Five ways to get buy-in from your boss: Highlights from our conversation with FBI negotiator Chris Voss

The secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is giving the other side of the illusion of control. Think influence, think upper hand, think guiding. Control is a bad thing. Control is tunnel vision. Let them feel in control. You're not going to win that with your boss anyway. I just want to say we have so many people here for today's conversation, and I want to bring in some of your questions here. Most of us are not the CEO. We're not the big boss. We're trying from wherever we are inside our organizations to be heard, respected, and to move our opinions forward. Right. What are some tools we can use to start to do that? So you're talking to your boss. Here's the harsh reality. Nobody walks into the boss's office unless they want something. You go in and ask for a raise. Realize what the boss is hearing. All right, so what you want is to get paid more for doing the same amount of work. That's what they're hearing. You don't roll in a boss's office and say, hey, look, how can I make your life easier and not get paid more for it? Nobody says that. No, no, not gonna happen. So the problem is bosses are conditioned to view employees as selfish. Empathy is, how does the other person see it? Look, I'm probably gonna look like another selfish employee. I wanna work someplace where I can thrive. They'll be like, oh, wow. And suddenly they're listening. And that's the difference between someone who tells the truth in a blunt way or someone who's a straight shooter. Straight shooters tells the truth but in an emotionally intelligent way. So you gotta recognize what they're hearing and even saying it out loud instantly breaks the ice. Right. You're instantly different from everybody. Right. And that's when you go out of the power dynamic and into the influence dynamic. I love that. You are announcing the problem that you are bringing as a problem so that your boss can get past it and begin with you to collaborate on the solution. So let's talk common mistakes. What are the kinds of things that you see that people just always mess up with where you feel like they could quickly make a fix? Needing to go first in what you want because then you're cutting yourself out of valuable information, which you need. You're sitting across from a hiring manager. What would you like to make? Well, what would you like to offer? Well, let me know what you'd like to make. In that moment, I as the job seeker, I am nervous. I'm gonna go first because it's just gonna black out of my mouth. Right. Give me a tool for that moment. Before you sit down, they have a range. They have a budget. They have a somewhat restricted view of the possibilities. And I've taught people to say, sounds like you got a range of mind. That's called a label. And there's something about the collaborative, inviting aspect of using the label that is the quickest way to pull information out of people without making them feel like it was pulled. They got a range in mind. They're dying to tell you. All you gotta do is draw it out of them in a way that seems very inviting. Sounds like you have a range in mind. Also, it doesn't make them feel cornered. Sound like you got a number in mind, that's cornering. And it feels like commitment. It sounds like you got a range in mind. It's not really commitment, it's comfortable. It's an invitation. Disciples of your work are gonna be very familiar with this idea of a label. And it strikes me that mirroring, another one of your tools, is a great tool for slowing things down and being able to listen enough to follow the cues to understand a lot of what you're talking about. Follow the cues? Follow the cues to slow down and activate the listening. Is that fair or not fair? Did I just mirror you? Man, you can't talk to this guy, folks! Chris, party trick. So good, okay, I'm moving on to y'all's questions. My questions are getting mirrored. How do you negotiate with someone who clearly doesn't have your best interest in mind? You terminate and move on. That feels like a key lesson. In Haas's negotiation, we were successful about 93% of the time, which meant about 7% of the time it ain't happening. accept the reality, and then take appropriate measures to move on, because the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. So if it's a difficult negotiation, that's the way it's always gonna be. Do you want that? Do you always want to have a bad relationship? And so if you work for someone that does not have your best interests in mind, you're in the wrong place. They're gonna suck the life out of you. They're gonna make you unhappy. You will not flourish as a human being there. We have time for just one more member question. How can you employ Chris's techniques outside of work, negotiating parenting time with your ex or getting your kids to do their homework? Everybody in your life deserves to be understood. And empathy is about just demonstrating understanding of the other person, your significant others, your kids. They don't need you to agree. They want you to know that you see their perspective. you