Modern Wisdom - #237 - Chris Voss - How To Negotiate Like An FBI Agent

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

Chris Voss is the Ex Lead International Kidnapping Negotiator for the FBI, a CEO & author. Chris is someone who has negotiated under the highest imaginable pressure with kidnappers, bank robbers and terrorists. Expect to learn the single most powerful phrase in communication, how to say no more effectively, how to improve your confidence during a discussion, Chris' best strategies for de escalating a disagreement, his opinion on Trump's communication style and much more... Sponsor: Get 20% discount on Reebok’s entire range including the amazing Nano X at https://geni.us/modernwisdom (use code MW20) Extra Stuff: Check out Chris' Website - https://www.blackswanltd.com/home Buy Never Split The Difference - https://amzn.to/2HfLcNz  Follow Chris on Twitter - https://twitter.com/VossNegotiation  Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello friends, welcome back. My guest today is none other than Chris Voss, the ex-lead international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI, now turned CEO and best selling author. Chris is someone who is negotiated under the highest imaginable pressure with kidnappers, bank robbers, and terrorists. Also, we think that Denzel Washington has played him in a couple of different films.

So Chris is definitely someone who is worth his salt. Today, expect to learn the single most powerful phrase in communication. How to say no more effectively. How to improve your confidence during a discussion. Chris' best strategies for de-escalating a disagreement, his opinion on Trump's communication style and much more. This episode is just so much fun. It's been over 18 months that I've been planning this with Chris and his hectic schedule. I've meant that we've kept on moving it back and kept on moving it back, but it was so

worth the wait. I would love to know what you think of it, give it a share, send it to some people that you think would enjoy it because it's just so-called Chris's story is phenomenal and I'm hoping that he's going to write a new book so that I have an excuse to bring him back on. But for now, it's time to negotiate like our lives depend on it with Chris Voss. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I'm joined by Chris Voss. Chris, welcome to the show. Thank you very much, Pleasure to be on with you. Pleasure to have you here as well.

Negotiating today, we're gonna learn how to hopefully have productive negotiations. Let's define our terms first. What should be our desired outcome from a negotiation? Why are we negotiating? Well, really, desired outcomes should be a better relationship. I mean by definition I can explain intellectually, intellectually, while it's impossible to know what the best outcome of the negotiation could be. You're holding information back there, holding information back,

information being held back by both sides is important. Therefore, not only is your information flawed, it's flawed in important ways. So the more people get focused on an outcome, the more they have blinders on, the more they are likely to miss a better deal. So if you're focused on a better relationship, that's going to sort of permeate the interaction and increase the chances that the other side is going to show you theirs and you'll get a better deal. And then plus they're going to enjoy the process and the chances that they're going to want to do it again are much higher. Being familiar with your work, it seems like an adversarial relationship during a negotiation is something that you try and steer clear of as much as possible. Yeah, because it's just it's just going to harm how much I could get. It's going to harm

my ability to get it again. I can have a say relationship is going to sting the other side. They're going to remember that. It's going to discourage them from wanting to continue to negotiate with me. That's not good for me long time. I was Goldman Sachs executive, long time ago, Gus Levy, his phrase was greedy, yes, but long-term greedy. That's a good way to put it. I suppose as well with the networking effect now, that everyone knows everyone.

It's much easier to have free flow of information. You can't, the charlatans and the psychopaths and the con men and can't hide as much anymore. Yeah, it's going to get out. It got out before anyway, but now it's just getting out faster. It gets out at hyperspeed now. What do you think most people believe about negotiating, which is wrong or ineffective? You know, that you got to beat the other side. I mean, we're even really careful how we phrase it. Like, we never talk about the person across the table as the adversary, we refer to them as a counterpart.

The adversary is a situation. I mean, if you're negotiating with someone, you're both faced with different aspects of the same problem. Which by definition is you're both going to be better off if you collaborate. Now most people, you know, they, and most negotiations categorize as when, lose, beat the other side. And that just, that just hurts people long time.

It just does. Who is the worst sort of person to negotiate with them? And how can we get them involved in the dialogue? Yeah, well, it kind of, it's not the worst person. I mean, it's typically what you run into is occasional tightness matches create problems. I mean, it's basically the world splits up even lean to thirds, fight, fight, make friends. These are the caveman responses to survival. This is wired into us. It's baked into us. There's no way around it.

And you know, the world we've we've pulled really the world and we've seen that the world splits up even lean to thirds. I mean we've taught for a while we were teaching negotiation to executives from the Chinese development back. And you know it's a great culture to have a stereotype about whether they're very guarded or whatever your stereotype might be about them. And we're working with these people internally and we're seeing all three times. So what does that mean?

Type mismatch. For example, if you're very thoughtful and you like time to think, which means silence. Well, if you're really conscious of the relationship and the dynamic, you see silence is a way that people trigger anger. So there's an obvious disconnect here. One person's love and a silence,

because they want to think, and the other person's going like, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, the other person's mad. Yeah. And it is a comedy sometimes. So being aware of tight mismatch at a given moment is really, really the issue.

And if it splits in the thirds, you don't have a lot to keep track of. If you're running into problems, it's probably a tight mismatch. How can we easily detect the type of the person who is across the table from us? Yeah, well, you know, two of them are really easy. The assertive is going to be obvious. They're going to be blunt. They're going to be loud. They're going to be forceful. They're going to act like time is money.

You know, not taking a political perspective on it in any way, shape or form. Donald Trump is a classic example of the assertive negotiate, blunt, harsh, aggressive, time is money, time is of the essence. You know, his leadership style and he doesn't have time for the US Congress to make up its money issues in executive order, time is money. Um, that's that style. Uh, the analytical, they're going to seem cold and distant.

