Christopher Voss Quotes

If I hadn't been fair, I would never have made the $6 billion in real estate deals that I did. I mean, if you're not fair, people don't want to deal with you.

I don't mind being cast as some kind of a pantomime baddie, but I am very fair in business. I always have been. I pride myself on being fair.

So much of life is a negotiation - so even if you're not in business, you have opportunities to practice all around you.

I don't care what a man is as long as he treats me right. He can be a gambler, a hustler, someone everybody else thinks is obnoxious, I don't care so long as he's straight with me and our dealings are fair.

The capability of negotiating... is something that means you not only have to understand fully what you believe and what your national interests are but in order to be a really good negotiator, you have to try to figure out what the other person on the other side of the table has in mind.

That is where consensus-building begins-with the idea that you have your own truth, but that the negotiator on the other side of the table has his own truth as well.

Peace" is when nobody's shooting. A "just peace" is when our side gets what it wants.

Success of negotiations cannot be guaranteed. If there is no attempt, then failure is guaranteed.

We need a lot more respect in this country for compromise…. There is in compromise a lot of integrity, especially political integrity.

You can disagree with someone and still do business as a professional.

Often, just explicitly acknowledging how the other side must see things can help them open up to see your side and can help both parties achieve a fair and constructive outcome.

Peace has to be solved equally.

It's better to negotiate behind closed doors than it is to be out throwing rocks at one another in the public square.

I hope everybody will go back to the negotiating table. I've always said this is the only way forward.

Well, I just hope we can have peace, and I hope it'll do some good.

One thing I have always promised is to be open and transparent and to treat employees and partners with respect and integrity.

At this stage of my life I would rather try and have some small impact within a company and suffer through those things than make such a big stink that nobody can trust to work with you. It's very important in an environment of a big institution that people don't feel threatened that you're going to expose them in any way.

I have great admiration for the way the Americans do business. They drive a hard bargain, but once they do it, they stick to their contracts.

Practice Golden-Rule 1 of Management in everything you do. Manage others the way you would like to be managed.

Every young man would do well to remember that all successful business stands on the foundation of morality.

I fight fairly, and in good faith.

Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that's where the courage of a leader comes, because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency.

Information is a negotiator's greatest weapon.

Good wishes alone will not ensure peace.

There are two types of people: those who try to win and those who try to win arguments. They are never the same.