110+ Chris Voss Quotes to Gain a Competitive Edge and Master Effective Communication

Chris Voss is a renowned former FBI hostage negotiator, author, and speaker. He specializes in the art of negotiation, drawing from his extensive experience in high-stakes situations. His expertise lies in the field of crisis communication, where he has successfully resolved numerous hostage situations and trained countless professionals in the art of effective negotiation. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Chris Voss on leadership, relationships, success.

Top 10 Chris Voss Quotes

1. The sweetest two words in any negotiation are actually: That’s right.
2. Being right isn’t the key to a successful negotiation – having the right mindset is.
3. Black Swan theory tells us that things happen that were previously thought to be impossible – or never thought of at all.
4. Playing dumb is a valid negotiating technique.
5. A person’s use of pronouns offers deep insights into his or her relative authority. If you’re hearing a lot of 'I,' 'me,' and 'my,' the real power to decide probably lies elsewhere.
6. Emotions aren't the obstacles to a successful negotiation; they are the means.
7. Analysts hate surprises.
8. In a job negotiation, the implementation of that deal is your success that also causes the company to succeed.
9. No' is a dynamic that you've got to master before you can ever master 'yes.'
10. Once I’d anchored their emotions in a minefield of low expectations, I played on their loss aversion.

Chris Voss Short Quotes

• Never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn’t take something better.
• Talking slowly and clearly you convey one idea: I’m in control.
• Body language and tone of voice - not words - are our most powerful assessment tools.
• I wanted to be a hostage negotiator.
• Truly effective negotiators are conscious of the verbal, paraverbal
• The person across the table is never the problem. The unsolved issue is. So focus on the issue.
• No communication is always a bad sign.
• Conflict brings out truth, creativity, and resolution.
• I was on the SWAT team in the FBI, and I had always wanted to be in SWAT.
• It’s really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction.

Chris Voss Quotes About Relationships

The fastest and most efficient means of establishing a quick working relationship is to acknowledge the negative and diffuse it. — Chris Voss

A successful hostage negotiator has to get everything he asks for, without giving anything back of substance, and do so in a way that leaves the adversaries feeling as if they have a great relationship. His work is emotional intelligence on steroids. — Chris Voss

Whether it’s in the office or around the family dinner table, don’t avoid honest, clear conflict. It will get you the best car price, the higher salary, and the largest donation. It will also save your marriage, your friendship, and your family. — Chris Voss

Chris Voss Quotes About Salary

Salary negotiations shouldn't be limited to just salary. Salary pays your mortgage, but terms build your career. — Chris Voss

Price doesn't make deals, and salary doesn't control your career. — Chris Voss

Salary negotiations are particularly important because people are testing you as both a co-worker and an ambassador. They really don't want you to be a pushover, and they don't want you to be a jerk. — Chris Voss

Whether we notice it or not, we spend our days negotiating for something: for our spouse to do more housework, a child to eat just three more bites or go to bed on time, an extended deadline on a project, a salary increase, a better rate on a vacation package. — Chris Voss

Chris Voss Quotes About Negotiation

Since retiring from the FBI in 2007, I've traveled the world and worked with everyone from CEOs to their managers and everyday workers on how to apply techniques from hundreds of high-stakes, life-or-death negotiations to business negotiations. — Chris Voss

All negotiations are defined by a network of subterranean desires and needs. Don’t let yourself be fooled by the surface. Once you know that the Haitian kidnappers just want party money, you will be miles better prepared. — Chris Voss

People typically only believe they're in a negotiation when dollars are involved. And maybe sometimes they're smart enough to see if there's a commodity that you can count being exchanged. And, of course, the commodity that we most commonly exchange is money. — Chris Voss

Listening is the cheapest, yet most effective concession we can make to get there. By listening intensely, a negotiator demonstrates empathy and shows a sincere desire to better understand what the other side is experiencing. — Chris Voss

A surprisingly high percentage of negotiations hinge on something outside dollars and cents, often having more to do with self-esteem, status, and other non-financial needs. — Chris Voss

Approaching deadlines entice people to rush the negotiating process and do impulsive things that are against their best interests. — Chris Voss

Aggressive confrontation is the enemy of constructive negotiation. — Chris Voss

The sweetest two words in any negotiation are actually, 'That's right.' Before you convince them to see what you're trying to accomplish, you have to say the things to them that will get them to say, 'That's right.' — Chris Voss

Negotiation is often described as the art of letting the other side have your way. You have to give the other side a chance to put stuff on the table voluntarily. — Chris Voss

