Negotiation Skills: How to harness trust, empathy and the word "No" by Chris Voss

[Music] if you will please welcome to the stage give a big New York welcome to mr. Chris boss Chris boss huh good call all right is that here we go let's start with this see this watch love affair with the word hostage listen you do not hold people hostage or engage in ransom taking to get a hundred percent of your way they're trying to hold veterans hostage divorce Obama care of the American people you cannot negotiate with a hostage situation they had to take the country hostage whether or not it's it's it's correct to kind of use the hostage terms of by politicians when you see this as somebody who's negotiated a lot when you see what's going on Washington what jumps out to you well there's two things about that you know on a personal note I like that they use the word because then it gives me a chance to be on your show [Laughter] focus on anything his company is called the Black Swan group that is the baddest-ass name I have ever heard I love that now what is the Black Swan group that's like the coolest what is that thank you very much a Black Swan is something unusual that has a great impact and we like to think that the way we negotiate has a great impact all right how often you get a chance to tell a joke that makes Anderson Cooper laugh right I think that there's a communication lesson in there there's a negotiation lesson there there's there's a sales lesson in there it's buried in that what do you think it is I'm sorry we think the lesson is what do you what is it see the thing that I love about hostage negotiation we'll come to learn is when we invented this back in the 1970s we didn't know it was all neuroscience space you know we're psychologist psychologist did a great job before we could actually learn inside look inside the brain and see how it works everything we did in hostage negotiations backed up by neuroscience in communication the neuroscience and negotiation communication lesson here is you're up to 31% smarter in a positive frame of mind 31% that's no small jump the mood that we have directly correlates to how efficiently brain functions for hostage negotiators we would call people down reduce this thing called the late-night FM DJ Roy and people calm down we didn't know why I worked we just know worked it actually turned their brain down 31% smarter in a positive frame of mind what's the lesson here for you now as a hostage negotiator you know do I show up at a bank going like hey yeah I'm from Iowa just fluid boy in my arms tired I'm not telling jokes you know I didn't I didn't go out Anderson Cooper telling a joke but I did use humor humor appropriate to the context when you you're using humor you up to 31 percent smarter think about that you're also causing your counterpart to be up to 31 percent smarter putting them in a mood one about one of our terms for negotiation flexibility never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn't take something better cool all right so that sounds cool I'll do that how do I get something better to happen appropriate humor in the moment I don't tell that joke Jeffrey Toobin does not give me the best commercial my company ever had the Black Swan group there's a baddest-ass name I ever heard what is that he does that spontaneously I kicked I caused him to have the opportunist had he doesn't know it came from me because I made him feel better he gives me something enormous ly valuable receiving nothing in return but it's contextual to the moment context is always important friend of mine was telling me he's in a negotiation he works for Raytheon what is Raytheon Raytheon is the government arms dealer right so weapons on behalf of the US government arms dealer around the world they're selling weapons to Korea South Korea they got a problem the relationship is breaking down they sent my friend to South Korea to to negotiate with these guys South Koreans are so mad at these guys they put them in a room in the middle of in the middle of building a room that's got no windows and you know I'm surprised it in waterboard when it came in but the guy I'm in a room with no windows because they're trying to make it unpleasant for them and it's an unpleasant negotiation well in the middle of this negotiation the lights go out so if your room with no windows you're in pitch-black the lights go completely out they're sitting there he says after a couple minutes sitting in a pit in the pitch black he says whose hand is that on my leg and I lights come back on and they all laugh and then they make the deal and of course it felt better about each other but they simultaneously felt better about each other and got smarter in the moment this is crazy here's how crazy this is and here's how you can begin to override your system and hack your system because two out of three in this room are not normally in a positive frame of mind there's a number of things we know about the types of human beings that survived on a planet in regardless of gender ethnicity we break down pretty much into three types fight flight and make friends now to make friends type from the caveman days is normally in a pretty good mood to fight flight guys I'm a fight guy you know we're not running around a positive frame of mind on a regular basis so we're actually not tapping into our full mental capacity how can you hack that if you're in one of those types if you're like me they did a psychological experiment where they ask people to hold a pencil in their in their mouth without letting their lips touch it what are you doing you're smiling right can we fool ourselves if we know in a positive frame of mind what happens if you don't know you're in a positive frame of mind is there a hardwired connection between the facial muscles and nerves in the brain they did the experiment their brain picked up anyway didn't know they were smiling you forced a smile onto your face if I look at you and I smile I hit your mirror neurons it's an involuntary reaction I could pick anybody out in this room if I smile at you even if you frown back at me you're gonna be fighting the smile on your face on your fighting the smile in your brain with your frown but that still means I'm still hitting mirror neurons you can't stop it if you can hear I can hit your mirror neurons if you can see I can hit your marathons it's an involuntary response here's another crazy piece of information these lines that I found out recently they gave Botox to women who are depressed this now this is our sample group happens