Never Split the Difference – Create the Illusion of Control

Chapter seven of Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss is titled “Create the Illusion of Control.” In this chapter, Chris Voss returns to some more typical negotiation tips, as well as a tool he calls calibrated questions.

The first thing Chris talks about is another negotiation story. A drug dealer had kidnapped another drug dealer’s girlfriend, so that drug dealer went to the FBI for help. When the negotiation first started, the drug dealer asked, “Ok but how do I know that she’s safe dog?” The wording of this question amazed Chris. What the FBI typically did in hostage negotiations to determine proof of life was to ask security type questions like “what was the name of her teddy bear as a child?” Although these questions did their job, they found that the kidnappers felt they were owed something since they had done something for the negotiators. By simply asking “how do I know she’s safe?” you turned your problem into the kidnapper’s problem. Now the kidnapper needed to think of a solution, and no longer felt that he was doing the negotiators a service, but that he was doing solving a problem himself.

This is what Chris Voss calls a calibrated question. Calibrated questions are open questions that allow the other party to feel in control while they help you get what you want. One of Chris Voss’s favorites is “How am I supposed to do that?” This question often helps you get out of impossible situations but helping the other party both reveal information and help provide a solution. Voss warns though that in order for these to work, you need to take care in order to not lose your cool and actually ask a question instead of stating an accusation.

Chris then ends the chapter with a few interesting final thoughts. He notes that there’s always another team behind the person you’re negotiating with (when getting sold to, a boss, or when selling, maybe family members) that needs to be considered. He also asks the question “who has control in a conversation? The listener or the talker?” to which he says, “the listener of course, because the talker is actively giving away information.”