So the common misconception about negotiation
is that you have to make your case.
You have to make your argument.
You need to come prepared with the reasons
why the other side should make the deal, your value
proposition.
If you will, and need to lay all that out.
That is not the case.
You need to find out what's possible,
and you need to engage the other side in what their thoughts are
so that they feel involved in the process,
and consequently they want the deal to happen.
So what I'm going to teach you with mirrors and a section
on mirroring is how to use mirrors
to get the other side engaged, to get them
to feel like they're involved, and also to tease out
the information that you might not have had otherwise,
pieces of information that are going to make all
the difference in the world.
And one of the sayings about negotiation
is negotiation is the art of letting
the other side have your way.
So mirroring gets them talking and creates the opportunity
for them actually to present you with your deal,
only they thought it was their idea.
So mirroring is critical in information gathering
and in the art of letting the other side have your way.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Mirroring.
The hostage negotiator's mirroring.
It's just the simple repetition of one
to three words, one two three-ish words.
Typically it's the last one to three words
of what somebody said.
But when you get good at mirroring,
you could pick one to three words from anywhere
in the conversation.
The other person feels listened to.
It tends to connect their thoughts in their head.
Part of the message it sends to the other person
is I heard every word you said word for word,
and I'm proving it because I just repeated it back to you.
But it's not enough.
I still don't get it.
And when people go on with a further explanation,
they're going to add more words.
They're going to change their terms.
One of the things that's in the book
"Never Split the Difference" was one time
when my son mirrored me.
We were getting ready for some training,
and I asked him if the notebooks were ready.
Now he sensed from the way I was asking it
that the picture in his head of what a notebook was
and the picture in my head of a notebook
were two different things.
And he said to me, what do you mean by notebooks?
And all I did was say notebooks, louder.
Same words exactly, only louder, which
is what people often do because they
think the words that they've selected are perfect.
So how could you not understand?
You know, I wasn't loud enough.
And he asked me a couple times, what do you mean by notebooks?
And I just said, notebooks.
And finally he looked at me he said, notebooks?
And I said yeah, three ring binders.
He's like, ah, because he had a completely different picture
in his head.
And to this day, he will stand up and hold up a folder
and say, this is a notebook, and this is a three ring binder,
and they're not the same thing.
But that's what happens.
People go on.
People elaborate.
People use different words.
It's ridiculously simple.
It's so absurdly simple that a lot of people
think it'll never work until they start using it,
and they find it's fantastic.
The other side loves it when you're paying attention.
They love it when you gently know that what they have said
is inadequate.
But they're not being accused of being inadequate,
and people go on.
It's a remarkable skill.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Mirroring is also a rapport-building relationship
process.
People love to be mirrored.
They love to be encouraged to go on.
There's an old saying, interesting people
are interested.
If you mirror, you will be ridiculously
interesting to other people because you're
interested in them, and they're going to love talking to you.
I've been at social gatherings where there were one
or two people there that had studied our techniques that
walked around and mirrored people the entire time.
We were at a weekend yoga retreat, of all places, once.
And there was an individual there,
he drove his wife crazy because the only thing he ever did
with anybody was mirror them.
And so he spent an entire weekend mirroring everybody
that spoke to him.
And he told his wife in advance that that
was all he was going to do.
And all the women at the yoga retreat
kept coming up to his wife, saying,
your husband is the most interesting guy we ever met.
Oh, my god, we love talking to him.
Please always bring them with you when you come along.
And he's just walking around with this big, silly smile
on his face because all he did was mirror everybody,
and they loved them.
A great example of what this gentleman would often do
is someone would say, you know, I'm really enjoying being
here at this yoga retreat.
And he'd say, at the yoga retreat?
And they say, yeah, you know, I mean, this is a great place.
I mean, I'm getting a lot of time to really think.
I'm eating really healthy.
And he'd say, you're eating really healthy?
And they'd go, yeah, you know, the food here is fantastic.
I mean, you go up there.
They've got everything laid out for you.
They've thought of everything in advance.
It's all organic.
And they've really taken a lot of care with the food.
And he'd say, a lot of care with the food?
Yeah, you know, they're really careful with the food here.
They're really-- and that's all it is.
If you're genuinely curious about the other person,
you're interested, you're looking forward to hearing
what they have to say.
You want to learn from them.
You're positive about it.
You're not judgmental.
You're interested.
And genuine curiosity is a great trigger
to get people to keep talking.
And a mirror that finishes with a tone of voice
of genuine curiosity is compelling.
It's powerful.
People are drawn to it.
They want to say more.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
If someone's coming at me in a very confrontational manner,
let's say, in a business setting,
they're going to have a problem with my price.
And so they might say, your price is too high.
And I would say, our price is too high?
Yeah, well, you know, we can't pay that.
You know, we've got a limited budget.
And I might say, you got a limited budget?
Yeah, well, you know, we've got other things
we have to worry about.
There's a lot of things that we're
trying to accomplish here.
Other things you're trying to accomplish?
And they're going to go on and they're going to elaborate,
and they're going to give me context.
And they're going to feel like I'm working with them.
They're not going to feel me fighting.
You know, it takes two to fight.
I'm going to change this wrestling match into a dance.
And if I refuse to engage in the wrestling,
but I still want to engage, then that changes
into a collaboration almost immediately.
The next time someone is being confrontational with you,
try a mirror.
Use a great tone of voice, genuine curiosity.
Mirror them a few times and see if they
don't change their tune.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So the recipe for mirroring, first of all, is just,
you know, the last one to three words
of what someone just said.
But then the critical issue afterwards is to shut up,
you know, effective pause or dynamic silence.
A lot of people have trouble going
silent because a lot of people signal anger with silence,
so they're afraid that their silence will
be misinterpreted as anger.
But it's critical, to display that you're interested,
that you go silent, especially after a mirror,
especially after the use of a great skill.
You want to go silent afterwards.
Let the other person think.
Let your skill sink into their head.
Let it have its intended effect, and go
silent, which also lets the person know that you really
want to hear, and you're going to shut up until they do.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
If these tools make you feel awkward
or they feel counter intuitive, or you say to yourself,
that's not going to work, awesome.
What that means is you're learning.
You're creating a new skill, that whatever you're doing now,
you can add to it and you can do it even better.
Awkwardness is an indicator of learning.
All right, to give you an example
of what this feels like, I ask you
to make a fist with both hands.
Put your right thumb up.
Put your left forefinger out.
That might have taken you a second.
Now switch.
Switch back.
Do it again.
Speed it up.
Quicker.
Probably if I'd have asked you to do
that while you were standing up, you might have fallen over.
But what was that feeling when I asked you to do it?
It was awkwardness.
So as you practicing the tools I'm going to teach you,
it's going to feel awkward.
You're going to feel like you're going to quit.
You're going to give up.
You're going to try to mirror somebody at the water cooler,
and you're going to feel like they're going to scream
at you for mirroring them.
Just get your repetitions in.
Try it in low stakes practice.
Try with the Starbucks clerk.
Try it with the hotel clerk.
Try it with people that you're willing to give yourself
a chance to learn with because you
don't have that much at stake.
Get your three weeks of practice in.
Get your 63 to 64 repetitions in,
and it will come naturally to you,
and you'll get past the awkwardness.