to be women do not be misled by the fact that they're women because I this work because they're human beings not because they're women be careful the kind of daddy you get if you misinterpret data then you say things like playing basketball makes you tall you can understand how you interpret your data so sample sizes women this works because they're human beings not because they're women they depress they give them Botox so they can't frown anymore the mood instantly elevates instantly because they override the system if you're a natural frown or you're hurting yourself bad news about that experiment is with Botox they also have trouble smiling so they can't elevate the rest of the way up there it's a neuroscience rule make yourself smile you'll hack your system you'll communicate better you will get more you will get surprises and your deals as unexpected stuff you get you get the Jeffrey Toobin give you something enormous ly valuable you didn't give him anything in return so let me see if I can tell you a little bit more about myself I was the FBI's lead international kidnapping negotiator what did that mean what that meant was any American got kidnapped anywhere in the world it was my job to come up with a negotiation strategy that got you out set the stage for us to follow on and get the bad guys afterwards effectively the way that we ran the program was it's the same reason you give a bank teller bait money bank robber comes in you don't want the bank teller to get killed money's great evidence you actually want the bank robber to leave with some money if he gets all the way back to his hideout he divides up the money then you get the people that work with him it's a pretty good system so that's what I did and I worked kidnappings all over the world so if an American got grabbed someplace and let's make a distinction this is not Americans getting arrested by a government in North Korea that's an illegal detention that wasn't my thing what I did was kidnappers criminals terrorists that was my job so you might ask yourself right so how busy is the leading international kidnapping negotiator well it's a big world and a lot of Americans doing really stupid things so you call it on a regular basis but this instance in particular in Haiti Haiti is a little bit different ballgame a lot of dual nationals getting grabbed in Haiti bad guys don't know they're taking Americans there dual nationals now this is happening on a regular basis because do you guys know this and this is one of the reasons why I'm an unabashed Patriot fan of the United States we're not perfect we got our shortcomings I think I think we're a phenomenal place how many countries in the world if you're born there are you a citizen do you know I grew up in Iowa I know the accent doesn't sound like I grew up in Iowa but I grew up in Iowa I grew up there and I thought I was born here I'm a title to citizenship it's a way the world it's it's the way things should be no it's not it's argued that there are only two developed nations on the entire planet that have birthright by citizen by citizenship by birth I believe the latin term is just just Soleil which is right of the soil those who you can speak lied and forgive me for my butchering of the pronunciation two countries in the entire world two developed nations US and Canada not one country in Europe you were born in England you get citizenship now you're born in Australia you get citizenship now they'd laugh at you they think that's hysterical United States right of birth as it turns out it's largely a creature a thought and idea of the Americas most of the countries in north and south america for whatever reason how these cultures came to be here we believe in citizenship by birthright Lissa's have to do with haiti haitian moms know the very best gift they could possibly give to their child on the child's literal first birthday it's a gift of American citizenship and privileges and opportunities that brings so Asian moms one way or another Lia illegal legal or illegal a finding a way into American soil so the child can be born an American citizen but something that's weiss the bad guys don't know the graben Americans they think they're grabbin Haiti Haitians now at the time also recognition kidnapping is a business I I'm the most practice negotiator on international commodities and many other houses negotiate kidnapping is a business's commodity business to us it's a horrible event to the kidnappers it's a job so what they do it's a commodities business commodity happens to be human beings they don't care it's what they do they get a division of labor they get people that acquire the commodity they got people that transport the commodity if you got people that house the commodity they got people to release the commodity they got people that handle the transactions for the commodity they got a boss that sits back and watches everybody criticizes what they do just like your ban says it criticize what you do you guys you guys saw the movie man on fire with Denzel Washington right who do you negotiate with the net movie the voice the voices job was to negotiate it's a business Haitian kidnapping business at the time the bad guys got a great business model exactly I was impressed with what they'd come to as a business model carjacked a car with more than one person in it let one person go keep the other person in the car you've immediately handled your notifications you don't have to worry about marketing if you will you've pre-qualified your customer if they got a car they got money for a ransom dead in Haiti you got a car you got some dough you got money for a car and gas you can pay a ransom you pre-qualified and what happens if you grab the one person in the family that nobody likes you got a car pretty sharp right very sharp business mom so I'm gonna call one day 12 year old boy in Haiti's been grabbed Tovar your boys an American citizen his father is not his father knows that his son is an American citizen and because of that he's supposed to get help from the US government DOS today the United States government says my son's a citizen he's been kidnapped and the State Department says the FBI is gonna be there to help you put my next slide or put my slides back up please I'm not sure what went through his mind when he heard that but I'm sure they're probably about 15 minutes later he expected the eerie and these guys would be there at his door maybe they'd have FBI hata but instead 15 minutes later he gets a call from some guy in Washington DC named Chris Voss and