EntreLeadership - #180: Chris Voss—Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

Episode Date: January 2, 2017

Life is a series of negotiations. And in this week’s episode, we’re going to show how to be the best at it with the help of a former FBI international hostage negotiator. Chris Voss joins us to share effective tactics and strategies you can use to become more persuasive in both your professional and personal life and how to solve business communication challenges with these hostage negotiation techniques. entreleadership.com/podcast Goal Tracker Tool Infusionsoft's 2017 Strategy Kit EntreLeadership Spring Events Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Now here is your host, Ken Coleman. We are broadcasting from the Music City, and this is the podcast of leaders by leaders, four leaders. Thank you for joining the conversation. And let me just say, on behalf of everyone here at Entree Leadership, happy New Year. You know, we really finished the year well.

We gave you some great content. Hopefully you took that and you prepared for it. And we meet many of you on the road at live events, but let me just say that we are wishing you a phenomenal year. Hopefully that you're going to win like never before. So you're off and running and we're thrilled to have you with us. Excited about our guest today, Chris Voss, you may not have heard of Chris, but you will be glad that you've heard of him after our conversation. He's got a book called Never Split the Difference, Negotiating as if your life depended on it. Now, he is, for background's sake, an FBI negotiator.

I'll tell you more about them, but this is all about helping you negotiate well in your professional and personal life. Great tool as we get started off at the first of the year. Then we're going to dive into Ken's Electronic Mail, and we have great resources for you as well. So let's do this. It's time to open up the electronic mail bag. Ken's Electronic Mail. You've got mail. All right, this email question is from Kenny.

First of all, great name, sir. Thank you for listening. Appreciate that. For the record, Eric's a producer. when I was a little guy, and up until about the 10th grade, I went by Kenny. So there you go. Sometimes people find that funny. You're laughing right now behind the glass.

That amuses you. Many of my family members still call me that, but at the 10th grade level, I was like, no, I'm Ken. Brought home the old varsity jacket that I ordered and had the name Ken stitched on it, and my parents were like, okay, I see what you're doing here. Anyway, I digress. Anyway, Kenny's email says, what are some practical ways we can help our team be more productive through goal setting without a sense of overworking them.

Well, it's a very good question. And I'm going to tell you, you've come to the right place because our Entree Leadership goal tracker, our tool, we told you a lot about that. This is a wonderful, wonderful tool we mentioned in our last podcast towards the end of the year, and this was a very popular resource at the beginning of last year. I want to make sure that you get that. And Kenny, I'm going to tell you to get that. But here's the deal.

I love the nature of your question because you want them to be more productive, but you don't want to overwork them. And I think that's intuitive. and I think that's smart. You're thinking through that, hey, I don't want to do too much. But the reality is, if you're using this goal tracker tool and everybody's clear on both sides of the aisle on what the goals are, there doesn't need to be any overworking. It just doesn't need to be.

I got to tell you around here, Dave Ramsey clears the parking line out of 530. Now, there are seasons where some of us have to work longer hours. But the bottom line is, if we're clear on what's expected of us, we're clear on what we've got to get done, there's no need to feel overwork. There just isn't. So this tool, Kenny, I want to make sure you and everybody else know about it. Of course, we've been telling you about it, but you can just text the word goals, 2017 to 3-3-444. And so here's the deal.

You can write out goals. You can put an action plan together, put a target date, and this thing walks you through it. It is a great resource. That's why we call it the gold tracker. It's going to allow you to monitor and keep the eye on the ball. So text the word goals, 2017 to 33-444. Goals, 2017 to 3-3-4-444. Or you can get the link to the tracker in this episode show notes at Entreeleadership.com

slash podcast. Last year, we did a survey. We told you about it. We were very open about. And one of the topics that you wanted to hear more about was communication. And so communication is a wonderful, wonderful bucket of content, if you will. There's so many different things that we can help you with around communication. And so Eric, the producer, great job here.

He found Chris Voss. who is a former FBI hostage negotiator. So right there is pretty much all you need to know. This is a bad man. These dudes and ladies that do this hostage negotiation, this is serious business. We're talking about life and death. And this is communication at its core under intense circumstances.

So you're really going to enjoy this. I told you about his book, and it really is a fantastic resource for you. Never split the difference, negotiating as if your life depended on it. So this is a fun conversation. We're going to bring all this stuff home to you, even though we're talking about some of his FBI stories and some of the tactics and techniques. This stuff makes you a ninja.

Are you already ahead of the game just by being here? So let's get right to it. Here's Chris Voss on the powerful communication tool of negotiating. All right, Chris, really excited about this conversation and how much I'm going to learn. And so let's get right to this. When I saw the title, never split the difference, negotiating as if your life depended on.

it, you know, it first kind of, it threw me for a minute. I wanted to dive in and say, oh, how does this apply to somebody like me, a personal growth junkie? And there's so much in here. But before we dive into your background and why this book is so relevant and so powerful, why the title never split the difference before we dive into the book. What is that phrase? Because I think we understand that, but what's the context here? Yeah, well, it sounds pretty serious, too, negotiating as if you like to pendant on it. But, you know, the very beginning, from a hostage negotiation standpoint is a hostage negotiator. I got four hostages in the bank.

