5 Lessons in Business Negotiation from an FBI Hostage Negotiator

I'll start with this, Chris. I don't know if you could see this, but I'm writing down today's date because today is the day that I become a better negotiator. You are a master negotiator, former FBI negotiator for 20+ years. Now you've been consulting, teaching the art of negotiation to business people and anybody who needs negotiation. And the funny thing about negotiation is, uh, it's this skill we all need that I feel like I personally never got taught. I never, it's all self-taught, anything you learn. And one of the things I realized was so often I was negotiating and I didn't even realize it, whether it was with an investor or with a, with a, you know, with an employee or a customer. Life is full of negotiations. And so I'm excited 'cause I think this is gonna be quite useful. So maybe my starting point is this. If today was the day I'm get better at negotiation, where do I start?

Yeah. Well, first thing is let the other side go first. And then, actually listening is a challenge because when the other person's talking, there's times you want to jump in. It's almost impossible to resist. It's basically if there were 5, 6 steps to becoming a better listener, The real challenge comes at step 2. It's a hijack point. If you're listening at all, as opposed to completely focusing on your internal dialogue where you're waiting to speak, most people get past that stage. But if you're listening at all, you're listening to rebut. Aha! The urge to correct is irresistible. I mean, like, it's insanely impossible to overcome. So you'll jump in there to hijack the conversation to correct. The urge to correct is so irresistible that we actually use it as one of our negotiation skills. I'll say something wrong on purpose because you will not be able to resist the urge to correct me with the truth. And it's a great way for me to trigger getting hidden information out of you. That you won't regret giving me because you won't— the old saying, we don't remember what was said, we remember how we felt in the moment. Dears to correct is so satisfying that you'll never regret telling me something you shouldn't have told me because it felt so good in the moment. So that's the power of this hijack moment, hijack to correct. Now the other thing that you'll do frequently is hijack to relate, and it's called story stealing. And you won't mean to do it, but the other person will say something that triggers this incredible memory in you of a past experience, something that happened to you. It's one of the fallacies of common ground. And you'll completely be unable to resist that urge to jump in, to tell me your story. Oh my God, the same thing happened to me. And you'll feel incredibly good in that moment, not realizing how squashed I feel. And it's one of the reasons why people refer to it as story stealing, because it feels so good to you, you can't imagine that what I feel is like, how you had to have a better story than me. You had to one-up me. You had to do better than me. And You can't imagine that that's the case because the memory it triggered in you was so good. So actually listening through that hijack moment is one of the big challenges, probably the single biggest challenge of becoming a better negotiator because you got to listen to somebody all the way through. And here's how powerful it is to make somebody feel heard because just because you've been heard doesn't mean you feel her. Just because I do understand doesn't mean that you feel understood. So I'm at a wedding a couple weeks ago in Ireland, and it's my first substantive conversation with the bride, uh, the night of the, uh, after the wedding ceremony, uh, and as, as you could imagine, she's unconscious on her feet. She's She's making the rounds through the wedding reception dinner. She's obligated to speak to everybody because that's what brides got to do. The bride and groom are supposed to walk around, say hello to everybody, make them feel happy that they were there and thank them for showing up. And all I'm doing when I'm talking to her, it's my first real conversation with her, is telling her what she went through that day. I'm telling her what she went through. I said, you know, this is probably easier to run a small country in South America than it was to pull off this wedding. And, you know, you're here to celebrate the union of two families and your husband is here because he's got to be, you know. So I'm laying all this out to her, all of what she's going through, showing her completely that I understood everything that she went through leading up to that point. She runs into me the next night at dinner, and she walks up to me and she gives me this big hug, and she says, 'I have no memory of what you said to me last night. I just remember how good it made me feel.' And that's the power of making somebody feel understood. She literally couldn't remember a word, but she felt bonded to me because I thoroughly understood her. That's the challenge of making— and the mission and the goal of making somebody feel completely heard and understood.

You have no idea how many times I wanted to interrupt during that story. And I just knew this— if I'm ever going to do it, this is the one time I need to just listen the way you're describing.

And also, like, you've— the urge— congratulations on resisting that urge. Because in the moment you had, you're like, I want to speak, right? I mean, good job. That urge is huge. I have trouble resisting it sometimes.

