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Nikolay's Reviews > Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It
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I waited for almost a year before reviewing the book - it's a manual for achieving a goal and I wanted to make sure it worked in practice before I had an opinion.
Never Split the Difference was my first book about negotiation and I found it both thorough and useful. It has a ton of examples, most of them relatable. While probably we all find hostage situations fascinating, those are not part of my daily routine and negotiation in my life is at much lower stakes.
My learnings in the book fell into two main buckets:
� Questions to ask myself and area to cover in every negotiation � this includes making sure I understand the other side's motivation and limitations, do enough research, make sure I know what's the highest price I am ready to pay.
� Tactical tips � given that I am not super experienced in negotiations, there was a lot that was new to me. Calibrated questions, accusation audit for my side, ideas how to deal with naming a price, making current lack of agreement my fault, instead of attacking the price/belittling the product.
Applying those ideas in practice turned out to be not as hard as I thought, so the return of investment of the book has been positive. An interesting side effect I noticed is that I don't avoid negotiation situations as much, because I feel a tiny bit more confident. I see this as another win.
After all the praise, I’d like to offer a fair warning to future readers. Most strategies, and especially those relying on specific wording, are heavily dependent on the negotiation happening in the U.S. or in a similar enough culture. For example, both verbatim translations of “How am I supposed to do that?� and the general message sound ridiculous in Bulgarian. Another, similar example is trying to use the “I can't afford this� strategy � the other side shamed me for being poor :-) That said, I found the general framework to be universally applicable.
“Never Split the Difference� is for you:
� If you're new to negotiation.
� Are okay with following a detailed framework/steps.
� Want to understand the wider context around this framework, not just get a two-page HOWTO.
Requires extra work if:
🔸 You're not from a culture close enough to the U.S.
Never Split the Difference was my first book about negotiation and I found it both thorough and useful. It has a ton of examples, most of them relatable. While probably we all find hostage situations fascinating, those are not part of my daily routine and negotiation in my life is at much lower stakes.
My learnings in the book fell into two main buckets:
� Questions to ask myself and area to cover in every negotiation � this includes making sure I understand the other side's motivation and limitations, do enough research, make sure I know what's the highest price I am ready to pay.
� Tactical tips � given that I am not super experienced in negotiations, there was a lot that was new to me. Calibrated questions, accusation audit for my side, ideas how to deal with naming a price, making current lack of agreement my fault, instead of attacking the price/belittling the product.
Applying those ideas in practice turned out to be not as hard as I thought, so the return of investment of the book has been positive. An interesting side effect I noticed is that I don't avoid negotiation situations as much, because I feel a tiny bit more confident. I see this as another win.
After all the praise, I’d like to offer a fair warning to future readers. Most strategies, and especially those relying on specific wording, are heavily dependent on the negotiation happening in the U.S. or in a similar enough culture. For example, both verbatim translations of “How am I supposed to do that?� and the general message sound ridiculous in Bulgarian. Another, similar example is trying to use the “I can't afford this� strategy � the other side shamed me for being poor :-) That said, I found the general framework to be universally applicable.
“Never Split the Difference� is for you:
� If you're new to negotiation.
� Are okay with following a detailed framework/steps.
� Want to understand the wider context around this framework, not just get a two-page HOWTO.
Requires extra work if:
🔸 You're not from a culture close enough to the U.S.
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Never Split the Difference.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
May 23, 2020
– Shelved
May 23, 2020
–
Finished Reading
