How YOU Can Manage Your Emotions In Every Negotiation | Chris Voss

so that comes back onto this emotion um so deadlines create emotion like the hostage situation I suppose that drove up in motion if you're negotiating with someone in business or even if you're trying to resolve a resolution and you've really feel that you're in the right and they're in the wrong um my guess is that there's a lot of emotion attached to the conversation I've been there and it's quite difficult so what's your advice about managing emotion when you're the one that's negotiating and you're trying to get collaboration long-term partnership but also to get the right end of the deal how have you learned to kind of or what tips and advice have you got to manage that yeah and that's a great question because I'd like to draw a fine line in that question too because normally when we're talking about emotion is if it's a bad thing we're talking about negative emotions and negative emotions are a bad thing Sean Acker Harvard psychologist did a great Ted Talk called um uh the Happiness Advantage the business of happiness you know I I I cite his talk all the time I you think I'd remember the title The Happy secret the better work so it's the source of my data Sean says you're 31 smarter in a positive frame of mind sales people are 37 more effective in a positive frame of mind what's the flip side of that coin when your negative frame of mind you're Dumber not only are you dumber but you have even more self-righteousness give a talk when you're angry it'll be the greatest speech you ever regret there's a self-righteousness it's downward spiral so what do you do about it personally one of the hacks is to be genuinely curious like where are you coming from I mean really I'm curious as to what makes you think that in your attitude because you can't be in a negative frame of mind and genuinely curious at the same time that's a quick hack you need these sorts of devices because as a human being our survival wiring is default mechanism negative we're wired absent any other influence we wake up in a negative frame of mind because it kept us alive when we were actually running away from saber-toothed tigers on a jungle path we've all inherited this default wiring it's in our limbic system there's a thing in there called the amygdala everybody's heard of the amygdala hijack or seeing red or The Reptilian Brain that's something that we got to struggle with all the time so you need a regular process to keep yourself in a positive frame of mind because it makes you smarter and the alternative is to be Dumber in a negative mindset um and does that link into to to fear as well because I suppose depending on what The Negotiator does right yeah okay and so I'm saying fear hides itself too like if you say well I'm concerned I'm worried um that's fear with a different mask on and if you've got a concern about something it's a great indicator to you that you get some negativity you got to deactivate because it's holding you back otherwise hmm and and do you um in that situation would you would it be advisable to hold showing any of that fear you know is it I suppose you've been there you seem very calm no matter what the situation is but is that when you're in that situation do you not want someone to understand how you're feeling your emotions and if you're fearful and because that will work against you well um demeanor and again you can do another override the late night FM DJ voice it's a great way to control your own emotions like if I'm in a negotiation I'm concerned about what's going to happen if I say in a late night FM DJ voice look I'm concerned this is headed the wrong direction I'm going to get two advantages from that probably three you're going to see me as being really genuine and that's going to cause you to bond to me it's going to give me more influence with you what we call trust-based influence I at the same time I will have deactivated those fears In My Head by naming them and also by me hearing the late night FM DJ voice it actually calms me down not to just use it but to hear myself use it so there's a whole bunch of advantages to calling it out in a practiced voice that has a tendency to also override those emotions um that's interesting it's it's a it's a fine line and I like what you've said is I can't remember the term you just use but like the trust-based um influence where yeah you you see it is being honest but it's it's probably being honest in a way where you're not letting your emotions get the better of you yep because they shouldn't be getting the better of you uh which is kind of a it's almost like two opposites working but um yes it's an interesting it's an interesting sort of uh distinction remember you don't get in life what's fair you get what you negotiate if you want to become a better negotiator click the link in the description below I'm a little nervous about asking this question to law enforcement professionals because it's more on the emotional side but to uh a pretty aggressive custody negotiation and um so there's 17 years of hurt feelings on this and so um I'm really worried about having an emotional reaction and I'm trying to figure out how to get out of my head to mirror and label for that person um and not get overwhelmed in that situation and I wondered I'm sure you don't start to cry in hostage negotiations situations but I'm just wondering if you have any advice for that yeah sure I'd be happy happy to add in some thoughts and then what I'm actually going to do is is throw it to a real hostage negotiator I'm gonna I'm gonna ask for Troy's thoughts on this because for those who don't know I was never technically in law enforcement okay I'm blessed to work with many many uh legendary law enforcement professionals and and they're on the call with this and Troy's one of them and so he runs a couple classes for us one is a we call caviar which is all about mindset going in and understanding what your triggers are a little bit and how to combat those so I'll add a thought and then try I'll throw it to you my first thought is simply going to be mental preparation know that you are going to get triggered like no matter how hard I try something's going to happen that's going to trigger me here and if if you're at least mentally prepared for knowing the punch is coming you'll be that much more ready for it when it does come and then secondarily um focusing on simply putting all your focus on the skills which is not an easy thing to do especially in a highly emotional state it is not easy to do because we get so caught up in like that's wrong I need to tell you why it's wrong and I need to correct you right it's hard to fight that but