Um, that's because they're up in their head, thanking analyzing stuff. And they're not in fact cold and distant, but again, that's how they're going to seem because they're thinking things through. So those two types are going to be fairly obvious. The analytical type is going to be quite comfortable with silence. They're going to go silent for long The analytical type is going to be quite comfortable with silence. They're going to go silent for long periods of time. The one that is a little tricky is the accommodator. The relationship focused really their interaction focused even more than the relationship. They don't really understand the difference, but they want the interaction to be positive. Now, many analysts become, they look like the commentators. My daughter-in-law is chief of marketing in my company, brilliant

girl. She looks like an accommodator. She is bubbly, she's happy, she laughs, she's one of the most pleasant people on earth to deal with. She's an analyst, deep down in her bones, extremely analytical. She's just smart enough to have seen that people are more likely to comply with her if she's bubbly and smiling and happy. So a lot of people are convinced that she's in a coma, she's not, she's an analyst, an analyst is an assassin. I mean, she's a dangerous negotiator.

But you're going to love dealing with her. So that's the only type that you get fooled by, because the other two types catch on, if they eventually speed that they catch on, but they catch on that the relationship focus person makes a lot of deals and people want to deal with them over and over again. Now they're a little annoyed by this because they're not impressed by the deals, but they do see that they make a lot of deals. And that's why my daughter knows

her great example. She's like, all right, so I'll make more deals if I'm pleasant. I'll be pleasant. And it's just a fire. The means, man. I, I'm, I'm very, I think, I agree. I'm very, very interested in the way that negotiations work, and especially people's confidence within negotiating. I think the way that we, it's interesting, right? Because sometimes someone's interaction style is a projection of their kind of inner emotions. And for other people, you mentioned the marketing of your daughter in law, who is essentially sort of almost playing a little bit of a role. So she's able to adapt

the person who she is during the interactions to get a better outcome. It doesn't mean completely compromising, but perhaps glazing over some bits and enhancing other bits and so on and so forth. How can someone who maybe doesn't feel like they have a massive amount of confidence normally day-to-day either in themselves and or in negotiations. What can they do to make themselves feel a bit more assertive and in charge when they sit down? Yeah, you know, I'm going to quote one of my favorite actors, Denzel Washington, from a movie called Man on Fire. And in one way or another, they're watching and has played me in several movies. You know, he doesn't call it. It isn't right. I don't get invited over to the house. But in man

of fire, he's training a little girl that he's guarding to be a better swimmer and she says, I'm not any good. He says, there's no such thing as good or bad. There's only trained and untrained. Only trained and untrained. So if you don't feel confident, you just haven't got your practicing. Same thought, Daniel Kuo wrote a great book called The Talent Code. Code's contention is that everything is learned. Now, I'm not sure that everything is learned, but he's got

enough data that backs up the fact that the vast majority, the ridiculously overwhelming skills of people that are really good learned it. They weren't born with it. Again, you can become confident with practice. You can learn it. We advise small stakes negotiations for high stakes results. You know, practice a calm demeanor. When you order coffee, it's practice. Practice a calm demeanor when you're talking to your left or your Uber driver.

I mean, we got no shortage of practice. One young lady, I'm coaching in some negotiations now practice. One young lady, I'm coaching in some negotiations now, because of COVID, and the economic switch, she's moved back into her parents' house, which means, she's her mother is there giving her a hard time every day. And she said, my mother ponses my buttons. I said, perfect, it's practice. Practice being calm with your mom. If you can't do it in the moment, you rehearse the interactions or prepare for them constantly. You sit down in the basement, the fully furnished basement, and when you go upstairs, your mother's going to punch your buttons, and you can just see yourself getting mad. So just rerun it in your head and see yourself. If not staying calm, see yourself inside.

It's practice. Are you envisioning your performance? What great athletes do? You know, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, they see themselves hitting the game winning shot. Over and over and over. They practice it on the court. You know, they're out there by themselves,

but they imagine being surrounded by fans screaming for them to miss. They imagine being in a hostile environment. This is our practice. You get, that's where great athletes become great. You could do it yourself in negotiation. The term you've kept on using there is calm. Does confidence come from being calm?

You know, you could do it either way. You know, you could practice a calm voice and You know, and that's an interesting point because if you could just practice, you know, what we refer to is the late-night FM DJ voice There's a neuroscience response behind that if you hear my voice when I use that voice, there's a neurochemical change in your brain triggered by your mirror neurons, which is an automatic response. It's not a choice.

And you'll start to calm the brain down. Now, the great thing about that voice is when you use it, you hear it too, which means you can force a system override. If you're upset and you just start talking out loud in a calm voice, your voice is going to hit your mirror neurons and you can force yourself to calm down, the same way that you would trigger the reaction in the other person. So once you discover some of the system overrides, you can use them on yourself. Recently had Fiona Merton on whose cognitive psychologist, a new book, it's called Mirror Thinking, which is exclusively about the mirror system. It might be an interesting read

for yourself or you can listen to on the episode. She's fascinating, fascinating woman, teaching a lot of leaders in business. And yet some of the examples that she came up with from the mirror system are outrageous. There was a one girl in, I want to say, Yugoslavia or somewhere who had parents, young infant parents that were drinking a lot and not caring for her, and they left her out in the cold one night, and she got taken in by a pack of wild dogs between the age of three and eight. And at eight years old, she was finally sort of seen by someone who then took her back in and child protective services.

