## In times of sweeping change, clarity matters most. There’s too much news. We help you understand what you really need to know. Vox delivers the depth, context, and clarity you need to understand what’s happening and why it matters. We rely on readers like you to fund our journalism. **Will you support our work and become a Vox Member today?** Chris Voss had only been an FBI hostage negotiator for a year and a half when he was assigned to handle negotiations for a bank hostage at Chase Manhattan Bank in Brooklyn in 1993. About 90 minutes after first picking up the phone with one of the hostage takers, Voss had struck a deal and was able to convince the kidnappers to leave the bank. Voss credits his success to non-adversarial confrontation and building trust. “In any negotiation — business, personal — you have to find a way to gently show people reality,” says Voss, who [teaches a Masterclass on negotiation](https://www.masterclass.com/classes/chris-voss-teaches-the-art-of-negotiation), “without them feeling cornered or attacked.” The stakes in most other negotiations are far lower than Voss’s brush with hostage captors. [Asking for a raise](https://www.vox.com/identities/2016/9/29/13096310/wage-gap-women-negotiate-lean-in), [splitting chore duties](https://www.vox.com/even-better/23161444/splitting-home-chores-unfair-equitable), suggesting a different restaurant for date night — practically anything is negotiable. “It’s just not always worthwhile for us to try, and we’re not always going to be successful,” says [Zoe Chance](https://www.zoechance.com/), a senior lecturer at the Yale School of Management, “but anyone should be able to ask anyone for anything.” Negotiation is a collaborative conversation, a means of problem-solving, and an opportunity for transformation, according to negotiation and commercial consultant [Devon Smiley](https://www.devonsmiley.com/). “Something isn’t working for me,” she says.