Mirror

• A good negotiator perpares, going in, to be ready for possible surprises; a great negotiator aims to use her skills to reveal the surprises she is certain to find.
• Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously.
• People how view negotiation as a battle of arguments become overwhelmed by the voices in their head. Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much infomation as possible.
• To quite the voice in your head, make your sole and all-encompoassing focus the other person and what they have to say.
• Slow. It. Down. Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. You risk undermining the rapport and trust you’ve built.
  • (this is my own experience on the Photo Op) Slow it down to discover hidden information. Do not rush to a deal.
• Put a smile on your face. When people are in a positive frame of mind, they think more quickly, and are more likely to collaborate and problem-solve(instead of fight and resist). Positively creates mental agility in both you and your counterpart.
• Mirrors work magic. Repeat the last three words (or the critical one to three words) of what someone has just said. We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar. Mirroring is the art of insinuating similarity, which facilitates bonding. Use mirrors to encourage the other side to empathize and bond with you, keep people talking, buy your side time to regroup, and encourage your counterparts to reveal their strategy.

Label

• Imagine yourself in your counterpart’s situation. The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas(you may well find them crazy). But by acknowledging the other person’s situation, you immediately convey that you are listening. And once they know that you are listening, they may tell you something that you can use.
• The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement. Denying barries or negative influences gives them credence (??? maybe a typo in the book…); get them into the open.
• Pause. After you label a barrier or mirror a statement, let it sink in. Don’t worry, the other party will fill the silence.
• Label your counterparts fears to diffuse their power (the power of fears?). We all want to talk about the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterpart’s amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust.
• List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance perpares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root. And because these accusations often sound exaggerated when said aloud, speaking them will encourage the other person to claim that quite the opposite is true.
• Remember you’re dealing with a person who wants to be appreciated and understood. So use labels to reinforce and encourage positive perceptions and dynamics.