But by this time, she was walking on on all thoughts, she was drinking from a tap by licking, she was unable to speak, she was unable to write, she was unable to do any of this stuff because she had been around animals that had done that. So the ability for us to completely transcend what we would naturally probably consider our nature by pedal, talking, using hands, you know, like the mirror system is so pervasive and so powerful that it can turn a child essentially into a, you know, kind of a mirror of a canine. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy, right? The way the neurochemistry of the brain when these things start to kick in. Unbelievable. One of the things I'm fascinated

by is your strategy for mirroring. Can you take us through that and explain why it's effective? Yeah, and very much along the lines of what we were just talking about, you know, there's the mirroring the body language and then the hostage negotiator's mirror puts it slightly different spin on it. And it starts with repeating the one, the last one to three words, you know, three ish could be as many, no more than five, but one to three is the general rule of what someone is just saying. It causes this great thought connection in your counterparts thinking. They, they go on, they reword.

It's actually a much better thing than to say, what did you mean by that? You know, because most people, when you say to them, what did you mean by that? They're going to repeat it. The exact same words only louder, kind of like an American horse. So, but with the mirror, people have a tendency to reword. There's something in the message that clicks with the other person, which tells them, okay, I heard your words and I still don't understand. Could you give us an example? Yeah, my son and I, it's

one of the negotiations in a book. We're going back and forth. We're prepping for some training and I ask him if we've got the notebooks ready. Now, the notebooks that I have in mind, they kind of look like this, you know, they're just, you know, a notebook. Or that's the notebook that he has in mind. Now, what I have in mind are three ring bindings, but I'm calling them notebooks. So I say he have the notebooks ready. Now he senses there's a disconnect in our thinking. So in order to try to clear it up, he says to me, what do you mean by notebooks?

And I go, no, box! And he says, yeah, but what do you mean by no, box? No, box! And he says, yeah, but what do you mean by notebooks? I know books. And finally, he just mirrors me. He goes, no books. And I go, yeah, three ring binders. So whatever reason, there's something in the way the hostage and go to Shader's mirror hits a brain that gets people to

reward and continue. Even when they're closely guarding what they're saying. And the first time I ever did it, I practiced it, so it's a great default tool to go to when you're at a loss for words. And I'm in a bank robbery with hostages, talk to the bank robber, we got his van outside, and I said, you know, we found this van outside.

And he says, we only have one vehicle. And I said, you only have one vehicle. He said, yeah, we don't have one vehicle. You don't have one vehicle? Said, you chased my driver away. I said, we chased my driver away. I said, we chased you driver away. He goes, yeah, when he saw the police, he cut it run. Now, what he just did was admit that there was an

accomplice that we didn't know about, which also meant he's giving us a witness against him. Because this is a guy who could tell him. In no way, shape or form is it in his interest to tell me about the getaway driver that got away. But I start marrying him and this guy was a very control freak negotiator. He was probably, he embodied all of the characteristics of a really dangerous business negotiate. He pretend like he was powerless. He acted like we were the problem, that he was cooperative.

He did all these things that actually kept him completely in control while looking powerless, which meant his words were ridiculously well selected. And so to get him to start sharing information, he had no intention of sharing, is a great example of how mirrors gets information out of people. I love that. Is that linked to our addiction to correction that you talk about? Is it a similar pathway that works with that? Yeah, it's an interesting question. I think it probably is.

It has to be. There has to be something similar to it because the compulsion, the talk is just precisely the word I was thinking there. Precisely the word. I had a Robin Drake, who you may be familiar with, I heard him on years and years and years ago. And I remember he was the first person before I read your book. He taught me about that compulsion to correct. And I think his example was how he would get someone to give him their birthday. And he was like, I bet that you're born in September, aren't you?

No, no, November. Oh yeah, yeah, it must be the 16th. No, no, the 17th. And you can feel, it's like a visceral response that you want, when someone says a thing, good naturedly, not accusing, not saying like, I bet that you can't lift this weight. More just a natural conversation of something

that's a little bit off. This compulsion to want to correct them is a powerful, unstoppable. Yeah, it's an interesting point. A lot of people, and you're triggering some other thoughts that come to mind, a lot of people outside of negotiation, they tumble over the power of the compulsion to correct and they use it in a lot of different ways.

And nobody ever notices. That's the other thing too, like when somebody corrects you, they never notice that they've given you a bunch of information. They they their guard never comes up Which means you know, they're not gonna backtrack on you It's it's really cool really really cool. Can you talk about how to say no more productively? That there has to be a point that you reach during a negotiation where like, you have to give a negative answer, you have to say that that's too far or that's something that we can't do. How can we say no more productively?

Yeah, and there are a lot of negotiators that actually out there that are going to continue to pound on you until you say no, not once but twice. I mean, I've run across no shortage of hard bargaining negotiators and their rule of thumb is, they're not going to let up until you said no twice. So how do you say no productively is a question? You know, our first way of saying no is how am I supposed to do that? I mean, it triggers so much in the other side.

It's the opening story in the book, never split the difference. And, you know, really good, really bad about that being the opening story. People get it right away. I mean, I get no shortage of people who come up and say, wow, how am I supposed to do that? I've closed so many deals at my terms.

