Mastering Coaching Skills with Lessons from Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

In this episode of The Coaching Book Club, hosts Christy Stuber and Ken McKellar unpack powerful insights from Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, revealing how FBI hostage negotiation tactics can elevate your coaching skills.

From active listening to emotional labeling and building trust, Voss’s strategies offer coaches actionable tools for fostering deeper client relationships, guiding breakthrough moments, and helping clients navigate challenging decisions.

Key Insights in This Episode:
✅ Why assumptions can hinder coaching conversations — and how adopting a “hypothesis guide” mindset strengthens client trust.
✅ How Voss’s ‘Three Yeses’ model — Counterfeit, Confirmation, and Commitment — helps coaches distinguish true buy-in from surface-level agreement.
✅ The neuroscience behind labeling emotions — and how this simple technique can shift clients from overwhelm to clarity.
✅ How tactical empathy — a core negotiation skill — mirrors coaching presence and supports meaningful change.

Drawing from her experience running a suicide hotline, Christy reflects on the overlap between crisis negotiation techniques and effective coaching strategies — including the power of presence, empathy, and meeting clients where they are.

Whether you're a coach looking to refine your skills, a manager learning coaching strategies, or a leader seeking better communication techniques, this episode offers actionable insights to improve your practice.

📚 Tune in now to discover how negotiation insights can enhance your coaching skills and unlock powerful client breakthroughs.