What am I going to do? Say, I'll take two and we'll call it a day. I started out in negotiation with this ridiculous idea of being completely uncompromising and completely lovable, if you will, at the same time. Because a hostage negotiator wants the adversary, the guy on the other side of the table, the guy on the other end of the phone. I want everything from that guy. and I want that guy to continue to be willing to do business with me or any one of my colleagues

if we ever see each other again, which is kind of crazy. It really is. I mean, I'm so glad you set that up because it's mind-boggling, yet that's what we want in business, right? We want to get what we want, what we're after, and yet we want to keep people happy. So this is so relevant. So let's start with the background. FBI negotiator in dealing with getting hostages released, and the book is just chalk full of amazing stories. This edge of your seat stuff. But let's go back to the early days. When you decided,

and I'm trying to fast forward through some of the details here, when you decided, okay, this is what I'm going to do, I want to be a negotiator. And you begin the training process. I'm just curious. What were some natural skills that you already had, if there were any, that helped you become a great negotiator? Well, you know, I think real desire to want to figure it out and being open to new ideas. I mean, there's actually a trait called openness. And I was sitting on an airplane the other day talking to a Major League's baseball scout

who signs baseball players. And we're having this crazy conversation because it's kind of the trait for success in life across the board. You know, it's, are you coachable? Are you willing to have somebody say, there's a better way to do it? Maybe the way you're doing it,

maybe you're succeeding in spite of what you're doing as opposed to because of what you're doing. I mean, that's kind of a mind-boggling comment in and of itself, especially for fairly successful people because they want to say, well, I got here because of what I'm doing. Well, maybe it's in spite of some of the things you're doing. And so I think I was very open. I mean, I come from this Midwestern blue-collar background,

small town in Iowa, where, and I know my accent doesn't sound like a small town in Iowa, but, you know, it was figured out. You know, what do we got to get done today? We got to figure it out. You get to the end of the day to get this done because we're going to be back doing something else tomorrow. So what we take for granted is common sense, but it's just the ability to learn and the ability to be open to new ideas. And it actually kind of get a kick out of it at the same time. All right.

So we've got some context, folks. So, you know, what can we learn from an FBI negotiator? Somebody's negotiating for people's lives with some really bad people who are unstable, scared. name it. It's just a volatile situation at the very least. Unstable people, I think that sounds like a Monday morning staff meeting with the boss.

Exactly. Or an unruly customer, right? I mean, you know, or you're negotiating for what could be the future of the company. So, this is the context for all this. So let's start with, I'm going to touch on certain

chapters, but I think we've got to start in chapter one because the subtitle of the chapter is, how to become the smartest person in any room. Okay, who doesn't want to be that? So there you go, Chris. Give us a summary here. What does that mean in this chapter? How do you make that come alive? Well, you become the smartest person in the room when you start tapping into other people's brains. You know, when you realize that collectively, if I can steer the thought processes, and if I understand who's doing the work and where the burden is, I would look like the smartest guy in a room. And that boils down to very strategically timed questions, open into questions.

which sounds ridiculously stupidly simplistic. And that's what I love about that because you can really sandbag some people if need be. And that's how that first story started out in the book, a little bit of part that we left out was, as I'm sitting down to negotiate, a simulated kidnapping of my son with the head of the program on negotiation.

Before we did that, he said, so if you negotiate with me, what are you going to do? What kind of techniques are you going to use? Now, I know where he's, he's going with this and he wants to show me that he's smarter and more talented than me so since he's just dying to show off i'm like okay all right i'm going to let you show off i'm going to set you up a

little bit so i said to him rather innocently i'll just ask you a couple of open-in-the questions and he kind of left he's like really that's that's what you're going to do yeah you know there's not that much to it because I know when people are dying to show me how smart they are. I'm doing it to the, I live in Los Angeles now, and I'm doing it to the big shot, Beverly Hills attorneys on a regular basis. They ask me what I do, and I go, ah, you know, it's not too much, you know, because they think a hostage negotiator's cute. You don't want people to get their guard up.

I didn't want Bob Minookan, a very smart man, written a couple of great books. I didn't want him getting his guard up. I definitely want to hit him. I want to blindside him, and I want him to not know I'm blindsiding him. those are two very important parts and so that's when he literally says okay hold on a second he calls the secretary in with a tape recorder and sets it down

and he calls in gabriella bloomin to watch because he's getting ready to school me he thinks and he says hey all right we got your son false we got your son a million dollars about a mile morning and we kill your son and that's when I hit him with this innocuous question how am I supposed to do that

and it kind of blinks I mean how am I supposed to do that is the ultimate, said innocently, of course, said innocently, is the ultimate way to stop somebody dead in their tracks. The charging rhino of the assertive negotiator is coming at you with his head down and getting ready to impale you and you stop them. They're so perplexed by it. I do exactly what Bob did. He kind of, he looked at me and he kind of blinked for a couple seconds. He was puzzled. No idea what I've just done to him. I've stopped the rhino in his tracks. Then I proceeded to ask innocently, deferentially, there's great power in deference. You know, I ask him, look, how am I supposed to pay if I don't know my son's alive? And I know where

this is going, and I know that I now, I burden him with the problem. Burden the problem creator with the problem. They feel very empowered by it. And that also slows them down. So, I mean, that's how you become the smartest person in the room. You, first of all, you don't want to be the guy who wants to show off. You become the smartest person in the room by understanding a strategy where we immediately tap into everybody's brain. They feel included. They feel empowered.

They have no idea that you're actually in charge. All right. So, and you just set us up there with that simulation. But I want to go a step further because I think this is so good for people to really figure out this skill of how do I get inside their brain. And what do I continue to do? because you showed us, you know, all right, you stopped this guy, and now you gave him some power, and he's walking you through it.