And that's all I ever said. But the problem is, that's the only thing they ever learned. So they could be doing so much better. But the first time they say how am I supposed to do that, I mean it's it alters everything in the moment. Because what the other side hears when you say that is I'd love to comply, but you're giving me an impossible task. And so let's figure out a more productive way to proceed. And that's why typically the other side, you know, they don't feel attacked,

they feel collaborative, triggers, triggers collaboration. My son also refers to this phrases forced empathy, it makes them take a look at you. Involuntarily they don't, they don't do it on purpose, but they step back and they take I say, wow, all right, so let me let me rethink your bit. Even if they come back at you with, if you want to deal with your half, you have to. The point isn't the answer, the point is the thought process you put them through. And so that's why that's our first way to say no. Now you can become a little bit more firm each time. I mean basically we, you know, I teach people four ways to say no, how am I supposed to

do that? I'm sorry that just doesn't work for me. I'm sorry I can't do that. And no. Each one is a little more firm. And the other side feels no coming, but they don't get punched in a face with it. Ha, ha. Yeah, is that of all of the phrases

that you have in the book, do you think that's the most powerful one that someone could sort of take today and plug into their negotiating? Yeah, it's probably the most powerful, the most applicable phrase, the easiest to learn. And it's just, it's fun to watch it. It's fun to watch it all. I bet it is. Can you explain what labeling is? Labeling has to be simple and it's elegant. Labeling is self-defining, labeling an emotion or dynamic in the moment. Doing it as a verbal observation.

It seems it sounds that looks, it feels. Now you've gotta use those exact words. We'll run into no shortage of people that'll say, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I already know how to do that. And I do it all the time and I say, well, what I'm hearing is, well, those aren't the same words that I just used. And it's completely different. So the label is got to be concise. It's a verbal observation. What it does is it puts people into a thoughtful mode.

It provokes their thoughts. And then people have a tendency to give you complete direct Downstream download of their thought pattern They're less guarded. I could say to you What do you think and you'll stop and think and you'll fully go through your brain what you should say and then you may or may not give me the answer. Or I could say, it seems like you're thinking about something and the chances of you starting to blur it out, what's on your mind, immediately, are much higher. And there's a massive difference in the response. You want a guarded answer, do you want an unvarnished

answer? The label gets you an unvarnished answer. It seems to me that a lot of the tactics that we are using here during the conversation is to get people out of the semantic games and the linguistic games and kind of take them from this level, the very superficial, visceral level, and kind of take them upstairs into their brain without insulating them. Am I in any way sort of correct here, trying to conceptualize that? Yeah, no, you're on a road track. You want to find out what's in their head and you don't want the guard to go up. Your triggering collaboration is what you're doing. You know what, I was at a gathering some people once and one of a young lady came up to me

and she said, your book is how to make the other side collaborate with you whether they liked it or not. Now, collaborations are good word. You know, and she nailed it right. I'm not looking for people to cooperate. You know, that's when I'm victimizing you. I'm looking for you to collaborate with me so that we can make something better together. Now, if you don't want to collaborate with me, you know, that's a defensive move on your part.

You've been stung in a past, you've been cheated in the past, you've been betrayed in the past. Those are nine out of 10 of the people that don't want to collaborate. Now one in 10 is trying to cheat me and that's why they don't want to collaborate. But the cut throat negotiators have an outsized reputation Not that many people really want to cut you through it. They may act like it But it's principally defensive in nature. They're just trying to protect themselves There are some people out there that are that are trying to cut this throat. They're a minority, but everybody's scared of When if you if you trusted everybody just by

percentages 70% of the people 70-75% of the people that you encounter If you trusted everybody just by percentages, 70% of the people, 70%, 75% of the people that you encounter, you'll be okay trusting them blindly. The problem is we don't notice that because the people that betrayed us, that's staying so bad, that that experience fogs everything else and obscures our actual view of realities. One of the reasons why I love the phrase fortune favors the bold.

Because the universe really is on our side. If you're fearless, 70% of the time it's gonna work on. That's a great bad thing. You know, Las Vegas, which is where I haven't a live, they're building casinos on 51% success rate. Imagine what you could do with 70. Well, why it's evolutionarily to avoid that multiply by zero, right? You know, like it's the anxiety a lytic effect of just fearing the tiger in a, I'm gonna guess,

tigers don't live in caves, the bear in a cave or whatever. Something bad is in a cave, right? Avoiding that, avoiding the snake behind the bush, avoiding the whatever. It has led us. It's very, very, it's, you know, it's right back here. It's right at the top of your spine where it meets the back of your back of your cranium and it's hard to get rid of. So that makes sense and you're correct as well forget the successes remember the losses very much is the way that a lot of people lead their lives. There's some strong neuropsychological research that shows we're not even pleasure

seeking, we're simply pain avoiding Like as humans we don't ever it's all versions of pleasure as simply different gradations of a lack of pain And when that's the case pain is as you said remembered So much more forcefully This sort of leads me nicely into something that I really love that I've taken from your work, which is about implementation and agreement. Like yes, is nothing without how. Can you explain what that means? Yeah, well, even if people mean to agree with you, a lot of people just don't think

it's wrong. So like, even I couldn't tend to have a great, great agreement. I just had my thought that I'm gonna implement. And as soon as you start asking me how you put me in an implementation phase, and, you know, as they say, hope it's not a strategy. We can't hope this is gonna work out.