he literally says to me in a phone you're in Washington DC how you gonna help me now how much time do I get for this guy hangs up the phone seconds right how much time do I got you or me what do you say how long do you have to make a first impression do you know seven seconds same amount of time as me when you're making a first impression you think people aren't saying to themselves how you gonna help me you think they're not saying it to themselves in that seven seconds what do you have to establish in that seven seconds what did I have to establish trust what else not confidence close competency not the same thing you got the same amount of time as me you got establish the exact same things I had to establish you got somebody saying to you about you in their head the same thing that that father said to me on the phone how you gonna help me it's the same thing what do you say you're me what are you saying now the reason why I knew what to say to this father is because I've done it wrong in the past first time I showed up in the Philippines on a case we're going to talk about it in a few minutes I did it wrong they walked me into a room the entire head to the government of that because this Americans been grabbed I've been invited in by the Ambassador the ambassador's personally signed off on me coming in the head of our office of manila's brought me and everybody other than the president of Philippines is in a room the only reason the president is not there as his personal advisor is Secretary of Defense is their head of the police everybody is there and basically in some in substance to what they say how you gonna help us I make the mistake of laying out my resume yeah I ain't hostage negotiator with terrorism when the Attorney General's Award for Excellence to investigation the FBI agents Association Award for distinguished and exemplary service been on a terrorist task force in New York City for 14 years not only have I been trained by the FBI and Scotland Yard I write the book I wrote the book that we trained from now I will tell you they were suitably unimpressed they may as well have yawned right in my face I'm never walking out of that meeting the head of our office girl those guys are disrespectful they challenge your credentials I'm from Iowa I go like how cool is that when did I ever get to argue with the Secretary of Defense of an entire country why is that why is meet you laying out me laying out my resume are you laying out your resume stupid number one it's all about me but number two your resume correlates loosely with whether or not you know what you're doing if your resume correlated accurately with what you did you guys would never make a bad hire would you what I say that father here's what I said all right so Haitian kidnappers are not killing kidnap victims these days I realize it's really stupid because they kill each other the drop of a hat but they're not killing kidnap victims today is Thursday and Haitian kidnappers love to party on Saturday night so if you say the things that I want you to say when I want you to Sam will have your son out late Friday early Saturday morning he said tell me what you want me to do and we had a son out Saturday morning let's break down a little bit what I said or what I didn't say first of all which took more time me laying out my resume or me laying out what he was faced with it took less time for me to lay out what he was faced with didn't it I will tell you also in the course of getting his son out he never asked me how long had been an FBI agent he never asked me how long I've been a negotiator he never asked me how many countries I had negotiated in he never asked me how many cases in Haiti I'd negotiated and he never even asked me how many times I've been to Haiti you know how many times I've been to Haiti never I've never been there then I speak French that I speak Creole did he asked me those questions and you may have asked yourself already you know there's basically 168 countries in this world a lot of languages how many languages does Chris Paul speak if he'd negotiated all over the world and by now you realize the answer that is barely one he'd ask me those questions I told him what he was facing because when someone says how you gonna help me their first question is okay so you've been doing this for a long time do you see what I see do you know what I'm looking at I laid an art form and I offered them the slightest bit of insight and they say themselves Wow if you see clearly what's in front of me there's a really good chance you know what you're doing do I have to explain this to you do I have to explain to you my challenges you lay it out one of two things happen they said here that's right well they say no that's not it this is it what happens when they say that's not it this is it you're in dialog you're in collaboration instantly you're trying to get to dialogue and collaboration instantly aren't you and many people don't realize that when somebody corrects you that means you're in collaboration you're in Thailand and you're on your way with that here's a couple of other things I did not do and one of them is probably the two two worst habits you have did I try to get him to say yes you guys are hardwired to hear yes you guys are desperate for it you guys you guys got an addiction - yes you didn't know who's gonna be that kind of a meeting did you hi hi Chris it's so bad here's how bad it is and getting you out of that you think getting people to say yes the yes momentum the s it will proposition get them to say yes a lot of little things and you get and they say yes to the big thing you're addicted to that and getting out of that is going to be one of the most difficult things you could do not complicated but here's how difficult it's gonna be everybody make a fist with either hand right thumb up left forefinger out now switch that hurt didn't it switch back some of you going like I got your left for I saw him right here you look sad CBC's this was that complicated what I asked you to do do you need to be do you need to be Elon Musk's to know what I was trying to get you to do no but it was awkward it was difficult I know that somebody in back room right now going like he's the cool thing about that brain science the difficulty that you felt trying to get that done it's actually the creation of a new neural pathway that's a cool idea the neuroscience rules are the path the synapses that fire together wire together now your yes habit is hardwired that road is built and you're used to screaming down that road