In many of the stories that you share, take us to a moment from your experience where you begin to get inside that negotiator's head, where they think they're in charge now, and they're feeling real good because they think they're smarter. They've planned this thing out to get their money. And so how do you keep that going to where you move into Chapter 2? So I'm really, this is a two-part question, to establish rapport. How do you do that in a situation where it's almost completely hostile to start? Right. Well, the other side's dying to talk.

They're dying to have their say. And, you know, they love us when they're talking. Now, the secret to gaining the upper hand in a negotiation is to give the illusion of control. And the very control-oriented person, and most negotiators are horrified if they're not talking, because they feel out of control. So I'm like, all right, so I'm going to guide. you, I'm going to let you have my way. I'm going to let you talk yourself into my gig. And I'm going to need to keep you talking, which means I'm going to need to be comfortable letting you talk and understanding. I'll do different things. One of the things that I love the most

and we kind of get into it very quickly in the next chapter is this mirror technique. Now mirroring is not mirroring body language. You know, if you're sitting there with your right hand to your chin, I'm not going to put my right hand to my chin. A hostage negotiators mirrors a little different. It's so simple. Nobody thinks it'll work until they try it. And then some people are addicted to mirroring. And it's repeating the last three words of what someone has just said. What someone has just said? Yeah, what someone has just said. Repeating the last three words of what they just said. And there are certain ways that I can't explain why the brain functions this way, but it creates a bridge. It creates a connection. It gets the other person who want to keep talking.

and they almost can't help themselves. And the bank robbery that I negotiated in, we had a guy on the other side who was absolutely determined to give away no information to keep the upper hand and to escape at the end of the day. And I started mirroring him and he couldn't stop himself.

He was probably the most manipulative negotiator I ever came across, maybe tied with the most manipulative guy. And every time I mirrored him, I said, you know, we found a van outside. And he says, you found a van? He says, I don't have a van. I said, you don't have a van?

He says, yeah, well, you chase my driver away. I said, I chase your driver away? He says, yeah, well, when he saw the police, he cut and run. What he just did in that conversation when I mirrored him each time was he did what we call vomited information, which told us about a third accomplished that we had no idea at that point in time was even involved. And which means also by telling us about this third accomplice. accomplished, he gave us another witness against him, which was the last thing he wanted to do. But the mirror technique got him talking, and he couldn't stop himself.

I've actually seen, I heard somebody do this a long time ago to Howard Stern, so I thought that was interesting. There's so much to ask you here. I'm going to try to segment this thing as to what I'm hearing. What happens, Chris, or does it happen when you've got somebody who doesn't take the bait of mirroring? Maybe they're just so focused, they're so disciplined, or is it over time, eventually the brain just kind of caves into this technique? There's going to be one or two things that they're not going to be able to fail to respond to.

Okay. They can't help themselves with a mirror. I haven't seen anybody fail to take the bait on a mirror who hadn't practiced and rehearsed it in advance. Right. And that's when I'll have a training session of 50 people, and I'll explain mirroring to them and a role play. And usually of the 50 people, if they've sat and listened to me mirror, three or four people in a row, they have to intensely inoculate themselves in a moment. Then maybe they can stop talking.

But then if they don't take the beta in the mirror, I'll use a tool that we call a label. And I'll say, wow, it sounds like you're really reluctant to talk. It sounds like you're afraid to speak. It sounds like you've really got your guard up. Now, they're going to respond to one of those. The other thing that I know that I can trigger a response on is I know that when people feel protected when they say no. And so what I'll do is I'll redesign a question where the answer is no. And I punched that protection button in their brain by them saying no.

And I'll say, you know, are you afraid to talk? Well, no, I'm not afraid to talk. And they'll walk right into it. I mean, you'll be stunned, stunned at what people are willing to say no to, because no is protection. Okay, so here's what's great, folks. We're kind of just straddling chapters two and three, this idea of being a mirror, and Chris just kind of explained how he would mirror those last three words in that van robbery situation, bank robbery situation, and then this idea of labeling, and you don't feel their pain as the title of the chapter, you label it,

and you just gave us an example, but here's what's great about this. you say that by labeling it, it creates trust with tactical empathy. I think this is one of the most unbelievable chapters in the book, and there's so much in here, but this is really good here because I think a lot of times as business people go, oh, we need to have empathy, and we heard from a lot of business consultants on this, and we all understand empathy's good, but I think there's something to this tactical empathy. This is a whole other level, is it not? Yeah, it is.

You know, I mean, we've learned too much about empathy over the years, to be able to just call it empathy anymore. This is not your grandfather's empathy. This is not the 1970s lavalamp empathy. We know too much about this. We know so much about how the brain works now. We're much clearer understanding of emotional intelligence. It's utterly nonsensical not to take what we know about emotional intelligence

and apply it in a tactical fashion into our conversations. And so that's why we call it tactical empathy. And I know, for example, if I ask you what's on your mind, you might be reluctant to ask that because you're wondering where that's going and you want to be cautious about what you say and commit yourself to. So the mere act of asking a question I know, any question whatsoever might get your guard up. And so I'll say, seems like you got a lot on your mind. and changing that to that label, that observation, where I'm trying to pull what's between the lines out, you're more likely to answer

because you don't feel cornered by a question. There's fully a third of the people that we interact with that do not like to answer a question unless they've had at least 24 to 48 hours to think about where it's going. The problem is, if I ask a question, I'm asking because I need an answer, probably right now.

And I don't want to wait 48 hours for you to answer. I may need you to respond. I may need to find out what's on your brain. I may need to find out if I'm your boss and you're my employee or you're a colleague. I got to know what's holding you back. And simply, what's holding you back or why aren't you doing that is going to make you defensive. And I can say, it seems like something's holding you back. And you're going to be much more likely to respond.