We actually gotta think it through. So that's the first issue with genuine people. Second issue is this whole yes thing. There's three kinds of yeses, commitment, confirmation, and counterfeit. There's this nonsense out there called the yes momentum, or momentum selling. And that is, if I get you to say yes,

enough times, to the little things you gotta say yes to the big one. They refer to each yes is either a micro agreement or a tie down. Just tie them down. Each micro agreement means they have to say yes. Now everybody has been stung by this two or three times. So it probably, you know, worked on me when I was 21 and a salesperson called me to tell me about this discount coupon book that only cost me $25 and I get $15,000 in benefit. I'm like yeah, yeah, I want that

You know, everybody's been suckered into this. You know know there's you know, I'm hearing things about The timeshare profession these days, you know people buy in timeshairs Do you want to live in a five star resort? for free Would you like to have a great vacation on the paid for itself that you could visit whenever you want? Yeah, And then people find themselves in a massive amount of debt. And every time they call it and try to get out of it, they find themselves more in debt. Like you're going to get stung by the yes momentum until you learn to be suspicious of everybody trying to get you to say yes. People are yes, the same way children,

battered children are battered by adults. Every time an adult raises their hand, they think they're gonna get hit. So you might not be trying to lure somebody into an deal with yes, but somebody else already did. And you're like the adult who's trying to give a child a legitimate hook they're still gonna duck so the more you try to get people into yes the

worst your problems are gonna be and as soon as you shift into how you're out of this yes problem entirely and you're about how do we make a great deal how do we move forward how do we profit a great deal? How do we move forward? How do we profit? Then your deals sail through in a much faster and much smoother way. I guess that links back to what we said at the very beginning as well about not just battering the other side because if someone's agreement is based on implementation, they are more likely to have thought through what they are agreeing to and less likely to over-agree, I guess, as in, agree to something that they didn't mean to or that later on they're going to regret.

I often use this example, so I work in the nightlife industry and I've stood on the front door of a thousand different nightclubs and watched a million drunk people go into them and a lot of the time you'll have an event let's say it's a really popular day maybe Halloween or New Year's Eve something like that and someone comes up and it's rammed to the rafters there's very very few spaces left over and this person's desperate to get it all of their friends are in that all of of their friends have got a table or group of guys that are local but didn't manage to get tickets or whatever and it's the final table and they're absolutely desperate to get it. And the temptation is to say when demand out

strips supply, what do you do? You throw the price through the roof. So you can come in you throw the price through the roof. So you chart, you say you can come in, but it's gonna be some astronomical figure, right? Like some like 10X, 10X, what it would be, 20X, what it would be. And they might pay it. So they might have agreed to the price, but they might not be happy about having paid that price.

So that's a real key insight that I got from your work, which is not to assume that just because someone has agreed to the deal, that it means that they are happy about the deal. Ah, good point. Yeah, exactly. Because you're going to run into problems on down the line. And when it's as soon as they get a chance, try to get you back, they're going to get you back with interest. You know, then I get it trying to get you. They're going to try to get way pasty when they get you back. And so then that's bad, that's bad long term. It's a great way to put yourself in a position where you got lots of people who want to pay back.

Very much work. So going on from the clip promotion situation, a lot of the time I will be stood next to the dormant. So we work on the front door. You'll have seen it, the guys with the clipboards and making sure that everything runs right. There's no catastrophes and a lot of the time someone that's drunk, who's inside of the venue, will be in varying degrees of delicately brought outside. They may have had a little bit too much to drink. They may have been involved in an altercation. They may have just done something that has

warranted them. Their night is now over. And they've been brought outside by the door staff. And then they tend to come back to the guys who were stood on the front door, the front door man, and they're da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da per night. Sometimes it compounds and one of the mates gets thrown out. Then another friend that they were maybe even play fighting with also gets thrown out and then it's like a compounding effect where they both have a go, how can we deescalate a heated negotiate and a negotiation? Let's forget the fact that they're drunk because I'm guessing that adds a layer of complexity that even you can't get us around. But what can I tell the door stuff? I work with these guys all the night. I don't want them. I have to spend the time getting it abused by people who are a little bit unhappy. What can they do to try and deescalate this?

Well, first of all, the tone of voice is critical. Late night FM DJ voice, you know the calming soothing voice Whatever advantage that gives you take it I mean many times you Each individual tactic might just be a small advantage, but the cumulative effect is what you're looking for You're looking to score up some points. So the calming soothing voice to start with even with drugs That's at best not going to aggravate the situation. Commanding voice is an aggravating voice. It doesn't help people think. So first of all, the late night FM DJ voice.

Secondly, repeat back to them what they're saying. A lot of times people just want to have their say. If all I got to have to do, to get you to go away, is to let you feel like you've had your say, then if I repeat it back, it's clear your point is getting through to them. Now the really, the tricky part is, is when they want to articulate negative stuff about you or your establishment or you know

That they again, they say they've been treated unfairly. This isn't fair You can look at somebody and say you feel you're treated unfairly And that's not agreeing it but then people, they need, if they need, if satisfying the need to be hurt is enough, and now you've scored some more points, you may conclude the deal there, late night FM DJ voice. Make sure they know they've been hurt, particularly with the negative stuff about you. The most effective way to deactivate negativity is to simply call it out.

Now sometimes you gotta call it out more than once, but there's brain science that backs us up. It's the most effective stuff. You don't want them continuing to be mad and go away and stew on and come back even matter. You know, you wanna deactivate the negativity with the best way possible. So, so let them feel like they're hurt. You're going to solve enough of your problems just with those two things that if there's anything that requires any sort

of an escalation, at least you didn't need to escalate unnecessarily. Yeah, I like that a lot. Are you very, very correct as well about people just needing to be heard? Think you can, in an ideal world, the people who were ejected by the door staff who are inside would go, that's my night over, I'll head home, and that must happen one time in 50, maybe, or one time in 30. It's very rare. That's the majority of the time when the people all of us who have stood at the front see someone being brought upstairs. You'll see the promoters who are usually dressed

in like skinny jeans and like cool shoes or whatever. We'll just part a little like Moses sort of moving the red sea. We'll just give the door staff a little bit more room because we know that he's going to turn around and come back and start sharing it one of them, more often than not. But we have to work with the world the way it is not the way that we would have it be. And in that situation, it's going to happen. And I feel for the door staff with this, this is one of the things I feel quite strongly about within the nightlife industry that they part of their job is to be a verbal punching bag.

