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Never Split The Difference: Negotiating as if your life depended on it

Storytelling, negotiating and closing deals are a CEO’s everyday jobs. That’s a reality we have to live with!

As the CEO of LoginRadius, I am always on the lookout for sharpening my negotiating skills. A few months ago, one of my employees in the Sales team suggested I read this book. I absolutely loved the story behind the negotiating techniques and ordered the book.

My Review

Never Split The Difference is co-authored by Chris Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator, and FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator. The book isn’t academic. Instead, it calls on Chris’ career, FBI’s negotiation, research & training, and his real-life experiences (Perfect for me as I always prefer life experience based books over the academic ones).

The book contains a wide range of stories from extreme negotiation situations in Columbia to someone trying to negotiate his house rent with the landlord. Chris focuses on covering as many real-life stories to explain his negotiation techniques and has done a great job in simplifying that.

We may not come across extreme situations like (God forbid) being held hostages but the fundamental concept of negotiation is applicable in work and daily lives. I learned so much from this book and made myself tonnes of notes. I am sure I will be going back for reference whenever I get stuck in some tough negotiating situations :)

About The Book

It is a 249-page book originally published in 2016 and I do not think there is a second version. The book is divided into 10 chapters and the storytelling style of writing makes it an engaging read. The author also included a “Prepare a Negotiation One Sheet” in the appendix that summarizes various negotiation tools and offers a framework to prepare for a negotiation.

It is widely available on online bookstores like Amazon, and Indigo, and costs US$13.55 for paperback and US$19.59 for hardcover.

Who Is It For

I believe negotiation is a basic survival skill everyone needs in today’s world. So, I recommend this book to everyone. However, if you are into politics, entrepreneurship, or any other profile that requires leadership skills, this book is especially for you. The book will also do wonders for people in management and business development.

My Overall Rating: 4.5/5

That means I loved reading this toolkit for negotiating with humans and learned so much.