Transcript

0:11

Welcome to the coaching book club podcast, the show that empowers coaches through books. I'm Christy Stuber here with my friend and co host Ken McKellar. And today we're talking about Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. So Ken, today we're diving into Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. This was a recommendation of you from one of your best coaching books last year and it is going to be an interesting conversation. This book is a masterclass in negotiation, teaching high stakes communication techniques that help you build trust. Influence outcomes and create win win situations skills that are just as powerful in coaching as they are in hostage situations. So here's what you can expect in this episode. First, we'll start with a quick overview of the book. Next, we'll break down a few key takeaways that stood out to us. And finally, we'll explore how these concepts connect to real world coaching challenges and help you as coaches, and certainly me and Ken, build confidence, tackle imposter syndrome and grow as a coach. So whether you've read this book before or are hearing about it for the first time, you'll leave with actionable tools to strengthen your skills. Let's get started. So Ken, tell me about Never Split the Difference. And how it resonated with you. Wow. Okay. First of all, Judy recommended this book to me and, uh, I was like, uh, she read, never split the difference. I was like, okay. And just said it, I got the book, but I didn't read it because I was like, what, I mean, what's, there's a whole lot of books in front of a negotiating book, but I'll need a book about negotiating for, and so I just kind of kept it to the side and when I read it, I mean, he had me at, you know, Hello. Well, he didn't really say hello, but he had me at the beginning. And this was a throwaway comment. He was just kind of just talking in, in, in like the middle of the second chapter. And he says, assumptions, blind hypothesis guides. And I was like, Holy goodness. This is already. It was just in the second chapter. And I said, this is an incredible coaching book because then he goes on and talks about active listening and empathy and connecting and, you know, putting that person first, I mean, all that. But for me, the base of it was this whole premise of assumptions, blind. Hypothesis guides, and that just tells me, you know, if I'm making assumptions, I'm blind to what's going on on the other side, but I have a hypothesis and I take a guess and then I check and see if that guess is correct. I confirm what's going on on the other side, then that's a conversation that's building a relationship. Assumptions, blind, hypothesis, guide, go on, Chris, you do your thing. I mean, it's an amazing quote and it is so much what we do in coaching. He also said negotiation is not an act of battle. It's a process of discovery. And that really landed with me because I feel like that's what we do in coaching, right? We're, we're digging deep and trying to help people understand, um, how they're seeing the world, how it might be getting in their way, what they might want to change to move forward. One thing and sort of a little bit of a side note that really, um, stood out to me was that I ran a suicide hotline here in Pittsburgh, and as volunteers, we had police officers who were in charge of hostage negotiations for their police departments, volunteer on our hotline, and they joined to refine their active listening skills. And I was really thrilled when I saw that this author, Chris Voss, was recommended at the FBI to volunteer on a suicide hotline for the same exact reason. Um, I think it really, speaks to how both fields need to help, um, the people they're working with feel safe enough to express their true needs, whether it's, you know, in negotiation, um, with a hostage situation in a business setting with somebody who's experiencing a mental health crisis and with our clients who are coming to us for coaching. So this resonated with us in different ways. Yeah. Yeah. When I, as I was reading it, it was thinking along the lines of when I'm working with the person in front of me, he says, he says, what do they want? What are they negotiating? Right. It may not be negotiating to get somebody home, but in their life, they're negotiating how to, with themselves, get that raise or negotiating how to buy that house or whether or not they should. Do something. So those conversations are still going on. There's still people at the table is inside. So a lot of what he talks about in this book becomes applicable to not only culture, but even in, in everyday life, but particularly it's some, it's, it's, it's some. Ooh, a lot of meat on this bones as far as, um, coaching conversation and coaching takeaways, get the book. We're going to give you some stuff, but there's a lot of stuff that we're not going to be able to, um, to touch in this book. So there's a lot of good stuff. Yeah. Well, I was channeling you as I was reading the book and noticing how many core competencies were showing up in different ways. Uh, one of my first takeaways is what you just mentioned. Um, and I love how he defines negotiation as. Quote, identifying what your counterpart actually needs and getting them to talk and talk some more about what they want, end quote. To me, that feels like what we do in coaching again is somebody will come to us and say, yeah, I want that promotion. And then we build the trust, we can have more conversation and it ends up, oh, I want the promotion because there's always something underneath that they really, that they really need. Um, that the promotion is really about not just the title, it's about something else. What takeaways did you have? One of the things that he talks about is listening and I am a Nancy Kline lover as far as the work that she's done around, that she does around listening. And this is what he says is the most important thing he says is to listen, to listen, to what they want, right? Um, what is it? Competence competency? Five talks about, uh, you know, coaches. I mean, uh, presence. It talks about listening for what's being said and what's not