And so you're saying that the starting point is the skill of truly listening, not waiting for your turn to talk, not trying to hijack what you call the fallacy of common ground, where I think I'm building this bridge with you and you're like, dude, you just sideswiped what I was trying to tell you. And you're— you want to tell me about you when I was trying to tell you how I'm feeling or what I'm going through or what, what's happening in my life. And so those techniques are not even— I mean, negotiation is just one small part of that. That just seems like How to Win Friends and Influence People. That seems like, you know, it should be relationship, you know, the foundation of any kind of communication or relationship. So is it that negotiation fundamentally is just connecting with other people? Is it that, or is it that these skills apply to other domains? I mean, what's the right way to think about that?

Well, yeah, it's across the board. I mean, and first of all, negotiation. If your objective is to have a long-term relationship of trust where we both prosper. Now, if you're a complete sociopath, that should be your objective because it's low maintenance, it's the least amount of effort, and it's the maximum amount of money. I'm going to make— I'm, you know, I get a number of people. I get one of our top-level coaching clients said, I have made so much more money being collaborative than I ever made being cutthroat. Your relationships, you make deals faster, your relationships flow more smoothly. That should be your goal. Like you, if you're the most mercenary person in the world and the only thing you care about is making money, then that's the fastest, easiest way to make the money. But that's not everybody's definition. Most people think of it as win-lose, battle of arguments. I'm going to get the upper hand on you. I'm going to have you over a barrel. I'm going to force you to do what I want. The people of power negotiations, if you will. That puts you out of business. You lose friends, you lose collaborators, you lose colleagues.

All right, let's take a quick break because we got something for you. You know, we pinned a survey to one of our videos and we asked, what's the biggest challenge you have right now in your business? And the number one thing that you guys said was getting your first 100 customers. That was the most popular response. And it's, of course, that's the challenge because if you can't get to 100 customers, you're definitely not going to get to 1,000. So what the team at HubSpot did was they went through all the old episodes and they heard the stories where I talked about how I got customers for my first business, how Sam did it for his first business, and some of the guests that came on and talked about what they did, how they scrapped and clawed and got those initial 100 customers to get the ball rolling. And then they put those together in a report. It's a PDF, it's totally free, and you can get it and it'll give you some inspiration, some ideas around how you might be able to go get your first 100 customers. Check it out. It's in the description below. So what is the right way to think about negotiating? Because in my mind, you know, my simpleton brain, if I imagined a great negotiator, if you said think about the best negotiator, I think of somebody who's either very powerful, maybe slightly even intimidating, or they're just very charismatic. They're able to sort of manipulate, win the other side over. And I definitely default to a win-lose dynamic. I'm trying to get as much as I can and they're trying to get as much as they can. And let's see who wins this negotiation, whether I'm buying a car, I'm going and getting a Nintendo off of Craigslist or whatever it is. That's the default for me. And so how did you do relationships if you're— I mean, maybe this just doesn't apply, but if you're a hostage negotiator, I mean, are you trying to have a relationship with these people? There's somebody you've never known and they're clearly, you know, off their rocker if they're—

well, let's not put them in the off-the-rocker category. Let's make that simpler to start with.

Okay, let's, let's say it's not the first person I would think of when I say I want a long-term relationship with this person. And so can you tell me a story about maybe, I don't know, your first high-stakes hostage negotiation and how you approached it? And I guess what the mindset is there?

Well, I learned 3 things, I suppose. To start with, I learned the application of empathy from a crisis hotline and what we now refer to as tactical empathy. But just demonstrating understanding, not understanding, but demonstrating understanding in a way that the other side feels heard and draws them into telling you more, removes you as a threat. First move in a negotiation is to remove yourself as a threat, because why would they make a great deal with you if you're a threat? Why would they? They might make a deal with you if you're a threat, but they're not going to make a great deal with you. So one of the first really counterintuitive moves is to remove yourself as a threat. And a hostage negotiator does that with a non-threatening voice, calming, soothing, late-night FM DJ voice. And expressing genuine concern for the bad guy. Like, I'm here to get everybody out. That includes you, Mr. Bad Guy. Now, whether or not you let me get you out is going to be up to you. But that's my objective first of all. And I need to find out whether or not you're good with that. Some bad guys want to die. I need to know that right away. Now here's the counter, crazy counterintuitive thing when you talk about relationships. Hostage negotiators have repeat customers. So I may not see you again, but if I get you out alive, another negotiator is going to. Which means if I lied to you, if I deceived you, if I didn't take the time to understand you, That's going to be your experience when you run across the next guy and things are probably going to go bad. So in point of fact, you know, the whole idea of a long-term relationship, I got to be willing to step in to be open with that. And you're going to be— bad guy is going to be able to smell that.

