3 Tips on Negotiations, with FBI Negotiator Chris Voss | Best of '16 | Big Think

How you use your voice is really important, and it's really driven by context more than anything else. Your tone of voice will immediately begin to impact somebody's mood and immediately how their brain functions. There's actually scientific data out there now that shows us that our brains will work up to 31 percent more effectively if we're in a good mood.

So if I smile at you, and you see it or you can hear a smile in someone's voice, if I automatically smile at you and you can hear that I like you, I will actually be able to reach into your brain, flip the positive switch, and put you in a better mood. There are mirror neurons in our brain that we have no control over; they automatically respond. If I intentionally put you in a good mood, your brain will be working more effectively, and that already begins to increase the chances that you're going to collaborate with me. You'll be smarter, and you'll like me more at the same time.

Now, upward and downward inflection. Downward inflection is often used to say, "This is the way it is; there's no other way." And I will say it exactly like that. If there is a term in a contract that there's no movement on, and I want you to know it and feel it without me having to say there's no movement on this, which maybe you want to yell at somebody, and that's ineffective because that triggers a different part of the brain and makes people angry and they want to fight.

I've done this in contract negotiations. I've said things like, "We don't do work for hire," just like that. It lets the other side know there's no movement whatsoever. I also may need to put you in a more collaborative frame of mind. If I want to ask you a question, I'll say something like, "It seems like this is important to you," and I'll inflect up. It's more driven by context. I can use an upward inflection to encourage you and smile while I'm questioning you.

That will make you feel less attacked by being questioned because people are made to feel a little bit defensive when they're questioned anyway. So if I know I have to question you, if I want you to think about a different option, then I'm going to be as encouraging as possible while I may be very assertive at the same time.

The mirroring that I teach is not the same as the way most people think of mirroring. Most people, when they think of mirroring, they think mirroring body language, mirroring tone of voice, even using the same words. It's not that at all. The mirroring that I teach is much more simplistic and, interestingly enough, has a great impact on how the other person interacts with you.

It's just repeating the last one to three words that they've said, word for word, one to three words, or it's repeating a selected one to three words. What it really does is it helps connect people's thoughts. There will almost never be a time when you mirrored the last three words of what someone said when they want to go on and explain, reword, and expand.

That mirror, what it has done, is it helps give you a better understanding of what the other person is trying to say. It also gives you more time to think. It's a way to buy time in a negotiation for yourself. The other person doesn't see you buying time in any way, shape, or form. It's a great way, when you don't know what to say or where to go, to keep them talking in a way that they're very comfortable with.

One of my clients actually mirrors his counterpart's positions every single time. Every time they make a statement on a position, he simply mirrors it. He'll repeat it, and he'll expand it, and every time he does that, it also gives him a good feel for whether or not they're really stable in that position or whether there's quite a bit of softness in a position, completely based on how they reworded and responded to his mirror.

So a mirror is a great way to keep somebody else talking very comfortably. The F word in negotiations is "fair." Fair is the F bomb. And when you begin to look for it, it's stunning in how many negotiations somebody drops the F bomb in the negotiation. And when somebody says, "We...