and your thought processes getting out of it he's gonna take some repetitions how many 63 John Foley Blue Angel pilot I heard him give a speech probably about two years ago he talked about wiring grooves into their brain which is the same thing as there's no pathways and new habits that I'm talking about and Nate you know if they don't wire a groove into the brain these guys crash into each other in the air people start to die instantly and he said they did some research on I said it took about 63 to 65 repetitions to put a new habit in a brain but at the very beginning it's as hard as that was and you quit you give up and you because you think it's gonna be that hard the whole time like I'm not doing this anymore hurts my head but you don't know how close you actually are to breaking through a new habit everybody knows what the the bell curve looks like it's very steep and that Peaks and then you take off on the other end we're building you're building a new habit some of the new habits I'm going to share with you today at the beginning you just see how steep this thing is initially like it's too hard I'm not doing the same but I got to get you out of the yes habit I got to get you out of that's that is the worst thing you could possibly do I don't even bother with the word yes and when we were working on the book one of the guys I was working with he said hey how'd you get as a hostage negotiator how did you get kidnappers to say yes the only question I can remember being thoroughly stumped by because I'd never really thought about it that hard at that time and I said no we never did it's a useless word so we'd even bother with it so some of you sitting there sitting there thinking right now like okay fine now what do you want me to do because that's all I do and you know what I closed deals that way too you can't tell me that I don't close deals getting people to say yes now I'm not saying you can't do it I'm just saying your batting average isn't anywhere close to what it should be you're batting 125 when you should be batting 350 for your baseball players yeah stick to 125 you want to stay there because this is what it looks like and this is why it fails would you like to have a more efficient system would you like to have more customers would you like to have more free time buy my product now this is maybe there was a point in time when this was a good idea maybe but the swamp land timeshare salesman the coupon book the $50,000 coupon book salesman has already batted them so hard that they're battered by yes you guys know anecdotally what happens if you come across a battered child than you try to hug him they still flinch and jump back from you but wait a minute I was trying to give him a hug I'm a good guy I meant well I wasn't trying to trap him I was trying to have integrity it doesn't matter they're bad everybody's battered by yes you you got to stop this you gotta stop it okay fine you convinced me now what you know who this is Jack watts jack one of the most famous CEOs former CEO GE author of a number of books Jack winning the real-life MBA Jack Woltz coming through Los Angeles couple years ago he and his wife Suzy the the latest book two real-life MBA I'm gonna go to the book signing I'm gonna ask Jack to come speak at the class I'm teaching at that time at the USC Marshall School of Business in the MBA program negotiation once Jack that come speak to my negotiation class how many people try to get Jack Woltz to say yes or something that day everybody how many people in a book signing they're trying to try to get Jack Woltz to say yes to something they can come up to and say hey Jack you want to come to the house wife makes a great meatloaf how many people everybody you're me what do you say how much time do I got maybe not seven seconds even less than that because at a book signing what happens guy like Jack walks you come in when you're about five six seven people from Jack somebody comes up to you and says what's your name they write your name down on a piece of paper so Jack can write your name on the book they say but in reality so you don't talk to him he doesn't say half say to you what's your name it's a Christmas good luck keep going problem one there's 300 people on line if I try to stop and talk to Jack Walsh for even 20 seconds we're now there for six hours right problem - Jack what's the legitimate celebrity they don't know who I am they haven't put me through a metal detector they don't know I I don't have a gun as a matter of fact I have a gun but they don't know that I'm an FBI agent they haven't got any ID for me I could come up I'm gonna get within arm's length of Jack's well I could do what I want Jane Fonda was at a book signing a number of years ago Vietnam vet got within arm's length of her and spit right in her face action is quicker than reaction I'm gonna be arm's length from Jack Welch he's got security people there that are worried about his safety they know they can't stop me from doing whatever I want to do I could walk up to Jack Welch I could take his face in my hands and kiss him right on the lips if I wanted to you got a disgusted look on his face but they don't know what I'm gonna do so everybody's more than jumping I walk up the Jack Walton this is what I say is it a ridiculous idea for you to come and speak to the negotiation course that I teach at USC he looks up into the left he gets this really intense scowl on his face and he just freezes and I think I just killed Jack watch cuz he's old right I figure you got mad and he had a stroke and he's gonna die cuz he's so angry he's gonna fall right in front of me then they're gonna tackle me they're gonna blame me to drag me out cuffs now see but I'm an FBI agent you kill Jack Walsh so initially when he doesn't die I'm relieved but he's he still doesn't move and I'm thinking now he's gonna start going security looks furious finally looks at me says this is my personal assistants night and this is special Twitter account we have set up to communicate with her I will call her tell her who you are and what you want I think we're gonna be in Los Angeles in a fall if we are we'll come and speak to your course cuz they triggered enough I triggered a calibrated now calculated now I changed the question to a no and I'm here to tell you a calibrated no is worth five yeses think about think about what he thought through in the steps that he thought through before he answered me cuz all the rest of that stuff I would have had if he just said yes that I said who do I get in touch with how do I