Because this person has to do it. They are compelled to say this thing, to vent this anger, to do whatever. There's a gigantic effect for the people who know what that is. This open loop closed loop system that we have. There's an open loop. I haven't had my say. I don't feel like I've closed the door to hell That is currently open in my mind about the injustice that's just being caused downstairs. I need to

Do my thing and even if it's just for the person who requires being heard That might be it that might but even that person even the most sedate person in the world Let's say you know one in 31 in 50, decides to just walk away. Um, even the ones, like I say, that are the most collaborative, that are the most sedate out of those one, they still want to turn around and say that they've been hard done by. And of them, some of them decide to walk away once they feel like they've been heard. But that, that open loop is is a hell of a drug.

Yeah, yes. Yeah, it is. And it's's and the crazy thing about the negativity of it. In many cases, until people get the opportunity to feel heard, they feel even more self-righteous about having to express it. There's usually a lot of self-righteousness in that anger loop. I would agree. The converse of what we said earlier on, the most powerful phrases that we've got in negotiating, are there some that people overuse or like some, like a law, artifact, grandfathered in, old school tricks of the trade that people think worked

during negotiating, but they just need to be thrown out. Or this stuff that you see people using a lot, which just totally need to be stopped. Yeah, well, I really, the phrase win-win bothers me, principally in a way that it's applied not the theory behind But someone someone uses a you know, let's do a win-win deal. They tell me that right off the bat like I know you're trying to pick my pocket and I just know you are If it comes out of your mouth and in the first in the opening moments Because they sucker a lot of people with that. You know, when we're in, oh yeah, cool, yeah, excellent.

So people get taken by that. Or somebody who comes in who's openly, you know, they exude, they want the collaboration. Well, they're a sucker for that person, that 2 and 10 maybe, that's still going to just take them to the cleaners. So I'm always leery about the utterance of the phrase win-win. And then, are you trying to shortcut the situation? You don't know what a win is because you don't know what I'm holding back. I don't know what you're holding back.

So in a one way than the other, you're not trying to get the best collaboration out of this deal if you're using those words. The thing that I really love about your particular approach to communication styling general is that it doesn't require you to really remember very much. on big things. The thing that I really love about your particular approach to communication style in general is that it doesn't require you to really remember very much. Obviously, you have to learn the skills and such forth. But the intricacy, anyone knows if you've ever told a little bit of a, like, a little white lie and then the next week someone comes and asks you about the previous white lie and then you, you got to hold this like meta

conscience in your mind and start to construct all of the different ways that that lie would interlink with the other lie and it's a cliche, it tumbles, snowballs into the big gray lie that overtakes your life. But by focusing on not even, as you've said there, not even as you've said there not even playing the character of someone who has to be overtly about the win-win I am here This is a collaborative opportunity, but I still have things that I want I have things that I want because that is true you have things that you want because that is also true Let us add our two truths together and see where we can find a middle ground Yeah, yeah, or and I'm cautious'm cautious, let's look for overlapping ground, you know, versus

middle ground, because middle ground, that phrase starts getting dangerously close to compromise, and compromise is impossible for human beings, because in 2002, Danny Connemon won the Nobel Prize in Behavioral Economics for Prospect Theory. The short-hand version of that is a loss things twice as much as an equivalent game. So we distort loss in our head. We distort our Gibbs. So let's say I want 15, you want five and we want to meet in the middle at 10. Well for both of us that loss of five feels like a loss of 10. If you if you go with Conoman's 2x rule and Conoman is actually given some interviews where he indicates that it's much more than

2x. That he and Amos Tversky said 2x just to limit the amount of argument. I think I heard him say it's closer to 5 to 7x. Which means you can never feel okay in an equivalent nature to what you've given in on until you've gotten the other person back for double what you gave up. So compromise always becomes a downward spiral, always, which is wise to be avoided, which is why you want to get into a conversation where instead of compromise, you're talking about collaboration where we come up with new opportunities than either one of us envisioned or new possibilities.

That takes us out of loss entirely and therefore we're not trying to pay each other back. I like that. What are your opinions on Trump as a communicator if you were coaching him? What would you say that he does well and what would you say that he needs to improve on? See, I'm a natural born assertive very much, you know, Trump and I are both from the same caveman tribe the assertive and with the problem with the assertives are that since we leave people feeling bruised the people that are willing to deal with this become fewer and fewer and fewer and fewer. You know, you're fishing out the reservoir. You know, you're hunting out the game. And a cruel classic example of what happens in every one of these is

where is, where is, what is the status currently of the US North Korea negotiations? I'm not sure. You're going to have to tell me. That's exactly the point. Nobody knows. That's what happens to the assertive negotiator. Negotiations just start to slowly fade. They don't get concluded. The other side learns that when they interact with you, that if they don't surrender that you attack. That's interesting. And if I want to talk, I'm gonna,

if I don't surrender, I'm gonna get attacked. And so what you become conditioned to do is to stop talking entirely, which means deals go away. And if you look at the history of everyone that President Trump has interacted with since he's been president, he showed up. And when they didn't come surrender to him with what he wanted, then he immediately started talking to the Democrats. The Democrats were happy to run to the White House and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer run

