Never Split the Difference provides useful advice on being a more effective communicator, a bit like the modern day version of Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.
Here are some quotes:
It all starts with the universally applicable premise that people want to be understood and accepted. Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make to get there.
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.
But neither wants nor needs are where we start; it begins with listening, making it about other people, validating their emotions, and creating enough trust and safety for a real conversation to begin.
…everyone you meet is driven by two primal urges: the need to feel safe and secure, and the need to feel in control.
Research shows that the best way to deal with negativity is to observe it, without reaction and without judgment. Then consciously label each negative feeling and replace it with positive, compassionate, and solution-based thoughts.
These seem to be universal principles. The book also provides tactical advice on how to be a better negotiator:
All negotiations are defined by the network of subterranean desires and needs. Don’t let yourself be fooled by the surface.
Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible.
To get real leverage, you have to persuade them that they have something concrete to lose if the deal falls through.
Robert Estatbrook once said, “He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation.”
When someone seems irrational or crazy, they most likely aren’t. Faced with this situation, search for constraints, hidden desires, and bad information.
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.
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’ squeezing you for all you’re worth when you’re really getting to the number you want.
This advice might help make others feel better about us. And if we do it consistently, perhaps it’d become second nature and make us a better person.
But to what extent do we want to be a ‘good communicator/negotiator’ in front of people we have known for decades?
Communication is something I value. Without proper communication it’s hard to have a real relationship. I believe two reasonable people who share similar goals should be able to talk through anything. But humans aren’t rational. Sometimes we have different views on what we think would be best. Other times we might not have the capacity to even talk through an issue calmly.
In an economist’s world, where everyone’s rational, things would be simpler. But it’d likely be a less pleasant place to live. Perhaps AI would change that. Many might opt to live in a world where AI can guide them to present their best self and make the best decisions, like what many salespeople learned to do in front of clients. While this might work for casual encounters, it’s less clear for personal relationships. We would like to think that after spending many years together, we should be able to understand each others’ individuality better, accept their strengths and weaknesses, and be able to ‘be ourselves’ without much filter. But is it true?
One attraction of being a self-sufficient artist, especially for those who focus on solitary activities, is that it doesn’t have to involve others. It provides a way to get lost in something for a while without having to deal with the messy world.
Would I rather live deeply and take all its ups and downs, or take the easy way out to live in solitude, or perhaps follow the Buddhist way of taking in everything in a detached way, knowing that all is transient?
…it is with great truth that Aristotle says, To be happy means to be self-sufficient. For all other sources of happiness are in their nature most uncertain, precarious, fleeting, the sport of chance…And in old age these sources of happiness must necessarily dry up: –love leaves us then, and wit, desire to travel, delight in horses, aptitude for social intercourse; friends and relations, too, are taken from us by death.
Schopenhauer
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