Never Split the Difference

A former FBI hostage negotiator breaks down some key negotiation strategies. Part how-to and part history of the FBI's negotiation techniques, with a lot of real-world stories from the author's career.

Completely fascinating. It's largely geared towards business students (the author has a company that consults and teaches negotiation skills), but the strategies themselves are wonderfully explained and how they evolved over time is super interesting. Great, smooth read and stuff you can actually use.

Voss premise is that negotiating is an emotional exercise rather than an intellectual one. so he presents a bunch of techniques that he says are designed to subtly play on people's emotional processing. I assume they work well if skillfully wielded, though i can't be sure. but he never puts it all together into a coherent method. the techniques remain a grab bag. lastly, the book does not present any way for the reader to practice the techniques, though he talks about such practice in classes he teaches. consequently all except type a personalities are likely to find it intimidating.

This is the first book I have read about negotiation. It was easy to read with lots of easy to understand examples that connected all theoretical points of the author in real life.

Interesting and very useful book. It has very useful and easy to implementing fundamentals.

Wasn’t exactly what I expected. Had some interesting insights but not many that I would personally use frequently in day-to-day life. Not a bad book to have around so that you can flip through it for reference if you need to negotiate a big deal though.

This is great content, but there are summaries online that are better than the book itself. This content could be delivered better in a Ted Style talk or 45 minute presentation at a sales conference. The book itself put me to sleep, more than once. There’s not enough to stretch out to 225 pages.

Good read, lots of practical stuff

Absolutely amazing.

I enjoyed this book and the stories of Chris Voss as an FBI hostage negotiator were fascinating. However, I don't see this book as being particularly applicable to the business situations that I find myself in (groups of careful people with lots of checks and balances on both sides). His techniques seem more focused on one-on-one negotiations. Still very useful techniques; they just don't cover all situations.

Awesome book.
Lot;s of great learnings and tactics on negotiating in business, but also in the rest of life.

This was an eye opening book and from my standards an excellent one compared to other negotiation books I've read. the main difference with others is the wealth of practical, synthesized examples from years' worth of high stakes, life or death negotiation experience. Above all human nature is key in this topic, and emotion is what ultimately drives our decisions. Chris Voss connects these truths to actionable yet simple tactics and a framework that I am completely sure will help any of us if applied. Definitely a stand out book.

This was an eye opening book and from my standards an excellent one compared to other negotiation books I've read. the main difference with others is the wealth of practical, synthesized examples from years' worth of high stakes, life or death negotiation experience. Above all human nature is key in this topic, and emotion is what ultimately drives our decisions. Chris Voss connects these truths to actionable yet simple tactics and a framework that I am completely sure will help any of us if applied. Definitely a stand out book.