to the White House to meet with the president. But when they didn't surrender, he started calling them names. Anybody who doesn't surrender calls them names and then people just stopped cooperating. Nancy Pelosi stopped going to the White House., Nancy Pelosi stops going to the White House. Chuck Schumer stops going to the White House. The speaker of the House stopped going to the White House when it was Republicans. Now the Republican senators, Republican lead Senate,

who of the Republican leadership from the Senate is going to the White House. Not only going near them. North Korea thought of opening negotiations on the going near him. North Korea thought it was opening negotiations and the North Korean negotiations, that was a problem that Donald Trump did not inherit. That was a stinking mess that's been in existence for 50 years. So he didn't create that problem. Suddenly the North Korean dictator, I couldn't meet tell him Trump. He's fanboying him. You know, and they're meeting in person and I congratulate Trump for not seeing the meeting as beneath him. I go meet with this guy, I don't care. You know, that was great. But then

he starts calling on names again, they start arguing. North Korea doesn't surrender. They just, they want to have a dialogue before they surrender. You just want surrender. Now where's the negotiation? Nobody knows. Every single person that I ask, where are we on North Korea? Everybody goes,

that's the response. I'm glad that wasn't a trick question. I don't. I don't. I mean, I'd be, I'd be happy to. Nobody says we're in a great place. I can, if you're a Donald Trump supporter, you will not answer that question saying, we're in a great place.

Nobody says that. Yeah. I think I can really get a sense of what you mean, obviously, Donald Trump isn't directly negotiating with me, but he is secondarily negotiating with everyone, right? He wants, when he is giving his speech, he is up on stage, he is debating Joe Biden, he is having a collaborative discussion where he wants people to come onto his side of the table. He needs to put himself across in a good way. And I really do get that sense a little bit that four years ago, the novelty of someone

who was gonna drain the swamp and kind of didn't play by the rules and was he brash and forthcoming and like kind of like alpha masculine in a kind of a assertive Hollywood style president sort of way. You know, like if Denzel, if Denzel was doing it, there's like the touches of that, like, almost charisma. But after four years of never seeing the collaboration come through, the tarnish has been taken off the shine a little

bit and it just feels, it feels a a lot more brush than it did previously. Does that make sense? Yeah, and there are a lot of people that are going like, yeah, well, I'm not a big fan of government anyway. You know, and every few years in American politics, American businessman holds our hand up and a massive amount of country goes like, yeah, we need a business man in charge. And what was it the 1990s cross Rossboro put his hand up, and it instantly, a huge portion of America was like, yeah, we're tied in the inefficiencies of government, we're willing to give a businessman a shot. You know, everybody's disenchanted with government.

And some of his approach, when he wasn't running a government, was, yeah, you could do work. But we can't say that anymore. No, you are very right. I mean, we keep on seeing this, Mike Bloomberg. You know, like, I'll put my hand up. I'll have it. I'll throw my hat in the ring, so to speak. There is a... I kind of get it, right? Because I think people who maybe don't do politics and don't do business, presume that someone who has spent a lot of time

in a boardroom has some transferable skills, maybe that they can kind of put across under the other side and I can utilize my business acumen in a way that allows me. And I don't know, like, there's certainly part like this Middle East thing that Trump's done is very, very impressive and has kind of been pushed under the rug a little bit. I think I don't think it's been given quite the media attention that it deserved. But, by the same token, I'm not convinced, it's not for me to say that a career politician is the best person to become

president, but similarly, I don't think that this shows us that someone who's come in from a business background happens to have some sort of competitive advantage when it comes to communicating or diplomacy or anything else. I think that ship sailed a little bit now. Well, I can tell from personal experience, haven't spent 27 years in a public sector. Public sector sees a private sector and in a public sector, we go like, yeah, I could do that.

I could do that over there. And vice versa. Private sector looks at the public sector of government says, yeah, I could do that. It has taken me every bit of 10 years, and we are still figuring out how to operate effectively in a private sector, and principally, because the majority of my team

were never in a public sector. But you look over there and you say, I could see how I could do better. And in a jet and moving from the public sector to the private sector, there's no shortage of military generals. It was superstars in a military that started consulting companies that fell flat on their face because they're two very different animals. They look a lot alike. Maybe, maybe, Az a zebra looks like a horse, but a zebra is not a horse. And until you've got enough experience, and either the renaurs, you're not going to realize how new you are to it when you get in.

Private sector people say, I run a government on a better business. You know, it needs to be more efficient. Some of what I was willing to see what Donald Trump was going to do is because I want to know how much is an inherent problem in government and how much is an inefficiency that just needs to be gotten rid of. We've had that experiment. A lot more of it is inherent. I think it is in built. It's part of the source code. It's bootstrapped into the inevitability

of any structure that is just so big and such a Leviathan. We have in the UK, we have the NHS, the National Health Service, and I have a number of doctor friends, many of whom will be listening. And they constantly. They still run on Windows 95. They're still faxing stuff. Like they have to fax things around and like mail post. There's no app. There's no iPads that you can walk around. Oh, so what's this patient's thing? It's printed medical record. It is such a humongous beast that to try and enact any sort of change is essentially now untenable. You can't get changed to occur. And this is something that should be considered when talking any country, the grandiosity of potentially having nationalized healthcare