coordinate with them how do I communicate them with them will you call them and brief them we're talking about the fall where you're gonna be in a full think of how many questions you went ahead and answered for me it's insane we do this on a regular basis I don't bother with yes we did a training in New York just about it earlier this month it's still made right we did about two weeks ago very intense intensive master class I happen to run across Robert Herjavec from shark tank and you're in LA just a couple of weeks ago by the way a wonderful guy I mean a wonderful gracious charming impressive guy I would work with him I would work for him he was telling me about how he develops his people phenomenal guy I offer him a free ticket he's gracious enough dogs say how many can we buy and so we're going back and forth on how many he could buy and I'm trying to get a commitment out of him and the event sound like it is the door is slamming shut and I realized that if I don't get it a nearly instantaneous commitment from him because we're charging people a lot of money for these tickets we charge of people just short of $2,000 per head to be there and every you know we got people buying them I can't keep this window open for him I don't care if he is a billionaire we get people won't want these tickets so five o'clock on a Friday I have to get a commitment from him now we're in LA five o'clock on a Friday it's 8 p.m. here in New York the other problem is business opens in New York 3 hours earlier than it does in Los Angeles if I haven't got him committed before the start of the next business day he's out I sent him an email that says are you against making a commitment for these tickets now are you against paying for them before the start of business tomorrow and I get an email back instantly says no we're gonna take three in total we'll pay for them before the before business starts tomorrow less than 20 minutes later I'm getting emails from his assistant to pay now what would you have done normally no how many would you like would you please commit now can you pay before the close of business tomorrow would be the normal thing but it's gonna be too late but I you help people think by switching out of yes and then - no I don't bother with yes we don't bother with yes I could I could go I could belabor it at length yes this commitment commitment creates anxiety no its protection protects and makes people feel safe and secure and helps them think anxiety interferes with people's thought processes every time you try to get somebody to say yes to something you're creating anxiety because they say themselves what if I let myself in for what's the catch what's the hook where's it's gone what are you trying to do to me these are anxiety creating instances which interfere with their ability to make decisions it's not me telling you this this is neuroscience anxiety slows the brain don't take my word for it okay fine so what if no is not enough this is this is this is what this is really what sold the book to the publisher they'd never seen anything like this before it's and you know utter disdain for yes because what's the most famous negotiating book in the world anyway right everybody knows getting to yes right yes it's supposed to be what you want to get people to say yes it's not what you want people to say this is what you want them to say after the no now that's kind of disappointing right like that's not special that doesn't make me feel good well yes makes me feel good I love yes I got a bad addiction to yes I'm happy when I hear you that's right it's it's not what it is to you when it comes out of their mouth that's what it is to them that's right is what people say when they think that what they've just heard is the total and complete truth there's two simultaneous things that happen it triggers a subtle epiphany in people's brains there's a chemical change with epiphany they feel better they feel smarter they feel clarity Stephen Covey's advice from way back when seek first to understand then be understood and so we thought okay all we got to do say to somebody I understand and then eat then you get a talk right because they're ready to hear you know it's the changes show understanding first trigger ate that's right then and only then are they ready to hear you what whatever your political whatever political side of the aisle you're on I'll give you an example to prove it to you last presidential election the two candidates or on TV engaged in a debate when whichever candidate you loved when you decided to vote for them they said something in the debate you thoroughly believed in you didn't look at the TV and say you're right you looked at the TV you went that's right that's what people say when they were all in they say that's right also I had somebody stop me and say I think it's when the person is telling you they feel empathy from you empathy is this powerful mystical tool empathy is not sympathy empathy is not sympathy I don't know how many times I could say that empathy is not sympathy and it triggers a moment when they feel bonded to you and that's where you build trust base influence you know who the greatest practitioners of empathy are on the planet do you guys know social very close social pass why do you think it's a preferred communication approach of social pass cuz they like ya because it works because they like to work hard cuz sociopaths have a great work ethic yeah well higher social pet they look really hard it's efficient it sticks at last it's the most durable form of influence there is social passive lazy they want to wind you up once and then keep you wound up with a minimal amount of effort alright fine so they like it does it work on them I love this question does empathy work on sociopaths we think here's a sociopath you have a slight back please gap on the right guy at the bottom is American overseas doing stupid stuff he gets grabbed by this guy guy in a sunglasses and a black bandana make no mistake is a murdering raping straight out of the movies bad to the bones sociopath he's a killer he's got the blood on his hands literally of no shortage of people that he is physically and personally cut their heads off these guys got a method of chopping heads off that day I was shown to me and explained to me they actually kind of proud of they're so effective at it like a contest how how efficiently can you chop a head off of a human being this guy's done it a bunch of times and a rapist and he finds a woman that he likes he rapes her enough she becomes president