Chris Voss is the former lead international hostage negotiator for the FBI and the author of the bestselling book, “Never Split The Difference”. He is also the founder and CEO of The Black Swan Group which offers negotiation training for businesses and individuals using Chris’s hostage negotiation tactics. He joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about how everything in life is a negotiation, he also discusses powerful negotiation techniques like mirroring and labelling, he describes the scariest situations he has been involved with while negotiating with kidnappers, gives tips on how you can get upgraded when you check into a hotel and much more!
On what negotiation is:
“It’s any time we are looking for a co-operation or an agreement. If you define it as just trying to get collaboration, and having a good relationship, there is very little it doesn’t touch.”
On when a negotiation can happen:
“It’s anytime that you see somebody. The most dangerous negotiation is the one that you don’t know you’re in. You don’t know for sure that you are going to ask somebody for something, partly because you don’t know if they have something they can do for you. I was just being really pleasant with someone on the phone the other day and she says ‘I’m going to give you 10% off.’ I had no idea that she could just throw that out there like that. Also at the grocery store. I’m going to the self service checkout, I try to minimize the amount of plastic I use, so I bring my own bags. I give a pleasant look to the guy supervising the self service checkout, and they give me a discount for using my own bag. How do you get to that point? You see somebody and it looks like they are having a tough day, that’s a cold read. It’s a good habit because you can help make the world a better place. Suddenly someone gives you something for free you didn’t know they could give to you.”
On how he learned things as a child:
“My father expected me to figure stuff out from an early stage, he expected that from all of his children. He was an entrepreneur, blue collar, Mid-Western guy. I think I was nurtured to figure things out. When I finally got introduced to communication in a really big way, I’m coachable and into learning. That’s what gave me an advantage in picking up negotiations.”
On if negotiation is manipulation:
“A lot of people are worried about that. Manipulation is about what’s your intent? Negotiation, tactical empathy, is a tool. You can use your powers for good or use your powers for evil. A knife in one person’s hand is an instrument of death. But in a surgeon’s hand, it’s a scalpel and an instrument of life. It’s all about what it has been used for. The tool itself is not evil, it’s how it is being wielded.”
On some of his scarier situations:
“Scary is a matter of definition. Negotiators work over the phone, even with kidnappings. There were times where [it was scary]. I once went to the Philippines and I got flown to the south, it can get dodgy down there. But I am a calculated risk guy. If people whose risk assessment tell me I’m good, I go on down there. We went down to the south and we were at a military installation. My negotiation partner, it was her first time overseas. When we get there, I ask what is the evacuation route? What I mean is where do we go if the terrorists overrun our position. I can feel the look she is giving me! I say to her ‘It’s not always like this.’ Yeah that was a dodgy one.”
On how bank robbery negotiations are in real life:
“The movies love bank robberies with hostages. The bad guy’s intention is to get out of the bank before the police show up, because the police are on their way. They have a tendency to get out there before the good guys show up. It is a rare event. Rational thinking is out of the window in these situations. This is a common thing because your biggest problem is your biggest problem. The bad guys will throw something crazy out there. If they ask for any means of escape, they want to live. Then we can talk them out. You want to listen to what is driving the other side. An escape demand means there is something there that we can talk about. If a guy says ‘I want a car in 60 seconds or the hostage dies.’ I think more about the future and the escape, because I know the hostage will not die. Every human will be thinking about the future.”
What if the clock drops to zero:
“If it drops down to zero and I am interacting with you, I am not going to say no. I will imply difficulty. I will say ‘That’s going to be difficult.’ ‘It’s chaos out here.’ I’m going to start telegraphing what is making it impossible. If the clock is still ticking, what’s the dynamic? I will say ‘It sounds like you won’t give me a chance.’ When I was negotiating a tenant-landlord deal I said ‘It sounds like nothing I can say will change your mind.’ The landlord came back and said what they wanted from the deal. If you can focus on the moment, it helps. If you are focused on the future, that’s when you worry.”
On how the tone of voice affects things:
“The baseball player Yogi Bearra once said ‘Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.’ Well Negotiation is 90% your tone of voice and the other half is the choice of words. That math doesn’t add up. The tone of voice is going to have a neurological impact on the person before you have even finished the word yet alone the sentence. So before your word is complete and the sentence is finished, you’ve spoken to someone and they do a 90 degree turn. Your brain reacts to a tone of voice before the sentence is done.”
On whether negotiations can still take place online:
“The answer is yes, but with caveats. Your tone is always going to be read harshly unless you put in softeners. I sent an email a long time ago with a one word response of no. The other person read it as a screaming no! If you don’t soften your words, it will be read harshly. We do that by using phrases like ‘I’m sorry.’ Also only make one point in your email, most make 7 or 8. Your job is to get across one point, some don’t read the emails to the end. Finally, leave a lasting impression. The opening statement should be at the end too.”
On using negotiation tactics to buy a car:
“If you say what the salesman is going to say, it leaves them speechless. I was in love with this car, the color, the mileage, there isn’t any leverage. Also it’s rare, if I want it, there aren’t 50 out there. So I say ‘I’m in love with this truck.’ He can’t point that out to me. Instead of using it against me I have deactivated one of his main arguments. I said ‘I can’t find this anywhere else, you could get more than what you are asking for.’ I end with ‘I can’t believe you are not charging more for this car.’ The salesman didn’t say anything, he blinked and he went to the back. In the end he came down to my price. But he went to the back 5 times and ever time I used his argument against him and it took the wind out of his sails.”
What he’s grateful for:
“I’m grateful for the little things. Today it was my coffee maker, my journal and the pen I used to write in my journal.”
More information on Chris’ negotiation services, The Black Swan Group, can be found here.
Featured image: New York Times