if we can switch mentally to just like what skill do I need to drop in here to diffuse this what skill do I need to drop in because right they got a lot of adrenaline running through their system right now and I need to drop in dopamine because I need them positive and I gotta get rid of this adrenaline stuff what's the skill that I can use to actually trigger dopamine that at least will will um damper down the thoughts of like you idiot how could you I can't believe you son of it right and at least we're focused on the skills so those are the two things I would add quickly Troy what what else would you add to this because this this definitely Falls in your wheelhouse of expertise you definitely want to stay curious if you're staying curious and asking why are they saying these things why are they behaving this way it's going to take away the emotional side of it for you mostly where you you're searching for answers for them what make them say that what what is making them behave that way and for yourself you want to get with a trusted colleague and vent before you go into the room or before you before you actually go on the call or sit down across from that individual you want to vent about all the things that you think are going to happen are going to come up in that room that's going to be an issue but you want to find somebody that's going to be positive when they talk to you because if you go in there and they've already fed you full of negative stuff you're going to have a negative mindset going in you want to have a positive mindset and one of the things that Brandon said that is so important when he was talking about the person getting angry or getting upset they can only do it for 45 seconds to a minute if you can hold on for that ride you're going to be okay they wear themselves out they don't realize how much stress and how fatiguing it becomes for them so when they do that the longer you can sustain your your calm you're going to wear them down and they're finally going to just throw their hands up in like but if you get angry and they get angry they talk about the amygdala you're going to have two dumb people in the room and you can't and it don't work when you have that right do you have any suggestions he'll have a lawyer in that situation as well as himself and so I'm trying to figure out how to control both personalities because one's an accommodator and one's an analyst I think and and the lawyer is more unknown to me so I'm trying to figure out how to control those Personnel when there's two personalities coming at me at the same time how to control that scenario labels and mirrors okay you just seems like both of y'all want to talk at the same time it sounds like one has an agenda the other one has an agenda thank you that was excellent yeah that's great Troy great great addition man you can it's easy to see why we got him teaching this stuff on a regular basis all right uh let's see just someone to chat here from Jamie all right another employee working outside of her scope doing International Nurses allowed I'm clear if he was the only she did they're gonna step to agreements Community union rep lost to school and verbally attacked me saying I was on a Witch Hunt it was racially motivated all right how do you come back from that all right excellent so um Jamie do you currently have a uh um a meeting set up to talk to this person or do you have to construct that yeah so the meetings are kind of constructed at this point so the process is um if a person gets a corrective action um they can grieve it and there's a step one grievance in which the manager replies after the meeting there's a step two in which the HR rep replies and then there's a step three in which a different uh HR rip in a different Union rip will look at the case like independently and see if it's uh can be resolved otherwise it could possibly go to arbitration okay okay very good so you're getting it sounds like getting ready to walk into step three yeah so I'm kind of uh my pardon is is probably over at this point in terms of they uh The Next Step they may come to me to ask more questions have we investigated the case that sort of thing um but you know the the kind of through the entire meeting off the rails and it's like I tried to do the labeling in the mirroring and all that but I was kind of at a loss at that point as to where to go from there yeah that's it that's yeah this is a tough one and and one of the things that I've I'm not a huge fan of with with any kind of bureaucracy type is uh the layers of red tape that they start putting the two people that actually have the issue to separate them as opposed to allowing them to work it out similar to kind of what Catherine's talking about right she's there's more degrees of separation between her and her counterpart because of the situation and you're dealing with a similar thing and I worry about once it gets too far if there's there's so many degrees between us that it's it's almost impossible to come back yeah it sort of feels like yeah and and yeah I would imagine that's how it feels so um the first thing that I would that I personally would try to do and and try I'll ask you to lean in on this as well if you got any additional thoughts um trying to get into room one-on-one with this individual to actually talk them down and have a have a one-to-one interaction and and to the tune of either writing um you know an email that's a short email like is is it impossible for us to to sit down and actually uh see if we can work this out or um you know I don't I'm not sure the complete context it's interesting how much of an effect handwritten letters has yeah and this is at any at any at any place in business right real estate I think is is probably the best at using it consistently but when someone is looking at like a handwritten thing it you know that the effort went into it you know that you're not BS and you didn't have some assistant type your email like you actually sat down and wrote this out and again keeping it short and sweet no right fights right no justifications all accusations Audits and again you know is it is it at this point is it is it a complete impossibility for us to sit down and see if we can figure out how we got here yeah right and something to that effect and then when you sit down with the person and especially when it comes to racially charged things and in this day and age right that's so sensitive and I would probably lead with that you know to a certain degree like you you based on how the world is spinning these days you feel like you're probably climbing extra hurdles that are unnecessary and then we have this issue with me where I seemingly make it worse for