being said. And this is what he talks about in his book, right? You're listening to what, what is there? One, you're listening to the emotions. You become, you become empathetic to them. And he also says it's almost like you seek. To understand before being understood, I want to understand what it is, who that person is, where that person is coming from. Right. And as I'm listening and understanding where that person is coming from, but you know what we call them black swans stuff that I may be missing or that's not obvious. Right. So I thought, I thought that was like, I stayed in that space. Right. He's like that. I mean, because it comes back to listening. It comes back to paying attention. And it's real world example for him of, you know, before negotiators used to take this tactic when they would have a hostage situation, they would sort of just jump to an immediate solution. Like, we'll just pay the pay the ransom, do this, do that. And the results weren't always great. And now he's saying, but if we can focus on deep understanding, rather than immediate solutions, we can get collaborative results. And again, that makes you think about coaching. How many times do our clients come to us and say, just tell me what to do. And I can give them an answer. It's probably not the right one for them because I don't, I'm not them. I don't know if I can spend some time with them to help understand what's going on, both to them and to me. Then we can come up with a collaborative results driven solution that's gonna really work for them. Well, you know what? And he, the title, like never split the difference. I, I'm thinking like, I get what I want and I ain't trying to give you anything. Right. But it was, the way he, the way he kind of spells it out is if I get partial and you give partial, like nobody's getting what they want. Right? So let's figure out a way that. Everybody gets what they want. And for me, the start is to come with my DJ voice. How you doing everybody? This is DJ Chris Voss coming to you live, right? Or being playful, right? Um, not playful, like. Gaming type of people, but just kind of being, being, being loose and trying to get that connection. So those are two things that he talked about as far as connecting with people. When I came for, for me as in coaching is number one, listening to who's in front of you and what they may need from you in terms of engagement, right? Do they need you to talk with just a little bit more so they can get a little bit more comfortable with you? Do they need you to slow down when you're talking? Or do they need you to, um, speak up or, or, or kind of get to your point sooner? And you know me, Ken, I'm a fast thinker, fast talker. And I actually had a session this morning with somebody who needed me to slow way, way down. And when I did, they were able to see their situation clearly. That's a good reminder. The other reminder I had, and this is probably because it relates back to my time running the hotline, is, um, the importance of labeling emotions. To help create. Oh, yes Nice. Yeah. I mean, this is the first thing when, on the suicide hotline, when we were training our volunteers, the first thing we taught them to do as soon as they could in the beginning of a phone call was to identify an emotion. Oh, it seems like you're feeling angry. You might be wrong, but it's getting, it's getting something. Um, it's helping that caller in this case, get more clear about what they are feeling. And um, I also loved, cause you know, I love neuroscience that he talked about some brain imaging research. By Matthew Lieberman and UCLA that explains what happens. So when we label emotions, the brain activity shifts from the amygdala, which is the fear center of the brain to the prefrontal cortex, which is where we have our more rational higher level thinking. So if we can. Put a label out there, even again, if we're wrong, the other person can then maybe label it for themselves. And then of course, this relates to competency six, right? Labeling helps clients process emotions and move forward with clarity as well as, um, 6. 4 and 6. 5 show up here. So like he was pretty confident as you said that I get that right 6. 4 I wasn't so sure about their panda 6. 5 and reading these books, if I can take away a glass of water, that's great. But if I can take away a bucket of water, Oh man, that is fantastic. And the bucket of water for me in this book was when Chris Voss talked about. Identifying the yeses. Let me talk about this with you, Chris, right? He talked about the three yeses, the counterfeit. Yes. The confirmation. Yes. And the commitment. Yes. And I know the counterfeit rat. Yes. Cause I used to get that from my kids all the time. Hey. You're going to take out the trash. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I got that for you. I need you home by three o'clock to take care of some stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Take care of that. Right. It ain't going to happen. Right. So I was thinking about the different yeses. In terms of coaching, right? That counterfeit. Yes. That confirmation. Yes. And that commitment. Yes. And they sound different. I mean, and a lot of times it sounds different based off of how we ask the question, you know, versus, so are you going to complete your essay, right? Yes. That could be right. Either one of them, right? Versus so what are you going to do this weekend? Well, the number one thing I'm going to do is complete that essay. That's a commitment, right? It feels different. It sounds different. Um, your thoughts. Well, that was one of my takeaways as well is, um, when my client is giving me Not a commitment, yes. And they may say it, but when I look at them, you notice a shift maybe in the way their eyes are, the way their head tilts, and their tone might be wrong. Like you were talking about your kids, right? I can see your kids as you were describing them, being like, Yeah, yeah, I got it. Right. And as I approach the opportunity to sort of notice that misalignment between the tone, maybe the body language, and the words, um, I think allows us again to go deeper, and to really get the