There are a lot of negotiators that really will give in on a deal because being understood is more important than getting what they want. And there's a particular type in particular, the assertive negotiator: being understood is actually more important to them than actually making the deal. — Chris Voss

Chris Voss Quotes About Empathy

The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas you may well find them crazy. But by acknowledging the other person’s situation, you immediately convey that you are listening. — Chris Voss

If you approach a negotiation thinking the other guy thinks like you, you are wrong. That's not empathy, that's a projection. — Chris Voss

Tactical empathy is understanding the feelings and mindset of another in the moment and also hearing what is behind those feelings so you increase your influence in all the moments that follow. — Chris Voss

The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas. — Chris Voss

Empathy is paying attention to another human being, asking what they are feeling, and making a commitment to understanding their world. — Chris Voss

Chris Voss Quotes About Listening

When individuals feel listened to, they tend to listen to themselves more carefully and to openly evaluate and clarify their own thoughts and feelings. — Chris Voss

Contrary to popular opinion, listening is not a passive activity. It is the most active thing you can do. — Chris Voss

They discovered that people who paid the most attention — good listeners — could actually anticipate what the speaker was about to say before he said it. — Chris Voss

The last rule of labeling is silence. Once you’ve thrown out a label, be quiet and listen. — Chris Voss

Mirroring makes the other person feel listened to. 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. — Chris Voss

Chris Voss Quotes About Mirroring

By repeating back what people say, you trigger this mirroring instinct and your counterpart will inevitably elaborate on what was just said and sustain the process of connecting. — Chris Voss

Mirrors work magic. Repeat the last three words — Chris Voss

Mirroring is simply repeating what someone just said. It creates more reception from the other side, it focuses attention, and it gives them an opportunity to dial in more with you and you to dial in more with them. — Chris Voss

We fear what’s different and are drawn to what’s similar. As the saying goes, birds of a feather flock together. Mirroring, then, when practiced consciously, is the art of insinuating similarity. — Chris Voss

Chris Voss Famous Quotes And Sayings

Ask calibrated questions that start with the words 'How' or 'What'. By implicitly asking the other party for help, these questions will give your counterpart an illusion of control and will inspire them to speak at length, revealing important information. — Chris Voss

Your response must always be expressed in the form of strong, yet empathic, limit-setting boundaries—that is, tough love—not as hatred or violence. — Chris Voss

If you're going to play the bargaining game, you just need to make the other side mad. You want them to get a little annoyed. Then you know that you've come in with a good price. — Chris Voss

Prepare, prepare, prepare. When the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion; you fall to your highest level of preparation. — Chris Voss

Once you understand what a messy, emotional, and destructive dynamic 'fairness' can be, you can see why 'fair' is a tremendously powerful word that you need to use with care. — Chris Voss

The 'Rule of Three' is simply getting the other guy to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation, it's really hard to repeatedly lie or fake conviction. — Chris Voss

The moment you've convinced someone that you truly understand her dreams and feelings, mental and behavioral change becomes possible, and the foundation for a breakthrough has been laid. — Chris Voss

Empathy is becoming completely aware of the other side’s perspective. It’s not an agreement in any way. It’s not compassion. It’s not sympathy. Emotional intelligence—or what I call tactical empathy—is the bedrock of my negotiation approach and comes from years of dealing with hostage crises. — Chris Voss

What does a good babysitter sell, really? It’s not child care exactly, but a relaxed evening. A furnace salesperson? Cozy rooms for family time. A locksmith? A feeling of security. Know the emotional drivers and you can frame the benefits of any deal in language that will resonate. — Chris Voss

People who are lying are, understandably, more worried about being believed, so they work harder - too hard, as it were - at being believable. — Chris Voss

Though the intensity may differ from person to person, you can be sure that everyone you meet is driven by two primal urges: the need to feel safe and secure, and the need to feel in control. If you satisfy those drives, you’re in the door. — Chris Voss

List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root. — Chris Voss

Don’t just pay attention to the people you’re negotiating with directly; always identify the motivations of the players 'behind the table.' — Chris Voss

Our culture demonizes people in movies and politics, which creates the mentality that if we only got rid of the person then everything would be okay. But this dynamic is toxic to any negotiation. — Chris Voss

How you use your voice is really important, and it's really driven by context more than anything else, and your tone of voice will immediately begin to impact somebody's mood and immediately how their brain functions. — Chris Voss

Reciprocity is a natural human dynamic that exists in us because we’re humans. Some people are very guarded about it, so we have to be careful about how we trigger it. If we ask, we tend to owe. — Chris Voss