you right it's like yeah that's right it is the world is hard and then you come along and through gasoline on a fire as a way to kind of start that interaction with them yeah and so that's that's that's where I'd come from Troy uh what did what additional thoughts or process suggestions would you give for Jamie on this one those were good comments Brandon uh Jamie they they want to be heard yeah you know it and I know it they they want to be heard spend some time allowing them to vent to get it off of their chest and then one of the things that have always been told taught to me was if you come to me with the problem come to me with the solution it may not be the best but at least it's a starting point so when you're talking to them you want to you want to phrase your your your labels seems like you have a solution may have a solution for how we can move forward things like that now they're part of the team you all are working together you're hearing them because the first thing they're going to say is you don't understand you you know it's a if it's a race thing they're going to feel like no matter what you say you don't understand so get them to vent get them to be part of the team to come up help with the solution may not be the best but say and and you don't have to agree to it you just say hey at least we're starting on the right foot we're moving in the right direction yeah okay yeah that's a that's a that's a great point it's something else just one last thing I'll add to that it just this piggybacking off of what Troy said in that we don't understand right we're dealing with someone who's got something as as uh volatile as some sort of a racial issue what's interesting is to Troy's point A lot of times the understanding is really what it takes to solve it and letting them know no matter what I say I'd imagine you feel like I don't understand no matter what comes out of my mouth I'd imagine it feels like I still don't get it or I haven't got my mind wrapped around the situation completely sometimes that's all it takes like yeah that's right you don't get it now I'm happy to go back to work right I'm happy I'm happy to fall back in line okay yes so making part of the accusations on it is is a good way to drop it too but great question what do you got first thanks um I'm curious if you can shed some insight on how to deal with people who seem to be operating against their own best interest great question Oh I like that question a lot all right so first of all I would uh as a preparation for dealing with this person I'd probably want to have an iMessage ready because that could easily be dropped into an iMessage because it seems like you are operating against your own self-interest right when you State Behavior exhibit whatever Behavior I feel like we're spinning our Wheels I feel like we're not getting anywhere I feel like um I'm not giving you the support that you actually need because it seems like you're working against your own self-interest right so I would I would construct an iMessage like that have it ready to go lead in within with an accusations audit or if there's a lot of tension against you personally the old Tommy Corgan no oriented question have have I wronged you in some way it seems like I'd put you in a bad spot have I wronged you in some way yes you have Josh and these are the things and whatever they state right you're going to want to label a mirror and that may in fact solve the problem let's say they clam up and they don't say anything right then the all right no no you haven't Josh okay well the following is going to be really tough to hear and it's going to make me sound like I'm attacking you when ux I feel X because it seems like you're working against yourself right and now now you're into the conversation but I think I think that's a great question and and leading in in that way is is at least gonna you're gonna gain some ground thank you yeah man great great uh and then Brandon what do you got for us man uh so I have less of a question and more of just uh uh I guess comment or observation for like the Catherine and Jamie's um situations and sure if you got some feel free to please yeah feel free to contextualize this either Brandon or Troy but in you know I went through several years of therapy where like it one of the key factors of these techniques being successful is this mindset thing that they've been talking about and one of those one of those things is like the concept of boundaries right especially when you're very close to somebody and they're like you're being an and you're like oh my God am I is it really me like and and you lose the objectivity that's like no no no you might be but that's not the relevant part the relevant part is like this is their thought this is what they think right and part of achieving the Tactical empathy in my opinion is staying in that space of what is this person thinking now what are they claiming not are their claims true per se but like is like how can I demonstrate to them that um I I understand what they're saying not that I agree with it and this is where the therapy came in because I really had a problem for myself where people would make claims and I'd be like I would lose my I would lose my cool because I just assumed that their claim had to be true but if you can maintain that distance and maintain that internal barrier it can make application of these techniques much more consistent you know so it was just my two cents yeah I think I actually I think that's a great point I'm glad you added that in because I think that very much speaks to something we looked at uh in class one when I wasn't with you guys and we just touched on a real quick last class the the levels of listening right kind of our listening stairway and the top level is when you can connect what they say to a life narrative to a deep-rooted motivation or experience right when you can we can start to wrap our mind around how what they said relates directly to those things then we're thinking at a deeper level right we're digging deeper we're looking for the underlying Dynamics to your point so yeah very much a mindset shift and going back to something Catherine said earlier in regards to triggers something that's helped me greatly and I've seen it help others greatly is you know we talk a lot about go-to's in general right having a list of go-to labels have a list to go to no oriented questions well the other thing that's really helpful is if you have a go-to skill that you always use when you feel yourself heating up for me personally it's labels you know I'm I'm under of the mindset I can label my way into or out of anything right just by making a solid verbal observation there's