And the label is specifically designed to punch a part of the brain. where you like to answer. Mm-hmm. And therein lies the tactical empathy. I mean, it's a statement that is implying something. And then, you know, here's what I want to ask. I'm literally sitting here taking notes because I'm a professional question asker, Chris. I mean, this is what I do.

And I get paid to be curious. It's one of the greatest gigs of all time. Yeah. But I want to ask you to deconstruct something here. I'm going to think on behalf of the listener for a moment, if I can. Because you've said when we talked about the first part of the conversation was really talking about how to ask strategic questions, which I love. Yet you just told us that there are times where a question can make somebody defensive. I've also felt like there are times if I make a

statement, a strong statement, that can make people defensive as well. But this tactical empathy seems like, you know, it's not as strong a declarative of statement, I guess is what I'm saying. So how do we, using your skill set and what you're telling us in this book, how do we ascertain when the right time to use a question versus maybe a strong declarative statement versus maybe that more passive statement that you just illustrated for us. Well, you're going to start out from the very beginning sort of feeling a person out. I mean, there are three basic types, and you can have a default caveman type. You know, no matter how evolved we are, we still got the caveman part of our brain, the amygdala,

you know, the reptilian brain, or I heard one guy describe it as the puppy that runs around inside our head. Uh-huh. And that reacts one of three basic ways. Fight, flight, or make friends. The flight guy doesn't like to be asked questions, flight guy or gal. Okay.

The other two do. Now, our rough data and got plenty of reason for backing this up is the world splits up pretty evenly into thirds. A third of the planet doesn't like questions. The other interesting thing of that is, if that's accurate, then two out of three people you and Connor are going to be the other two types are going to be different from you. There's no normal, if you will.

But the nice thing about labels is we found out is all three types like labels. Okay. And all three types respond to labels and mirrors. There's a total of nine negotiation skills that we use. Eight FBI hostage negotiation skills, plus we've refined one a little bit more. So we've got a list of nine, which are in the book. And you can learn for me plenty of other ways, too. But like the very assertive guy loves to be asked questions.

he loves to ask, how are we supposed to do this? You know, how and what? Because the assertive guy wants to be in charge, the Donald Trump's of the world. They want to give commands, and they want to lead, they want to point a direction. So they love to be asked how and what,

and they have no idea that, with a good how or what question, that you've just burdened them and bogged them down with the entire process. I read Trump's book, The Art of the Deal, when it came out, you know, what is it, back in the 80s,

back in the 80s and 90s. Because I spent a lot of, of time of New York and I was a Trump fan at the time. And he tells you about negotiators that actually get the upper hand on him. He respects people who can get the upper hand on him. There's some great descriptions in there. I know lately that his co-author came out and tried to say that Donald Trump didn't write this book. Well, I thought the book was fine and I learned a lot from it at the time. And if I hadn't read it in the past, after I bought my book, I'd recommend, you know, for everybody out there after you buy my book, read Trump's book.

It's not a bad book. You read my book and you'll know how to handle Trump. Right. Anyway, you begin to get feedback. You ask me about how do we know who we're dealing with and whether or not they're like questions. That's why you want the other side to go first. Right. You're going to start to draw a bead on what they like. Everybody has something they're dying to say.

They're just waiting for you to give them the signal that they can proceed without being attacked because we're so used to being attacked. Yeah. So it's really, I want to start dovetailing this because this is so technical and so tactical and I love it. I want to start dovetailing our conversation, Chris, because again, you're a business professor. So you know how to translate this stuff. So if we're sitting down and let's just create a scenario here where we've got a buyer, maybe the audience, maybe our audience is the buyer. And they are in negotiation with a seller, whatever it is, services, a product, land, whatever. that unique dynamic where you're sitting at the table having the conversation is it always good

to let that other person go first even if we're in the buying situation yeah as long as you're not taking yourself hostage and it's a decision ahead of time if your belief is no deal is better than a bad deal now typically people have to suffer through that horrific deal that sucks a life out of them and destroys their life for three years before they can't. can come to the saying like because a lot of people desperate for deals right they got i got to make this deal i'm going to die listen i got news for you if you're bogged down in court for three years or if you perform the service and the other guy goes bankrupt or refuses to pay you that was not a good deal you just hurt yourself really badly so you know the first idea is they can't make me say yes

they can't take me hostage you're not afraid to let the other side go first and then and then also the realization is he's got something that I don't know about yet that I really want. And the only way for me to get it out of him is to get him talking. Now, at some point of time, I'm going to jump in and I'm going to get him into a brainstorming session. But I really need the other guy. The other reason I need him to go first is since he's dying to talk, he or she is not going to listen to. to me until they've had their say anyway. That's good.

They're going to be so focused on making their point. I had a friend of mine and he said, yeah, I took a negotiation course one time and I said, the number one goal was to make sure that the other side understands where you're coming from. And I thought, all right, let's imagine what this looks like. While that's theoretically sounds good, what does this look like in reality? What you've got is two people focused on making sure the other side hears them. which means two people talking and two people not listening

because they're so focused on making sure they're heard. They might as well be speaking completely different languages. They might as well be in the loud American in France demanding to know where he can buy a croissant and being mystified that the other side doesn't understand them if they say what they said only louder. That's somebody trying to make sure they're understood. but most of us are wired to want to be understood to make sure the other side understands so if i just let this guy

if i walk him to the position where he feels completely understood once he or she feels understood bang they drop their guard and the ears come open and they start brainstorming with you and they feel really good about it even the cut-throat guy who's attacking because the cut-throat guy who's attacking because the cut-throat guy who's attacking wants to back you into a corner, and this is listeners judo. You can't get back into a corner if you're using listeners judo. I like that. I like that so much. Okay, so this is perfect. Let's fast forward in the chapter five. It's entitled, Trigger the two words that immediately transform any negotiation. And here's the subtitle, which I actually think is so much more powerful. How to gain the permission to persuade. And I feel like that's where we're at in the conversation.

