Book Review of Never Split the Difference

An amazing book about how to build rapport with others and encourage open communication.

Chris Voss put together his years of experience as an FBI hostage negotiator and compiled them into this book to help us in every difficult communication – whether it be personal or professional. It’s not a book about manipulation or about sales – it’s a book about active listening.

The tools of mirroring, labelling, and asking calibrated questions are all designed to help you encourage someone to talk and open up to you.

Readable and interesting – but hard to explain. Full of interesting stories from Voss’ career and how he managed (and at times, did not manage) to communicate with international aggressors to find out what they really wanted and what they were trying to hide. These pieces of information are called Black Swans – and in the final chapter he talks about the importance of these and why we miss them.

Game changer.