a another friend and and we've done some work with uh her name is oh Her Name Escapes me at the moment she she worked for uh Compass Realty down in the Atlantic area and and it's very successful when she feels herself getting triggered she summarizes like that's her instant thing like okay I'm getting triggered which means we're off kilter and I need to get a that's right from my counterpart and she instantly goes into summary whenever she feels herself eating up Chris Voss right the famous author his thing is calibrated questions that's where he goes when he feels himself getting healed up so some of it is just knowing which skill you feel most comfortable with and then making that your go-to answer when we feel ourselves getting triggered that's a that's a that's a big First Step so yeah I'm glad you added that Brandon I mean obviously we are huge components of understanding is the foundation to trust respect influence likability pretty much every road we want to access when it comes to negotiation it all starts with it with the show and understanding so that's a great Point did you ever wonder what are the emotional intelligence secrets that FBI hostage negotiators use to get their way and whether or not they would do you any good in your business or personal negotiations after all if there's a bank robbery with hostages which I have negotiated and there's four hostages does the hostage negotiator says well I'll tell you what why don't we meet in the middle and we'll call it a day you really can't compromise when you're a hostage negotiator and that's that's the way that I learn negotiation so I'll I'll take you through a little bit of how I got to learn it and how I began to apply it in my business and professional life and it really started on a night in late winter in New York City well after dark I left the the FBI office 26 Federal Plaza and fought my way through traffic to get to a suicide hotline I was volunteering on the suicide hotline because I've been told that that was the best way to become a hostage negotiator the best experience and as a side note I will tell you it's the best way to learn how to really listen to people on an emotional intelligence perspective so I got to the hotline that night and I picked up the phone and I answered the phone and my uh hotline voice hello this is helpline which was the came to be known as the late night FM DJ voice which now I refer to as the late night FBI DJ voice but the voice on the other end of the phone just blurted out I need your help I need your help I got to put a lid on this day I got to bring a lid to this day and I listened to him and I sense that he was frantic so that's exactly what I said I said you sound frantic and immediately I could I could feel a change in his tone of voice and his voice came down I felt strength come into his voice and he started to talk to me he began to tell me uh his issue was that he was battling the disease of paranoia and he was going to go on a car trip the next day with his family and in he knew that on that car trip because of his paranoia he would get completely wound up and and overcome with the paranoia so since it was going to happen the next day that night he was overcome with paranoia thinking about the paranoia for the next day and it completely wrapped himself up and needed to put a lid on the day so as we began to talk uh he began to tell me also about how much his family was helping him and I used something that I'd someone else had once said to me and I remember how strong it was because I was explaining to a colleague of mine how involved my family was and how supportive they were and at that time my colleague said to me it sounds like your family's really close and when he said that to me I remember how good it felt and how it just drew together everything that I was feeling and how I felt myself strengthened when he said that so I said to this the same thing to this man on the phone I said it sounds like your family's really close and he says yeah we are and so then he began and he continued to talk and he talked and he began to tell me all the things that he was doing in order to battle the paranoia and I was I was very impressed with it he sounded like a very determined man to me so I said to him you sound really determined and he said he said you know I am determined he said you know I'm gonna go on that car trip tomorrow and I'm going to be fine thanks for everything you did for me and he hung up now I said three things to him just three simple things and I didn't know it at the time and I was explaining to a friend of mine at brunch just the other day he was telling me he used to write for Hollywood and he said you know what you're saying about what you do makes all the sense in the world I never would have guessed what you were doing but once you explain it it makes all the sense in the world it's like a great Hollywood ending you have no idea what's coming at the end of a movie but when it happens it makes sense and that's what hostage negotiators do and we do now doing business we take things that you all know about but we combine them in ways that make them incredibly powerful that no one ever sees Troy question for you that that came up too in regards to getting knocked off your feet to a certain degree right so uh let me pull the question up I lost I lost my place here please forgive me okay this comes from from a guy named Brandon which love the name great name right have you ever been triggered emotionally when negotiating that you've had an emotional response that isn't positive being sadness anger Etc that now has thrown you off your negotiations because you're worried it's gonna happen again how do you work through that right so you talk about mindset all the time you get triggered and now you're almost gunshot because you know that you've been triggered you don't want to allow yourself to react that way in the moment but now you're throwing off your game because you're so worried about reacting negatively how do you get through that man what do you do yeah that's such a really good question because all of us as former negotiators in the in the law enforcement world you know when you sit down in the chair you don't never know what to expect and there's that always that Opera that option or chance that that may happen so one of the things is we've tried to prepare before we sit in that seat we start you know stay making sure we stay curious we have to accept the fact that at some point we're probably going to get attacked and if you can ride that out for 45 seconds to a minute you're going to get past it one of the most important things that you're going to have to do is you're going to have to vent