If we've done what you just described, now we're down that path to getting permission, emotional permission, intellectual permission from the other side to allow us to persuade them, whether we're selling or buying, we're persuading. So how do we do that? Yeah, and those two words are that's right. And that sounds amazingly unsatisfying to hear that's right. that's right from the other side. You know, when we want to hear yes, you know, we're dying for yes. And the original chapter of the book was actually,

yes is the last thing you want to hear. What do you want to hear first? You want to hear that's right. I mean, you know, getting us back into presidential politics, whichever side of the aisle that you were on, when you were watching the presidential debates, when your candidate said something that you completely and totally agreed in, you pointed at the TV and you said, that's right.

That's what we said. when we're completely in line with the speaker, with the person that we are communicating with. We don't say, the flip side is, we don't say you're right. Your right is what we say to someone that we're trying to maintain a relationship with, but we just want them to shut up.

And, you know, one of my favorite talks because, you know, whether we're focused on small business owners, whether we're focused on people that are just rising stars that are dying to get better. I'm sitting at a dinner the other night. night and the head of a company says man and i just met him that night i had no idea who it was he says oh my god he said i bought your book says you have no idea how you saved me i'm sitting around talking with my senior executives the other day because they are not executing the way that i wanted

them to execute and i'm laying out the strategy and in the midst of laying it out one of the senior guys looked at me and said tim you're right and he said if i didn't know what that really met, I would have thought I would have met my objective, and they would have gone out and executed. Instead, what I realized when they said, you're right, they were saying to me, Tim, shut up, we can't take it anymore. But we're not going to change. It's what a husband says to his wife when he doesn't want to change. He says, honey, you're right, and she leaves them alone.

It's what we say to people when we don't want to change. And understanding the difference between you're right and that's right is the difference between getting off the durable wheel and getting on to moving your business, your life, your career forward. Because when somebody says, that's right to you, and you have to be willing to articulate it from their point of view, at that moment of time, we've got the moment that Covey always wanted us to get to. Stephen Covey always said, seek first to understand, then be understood. When the other side says to you, that's right, you have met the first threshold. They feel you understand them and they now have given, open your ears and given you permission to show them a new

way. That's so strong. At Leeds in Chapter 6, bend their reality, how to shape what is fair. If you don't mind, Chris, I'd love for you to take us to a real-life story, a real-life negotiation where you've got somebody who's just, as we said, unstable. This is a tenuous situation at best, and you've begun to do this. Walk us to the technical part as well, if you can share a story where this begins to happen where maybe the hostage taker is now said, okay, that's right, Chris, and now you've begun to kind of get their permission. How did you then tactically bend their reality and take them where you want to take them for a peaceful resolution? Well, the bending of the reality has to do with calling someone's attention to loss, the potential

loss. Now, we talked about tactical empathy before because what I'm doing with tactical empathy is I'm setting myself up for this moment. They're one of three moments coming at me, three steps away. I've got to think three steps down the line where I want to be. Now, my tactical empathy, because if I point out loss to someone, they feel threatened, they feel attacked, they feel like I'm taking them hostage, and they're going to attack back. I'm using tactical empathy to set myself up to point out this loss. And if I don't position myself with empathy first, then pointing out the loss comes off as an attack.

Now, the thing that I did where I felt I'd been taken hostage was I had to reduce my contractors' pay in a business deal by 75%. Because I was having problems with a general contractor, and for about two months period of time, until we sorted it all out, I had to cut all my guys pay by 75%. They were working for me at a rate of $2,000 a day. I had to cut them to $500 a day. And if I'd have said, look, I'm having problems here. The reality of the situation is I got to cut you to $500 a day. They would have all been threatened by that. They would have said, you're going to cost me $1,500 a day.

And they might have said to me, how am I supposed to do that, you know, if they hadn't have said to me, you know, go pounce sand, go jump on a lake. You know, that ain't happening. It's going to be a cold day in Miami before that happens. Right. So I know I got to get to that point. The tactical approach is there's a predictable negative response. Tactically, I know with empathy what I can do to diminish a negative response.

I call it out even before it's happened. I call them on a phone and I say to him, I got a lousy proposition for you. And I get dead silence just like that. And then they say, all right, well, a lousy proposition is better than no proposition. Go ahead. I say, by the time I finish this conversation, you're probably going to think I'm the worst businessman you ever came across. You're going to say Chris Voss didn't know how to plan. Chris Voss doesn't know how to budget.

Chris Voss doesn't know how to deal with a contractor. Chris Voss can't see things coming. Chris Voss may have actually lied to me. This is all the stuff that's going to go through their mind if I try to cut their pay. I don't have to be Albert Einstein to know this is how they're going to feel. I call it out in advance. They're a little mystified. But this is an inoculation.

And that's when I say, now I say, I wanted to offer this to you before I took it to somebody else. Bang, I have just created the possible loss. If I'd have started the conversation by saying, look, I get something I'm thinking about taking to somebody else. I wanted to offer it to you first. Immediately they're going to be, really? You know, the guard is going to be up.

