself the “smartest dumb guy in the room.” Voss gives homage to works like Getting to Yes by William Ury as crucial works about negotiation. Not all negotiation is briefcases and boardrooms. After the disaster tragedies of Ruby Ridge and Waco the FBI was forced to rethink the subject. Voss does cite experts in the book such as biases researcher psychologist Daniel Kahneman
Dale Carnegie, Peter Drucker and Stephen Covey sold training and consulting services at the same time they were publishing books. Even so, How to Win Friends and Influence People, The Effective Executive and Seven Habits of Highly Effective People respectively remain classics of business and personal productivity literature as stand-alone works. Though readers may look forward to reading other material from those authors, they are not left feeling the books were mere hyperlinks to a three or four figure course or consulting session. It is pleasing that NStD has much actionable material even though Voss does have a consulting business. Until quite recently, NStD seems to have been more a sleeper hit though it certainly merits a place among the classics. The techniques taught in this book have helped me in the de-escalation of customers and in negotiations.
Chris Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator now with his own business The Black Swan Group LTD. In Never Split the Difference (NStD) Voss intersperses stories from his career as he lays out his negotiation strategy and tactics for better negotiation. This is also done from a perspective where he calls himself the “smartest dumb guy in the room.” Voss gives homage to works like Getting to Yes by William Ury as crucial works about negotiation. Not all negotiation is briefcases and boardrooms. After the disaster tragedies of Ruby Ridge and Waco the FBI was forced to rethink the subject. Voss does cite experts in the book such as biases researcher psychologist Daniel Kahneman
Dale Carnegie, Peter Drucker and Stephen Covey sold training and consulting services at the same time they were publishing books. Even so, How to Win Friends and Influence People, The Effective Executive and Seven Habits of Highly Effective People respectively remain classics of business and personal productivity literature as stand-alone works. Though readers may look forward to reading other material from those authors, they are not left feeling the books were mere hyperlinks to a three or four figure course or consulting session. It is pleasing that NStD has much actionable material even though Voss does have a consulting business. Until quite recently, NStD seems to have been more a sleeper hit though it certainly merits a place among the classics. The techniques taught in this book have helped me in the de-escalation of customers and in negotiations.