commitment, yes. Once you point that out to other people and say, wait a minute, something isn't quite aligning. What's that about? Yes. Yes. And I think that right there is the next step. Well, the first step is asking a question in a way that it gives the most flexibility and it gives the most options for them to be 100 percent themselves and showing up who they are. Right. That's the first way. The other is to be, I mean, you know, transparent in what you're seeing. Hmm. I'm hearing yes, but oh, you shuck your head twice. No. I mean, what's, what, what's going on? What am I seeing? What's coming up for you? Well, I want to do a camp, but I'm a little bit nervous about doing it. See that that's what we want to work with. That's the coaching right there. You know, um, you said you wasn't going to go to the store, but you know, you kind of smiled and giggled a little bit. What's going up there. Well, I'm, I'm going to go to the store one more time because they got, they got the chips with the double chips on sale today. So one more time, right? Okay. All right. So what does that mean for what your goal for, for dieting, right? Then you, you get into the coaching. So What I think as coaches, we want to just be cognizant of is where that yes is, is it counterfeit? Is it confirmation or is it commitment? Very well said. So some great takeaways. I'm wondering what, um, what you might start applying to your own coaching. The biggest thing, well, it's not the biggest thing because it's what I do, but it's more confirmation of what already is. Once again, how important listening is. All right. How important empathizing is being empathetic and, you know, maybe listen outside the box, you know, maybe put my assumptions to the side for just a minute so I can hypothesize and take a guess about what's going on. And if I have it wrong, it may lead to even deeper discussions. That's great. I'm going to go back to the metaphor you used a little bit ago about sometimes you get a glass of water, sometimes you have a bucket of water, and I'm thinking about the, the water that I want to swim in with my clients is the one where I'm truly standing in, um, unconditional positive regard for them. And Voss talks about this. He talks about this deep understanding that creates a foundation for change. He says, the moment you've convinced someone that you truly understand their dreams and feelings. Mental behavioral change becomes possible and I had a mentor, you and I actually the same mentor, Jennifer Powers, who taught me that on this path to mastery, um, I need to believe in my clients more than they believe in themselves. And we know from, you know, the ICF that we, our clients are, you know, complete, resourceful and creative and that the more we believe that, then the more that they can be open to new possibilities for themselves. So, any other last words of wisdom here, Ken, before we wrap up for today? I think that one of the things that this book talks about really speaks to a lot of what may be going on in this country today, right? Actually working with folks that may have A different mindset or different agenda or a way of doing things than you do as a coach, right? And like my man on the five heartbeat said, duck, that ain't got nothing to do with you. You know, my here is to be steady water, right? Chris Voss is negotiating with people that may be taking somebody's life or may have taken somebody's life. And he is showing that Carl Rogers, right? Um, um, um, positive regard. And unconditional positive regard and really to engage with our clients in a way that shows total 100 respect for the humanists, for who they are, respecting where they came from, respecting where they would like to be, and also just appreciating the work and the courage that it takes to sit in front of you to share their innermost thoughts that they may not have shared with anybody else ever, and the first time they're hearing them out loud is with you, right? And I think coming in with that, once again, unconditional positive regard, that respect or whatever for that person, I think that's a game changer. That is, I'm seeing, I've mentored folks who Come in there thinking differently, um, come in there, have an assumption that, hey, no, you, you're not going to be able to get a, you just started last week. You're not going to be able to move up, right. Having those types of stuff rather than being there for the person. It is a different space to be in as a human being. When you're in a space. Where folks are listening to you in a way that you feel heard, loved, and accepted. That is a superpower. As you're talking, I'm, I'm flashing back to my, when I went to the volunteer training on the hotline, and one of the biggest things I learned was to hold this phrase, it's not about you, in front of me. That when I'm talking with talking to a caller wasn't about me what was happening with them I needed to support them understand them take care of them And I think that's what I'm hearing you say is I can be empathetic and not agree It's not about me and I can help people grow still good discussion. I think that wraps it up for today So we've uncovered some powerful insights from Chris Voss, from assumptions to commitment, and how they can transform the way we approach coaching. We hope these takeaways have sparked new ideas for your practice and inspired you to dig deeper into this incredible resource. Before we sign off, we want to thank you for spending your time with us. Your commitment to learning and growth is what this podcast is all about. And if you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe to the Coaching Book Club on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. We'd also love to connect with you on LinkedIn. Follow the Coaching Book Club page for even more coaching insights and updates about upcoming episodes. And we're always on the lookout for new books to review. So if you have a favorite coaching book that's made an impact on you, send us an email at coachingbookclubatchristystuber. com. Who knows, it might be featured in a future episode. Thanks for being part of our community. Until next time, happy coaching.