The positive/playful voice: Should be your default voice. It’s the voice of an easygoing, good-natured person. Your attitude is light and encouraging. The key here is to relax and smile while you’re talking. — Chris Voss

Identify your counterpart’s negotiating style. Once you know whether they are Accommodator, Assertive, or Analyst, you’ll know the correct way to approach them. — Chris Voss

We all want to talk about the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterpart’s amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust. — Chris Voss

When it comes to salary negotiation, don't forget that salary is only one term of employment. What else is on the table - vacation time, benefits, bonuses, flex days? Before determining that these terms are 'must-haves' or 'giveaways' to get a bigger salary, find out what the counterpart has to offer. — Chris Voss

A deal is nothing without good implementation. Poor implementation is the cancer that eats your profits. — Chris Voss

If your first objective in the negotiation, instead of making your argument, is to hear the other side out, that's the only way you can quiet the voice in the other guy's mind. But most people don't do that. — Chris Voss

Going too fast is one of the mistakes all negotiators are prone to making. If we’re too much in a hurry, people can feel as if they’re not being heard. — Chris Voss

When you are verbally assaulted, do not counterattack. Instead, disarm your counterpart by asking a calibrated question. — Chris Voss

Bite your tongue. When you’re attacked in a negotiation, pause and avoid angry emotional reactions. — Chris Voss

The sooner you cut off negotiations with someone you shouldn't be dealing with, it gives you the chance to move on to a more profitable deal. — Chris Voss

Emotions are one of the main things that derail communication. Once people get upset at one another, rational thinking goes out of the window. — Chris Voss

In reality, every single negotiation involves another commodity that's far more important to us, which is time - minutes, hours, our investment in time. So even if you're talking about dollars, the commodity of time is always there because there has to be a discussion about how the commodity of dollars is moved. — Chris Voss

Our brains don’t just process and understand the actions and words of others but their feelings and intentions too, the social meaning of their behavior and their emotions. — Chris Voss

Remember: 65, 85, 95, 100 percent. Decreasing raises and ending on non-round numbers will get your counterpart to believe that he’s squeezing you for all you’re worth when you’re really getting to the number you want. — Chris Voss

Getting three yeses to the same thing is important. If they’ve said ‘yes’ two or three times, it’s more likely that it’s gonna stay a yes. — Chris Voss

A trap into which many fall is to take what other people say literally. I started to see that while people played the game of conversation, it was in the game beneath the game, where few played, that all the leverage lived. — Chris Voss

As a negotiator, you should strive for a reputation of being fair. Your reputation precedes you. Let it precede you in a way that paves success. — Chris Voss

When you preserve a person’s autonomy by clearly giving them permission to say 'No' to your ideas, the emotions calm, the effectiveness of the decisions go up, and the other party can really look at your proposal. — Chris Voss

As a negotiator you should always be aware of which side, at any given moment, feels they have the most to lose if negotiations collapse. — Chris Voss

Get ready to take a punch. Kick-ass negotiators usually lead with an extreme anchor to knock you off your game. If you’re not ready, you’ll flee to your maximum without a fight. — Chris Voss

The more a person feels understood, and positively affirmed in that understanding, the more likely that urge for constructive behavior will take hold. — Chris Voss

A woman wants her husband to wear black shoes with his suit. But her husband doesn’t want to; he prefers brown shoes. So what do they do? They compromise, they meet halfway. And, you guessed it, he wears one black and one brown shoe. Is this the best outcome? No! In fact, that’s the worst possible outcome. Either of the two other outcomes — black or brown — would be better than the compromise. Next time you want to compromise, remind yourself of those mismatched shoes. — Chris Voss

The 'that's right' breakthrough usually doesn't come at the beginning of a negotiation. It's invisible to the counterpart when it occurs, and they embrace what you've said. To them, it's a subtle epiphany. — Chris Voss

In my years as the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator, I learned an important fundamental lesson: Hostage negotiation is often nothing more than a business transaction. — Chris Voss

Fair' is, like, this incredibly overused term in negotiations: 'I just want what's fair.' 'What's the fair market price?' — Chris Voss

He who has learned to disagree without being disagreeable has discovered the most valuable secret of negotiation. — Chris Voss

Minimal Encouragers: Besides silence, we instructed using simple phrases, such as 'Yes', 'OK', 'Uh-huh', or 'I see'. — Chris Voss

Don’t commit to assumptions; instead, view them as hypotheses and use the negotiation to test them rigorously. — Chris Voss

