Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It

Fifteen years into a career as a hostage negotiator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Voss visits Harvard. When he arrives on campus, two professors who study negotiation invite him for a chat that turns into a hostage-negotiation roleplaying session; the professors, who demand a ransom for the return of Voss’s son, become flustered as Voss responds with a series of open-ended questions. Eventually, one admits that “the FBI might have something to teach us” (4). A year later, Voss takes a negotiation course at Harvard. During the first few days of class, the students pair off to negotiate practice scenarios; with his improvised, “emotionally attuned” approach, Voss manages to get better deals than the other students, who rely more on scripted techniques.

Voss reviews the history of negotiation. “Brute force” prevailed as a tactic until a series of high-stakes hostage negotiations in the 1970s ended poorly, leading to scrutiny of the FBI’s response. During the 1980s, academic study of negotiation expanded with the establishment of the Harvard Negotiation Project; the project’s founders published Getting to Yes (1981), an influential book that characterizes negotiation as a rational process leading to win-win solutions. Meanwhile, professors working at the University of Chicago demonstrated that people’s emotions usually take precedence over rational thought.