find somebody that you trust then about the things that you know that may come up especially if they've come up in the past and they haven't been dealt with you want to be able to vent and get that get through that and have have a positive session with somebody that you trust so that you go into the the uh the next negotiation in a positive mindset and if you get triggered while you're actually in the negotiation label yourself take the time to label yourself and and help defuse it for yourself so that you can get back in the game don't let somebody knock you on your behind and then you fall out of the game and feel like you don't have a chance to get back in it take that time to take a deep breath that's why Dynamic silence is so important say you know what he just pissed me off and label it seems like I'm getting pissed about this you say it enough times to yourself you're going to it's going to defuse it in you internally and you're going to jump right back in the game and you're probably going to knock them off their off of their game behind that because that was usually their intention if they do that is to throw you off your game so that they they can have a better chance of winning that's uh that's that I I that's perfect Troy I don't know if I would necessarily add anything to that but that yeah that's that's that's a great Point that's a really great Point you're stupid your whole being and the Way You Are what happens when you get attacked just like I said there's the amygdala activation once that amygdala activate activates it's a little almond in the front of part of your brain it's not that big but it has a big effect on it you start shutting down your brain you can't think straight we've all been there as soon as we get attacked we're fighting it all of a sudden our we get tunnel vision it gets narrow we're not hearing everything the other person's saying we're getting frustrated we're going to start resorting back to what we know which is to attack back or to cower and give in what happens when we attack in the mid activation that happens that's his fight we're going to get into a fight mode we're going to be arguing back and forth and guess what we're making the other person dumber and they're making us Dumber if neither one of us are thinking clearly we're not going to have a good conversation we're going to be struggling and we're not going to get anywhere we're wasting each other's time how many times have you guys been in an argument and nothing got resolved because both of y'all are fighting and nobody's listening to the other side and hear what they have to say because you've attacked me so my my response is I'm going to attack that well you might consider flight your next step is I'm going to get out of that situation as fast as I can I'm going to run I'm going to leave the conversation I'm going to figure out a way to get out of that room when you do that if you fight or if you flee what have you accomplished at some point in time we talk about the elephant in the room and you guys have heard it it's always going to be there it's still there you're going to have to have that tough conference conversation again at some point and the more you flee or fight you're never going to get it accomplished just in regards to the amygdala I think a lot of us are aware of this already which is to add some clarity right the amygdala is a part of the brain that's often referred to as The Reptilian Brain or the caveman brain hence the pictures there and something I've always found no I know neuroscientists right so uh I'm not I'm not necessarily stating this as fact my understanding of the evolution of the human brain the amygdala is so ingrained in what we do it's actually the only part of the brain that has not evolved since caveman times the amygdalas that we have now that exists in our brain are built exactly the same way they were millions and millions of years ago when we were hunter-gatherers running around in line claws and it's the only part of the human brain that hasn't actually grown and developed and changed over time and so what what what why does that matter for us well it's so it's such a a nucleus as it were to how we process data that we have to be acutely focused on how it operates in order to control it because this default mechanism of fight fighter make friends or I want to defend myself or you know all the reasons that that Troy just mentioned in regards to why people get mad because uh you know someone's not listening to them or they're under pressure or simply just because they can those are all directly related to amygdala activation you don't feel listened to you get upset your amygdala cuts on you start to defend yourself by fight or flight and you're no longer collaborative right if you're under pressure you're feeling a lot of heat from somewhere else in your environment and then your your amygdala is already on every time you interact with someone because of everything that you're carrying around with you the proverbial chip on the shoulder as it were and then just because they can you know for those I know some of you are part of our um bargaining course that started yesterday we were talking about the difference between influence and manipulation during that class yesterday and just because someone can that is a manipulative technique what they've learned through practice is if they can stay angry and push people to a limit then they can in fact manipulate their decision making which again is all about the amygdala as long as I show anger as long as I show that I'm being defensive or being attacking that I'm going to trigger their amygdala they're not going to be thinking clearly and then they'll probably give me what I want because they're off tilter and so this amygdala thing right we kind of it's it's easy to Breeze through it but being acutely aware of how it functions and how it actually distracts us from Optimum performance is really the first step to being an Optimum performer being in that one percent right as the old the old cliche uh the first step to solving any problem is is first identifying the problem and so that's some of what we're doing here and that ties right into if we accept that these problems are going to happen right now Troy talks a lot about this in the caviar class right there the idea of acceptance if we accept that these things are going to happen to us as opposed to Hope that it doesn't happen right we all that's that's kind of a natural human nature I hope that I don't get attacked I hope that I don't have to deal with this right we all know if nervous but the difference hope is not a strategy but when we start to accept it makes us much more quick to stay