pregnant him and his buddies shove it down a hill so she miscarriages so they can keep her these are not nice guys these are the definitions of sociopaths they've got this American I am coaching this guy because I was in international negotiation coach is what I really was all I need to do is find somebody that coachable if you're coachable I don't here what you're faced with I can make you pretty effective because I know how the brain science works by the way is this stuff cross-cultural do you guys know every hostage negotiation team uses the same skills the hostage negotiation team in Tokyo depan and in Cape Town South Africa both use the same skills wait a minute Japan the Africa you got to be kidding me right what's the commonality they're human so that's the limitation my approach to negotiation only works where humans are involved so our social path is holding this American and there's a ten million dollar demand but he's not saying it's a ransom he's saying it's for ten million dollars for five hundred years of oppression for war damages from the Spanish to the Japanese to the American city atrocities committed by the Americans in the early 1900s under blackjack Pershing and we're not even Filipinos anyway were a separate independent nation were Morrow's and we're currently being oppressed by puppet government in Manila it's held up by an American colonial invader so we're not asking for ransom we're asking for war damages for 500 years of oppression which actually makes it ten million dollars seems kind of kind of kind of small and I realized right now most of you are tuning this out of your mind because you're saying like I was never in an argument with somebody where they bringing up stuff from the past it didn't matter is it happened to me all my arguments are logical rational right so we go back and forth with this guy literally for months and finally I say to my guy we're gonna hit the reset button here and this is my son's referred to this as a birth of that's right moment because I used to take this for granted I didn't realize the extraordinary power of it I said the next time we get this sociopaths on the phone we're gonna get him to say that's right and you're gonna repeat the entire situation from his perspective especially the bad stuff about us that might be the most critical part of it the bad stuff about you so my guy gets back on the phone with this terrorist and he says you know what you're not asking for ransom for the American but you're asking for war damages from 500 years of oppression from the Spanish to the Japanese to the Americans the violations the atrocities and a blackjack Pershing of the Americans the 1900s and you're not you're not Filipinos your morals your separate independent nation been fighting for your freedom for 500 years and you're being impressive currently by a puppet government in the middle it's held up by the by the American colonial invaders and it's unjust and it's wrong and you went on and on if you know and he laid it on thick and I'm here to tell you if you're not laying it on thick you're not laying it on thick enough the bad stuff not the good stuff the bad stuff and probably and it didn't seem like it take that long but it seemed forever they took my guy to lay this out and it was a moment of silence and a sociopath on the other end of the phone said that's right and it was dead silence for another couple moments and my guy says let's talk again in a couple of days okay hangs up the phone we went from 10 million dollars to zero in that moment 10 million dollars went off the table never to be mentioned again for the rest of the kidnapping lasts a couple more months kidnapping took a couple twists and turns finally one day the Americans out in the swamp we've so diffused everything they're doing they're not even watching them anymore they're not angry they don't know that we've diffused them they don't know what sort of an upper hand we have on them they just don't know what's going on the American they're checking I remember three days he's sitting out there in the swamp says I'm leaving and he walks away local farmer sees him says you must be Jeffrey shilling the American he says I am how many black guys walk around south of Philippines right Suz am they looked at military the military flies down and helicopters picks him up they take him back to Manila they hold this monumental press conference he's got the president of Philippines on one side secretary defence on the other Secretary of Defense says we have rescued the American Jeffrey Schilling at a daring military operation they gave a ride it was a daring operation at the Newark Airport yesterday where I was rescued he's sitting there he doesn't say anything we fly him out back back to the United States and back in the Philippines about three weeks later on another kidnapping I connect back up with my guy he says you're not gonna believe who called me I don't know who called you the terrorist guy names abaya sabai a call really what do you say have you been promoted yet I don't know what it was he said to me on the phone I was gonna kill the American they should promote you he hangs up what's he saying when he made that call Terrace sociopath called the pays respects called the pays respects to say it felt respected by you he's also saying I'd talk to you again if we meet again I talked to you everybody you deal with regardless of the outcome should feel that solid about the interaction when it's over no matter how the interaction went that they'd still deal with you everybody you deal with and you'd be amazed at the impact that I'll had not just on your business party personal relationships but everybody in life that matters to you all right we're gonna do a little bit of QA here in a minute but I want you to know if you want more besides the book if you want to add to it only if you want more we've got a newsletter comes out once a week short sweet newsletter it's very digestible it's not one of those it's an encyclopedia that you got to take a nap after you're done reading text FBI empathy all one word don't like your autocorrect put a space between FBI and empathise send that to two to eight to eight you get a dialog box back that'll sign you up for the newsletter a lot of people love it as a great supplement to the book and it's also the Gateway to everything that we do when we when we do training sessions open enrollment training sessions it's a gateway to the website which is Black Swan Ltd calm but the newsletter will take you there read past issues find about