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Short Summary
Main recommendation: Stop listening to respond and start listening to understand, stop saying "I understand," and stop relying on yes-oriented questions in negotiations. Chris Voss presents these three mistakes as common pitfalls, drawing on an article by Brandon Voss, and frames the fixes as part of the Black Swan Method. The goal is to make the other side feel understood, which he says produces "That's right" rather than a simple yes.
Key Points
- Mistake 1: Listening to respond instead of understanding. Voss says most people listen only to interject, contradict, or prove the other side wrong, which he calls self-centered.
- Mistake 2: Saying "I understand." Voss argues the phrase rarely makes people feel understood, and that "but" after it erases what came before.
- Mistake 3: Asking yes-oriented questions. Voss says these yield about 10 percent wins versus about 80 percent with the Black Swan approach, and that "yes" can be confirmation, commitment, or counterfeit.
- Voss ties the "no" aversion to childhood conditioning, noting that "no" is often the first word children learn in correction, which makes people treat "no" as failure.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Listen to understand by sensing emotions, not only words. Focus on the other person's perspective, facts, how they feel about those facts, and what effects and reactions those perceptions have had on them.
- Replace "I understand" by articulating the other person's perspective back to them, aiming for their "That's right, that's right" response.
- Avoid "I understand, but" structures, since "but" wipes out the preceding words.
- Research beforehand is useful, but the goal is to demonstrate understanding in your words, not to assume you already understand.
- Stop using yes-oriented questions. Aim for "That's right" instead of "yes," or convert questions into no-oriented ones.
- Example rewrite: instead of "Have you got a few minutes to talk?" ask "Is now a bad time?"
- Experiment with your conversations to test these changes.
- Voss describes the Black Swan Method as moving from a 10 percent win rate to an 80 percent win rate by changing the questioning approach.
- Chris Voss attributes the listening-for-emotions idea to negotiation expert Gerard Nierenberg, and the "seek first to understand" idea to Stephen Covey.
Bottom Line
Shift the goal from being heard or agreed with to making the other side feel understood, since that feeling is what produces the "That's right" that moves negotiations forward.