They're going to be like, how dare you think that in advance? You know, what kind of a game are you playing here? I've got to work myself to that point where I can point out the loss. I have to give me the permission to persuade. I need you to give me the permission to point out the loss. And once you've given me the permission to point out the loss, I also know, again, we know more about how the brain works. A loss looms larger in your brain than a gain.

if I offer to give you $5, you're only going to feel so-so about that. If I do something that's going to take $5 out of your pocket, you're going to be angry. Loss things, no less than twice as much as an equivalent gain. Losing the Super Bowl hurts twice as much as winning the Super Bowl. Losing the World Series hurts twice as much as winning the World Series. Lost things twice as much as an equivalent gain. I got to point out a loss because I know the moment I do that, I bent your reality. $5 is $5, whether you're gaining it or losing it.

I will bend your reality by pointing out the loss. You are more likely to take action if you are concerned about a loss. And I need to put myself in a position to point it out without making you mad. And that was the tactical approach that our whole conversation in this conversation between you and I have been. walking me up to the position where I can point out the loss and I can change the world based on how I pointed it out. Because now the loss is front and center in the brain, and so now they've got to figure out, do I want to take this loss or see what other options I have? Is that the genius there? That's exactly it.

And you don't want to take the loss. And they won the Nobel Prize for behavioral economics. You're more likely to take a risk to avoid a loss than you are to take a risk to accomplish it. gain. So all I know, I will bend that. That's big. That's how I bend it. So I want you to say that again, Chris, because I think this could be, this is a take home for the audience. I want you to say that again about the risk for loss versus the risk for a win. You're more likely to take a risk to avoid a loss than you are to take a risk to achieve a gain. Wow. That's how I get you out of the status quo. Yeah. There's a lot of leadership content there as well. That's just a great negotiation.

I think that forms the way we lead, does it not? Absolutely, absolutely. It forms the way we lead. And the no-oriented questions, maybe I have to attribute this a little bit to Ronald Reagan, although it wasn't in my head at the time. It got brought back to us through the process, but we asked questions where, you know, have you given up on this project? Do you want to fail? Do you want the project to fail? Do you want my business to fail?

Those are all no-oriented questions. Do you want our team to fail? If you do nothing, do you think your life is where you want it to be? Way back when in the 1980s, the great communicator Ronald Reagan stood up in front of the American people because he was concerned that he was going to lose the election of Jimmy Carter. And he said, ask yourselves, are you better off today than you were four years ago? Ask yourself, do you think America's best days are ahead of it? he stood up and you can Google Ronald Reagan,

are you better off today than you were four years ago? And you will come up with a video of Ronald Reagan asking a series of four questions. The answer was all no. They all had to do with the specter of loss, the ghost of loss, the threat of loss. And each one of those, if the answer was no, people were spurred to action. Reagan wins in a landslide. He buries Carter in the election. Was it only because of those questions that he asked at the last minute?

Well, I would offer to you in a recent presidential election, both candidates are rethinking what they said in the last minutes of that election. Election, that's that close. That's right. You know, this is interesting, Chris, because I think I want to park here for our audience, those who are in leadership positions who have to cast vision from time to time. And certainly when we're talking about bold vision, that includes some risk. So if it's a bold vision, it ought to have risk or it's not a bold vision just by simple definition. And so there's this positive side to vision casting, Chris, where, you know, it's clarity, it's positive. This is where we want to go, why we want to go, how we're going to get there.

Yet this is a real tactical piece of it, I think. I've never thought of vision casting having this important element, and that is defining the loss side of it if we don't accomplish this vision. This is the downside. Is that true? It spurs people to action. And I often view it as sometimes you're sculpting an outcome. And a sculpture is made by removing the things that don't work. And so you can start to trigger loss.

You can start to trigger what happens if we do nothing. You know, if we stay here, we'll die. I don't know what's out there, but if we stay here, we'll die. You know, we'll atrophy, we'll slowly fade away to nothing. The triggering of the loss and the specter of the loss is part of the complete leadership approach. Yes, you have to paint where you are going at some point in time. The issue is what's the sequencing? The issue is what's the best way to trigger somebody's mind the quickest?

I refer to the caveman brain, you know, the puppy dog that runs around inside us earlier. We also know scientifically these days that there's three times the amount of space in the brain designed to negative fear-driven thinking than there is to design to process. to process positive achievement driven thinking. Now, I said I was from Iowa, so I got an uncomplicated approach to some things. In my view, if there's three times as much area designed for fear-driven thinking as opposed to positive vision thinking,

that means you've got to deal with the fears. And the biggest way you empower people if they protect themselves from loss, when they say, no, no, I'm not going to do that. No, that's not going to happen. no, I will not let that happen to me. People strengthen themselves by saying no to the negatives, to say no to atrophy, by saying no to letting the world pass them by. And then once you've gotten rid of those, now you can give them the positive view. After you've gotten the negative part of the brain, the negative caveman, the naysayer in their brain, shutting the naysayer up.

And that's what a lot of this is designed to do. Wow, folks right there, in the last couple minutes, is just such powerful leadership stuff. Please don't miss it. Rewind it. Take notes. Really great stuff. I want to keep moving here.

Just these little quick summaries of these chapters because it's so powerful. Chapter 7, you tell us how to calibrate questions to transform conflict into collaboration. Conflict into collaboration. I don't know that it gets any more ground zero for a businessman or woman. How do we do that? Yeah, well, most conflict is designed. It's around not comparing the right things. So some people say one definition of confrontation is a focus comparison.