That’s right is better than yes. Strive for it. Reaching that’s right in a negotiation creates breakthroughs. — Chris Voss

There are three kinds of yeses. There's commitment, confirmation, and counterfeit. People are most used to giving the counterfeit yes because they've been trapped by the confirmation yes so many times. So the way you master no is understanding what really happens when somebody says 'no'. — Chris Voss

The best messages in any given negotiation are really implied indirectly, come to the other person based on thinking that you're getting them to do - getting them to get some really solid thought behind their answers. And so a great thing to send someone in an email is, 'Have you given up on this project?' — Chris Voss

One of the reasons that really smart people often have trouble being negotiators—they’re so smart they think they don’t have anything to discover. — Chris Voss

When you expect to get into a negotiation, you expect to be faced by a guy that's going to attack you, a guy or gal that's going to attack or that they're going to try to get the best of you. Two-thirds of us, that makes us very defensive. — Chris Voss

As human beings, we're powerfully swayed by how much we feel we're being respected. People comply with agreements if they feel they've been treated fairly and lash out if they don't. — Chris Voss

Great negotiators are able to question the assumptions that the rest of the involved players accept on faith or in arrogance, and thus remain more emotionally open to all possibilities, and more intellectually agile to a fluid situation. — Chris Voss

The first and best way to say 'no' to anyone is, 'How am I supposed to do that?' Now the other side actually has no idea as to the number of things you've done with them at the same time. You conveyed to them you have a problem. — Chris Voss

Analysts are methodical and diligent. They are not in a big rush. Instead, they believe that as long as they are working toward the best result in a thorough and systematic way, time is of little consequence. Their self-image is linked to minimizing mistakes. Their motto: As much time as it takes to get it right. — Chris Voss

The Rule of Three is simply getting the other guy to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation. It’s tripling the strength of whatever dynamic you’re trying to drill into at the moment. — Chris Voss

Without a deep understanding of human psychology, without the acceptance that we are all crazy, irrational, impulsive, emotionally driven animals, all the raw intelligence and mathematical logic in the world is little help. — Chris Voss

You can bend your counterpart’s reality by anchoring his starting point. Before you make an offer, emotionally anchor them by saying how bad it will be. When you get to numbers, set an extreme anchor to make your 'real' offer seem reasonable, or use a range to seem less aggressive. — Chris Voss

The No. 1 rule in any negotiation is don't take yourself hostage. People do this to themselves all the time by being desperate for 'yes' or afraid of 'no,' so they don't ask for what they really want. — Chris Voss

The best way to deal with negativity is to observe it, without reaction and without judgment. Then consciously label each negative feeling and replace it with positive, compassionate, and solution-based thoughts. — Chris Voss

The secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is to give the other side the illusion of control. Don't try to force your opponent to admit that you are right. Ask questions, that begin with 'How?' or 'What?' so your opponent uses mental energy to figure out the answer. — Chris Voss

What I really think of myself as is a person who's great at negotiation coaching and consulting. — Chris Voss

The F-word — Fair — is an emotional term people usually exploit to put the other side on the defensive and gain concessions. — Chris Voss

There is great power in deference. Deference works with everybody. — Chris Voss

Most people offer obvious telltale signs when they're lying. — Chris Voss

Persuasion is not about how bright or smooth or forceful you are. It’s about the other party convincing themselves that the solution you want is their own idea. So don’t beat them with logic or brute force. Ask them questions that open paths to your goals. — Chris Voss

Splitting the difference is wearing one black and one brown shoe, so don’t compromise. Meeting halfway often leads to bad deals for both sides. — Chris Voss

Life Lessons by Chris Voss

1. Active listening: Voss emphasizes the importance of active listening in negotiation. By truly understanding the other party's perspective and emotions, one can build trust and find mutually beneficial solutions. This skill can be applied not only in negotiations but also in everyday interactions, fostering stronger relationships and effective communication.
2. Emotional intelligence: Voss recognizes the significance of emotional intelligence in negotiation. Understanding and managing emotions, both one's own and those of others, can be a powerful tool in achieving successful outcomes. By acknowledging and empathizing with the emotions of others, individuals can build rapport and create an environment conducive to constructive dialogue.
3. The power of empathy: Voss emphasizes the power of empathy in negotiation. By putting oneself in the shoes of the other party and understanding their needs and desires, one can find common ground and create win-win solutions. This approach fosters collaboration and helps build long-lasting relationships based on trust and understanding. You can refer to his book Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It in order to understand his wisdom more deeply.