cognitively flexible in the moment so the accusation thought it is amazing because it gives you the freedom to do whatever it is that you needed to do or to ask or address whatever it is that you came in needing to ask or address so if you're concerned that that this person already thinks that you're too assertive right already kind of has that preconceived notion about you and then you can just simply say you're going to think that what I'm about to ask you is is really assertive you might say um you're going to feel really overwhelmed by what I'm about to ask you um you might say if if you're concerned that they're being that you think that you're too emotional that they think that you're too emotional um you might say you're probably going to think that I'm bringing emotion into this um and so it helps if that person you can tell that person already thinks that About You by addressing that Dynamic you're able to diffuse it and there's a question in the chat that asked well what if you know what if this that person didn't already think that is this going to make it worse um Sandy yeah I I kind of want to give that to you because um you can't plant a negative okay if they don't feel that way they don't feel that way you're not going to suddenly put that thought in their head okay um and even if you do your mitigating at the same time so it's it's not going to make it happen if it's not already there so even if they're not thinking that whatever you're saying is going to be too expensive and you're saying well you're going to think this is so expensive and they're like well I mean they might be thinking money's No Object all they're going to do is just say well no not really and just go on with the next thing you're not going to plant that negative okay how you plant a negative is by saying I don't want you to think I'm being picky but I really don't like that shade of blue okay you just you you threw it out there and what's the first thing they're going to think when they hear I don't want you to think I'm being picky but they're going to think oh you're being picky you know I don't want you to be mad at me for doing this so they know that whatever you're saying right now is going to make them mad okay that's the wrong way to do it so you you don't want to do that's that's basically um that's the denial you want to avoid the denial you want to just point out the negative you don't want to try and justify it or explain it so just say you know you may think I'm being picky I don't like that shade of blue instead of saying I don't want you to think I'm being picky because that's telling them that they're going to be that way okay you know that's not mitigating anything that's actually raising it so you want to be very careful that you word this correctly but you cannot introduce the negative if it's not already there you're not going to make it be there because you're saying it so don't be afraid of that okay um absolutely do you have more to say about that preconceived notions um no just that um yeah that essentially a lot of times we come into these situations kind of fearing like well that person already thinks this about me how can I possibly talk to them about it or this person already believes that this isn't going to work there's no convincing them it is shocking the power of what an accusations audit can do it demonstrates self-awareness it demonstrates um it demonstrates concern and care for the other side because essentially when you are giving the accusations audit properly the way Sandy was talking about um then what you're saying in essence is I understand your experience right now and I understand that I'm making this hard for you in some way um and so even if you know you're not really because you're probably not being too emotional or you're probably not being too assertive um that doesn't really matter because it's that person's experience and so then we're able to subvert those preconceived notions move on and continue to make a deal actually this quote comes from salavian mayor who together wrote a dissertation on emotional intelligence for their PHD back in 1990 um generating emotion so as to assist thought the the way that I would clear that up is generating positive emotions to assist thought because those are the only emotions that do assist with your ability to process and to your specific question do more do some people have a harder time doing that and the answer is yes um because we've been conditioned that negotiation is a a competitive exercise we know that both parties are better off if both parties cooperate but the Dilemma is we don't know what the mindset is the other side so we default to the worst that's what our brain does and the worst is being competitive so you go in wanting to compete with somebody who you believe is going to be competing with you and you both wind up with worse outcomes it's all in your ability to change your mindset the harder it is for you to change your mindset and understand that it's not about you the harder it is it's going to be for you to generate those positive emotions that are going to assist the way you process things and so yes some people have a more difficult time than others who are those people for example the assertives have a harder time doing it the assertives are there to get things done period and they don't have a lot of time to think about accessing or generating appropriate emotions to assist in thought they've got a game plan they know where they want to go so it's harder for the service because anything that comes outside of their game plan is viewed largely as a failure for that and so for the asserters it takes a little bit more effort what is driving them if you demonstrate it they're more likely to sign they're more likely to perform they're more likely to refer you your demonstration of tactical empathy will make a determination whether they want to work with you again go back to what Kent talked about earlier if he had been better at tactical empathy their anger level with him in the moment would have come down sooner even if they didn't make the agreement because of his demonstration of tactical empathy they will make a decision that they want to work with them again or with him again with sales especially with things like this how much of this is logical versus emotional uh I gotta tell you something uh everything is emotional yeah I can I can I can lay out the I could lay out the brain science right now and explain explain that length what the Neuroscience supports the fact that we do not have a logical thought in our head because we tell ourselves that but the Neuroscience tells us uh unequivocally or unequivocally I always have trouble