Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris VossMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The thing about Never Split the Difference is that all of the advice is easily testable and very accessible. On a personal level, I’ve seen it work. It’s incredibly simply to start using some of the more basic advice in the simplest of conversations and see powerful results.
Chris Voss is more than qualified with his experience, suggests a number of academic and business-oriented books about negotiation and psychology and provides clear and actionable directions. I like this book (if that wasn’t already obvious). Amidst a sea of advice that feels slimy, ineffective or psychobabble, this is clear and concise and powerful.
The one major criticism I have is not a fault of the book but a limitation of the medium. Inflections, tone, body language and voice are hard to convey through the written word. It’s hard to see what the book talks about without a video. It requires the reader to put in the legwork by looking up Chris Voss and his group on YouTube or going to their site (maybe even buying a course) to understand the advice better. That is missing, but I’m unsure what else they could’ve done to make it more accessible (maybe complementary video content?)
Is it life-changing? For some people, it probably will be. For me, I can’t judge without a few years of trying the advice out.
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