That doesn't sound so bad. A focus comparison, that's confrontation. Yeah. And so what you're trying to do with that is you're trying to draw people's attention to certain things based on a question. The question is generally a what or a how question. And you have to design your way where you can say, you say this and you do this, how do those things add up?

That's a focus comparison. that's using the questions to confront, if you will, if you're comparing two things. You say you want to be successful and you're never to work on time. How do those two things add up? That is showing someone what their behavior, what they're saying, what their outcome is. That's the whole design behind the questions that we're talking about. And they're generally what and how questions. You can tell somebody, you want somebody.

to understand something and you tell them, you're going to have to tell them no less than 19 times. That's time consuming. One carefully crafted question, you probably only have to ask that question once. It's going to take them longer to respond, but it's going to take less time than it is telling them 19 times. Many leaders are like, you know, I told them twice. I don't understand why they still don't. I told them three times. I don't understand why they still don't understand.

The data actually shows us if you want them to learn by telling them, you've got to tell them 19 times. What leader has that much time? The crafted question is what helps it accelerate. Exactly. Exactly. A good question accelerates a process. All right. So moving on how to get your price, Chapter 9.

I mean, who doesn't want to get our price, whether it's buying a TV or whatever it is. If you got a chance to negotiate, who wouldn't like to do this? but I think it could be intimidating. Give us some expert tips here, Mr. FBI negotiator. How does Ken Coleman get my price? Well, you know, first of all, you let the other side go first. You know, the top negotiators, take the bell curve. If you're in the middle, then you want to go first.

If you're a C or a B player, if that's all, then you want to go first. The problem is, if you go first, you might scare the deal away. And if I go first, I might come in too low. so I always feel like I can move your range once you've thrown a number out there. I know I can move that. And I will move that by simply saying, look, if we don't make this deal, you know, the potential costs are astronomical. You know, it might be, it might cost your company. If we don't make this deal, we go to court and I would never want to go to court.

But, you know, the total lost profits, the time down, you know, I don't know, I would never ask for this. but it might cost as much as $20 million. I would never ask for $20 million. After you've thrown a number, I pre-rehearsed in my head ways to put a number in the air without asking for it. I was once talking with a potential client about what we charge for our training. And I said, well, look, you send your guys to the Harvard Business School for their training. It's going to cost you $2,500 per person per day. he said I'm not paying you $100,000

well I didn't want $100,000 but I needed to get that number in the air so that whatever number I came up with afterwards it seemed low so I want to find a way to not name a number first to hear what your number might be and then to talk about ridiculous expenses

after that and say innocently because there's great power in deference and innocence say, well, I would never ask for this, but, you know, I mean, the reality is, if this deal isn't made, you know, you're looking at expenses of $100,000 to train your people at Harvard Business School. So that's, I will allude to numbers. That's how I will begin to get my price. It's the art of anchoring or alluding to anchors, but being careful with it because if you anchor improperly, you'll scare a deal away. Some people only want deals where they get their price when in fact there may have been something on the table more valuable than their price. My most valuable presentation I've done this year, there was no fee involved.

I didn't get paid a dime to sit in that room. I sat in that room with Oprah Winfrey's Booker and she's now a friend of mine. I arranged, I got business class travel and I got first class accommodations to and from the conference. And one of my employees got first business class travel across country to pinch it for me in another gig. So I got a business class flight for one of my employees who's normally flying economy. And I got exposure to 35,000 people. I didn't get paid a dime for that. if I'd have held out for a fee only gig, I would now not be friends with someone I, who,

she's been Oprah Winfrey's booker for 17 years because she's a phenomenal human being. She's got extremely high integrity. She values relationships. And everyone in the entertainment industry, if they don't know her, they know of her. What more valuable relationship could that possibly be? She's one of the highest quality people I've ever come across. That's how she retained her job with Oprah Winfrey for 17 years. And that may be one of the most valuable introductions I get most valuable friendships that I get this year.

So your price may not always be the number one thing you want out of the deal. You have to be cautious that you don't take yourself hostage over the price. That's so good. All right. The final chapter, and this is so good, how to create breakthroughs by revealing the unknown unknowns. You call this chapter, find the black swan. Describe this process. How do we find the unknown unknowns? How do we discover them?

That'll give us great breakthroughs. And then why is it so important to us as business people? All right. So, yeah, exactly right. Imagine if you were playing Texas Hold'em or any card game and you could see the other side's cards. Oh, I love Texas Holden. That'd be huge. It'd be huge. And so that's the problem. A lot of people make the analogy for negotiations in poker because in fact, we're always hiding cards. There will never be a negotiation that any person that listens to this are conversation. There will never be a time when they aren't hiding information at the negotiating table. Information that is so proprietary in nature. If the other side knew it, they could kill them or they could make the best deal they ever made.

By definition, if they're hiding it, it's important and it'll affect the outcome. If that's true for you, it's also true for the other side. So this is a card game where both sides are hiding cards. What would happen if we trusted each other enough to compare cards and then see what our poker hand would be if we combined and compared cards? That's what the black swans are. Since I don't know what you're hiding and you don't know what I'm hiding, we actually don't know what would happen if we overlapped.

And that's why no matter how smart you are, no matter how much research you do, until you get the other side to show you his cards, you don't know what the possibilities are. That's where the black swans are. And the other side is never going to show you those cards until they trust you, until you've taken a tactical approach to empathy, until they've said that's right to you. When somebody says that's right, that's when they're willing to show their cards. And we can't know what that space is.

