Review: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It

Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A friend recommended this book after he read it and used some of the tactics presented to help me negotiate the sale of my house. After listening to a string of fiction books, I decided to give this one a try both out of curiosity and because the first few from my TBR list I tried to check out I had to put on hold.

I see it has a lot of rave reviews and while there is some advice in here I will likely find useful and put into practice to help communicate better (using "It seems" rather than "I feel" or "You did") I agree with those who said this is basically a book on how to manipulate others into getting what you want. But then again, isn't that what negotiation is all about in some respects?

I also felt that in the wrong hands, the chapter regarding how you want to start with "no" because it's really a "yes" waiting to happen could be a dangerous concept. Trust me, there are times that my "no" is NOT a challenge to change my mind and no really does mean no. Though at the same time I can also admit that there are times when I say "no" but am actually curious and I agree sometimes saying "yes" really is just to end the conversation rather than an expression of actual interest.

It wasn't a bad book. Though my friend had shared snippets with it as he read it, I didn't entirely know what to expect from it. As I said, I found some of it to be useful in terms of helping to communicate better, but I also felt a lot of it seemed rather manipulative. Though I do appreciate the reviewer who commented about receiving a grant after following the advice of using a precise number (admittedly not knowing if this was the reason for success) and that is something that as a fellow grant writer, I may have to try!

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