What was your first big case, first big situation where you had to deal with a hostage situation and you came out with a successful outcome?

Uh, it was a very rare event that I was lucky enough to get involved in, a bank robbery with hostages where we trapped them inside with the hostages.

And so what happened? You get the call that this is going down, and I mean, just, well, I mean, what was that like? Tell me, tell me about it.

So we didn't get the call. We, we became aware of it and we just went, which is a really philosophy that I live by, which is called run to trouble. It's amazingly liberating if your philosophy is to run to trouble. And so we ran to trouble. We showed up. Since it's a bank, FBI and NYPD are showing up. The negotiation teams on both sides knew each other really well. We had a great relationship. We had a bank robbery task force in New York at the time. So the PD and the Bureau were already aligned on the criminal prosecution. So the two negotiation teams blended. And the first hostage negotiator on the phone was a, was a PD detective. I was his coach. The PD commander was in charge of the negotiation operations center on the inside. The Bureau's lead negotiator, our coordinator at the time, went to the outside in the event any voice-to-voice bullhorn stuff was needed. We negotiated for a number of hours. The commander decided to sort of disrupt the dynamic a little bit. It was stalemated at a very low threat level. And so he pulled the PD negotiator and he put me on the phone with the bad guys. And I had one of the bank robbers out about 90 minutes later.

What'd you start with when you got on the phone?

We went disruptive to start with, which is— was not the usual protocol. The commander sensed, uh, Hugh McGowan, great instincts, great instincts. He listened long enough to realize that the secret to gaining the upper hand in the conversation was going to be how each conversation closed. Bad guy was constantly saying, hey, I gotta go, they're coming, they're gonna hear me, or I gotta put you on hold, or I put you on speaker, and they just get off the phone. So he said, no matter what happens, you extend every call, you end every call. He tries to get off the phone, I don't care what you gotta do, you keep him on the phone 5, 7, 10 seconds longer, then you end the call. We're gonna take control of this by taking control of the end. And the other thing we normally, the normal handoff is, You hand a phone off to the next negotiator and the next negotiator does an elaborate summary of everything that's been set up to now because what you anticipate is a bad guy saying like, "Oh, Chris? Who's this Chris guy? Does he even know what the hell's going on?" And so normally Chris is going to say, "Hey, I've been sitting here for a long time and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I'm up to speed.

You don't have to—" Why do you hand it off at all?

It could be for a variety of reasons. Normally it's to take a harder line. Okay. No negotiation team, whether it's business or hostage, hands a negotiator off to another negotiator to be nicer. Ever. Business or hostage. If there's a change in negotiation— negotiators on the other side, it is always to take a harder line. Always.

And why, why is it better to hand it off to somebody else who'll take the harder line versus you yourself escalating to a harder stance?

It's going to catch the other side off guard a little. It's destabilizing without necessarily being threatening right away. And if I've been a pushover up to now and suddenly I'm demanding, you have reason to believe I've been inauthentic. You know, which guy is the real you, the other guy or this guy? Right. So there's an authenticity issue involved.

And so how did you get them out? You said 90 minutes later you got hostages out. What resolved it or what was the breakthrough point, the inflection point for that one?

Well, I, you know, I threw the— the first guy was highly manipulative negotiator. In hindsight, I now refer to him as the great corporate CEO negotiator. A great corporate CEO, if you're in negotiations with them, it'll be like, oh my God, you know, my board's going to fire me if I make a bad deal. You know, I mean, there's— my board is going to kill me if I agree to that. You know, blaming people that are not in the room, right? So that that guy doesn't get cornered, diminishing his influence at the table. Because if he does that, that's the dude that's calling all the shots. He's just smart enough to not get cornered at the table. He's always going to blame somebody outside the room. So the first bank robber at Chase was telling us how dangerous his colleagues were. And he kept saying like, you know, these guys are crazy. Like, you know, I'm scared of them when he was calling all the shots. So I took a harder line with him. I was taking away his comfort level and being more confrontational without being aggressive, he gets rattled. And while he's trying to figure out what to do, hands the phone off to the other bank robber on the inside who does not like how this is going down. It was not part of his plan to be stuck in a bank surrounded by snipers with.50 caliber guns that might, you know, put a gaping hole in his forehead, which he would no longer could wear his favorite hat if that happened. Like he's scared to death about getting out of there. And so I start in with them and I'm, I've still got the late night FM DJ voice, which is calming and soothing to him. And then the real critical issues where somebody else on the team heard what was really bothering him, and they handed me a note. And I listened, and I, and I adjusted my stance in a moment on the note, and he felt so heard and understood. Then in very short order, I was meeting him out in front of the bank. He was surrendering to me.