other stuff that we have we have we have quite a bit of free content on the newsletter on the website a lot of articles in the newsletter you can search them you find a lot of stuff there that'll help you subscribing to the newsletter is a great tool and it's free it's complimentary for those of you like me for more federal federal employees you love free all right QA thank you all right we have time for just a few quick questions so if there's anybody that is dying to ask Chris something raise your hand and speak loudly I see a hand over there that's yeah there you go go ahead there you go I got a car buying story in the book and and and we just and on our youtube channel a friend of mine the guy I told you about was a negotiate with South Koreans he tells his car buying story and we good we get good prices that's good yes well I say that's a great question go for an own you get a yes you didn't hear the question um first of all no like nobody-nobody will do that all right and I already know I know how hard it is for anybody to say yes I mean it's it's insanely hard and my son used to challenge me on this we're walking out of a building in with a client here in New Jersey across a river and they got a security guard who's checked us in and we're checking out and he's he's a security guard and he's got allied security and some of my senses I don't think it's always hard for somebody to say yes to something and the security guards right there and I go I look at him I go do you work file ID security now he's at work on duties the same guys to check this in in the morning he remembers us from the morning before he's got a uniform on says allied security I said you work for allied security and goes what do you want to know yeah and I look at my son and I go now in the unlikely event the answer is yes what you are going to get is silence they're just not gonna say yes now on one in 10,000 because we like asking ridiculous no you'd be shocked at the no questions we ask we coach employees to ask their bosses do you want me to fail and you know and and every now and if the answer is yes you will get silence and also part of negotiation is you go from knowing from wondering to knowing and you're never worse off you might not like the answer but you cannot move forward until you know what ground you're standing on and so if the answer is have you give you no question we send out all the time have you given up on doing business with the Black Swan group if they don't respond you know what we do next pursue someone else how many non-responders do you have you know how many we have none because we don't pursue that business if they're not going to do business with us there are lots of people who will and I'm not wasting my time on people who won't do business ones love that absolutely fast lose fast who else and a quick question I'm not seeing here I have one really interesting eye in the book you make this argument that the smarter you are the more difficult it is to be a good negotiator so there's hope for a lot of us in the room yeah talk about that why is that smart people people with higher degrees than once they want they won't show you how smart they are you can't get him to shut up you can't they just they just want to show you how they thought they've thought stuff through they want they want you to appreciate how much they've thought stuff through and so they want to lay it all out for you they want to help I mean it's very well-intentioned stuff but it's really hard to get those kind of people that to shada and this is this is about shutting up asking the question and getting information from who you're talking to getting them to talk not me to talk your counterparts should be talking five times more than you yeah we like to see like to say he who talks most losses that's good that's good he who talks most losses who has a question actually you have time for four yeah yeah Frank yeah wife and kids negotiating with that we don't have a lot of time Oh senior senior executive although very young lady executive in Silicon Valley is talking to her then fiance now husband one day and she goes why do I like talking to you all of a sudden so you know this last couple days I've really enjoyed talking to you he's like hey taking his class and they're teaching this book never split the difference and I'm making a store with the with our wise she went out and bought books for all her girlfriends husbands and that's good that's good I slide here yeah all right so he break that down he pitched like crazy right yes what he he did a nice job he took his ridiculous idea for me to clear my schedule florescent rest of the day and then it he three four sentences to lay out the pitch and then he said I understand which is bad you should never say I understand you had a really good start your pitch needs to be a lot shorter but you I didn't did I pitch with that father no yeah I didn't that was the other thing I didn't do I didn't pitch the father I didn't pitch solutions I didn't pitch answers I said here's what you're looking at and waited to see if he was going to interact with me on what he was looking at so you got a good start that's the first fact that you already picked up on to starting out with a with an oriented question is but you're still wired to pitch you're still wired to pitch and getting that that's right out of the other side before you proceed seek first understand before you can be understood you should get it that's right before you make the pitch on top of that when you get the feedback from back from your counterpart you guys have a broad value proposition how do you know what portion of that proposition is valuable you're kind of part you you got you got seven selling points you kind of pop might be interested in - every time spent on the other five top five is your counterpart is starting to go to sleep on you so the the guidance that you want to get you want to know exactly which part of your pitch matters to them and then now that you've honed you know which part of the value proposition is actually there for them now you can go into it yeah so you want to write track good start and and there's a coachman you have a good example that on the podcast was just released Chris where you know we roleplay a little bit where we say hey you know Chris I was at your at your website saw one of your videos really liked it would love to understand more about about black swuan you know give me your pitch real quick what do you guys do and how does this all work right yeah and so my answer