Never Split the Difference

I finished it and it's genuinely one of the more interesting books I've read this year. Chris Voss was the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator, and his claim is that the tactics that worked when lives were on the line work just as well across a table in business. What makes it land is how hard it pushes back on the rational, meet-in-the-middle school of negotiation everyone else teaches. People are emotional first, so tactical empathy beats logic: mirroring, labeling what the other side is feeling, calibrated questions, chasing a 'that's right' instead of a 'yes.' The kidnapping stories carry it and it reads fast. Here's why it's A and not S, though. Every single technique sounds obviously correct while you're reading it, and none of it is actually proven until you're sitting in a real negotiation with something at stake. I haven't done that yet. I want to try it at some point, ideally soon, and I suspect that's when I'll find out which half survives contact with a real counterparty. So take this as a book I admire rather than one I've tested. A tier.