Wow. What was, what was on the note?

We were pressuring him to let a hostage go. They had 3 hostages on the inside. Shocking that the hostage negotiators would be trying to let the bad guy— get the bad guys to let a hostage go. And the note to me said, ask him if he wants to come out. And in, in a blink of an eye, I switched from asking about the hostages and letting one go to saying, Do you want to come out? And his response to me was, I don't know how I do it, which is a great big giant yes. Just tell me how. Get me out of here. I want out. And when we had him on that thread, then I completely focused on the consequences that he was looking at, how he was going to get out of there. He was most concerned about what was going to happen to him in the instant he stepped out the door. And as soon as I got enough reassurance, I almost, I almost had this guy out. And then I got another note, as it turned out from the same negotiator. And the note said, tell him you'll meet him outside. And I said, you want to just meet me out front? And he says, yeah, I'm ready to end this shit. And so we scrambled. I went around, I got on the bullhorn on the outside, I got him out in front of the bank. Wow.

That's a great story. I like that. When you talk to CEOs and business people, you know, obviously different situation than a hostage negotiation. What's the first message you try to get through to them? Well, you say you have a room of 100 of the most Fortune 100 CEOs are in a room and they're all here to listen to you. You're up on the stage. What's the first thing you really want to get through to them?

To make them aware that there's information they need that they can only get at the table. I remember a long time ago somebody wrote a book. I don't know if they call it the Ten Commandments of Negotiation. I don't remember what it was called, but I remember taking a look at it and One of the commandments was, and which is I completely disagree with, by the way, it is what it is, which is your experience. You are not new. It's not your first rodeo. You've dealt with these people before. It is what it is. So I'll ask these CEOs, when are you ever in a negotiation where you don't have closely held information you don't want to reveal to the other side? Whether it's your budget, whether it's your pressures, deadlines on other deals, quarterly profits, demands from your board. When is there ever a negotiation where you don't have proprietary information that if the other side had it, it would change everything? Right. You always have it. Yeah, like all the time. And I go, okay, so that means the other side's got that too. Which means it isn't what it— it's not what it is. And the other side will tell you if they could trust you not to hurt them with it. So your first negotiation is trust, because they got stuff if they could tell you it would change everything. And that gets people out of the perspective is I got to make my case or I got to— what's my leverage? What's their leverage? What are our giveaways? What do our— a lot of executives say, what are our must-haves and what are our giveaways? Well, if they've got proprietary information that would change everything, then your must-haves and your giveaways could be completely wrong. Right. And then, so you've got imperfect information. And what you want to do is you want to sit down and gather information and trust and then rethink what the best deal looks like. And it's really hard to get experienced executives to do that because I know the lay of the landscape. This is not my first rodeo. I've seen this before. Getting them out of this is something I've seen before is a really hard thing.

Right. Okay. So that's great. So I'm a, I'm an executive in that room and I hear you and I say, okay, first of all, even though I've been through a lot of negotiations, there's more to learn. So I'm open-minded to this. Secondly, I buy, I buy what you're saying, which is that if I had more perfect information, we can, we can make a better deal that might be mutually beneficial if we were willing to trust each other. What are the simple ways to build that trust when you do meet with the other side and they're naturally initially going to not just be super willing to trust you. What are the simple ways to build trust?