We can't know what the possibilities are until both sides. or at least you get them to drop their cards because you may not trust them enough to drop yours but you've got to get them to drop theirs. And you're not going to get them to drop their cards by beating them into submission. In fact, by beating them into submission, there will always be at least one card

that they will die before they show you. Well, folks, negotiations are all around us every day. There's just no question about it, can't get away from it, whether you're buying a car, a house, negotiating a new employee contract, whatever it is, this book, Never Split the Difference, is going to give you a competitive edge. I absolutely love it. And here's what's great about this, Chris. I've got to give you credit here. And I want you to just give us a quick summary on the

type of stories you share throughout there because this is so practical. But you really give us some amazing stories. It could make a movie. For the folks who are thinking about buying this book, give them just a taste of some of the stories that are going to bring some of these principles home. Well, you know, and it's how we bundle this stuff too, because it's, It's a hostage negotiation story combined with the same principle used in a business and a personal life negotiation. So you can see it from three different angles. And so whether I'm, you know, we got a American is kidnapped in the Philippines. And we trigger the breakthrough with the sociopathic terrorist killer by getting him to say that's right.

And we go from the $10 million to zero ransom demand and one conversation with that breakthrough. The other side completely drops their guard and completely drops their demands. And then I take that story and I talk about how I used it to talk my son into changing a ways playing football because I got him to say, that's right to get him to make the change. And then a woman in my class at Georgetown selling pharmaceuticals to a doctor who doesn't even want to give her the time of day, she gets a that's right out of him and makes a sale. The shorthand version doesn't do justice to it. but from kidnappers in the Philippines to bank robbers in Brooklyn to kidnappers in Haiti,

how we're all human beings trying to solve problems and how the hostage takers in our daily lives react exactly the same way that these guys did. Folks, I don't know what other evidence you need. Seems to me if you can successfully negotiate with a terrorist sociopath and a teenager, well, now you have the secrets to winning in business. I don't know if there are two tougher individuals in the world than the terrorist or the teenager, and they can both inflict terror. I hate to joke about that, but I think we all know it's so true.

Hey, Chris, this is really good stuff. I absolutely love the book. I highly recommend it. Appreciate you so much being a part of our conversation. Tell folks real quick how they can connect with you. Perfect. Yeah. All right.

Two great ways. You go to the website, WWW Black Swan, LTD, B-L-L-A-C-S-W-A-N-L-T-D. or the short sweet way and it's free because we put out a complimentary negotiation newsletter twice a month that also leads you to lots of other resources and this newsletter is free if you send a text to 2282828 the number is 228 28 and the text has got to be that's right all one word no spaces no punctuation t h a t-h-s r-ig-h-t-t-t no spaces no punctuation no spaces no punctuation to 228-28-28. You sign up for a complimentary newsletter. You find out about other training resources we have. We hold training sessions around the country. And you find out how to get the best price

on a book as well. So we'll help people as much as we possibly can. There it is, folks. That is your challenge. See how many times you can get somebody to say that's right to you because that is going to be a winning formula. Chris, really, really good stuff. We'd love to have you back some time. Appreciate you being with us. Thanks. It was a lot of fun having a conversation. Thanks. have it be on. One more time, he is Chris Voss, and the book has never split the difference negotiating as if your life depended on it. I want to throw something out.

Eric and I would love to get some emails from you, podcast at ontraeleorship.com. If you use any of these techniques in the days and weeks ahead, and they work for you. We'd just love to hear. We'll brag on you. So send those in. Podcast at entreleadership.com. All right, so we've got a couple of tools. Obviously, I told you about the goal tracker from our Entree leadership team,

and Fusion Soft's got a great tool for you to kick the year off. And this is, again, another planning resource. And it's their planning kit. Here's what I love about Infusionsoft. Just like with Entry Leadership, when we give you these resources, these are things that our team uses. Not only is Infusionsoft use this, their clients use them. So this is a great free resource. Five steps to creating a strategy.

And then how do you plan it after you've kind of created it? A detailed walkthrough of the planning process. And then a detailed worksheet that will prompt you to schedule meetings, tackle the important issues, and then, most importantly, set milestones for success. Infusionsoft has exercises they call SWAT, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, such. This is probably not a new idea or concept of many of you, but this is a great PDF download. It's absolutely free. Go to infusionsoft.com slash 2017 planning kit. That's infusionsoft.com slash 2017 planning kit.

Speaking of 2017, real quick here on the bulletin board. Our Entree Leadership One Day events. One day, absolute deep dive, we give you a playbook. How have we won here at Ramsey Solutions? Three cities, three dates. Los Angeles, California, April 11th, 2017. Dallas, Texas, May 10th, 2017. Chicago, Illinois, May 12th, 2017.

All the details at Entreeleadership.com. Dave Ramsey, Chris Hogan, Christy Wright, and myself will be there with you. And the podcast listeners, you get $10 off. if you use the code podcast. So go to entreleadership.com slash E1D for the actual site to buy tickets and get all the details for our Entree leadership one-day events. Entreeleadership.com slash E1D.

I want to thank Chris Voss again for his time. I really enjoyed it so much for me to think through and work with, and I believe there is so much for you as well. Hey, we set it at the top. We're cheering for you and have your best year ever. 2017 is off and running. if you're not on board, you better catch up. It will leave you in the dust.

We're here every Monday with a brand new podcast. Two things I would love for you to do. Would you subscribe and would you share it? That's how we grow. We appreciate it so very much. So on behalf of Eric, the producer, and the entire Andre leadership team, thank you for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.