with that word but I love it you know I can't pronounce the words I want to use but you know what they mean that's what's important I know I know when I see it um every thought that we have in our head the neuroscientists are not certain whether thoughts start in the emotional side of our brain that which is known as the limbic system or simply go through the limbic system but we do not possess a thought that our emotional apparatus our limbic system is not intertwined in neuroscience which means we don't have a thought that lacks emotion we don't make a decision without emotion and actually interestingly enough further on they've shown that if you pull emotions out of our decision-making process we actually can't make a decision we can follow directions if this happens do that but we can't make decisions because we can't weigh things out because we weigh things out based on what we care about so every decision every salesperson is trying to get somebody to make is in fact a decision that has emotion interwoven with it interesting so when it comes to things like uh objective thinking per se when you're trying to take a third party or a third yeah third person view or removing as much emotion as possible from it to Simply look at facts rather than letting emotion getting involved in things and I like to think of that as objective or logical thinking right how much does logic I mean I I understand what you just said with the emotion being part of everything but how much does logic play into a sale or decision-making process with someone I mean there's people that are buy off of emotion just like right like that and then there's a lot a lot more like the accounting type people I like to call them that are very logical very numbers oriented how much does that play into actually getting someone to commit to and follow through on a deal or is it really emotional well what is their logic to start with so yeah everybody thinks they have a logical process but at some point in time you have to uh uh evaluate you know give a value to the facts you know what matters here what's important start putting valuations on things value is based on what we care about so you know there's there's our value issues are going to start with how we weigh things out emotionally and then then the Mind Bender then then and this is what we refer to in the book is bending reality loss every if you're a human being and so this only applies to human beings lost things taught lost things twice as much as an equivalent game that's from prospect theory Danny Kahneman wrote Thinking Fast and Slow won the Nobel Prize in behavioral economics in 2002 because this is a fact of human life what does that mean five dollars when I pay for it I got to get ten dollars in return in value at least or I'm not gonna make the deal if you're offering me something that gives me a 20 rate of return on my investment that's inadequate I need a hundred percent rate of return on my investment so you're pitching gain to me based on neutral third party valuations of what a dollar is worth and what the return on investment is no matter how much you lay that out I'm not going to weigh it that way because I'm always going to overestimate the value of the dollars that I've spent and I'm always going to underestimate the value that I've received and and the value we received in a dollar I mean in terms of like value doesn't necessarily have to be just dollars back right I mean it's whatever we perceive as value back correct right and then we gotta we gotta start I gotta start getting into your head to find out where you perceive as value yeah so it's not always with the dollars and cents all right guys we're going to talk about inflection today tonality now I realize that you're thinking right now and that's just really mundane stuff but the Mastery level the black belt skill level here is in a slight subtle touch that makes all the difference in the world and it's at the end of a statement that you really want to land well we're in Flex uh almost as if it was a question that makes sure that something that's really important that you have to land is going to land without causing them to get their guard up I'll give you an example we're in a training session and we're telling people that labeling a negative in advance doesn't plan to negative now this scares a lot of people so we tell them about it theoretically and they say okay you know it kind of goes sort of past them but then when we talk about actually doing it it scares them so we go through it we say all right we want you to label these negatives in advance they go oh no no I can't do that that'll that'll plan a negative now we told them earlier that it doesn't and I've got to remind them of that but gently now I could say so when we told you earlier that labeling a negative in advance doesn't plant it you thought we were wrong now my tone of voice inflecting down is kind of harsh and there's a pretty good chance of saying it like that may cause it to land hard and cause the guard to be up and I don't need the guard to be up so instead I need to say it so when we told you before that labeling a negative in advance doesn't plant the negative you thought we were wrong and I said it like that the second time make sure it lands I could say you thought it was wrong as if I think you're wrong or can say yes I was wrong as if I'm genuinely questioning I said it the second way and the person we were teaching said oh no I guess not and that's exactly the way I needed it to land so tonality at the end ensures that what you have to have land will land the way you want it to so that they think about it it triggers the thought pattern that you wanted to think and it doesn't cause their guard to come up inflecting up at the end is a master negotiator move and Mastery of tonality so in dealing with a client that's just generally angry we've had multiple snags every time we have a conversation that results in a minor explosion uh almost to the point where you hesitate to even call and talk to him is it okay to just go for the jugular and say you seem really angry about this and just open The Floodgate is that too aggressive or do you just just go for it um all right so I'm I need some clarification so I'm going to ask you you said that you're going to go for the jugular and be aggressive what about it seems like you're angry screams aggression to you well the aggression comes with uh for instance we might call have a conversation with a possible delay or something like that and it it results in uh it results in an angered response that seems to be unfocused and before long it's well as the other agent even doing his job and and just trying to re-center