Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Chris Voss on Negotiation in relationships:

• Any time the words “I want” or “I need” enter your head or a conversation, you are in a negotiation.
• The commodity in all negotiations is time.
• The first move in a negotiation is to listen, to hear them out. 
• You will be shocked how far you will get if you connect with people.
• Every time someone says “that’s right” they feel more connected to you.
• People want empathy, to be understood. What the FBI calls tactical empathy. 
• Empathy is not compassion, it is a step towards compassion. It is understanding where someone is coming from, even the parts you might not like.
• Call the elephant in the room out, don’t deny it.
• You can manipulate people, but you will pay for it down the road.
• The second move is mirroring. 
• Repeating the last couple of words of what the other person just said.
• It is inviting people to expand.
• Mirroring is the conversation swiss army knife.
• If someone says “no” then they feel safe and protected.
• A calibrated “no” is worth at least five “yeses.”
• The third move is if you remove barriers to agreements first, you get to agreement faster. 
• The fourth move is effective pauses. 
• Be comfortable with silence. 2 out of 3 are uncomfortable with silences.
• We can break people up into groups: fight, flight, make friends.
• The fifth move is to be likable. 
• You are six times more likely to make a deal with someone you like.
• The sixth move is don’t say “I understand.”
• The seventh move is to figure out why not what. 
• The word “why” makes people defensive.
• Ask “what makes you want that” not “why do you want that.”
• The eighth move is to ask open-ended questions. 
• Ask “how.”
• How triggers slow thinking, in-depth thinking. It helps us to shape someone’s thinking.
• Negotiation is about what’s happening in the future. 
• In negotiation, leave the selfish stuff out.
• Fear is part of every negotiation because we’re hardwired to be afraid. 
• The quickest hack against fear is to be genuinely curious.