was sounds like you're not sure we're valuable or would be yeah because I need to know what you think is valuable I we don't make we don't pitch we find out what matters yeah and then if what you're looking for is not us we're like you know looking for us because we need to talk to people that are looking for us so much of what you talked about his counter intuitive and it kind of goes against how we've always operated this isn't an easy shift for people to make the 63 I think I heard repetitions do you ever have it they'll get there yeah and a little bit of practice in prep so I got a video to show you about the variety of preparation fireman go for it all right slides back up a proof of life video that's what they're called the ultimate good news bad news story if you're ever unfortunate enough to see one today a hot face high-stakes rescue mission in Colombia ended a drama that has been dragging on for years Chris Voss is the former FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator he worked on it alright so in terms of preparation what are my preparation issues here [Applause] it's a little dark but on the right-hand side of my head my hair is sticking outside so this was the first time I was ever on seeing it like I can tell you something I thought this was cool like I'm going there are more people watching Anderson Cooper on CNN that are in my hometown back in Iowa and there's so much I don't know like I heard they have a green room do they have a green room and is it green they have a green room it's not green all right so I know you're going to the green room you sit down it's kind of a nice place they're very nice to you they give you coffee they give you water I think that's cool it's free coffee I'm from Iowa they don't get free coffee and then then do you know where you go after the green room makeup I can remember the first time I was sitting in that makeup chair and they're putting makeup on my face and I thought my father's rolling over in his grave right now this Sun is putting on makeup again a middle-class blue-collar guy from Iowa I didn't wear makeup growing up in Iowa so you go you get out of makeup then they take you into a room it's actually actually a large dark closet Unitas studio with Anderson Cooper light shines right in your eyes you're supposed to look right below the light that's Anderson talk right there that's Carey you got a look at that and they say down it to the left is a monitor and when we go live the monitor is gonna come on and it'll show the program and you wants to leave that on I said leave that on I never saw me on TV before I want to watch me on CNN leave that baby on so we've just gone live the monitors on and I'm looking down at the monitor and I see my hair sticking out and I am perplexed now the other problem here is the monitor is a mirror image and I don't know which side of my head the hair is sticking out so I'm a negotiator right I generate options I figure stuff out so the first thing I gotta do is I gotta figure out which side of my head the hair is sticking out so I could address it so this case from the beginning until his retirement just last year he joins me now Chris this has got to be kind of I don't know why I thought moving my head around was gonna help you can see from look on my face and go like now that didn't help don't know where it is so I'm trying to figure out what I can do I'm trying to generate options one of my moves and when can I make my move because they're more people my mom and the people she goes to church with are watching this thing they're gonna give her a hard time and her son don't know how to comb his hair I gotta fix this so like I can't go with two hands because you know I kind of looked like one of the Three Stooges I probably can't lick my hand try to tamp it down so I'm trying to decide what to do I'm sitting there this is going through my a remarkable day for you to be so Anderson Cooper's hair is perfect why do they gotta make sure everybody sees in my hair is out of place Anderson Cooper could be in a hurricane his hair would move I know that while this was going on a producer is going like hey hey hey let's go split-screen let's make sure everybody sees how good Anderson's areas so they go split-screen and now I'm even more disgusted by this you can see that look on my face and I'm trying to say what to do when can I make my move because the clock is ticking this is like that double dutch jump rope thing well there's two ropes going yeah when can you jump in when can I go and kind of go when can I go I got to take care of this my mom's watching her friends are watching so I'm sitting there and I win can I make my move closely involved in this and to finally [Laughter] see it come to fruition dammit so what I'm trying to say is and then we finished the interview with Anderson Cooper and they never they didn't ban me from Anderson Cooper as a result they invited me back on what I'm trying to say is you'll make mistakes it's okay a solid approach where people feel respected and appreciated and you get that's right out of them they feel empathy from you you'll make mistakes and it'll be okay they'll forgive you for so I like everybody stand up please are you guys remember at the beginning of this I talked about the men and Blackwell those guys actually work for me remember a little red flashy thing those guys had everybody look up here please [Applause] alright from this point forward after today everybody that you deal with will feel that they were treated with respect you understood them no matter how the outcome went they felt bonded to you they felt connected to you by the chance to talk with you and collaborate with you and they felt that a long-term relationship was established that they deal with you again no matter how things went thank you for spending time with me this morning it's been a privilege to be here with you guys thank you [Music]

Channel: The Black Swan Group

Views: 96,454

Rating: 4.893887 out of 5

Keywords: Chris Voss, Never Split The Difference, The Black Swan Group, Negotiation Skills, Getting To Yes, Sales Skills, Negotiation Training, Sales Training, cold calling skills, Crucial Conversations, first impressions, telephone skills, The Art of The Deal, negotiation speaker, negotiation speech, negotiation expert, hostage negotiator, communications expert, keynote speaker, negotiation strategies, sales strategies, tactical empathy, fbi hostage negotiator

Id: jLQiemA7a_k

Length: 62min 17sec (3737 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 05 2018