the conversation back to to get to something we can actually diffuse instead of these just random uh shots fired do we uh do I go for the jugular and try and see what what the the brightest fire is right okay so I get you so you instead of uh going for the jugular you're talking about going at the emotion directly not beating around the bush yeah and the answer to that is always going to be yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes okay look if they exploded you if they're screaming at you in a difficult conversation one of three things is occurring you've got to figure out which one it is the first one is they're under tremendous pressure on their side from somewhere the second thing is you're not listening they're telling you something consciously or subconsciously and you're not picking it up the third reason is they're trying to manipulate you either way you've got to figure out which one it is and the only way to do that is to go directly added so excuse my French but if I'm going off at you in an elevated tone and this is you know this is not the first time I've done it and you say to me seems like you're you're angry I'm probably gonna go off on you more yeah because it's abundantly clear that I'm angry it's so it you know it seems like this really did a lot to piss you off sorry for my language but hitting it directly on it you're gonna you're probably so angry with me right now you want to smack me in the face with a brick okay hit it directly because if you dance around it they'll think that you're you're ignorant or if you ignore it it's going to come back and bite you later in the conversation but if this guy or woman if this is happening to you multiple times by the same person you're missing something there's something going on with them that you need to figure out what it is or else you're going to stay in this cycle as reminders be very aware of your tone the most well executed skill delivered with poor tone I I I don't know Sandy if you could if you if you were to put a percentage on it and I realize I'm I'm dropping you know dropping this on your head I didn't prepare you for it I'm I'm catching you off guard if you were going to put a percentage to it about how much a well-executed skill would be negatively affected by poor tone of voice if you're just gonna guess right not something I'm necessarily going to hold you to but I know you have a great feel for this stuff with the background that you have there's a crisis negotiator what would you say well to me tone is the most important thing so if your tone is wrong no matter what you're saying the person is going to take it the way they perceive it so you have you've lost complete control if your tone is bad so I would say it's up there really high really high 90 percent if not higher tone is extremely important yeah 90 wow that's that's that's a pretty big percentage so you only you're only 10 effective if the tone of voice doesn't come with it that's just amazing it could be higher tone is important tone tone tone means everything tone is the first thing that someone notices about you so if your tone is um comes across as negative the rest of your interaction unless you can fix that tone right away is going to remain negative so just keep that in mind yeah that's a great point and negative covers at such a broad stroker brush right because negative could be you come off as arrogant or you come off as right we I think we've all done this at certain times where we deliver things with the tone of voice that says I think that you're stupid or I think that you know your opinion holds on water and all of that comes across in our tone and what perceived intention might be from the other side something that always blew my mind I'm sure a lot of you have heard of Derek gaunt um and I may have mentioned this last time and this is just a reiteration but it really blows me away one of the things he told me early on was when he was in crisis negotiation and he had to choose to put some money on the phone and if his choices were somebody that was fully versed in the skills and understood all of the interest intricacies inside and out of all the skills very well versed but their tone of voice was really bad and then the other choice was somebody that doesn't really know the skills at all and still has a lot to learn however this person has a fantastic tone of voice like if he had to choose between those two people what would he choose and to my surprise he said he'd always choose the person with the tone of voice because if their tonal voice is extremely accurate and on point and executed well he knew that in a crisis negotiation scenario they would always come to resolution it might take a while but the chances of them coming to resolution were almost you know they're up there 94 close rate and then the person that had great skills but their tone was always off is a really good chance things are going to go bad and I I always thought that was a really interesting perspective how can you be so good at the skills and then a skill expert doesn't want to use you just simply because of the tone of voice I always thought that was amazing so things to keep in mind we have a question that just came up in the chat it says how how do you evaluate your own tone that's a great question and so a few things a couple of them we will be reiterations from last time the first part is always assume that you have something to learn when you go into a negotiation a lot of us get off point because we assume we're going in because we got to educate the other side we got to lay out the data facts justifications we need them to understand so we have to explain it to them and Our intention is to go in to teach and inform and educate and it actually needs to be switched to we go in knowing that we have things to learn and that's why we're at the table and so that's the first part because that mindset leads to genuine curiosity if we stay in a mindset of genuinely curious it'll come across in our tone you can hear the question mark at the end and so that's one piece of it another piece of it is we all have our triggers in the moment we all know when we feel ourselves getting cranked up could be for any number of reasons when you feel that coming on that should be a trigger for yourself internally that you just need to go ahead and switch into the late night FM DJ voice when you feel that bubble and up inside you just focus on slowing down your Cadence and that'll help you keep in control

Channel: NegotiationMastery

Views: 16,786

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Id: nizBYmCc3UY

Length: 61min 28sec (3688 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 02 2023