DEDICATION For my mother and father who showed me unconditional love and taught me the values of hard work and integrity CONTENTS Dedication CHAPTER 1 | THE NEW RULES How to Become the Smartest Person . . . in Any Room CHAPTER 2 | BE A MIRROR How to Quickly Establish Rapport CHAPTER 3 | DON’T FEEL THEIR PAIN, LABEL IT How to Create Trust with Tactical Empathy CHAPTER 4 | BEWARE “YES”—MASTER “NO” How to Generate Momentum and Make It Safe to Reveal the Real Stakes CHAPTER 5 | TRIGGER THE TWO WORDS THAT IMMEDIATELY TRANSFORM ANY NEGOTIATION How to Gain the Permission to Persuade CHAPTER 6 | BEND THEIR REALITY How to Shape What Is Fair CHAPTER 7 | CREATE THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL How to Calibrate Questions to Transform Conflict into Collaboration CHAPTER 8 | GUARANTEE EXECUTION How to Spot the Liars and Ensure Follow-Through from Everyone Else CHAPTER 9 | BARGAIN HARD How to Get Your Price CHAPTER 10 | FIND THE BLACK SWAN How to Create Breakthroughs by Revealing the Unknown Unknowns Acknowledgments Appendix: Prepare a Negotiation One Sheet Notes Index About the Authors Credits Copyright About the Publisher CHAPTER 1 THE NEW RULES I was intimidated. I’d spent more than two decades in the FBI, including fifteen years negotiating hostage situations from New York to the Philippines and the Middle East, and I was on top of my game. At any given time, there are ten thousand FBI agents in the Bureau, but only one lead international kidnapping negotiator. That was me. But I’d never experienced a hostage situation so tense, so personal. “We’ve got your son, Voss. Give us one million dollars or he dies.” Pause. Blink. Mindfully urge the heart rate back to normal. Sure, I’d been in these types of situations before. Tons of them. Money for lives. But not like this. Not with my son on the line. Not $1 million. And not against people with fancy degrees and a lifetime of negotiating expertise. You see, the people across the table—my negotiating counterparts—were Harvard Law School negotiating professors. I’d come up to Harvard to take a short executive negotiating course, to see if I could learn something from the business world’s approach. It was supposed to be quiet and calm, a little professional development for an FBI guy trying to widen his horizons. But when Robert Mnookin, the director of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project, learned I was on campus, he invited me to his office for a coffee. Just to chat, he said. I was honored. And scared. Mnookin is an impressive guy whom I’d followed for years: not only is he a Harvard law professor, he’s also one of the big shots of the conflict resolution field and the author of Bargaining with the Devil: 1 When to Negotiate, When to Fight. To be honest, it felt unfair that Mnookin wanted me, a former Kansas City beat cop, to debate negotiation with him. But then it got worse. Just after Mnookin and I sat down, the door opened and another Harvard professor walked in. It was Gabriella Blum, a specialist in international negotiations, armed conflict, and counterterrorism, who’d spent eight years as a negotiator for the Israeli National Security Council and the Israel Defense Forces. The tough- as-nails IDF. On cue, Mnookin’s secretary arrived and put a tape recorder on the table. Mnookin and Blum smiled at me. I’d been tricked. “We’ve got your son, Voss. Give us one million dollars or he dies,” Mnookin said, smiling. “I’m the kidnapper. What are you going to do?” I experienced a flash of panic, but that was to be expected. It never changes: even after two decades negotiating for human lives you still feel fear. Even in a role-playing situation. I calmed myself down. Sure, I was a street cop turned FBI agent playing against real heavyweights. And I wasn’t a genius. But I was in this room for a reason. Over the years I had picked up skills, tactics, and a whole approach to human interaction that had not just helped me save lives but, as I recognize now looking back, had also begun to transform my own life. My years of negotiating had infused everything from how I dealt with customer service reps to my parenting style. “C’mon. Get me the money or I cut your son’s throat right now,” Mnookin said. Testy. I gave him a long, slow stare. Then I smiled. “How am I supposed to do that?” Mnookin paused. His expression had a touch of amused pity in it, like a dog when the cat it’s been chasing turns around and tries to chase it back. It was as if we were playing different games, with different rules. Mnookin regained his composure and eyed me with arched brows as if to remind me that we were still playing. “So you’re okay with me killing your son, Mr. Voss?” “I’m sorry, Robert, how do I know he’s even alive?” I said, using an apology and his first name, seeding more warmth into the interaction in order to complicate his gambit to bulldoze me. “I really am sorry, but how can I get you any money right now, much less one million dollars, if I