Well, the simplest way to build trust and gather information simultaneously is nothing anybody's ever learned. Okay, so basically what you're saying here is number one, I got to build trust. Number two, I got to get the information. So number one, build trust. Common ground. Let's find out what we have in common. Did you play Little League baseball growing up? Mm-hmm. Uh, did, did your kids, you know, you're married, what are your kids doing? You know, how many times you been married? You know, this whole common ground thing. Because they felt so good when they shared it, they didn't realize that they were squashing the other side. So there's, there's, that's one of the worst ways to build trust. Um, and then gathering information. You're taught to gather information by asking good questions. Well, questioning somebody makes them feel cornered, which then diminishes trust because nobody trusts you if you corner them or interrogate them. So the counterintuitive answer is the hostage negotiator's tried and true tool called— in hostage negotiation, it was emotion label. In business negotiation, it's just a label. And I can start triggering information out of you right away if I sit down and I'll take a sense of you. And I said this to a colleague recently I hadn't seen in months. I looked at him instead of saying, hi, how are you? How are you doing today? How can I help you? Any of the how nonsensical how questions. I looked at this guy and I just kind of soaked him in for about 3 seconds, maybe. It sounds short, but always feels like an eternity. And I said, you seem centered. And he sat there for a second. He said, you know, I just came off the mountain. And the mountain is where I go to meditate and I work out. And he's into all this Asian philosophies and martial arts, which makes him feel phenomenal. He said, the last time you saw me, I hadn't been on the mountain in months, and I was just wound really tight. And, you know, I just came off the mountain. I've been up there for about a month. Now, if I'm listening, he just told me a lot about himself, and he also told me where he's at right now. If I'd have sat down and said, "Hey, Nick, how are you?" He'd have looked at me and went, "Yeah, fine. You?" Right.

Right. And you did it with an observation, a label, but it was almost a compliment too. It wasn't like you said, "Oh, you seem stressed out," where you'd get defensive, right? You said, "You seem centered." Is it important if it's a positive or negative label in that way?

It's just got to be what it is. Okay, like if he just seemed stressed, I'd have said, you seem stressed. Or if he seems stressed, uh, one I like when somebody seems stressed is it's probably that day, and I'll say, tough day. And you can watch them get their balance back when you say that. And so the observation's got to be, you have to observe what it is because if they look stressed and I go like, you seem centered, then I'm an idiot.

Okay, so you put the label, they give some information. What happens next? What's the next move to continue to build the trust?

Yeah, well, I may feed it back to them. I'm going to sit back and I'm going to let the other person talk. And then I'm going to see if they got a next step. And then it's a little bit like there's going to be a little bit of a dance here. We may need to take a circuitous route to where we both need to be. But if you pick the route, we'll get there faster. If I pick the route, I don't know where you're going through. I don't know where the friction points are for you. I don't know what's going to make you leery. I'm going to let you pick the route because it's going to be faster. So I'm going to sit back and wait to see if you pick a next step. I mean, try to trigger you to see if we can go, is it ridiculous to talk about what we're here for? So you caught that question, didn't you? Yeah. It was a no-oriented question. Yeah. Instead of, do you want to talk about what we're here for? Which you're driving for yes, because going for yes creates friction. But going for no creates protection and safety.

No, no, it wouldn't be ridiculous for us to do that.

There you go. Exactly. Yeah. And so that's how I want it. When I want to maybe go someplace, I'll trigger the decision via no versus yes.

And there's all these words when it comes to negotiation, the sort of classic words. Compromise. Tell me your thoughts on compromise.

Do you think the United States Congress deserves an A+ rating?

No.

But they compromise all the time, don't they? So if you think politicians are awesome, then you think compromise is good. And that's the crazy thing about it because everybody preaches compromise. How do you feel about compromising your principles? Not good. Yeah, it gives you an instantaneous uneasy feeling inside, right? So it's— compromise is to, by definition, make something lose-lose. And that is not compatible with a long-term relationship of trust and prosperity. It's compatible with being a C-player. Mediocrity. Compromise correlates very strongly to mediocrity. And you gotta decide whether or not you're good with mediocrity.

And so what's the replacement to compromise? 'Cause I don't think anybody goes in saying, I can't wait to compromise. They sort of feel like it's a necessary evil. I guess we'll have to compromise in order for us to agree. And I think that's where people land. They settle for that. That's the mediocrity part. So what's the more effective, more powerful way of thinking besides expecting to and accepting that you need to compromise?