is that when you, if you're talking like truly, truly, truly nationalized in a country like yours of 330 million people, you are attaching everyone to the same flagpole, every single person. And if it starts to blow quite a strong wind, all the flags are fucked, like they are all all over the place, they get entangled up together and then you've got to try and untie them. It is, it's a real challenge. So I think that's a side of the, the NHS that I think people don't see because it's still functions, at least from the outside looking in, you go in, you get your healthcare, you kind of leave. But the knife edge that it operates on, like the closeness that almost every patient is to their records being lost or their appointment being cancelled or whatever it is. It constantly feels like everyone's kind of like road runner, you know, just moving their legs as quickly

as possible in a desperate attempt to try and keep up with the pace of what needs to be done. I think that's probably a consideration for a lot of countries that are considering nationalized healthcare. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's a view that people that are espousing national healthcare don't want you to see. No not at all. So final question Chris, you've been through a lot of very very high-pressure situations. I wondered if there was one that comes to mind that you could tell us a story about and then also if that would be a good way to

illustrate how you can deal with pressure. There will be people who have a job interview, have the final negotiating to keep their job or to apply for a promotion or to get the business deal or the merger or whatever it might be, would that be able to illustrate how they can perhaps cope with pressure in a high-stakes situation. Yeah, you know, really, the ability to articulate the other side's point of view in a way that they say that's right to is a single biggest game changer. You know, their point of view, when you express it, they'll say, that's right. That's it exactly, you've got it exactly. That's a game changing move.

Now, there's no negotiation approach that works 1,000% of the time. I was coached a guy through negotiation just a couple days ago and we weren't getting a person where we were on to be. And I said, look, I gotta tell you, it's a hostage negotiator. We were successful 93% of the time. That also meant that 7% of the time

we had to shoot the guy. And our success rates 93. Cause this guy's trying to negotiate as a vendor, whether or not he's gonna give a refund or guys demand and refund he doesn't deserve. And he wants to be nice about it. He doesn't want to tell the guy to just, F-all. And I said, this may be a guy you guys shoot.

You know, this is a guy that no matter what, you can't be nice to him. Because we were summarizing and expressing the other guy's point of view. And I said to him early on, I smell this guy is not going to come across. He's not going to come out of his position. We can apply this, but I don't think he's coming out. So express the other side's point of view. Now there's two really good things about that. Significant number of deals are going to make themselves in your favor

once you get it, that's right out of the other side. The other thing is, too, is we found it levels you out. Everybody that takes the time to thoughtfully be able to try to express the other sides perspective. That levels them out. It takes them out of anger, which then is also very good for you, because anger is a poison. It's a poison you want to give the person you want to poison, but you're the one that's actually taking a poison. It just pollutes your system. It's bad for you physically, it's your life, it's spanner, and nothing good about anger.

So trying to express the other side's perspective in a way where they say that's right will level you out as well. Now we had a negotiation, a kidnapping negotiation, and a Philippines. The other side's got outrageous demands. I coached my guy after about two or three months into this. Look, let's just get a that's right out of this, out of our bag guy, because we were stalemated and been stalemated for a while. So express his point of view. Tell him that, you know, the Philippines have been ravaged for 500 years by colonial pounds. And the ransom that you're asking for this hostage, it's not a ransom, it's for war damage,

it's for economic comm. It's for economic harm over 500 years. And repeat back all the other utter nonsense, the ridiculousness of his justification, because people always over justified. They always throw in every, you know, that you, you know, you're Aunt Milley, wore the wrong socks, you know, they're thinking of ridiculous stuff, right?

So just feed it back. Don't argue with any of it. Just feed it back to them. We're gonna get to that's right out of them. The guy on the other side is a sociopathic murder and rape and killer. He literally says that that's right when we go into full summer. I don't know how long it took to do the full summary, but it took a while. It seemed excruciating on RN. Terrorist social path on the other side says, that's right. Immediately the ransom demand went away. We went from $10 million to zero when the phone hung on them. No monetary demand was ever raised again to the course of the kidnapping. last couple more months the hostage walks away You get the opportunity to lack in the insecurity is walks away

We fly him back to the US. He's gone bad guys get nothing I'm back in the Philippines about three weeks later connect back up with the negotiator of his coaching He says you're not gonna believe and call me on a phone the terrorist What do you say? He said, have you been promoted? I was going to kill the American. You're really good at what you do. They should promote you, which was a sign of respect, which is also him saying, I'd do

with you again. He was calling to tell me to deal'd deal with him again, that they were okay. I'm not ever going to go, Shae is going to turn out that well. But wherever summarizing the other side leaves you is guaranteed to be better than when before you're somewhere. And whether that place is going to be, I can't guarantee. I can only guarantee that you going to be, I can't guarantee, I can only guarantee that you will always be better off if you take the time to summarize the other side's perspective.

If only that it leveled you up. And that's why it's worth doing. Chris, I love that. What an amazing story. Today's been just phenomenal so much for everyone to take away. If people want to check out some more, obviously never split the difference will be linked on Amazon in the show notes below. Where else should they go? You know, come to the website, blackswannltd.com, BLACK SWANltd.com. We've got a massive amount of free material. We got a weekly newsletter that comes out on negotiation tips and advice. It's concise Which is even the most it's it's complementary which means there's no cost but better than that It's concise and actionable

Plus the newsletter happens to be the gateway to all the other avenues on a website. So go to the website Newsletters listed as a blog and the upper end hand corner sign up You get the book and the newsletter a lot of people start changing their lives with those two tools. Amazing, man. Thank you. Today's been absolutely phenomenal. It's been 18 months that we've been trying to schedule this in and it was absolutely worth the wait, mate. So I really appreciate you having some of your time today. Thanks for your persistence. I have enjoyed the conversation.