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Welcome back to the Productivity Podcast where I give you a daily productivity tip so
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you can get the most out of your time, your talent, and your ideas.
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I'm your host Brandon White, here we go.
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You finally get a few minutes with the person you need something from.
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Could be your boss, could be your partner, could be a contractor who's been blowing past
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You've thought this through.
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Can you help me out with this?
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And they say, sure, yeah, absolutely.
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And then, nothing changes.
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Three weeks later, you're back in the same spot.
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Except now, you've also lost a little trust in the conversation itself.
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And the yes that felt like progress was just air.
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You've got the wrong kind of yes.
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And there's a better question to ask that changes the whole dynamic, no matter who you're
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having the conversation with.
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Today, we're taking a negotiation tactic straight out of the FBI playbook from former
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hostage negotiator Chris Voss and showing you how to use it to set boundaries, push back
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on overload and protect your time and sanity.
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At work at home with a contractor, a friend, whoever, will explain what no-oriented questions
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are, cover the psychology behind why no-oriented questions work so well, and then give you
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three ways you can start using them right after finishing listening to this episode.
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Chris Voss spent 24 years negotiating with terrorists, kidnappers, and bank robbers for
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When he retired, he wrote, never split the difference.
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And the productivity and communication world hasn't been the same since.
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One of his most counterintuitive ideas, stop getting people to say yes.
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After retiring, Voss attended a book signing for Jack Walsh, former CEO of General Electric,
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one of the most influential business leaders of the past century.
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Voss wanted Walsh to guess lecture his negotiation class at USC.
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Walsh didn't know him.
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So instead of pitching, Voss asked a single, no-oriented question.
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Walsh came to L.A. that fall and spoke to the class, and that's how well it works.
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The reason it works is simple.
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People are instinctively more comfortable saying no.
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They see it as safe or more protective of their autonomy.
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So when you ask a yes-oriented question like, can you help me with this?
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Or do we agree we need to fix this?
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The other person feels pressure.
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They wonder what they're committing to, and they either hesitate, say yes without meaning
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it, or quietly just check out.
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A no-oriented question flips that.
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You frame the question so that the no is the answer you want, and it relieves the other
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person from wondering what they're signing up for.
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Instead of, is now a good time to talk?
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You ask, is now a bad time to talk?
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If they say no, meaning it's not a bad time, you have their full attention.
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And if they say yes, it's a bad time, they'll almost always offer you an alternative.
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Small shift, different result.
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Psychology figured out why this works decades ago.
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A psychology paper published as a theory of psychological reactants by Jack Brem, first
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introduced in the Journal of Personality in 1966, explains that when people feel their
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freedoms are being pressured or constrained, they become motivated to push back and restore
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that sense of control.
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In other words, the more a yes-oriented question feels like pressure, the more the other person's
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brain resists it, and it happens subconsciously.
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No-oriented questions remove that friction entirely.
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When you give someone room to say no, you hand them a sense of control, and that opens
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the door to a real honest conversation instead of a hollow commitment they don't mean
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Your communication means less wasted time, fewer blown up expectations, and better relationships.
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Here are three no-oriented questions you can use immediately covering three different
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but very common situations.
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Number one, at work, when you're overloaded instead of, can you take something off my
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Would it be a problem to push the deadline on the Henderson report so I can give the client
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proposal the intention it needs?
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You're laying out the trade-off clearly, and the no feels like an easy, low-stakes answer
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that actually solves your problem.
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Number two, at home, when a conversation keeps getting avoided.
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Instead of, can we talk about the Kitchen Remodel budget?
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Is tonight a bad time to spend 20 minutes on the kitchen budget?
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Asking for permission to have the conversation rather than launching into it completely changes
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You get either a, no, tonight's fine.
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With their full attention, or, yes, but Saturday morning works better, either way you've
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got something real in the calendar instead of another vague, yeah, we should talk about
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And the third no-question, with a friend who keeps flaking.
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Instead of, can we please nail down a date?
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Would it be crazy just to pick a day right now so we stop going back and forth?
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No, that's not crazy.
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Practically answers the question right there, and suddenly you've got a plan.
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I keep a printout in my work back as a reminder and read it over when I have a minute waiting
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for a flight or grabbing a bite to eat because remembering these questions is really powerful.
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And before we wrap up, if you are wondering what the no-question Chris Voss asked, Jack
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Welsh, that got him to say yes to being a guest's lecturer, it was, would it be crazy
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for me to ask you to do a guest's lecture to the class I'm teaching at USC?
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Jack's response was quick and simple.
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No, here's my assistance number, let's get it on the schedule, I would love to do it.
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Whether it's your boss, your partner, or a friend who keeps forgetting to call you back,
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don't reach for the yes, reach for the no.
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The FBI figured out that the no is where the real commitment lives.
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Turns out, the same is true in your Monday morning check-in, your Sunday night kitchen conversation,
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and everywhere in between.
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Give the Chris Voss no a try and see what a difference it makes.
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Thanks so much for listening to the Productivity Podcast.
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Please remember to hit the follow button in your podcast player so you never miss the
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We'll see you in the next episode.