I attended the Virginia CEOs retreat at Kingsmill a couple of weeks ago, and our keynote speaker was former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss, the author of Never Split the Difference. Our sales team read his book together a few years ago, and I eagerly anticipated him taking the stage with mega-fanboy energy.
He kicked off his keynote with a story about a book signing by legendary CEO Jack Welch. Chris wanted Jack to come and speak to his hostage negotiating class. Apparently, most authors at book signings are tightly scripted, and their goal is to spend no more than 30 seconds greeting each person otherwise, they’d never make it through a long line snaking around the block. The flow of traffic was so tightly controlled that the handlers already had the name of the person before they came up so all the author had to do was sign, maybe mug for a quick picture, then move them along (think the angry elves in A Christmas Story managing Santa’s queue). This setup was clearly meant to emphasize that Chris really didn’t have much time to make a connection. Chris asked the audience to guess what he said to Jack, and the audience guessed wildly.
“Would you come to my presentation?”
“Are you free September 3rd?”
Chris batted away all the answers and finally gave up the goods.
“Is it ridiculous for you to come and speak to my hostage negotiation class?” queried Chris. Jack apparently squinted, looked up to the right, and then finally said to his handler, “We have some free time scheduled in October, let’s make this happen”. Chris’ point was that we’re so primed to reject questions where people are oriented around getting us to a “yes.” We put our guard and defenses up and think people want something from us. On the other hand, if it’s a “no”-oriented question, we’re much more likely to agree.
He went on to give a number of other examples around this idea of getting to “no.” I’ve been using this “getting-to-no” technique for the last few years, and it really is pretty powerful. Here are a few great examples from Chris’ presentation:
| “Yes” Seeking (Anxiety Creating) | No-Oriented (Protection/Safety Creating) |
| Have you got a few minutes to talk? | Is now a bad time to talk? |
| Is this a good idea? | Is it a ridiculous idea? |
| Are you willing? | Are you against? |
| Would you still like? | Have you given up? |
| Does this work for you? | Does this screw everything up? |
| Can you? | Would you hate me for asking? |
| Is this correct? | Am I out of line? |
| Would you… (take this action)? | Are you opposed to (taking this action)? |
| Does this make sense? | Is this nonsense? |
A couple of my personal favorites:
- Asking somebody, “Is this a bad time?” instead of the “yes”-seeking “Is this a good time?”
- If somebody’s ghosting you on a project, ask them, “Have you given up on this project?” instead of “Hey, just making sure you got my email.”
There are too many others to count. As I think about the idea of getting to “no” versus getting to “yes,” it’s all about trying to build rapport quickly and get an answer. Chris Voss gives us some pretty powerful lessons to synthesize.
What are you going to do in your company to shift from getting to “yes” toward getting to “no”?
Stay frosty, and see you in the field.