Well, let me find out where you're— let me make you feel heard first. If I can make you feel completely heard on your position, my guess is more than 30% of the deals will be made in my favor on the spot. And about half of the deals are made on the spot once the other side feels completely hurt. But let's say it's only 25% and it's well more than that. All right. So now you've knocked out, you've just accomplished, you have to negotiate 25% less because you just made the deal by making the other person feel hurt. Just knock 20% of your work off the table. Now what happens to the remaining 75%? Their position's going to move closer to yours and they're going to be more honest with you about what exactly that position is. They're going to tell you what they perceive their must-haves to be. They're going to move away from their throwaways right away. So I'm either going to make the deal on the spot or I'm going to find out what we really have to negotiate about immediately. Which is also going to save me a massive amount of time. Now, there's a difference between compromise and high-value trades. And, you know, I'm not 100% sure whether or not this is a great example, but I like it. Steel is 2% carbon and 98% iron. So let's imagine that carbon and iron were two negotiating factors. And they said, we got to compromise and go 50-50 because we need, we need a 50% representation here. Now, in point of fact, 2% of one person's idea and 98% of the other person's idea made a stronger ally that mankind had never seen before. So your real challenge is What's the blend? Not the compromise. Right. What's the blend?

You know, there was a guy who came on this podcast and he said something great. I don't know if this aligns with your philosophy. And he said— he told me something that really helped me in negotiating. He said, you know, most people, when they go into negotiation, they see themselves on one side of the table and then the other person on the other side of the table. And it's sort of me versus you. And I'm tugging this, I'm pulling this way, and you're pulling that way. And he said, this is a guy who buys companies. And he said, the best thing we did was we realized that that's the wrong mental model. The right mental model is me and you are sitting on the same side of the table and across the table is the problem. Maybe the problem is you think the price is X and I think it maybe is Y. You know, there's some problem that's preventing us from just doing this deal instantaneously. But it's not me versus you. It's us together jointly looking at this problem on the other side of the table. And that was a very, like, effective visual metaphor for me. Is that something you would, I don't know, agree with? Is that something you would You probably know more about that than I do.

No, I agree completely. I mean, for the longest time on my side, we've always said the adversary is a situation. And what you just did was explain what that model looks like through that example. And it becomes very real when you describe it that way. And yeah, that's a very smart way to describe it.

And where does leverage come into this? Because, you know, when I've negotiated, I always think about, you know, leverage deals. I, deals I feel, you know, I do, but I'm not 100% happy with, not, not too happy with. It's typically because I felt like the other side had a lot more leverage in the situation and this was my best option to go with. It was 98% their blend and 2% mine. And in other situations where I have leverage or create leverage or I apply leverage, you know, I tend to feel like I do better. But is that, is that too simplistic? Like, how do you think about the word leverage? Because for me, that's always been key in negotiation.

It's not simplistic. It's a step up from floundering entirely to, and it's going to sound harsh, I mean, you get yourself to B-level negotiator there. You'll never get yourself to A, A+ on leverage because leverage is the ability to inflict harm. And if you're making deals based on the ability to inflict harm, those don't go for stable long-term relationships. They don't go for The other side sharing information with you that'll change everything because if you've got leverage, you're a threat. And why would they give you important information if you're a threat? And vice versa. How much leverage do they have on you? Holy shit, I can't give them, I can't tell them that. They'll have more leverage. Oh my God. So it can be useful in some situations, but it'll never get you to the best outcome. And because in many cases you can talk, you can think about when you made a better deal because of leverage, then that becomes really addicting, really satisfying. And you lose track of the deals that you should have made, but you didn't because you didn't have that, thought you had leverage. Or, you know, it's a very limiting factor. It gets you, you know, into a passing grade, and it just doesn't get you to the top of the class.

Gotcha. And so what does get me to the top of the class? So we've talked a little bit about it, right? Truly listening, using labels to collect information, plus make the other side feel, you know, heard and understood. What else is kind of key to get me to the top of the mountain when it comes to negotiation?

Well, what you're really negotiating What people really don't understand is how important trust is, and trust is based on how predictable you are. Take out the word trust and put in the word predictability, you automatically become more trustworthy because you're predictable. And so then the ability to collaborate as we deal with issues because there's always going to be issues. Making the deal is the beginning. You got to get into implementation. And if we don't trust each other, then problems are going to crop up and we're not going to tell the other side. If we've compromised, I'm going to resent that compromise. And when problems crop up, I'm going to keep my mouth shut because it's going to hurt you because I didn't like the leverage you used on me. I didn't like the way you forced me into this deal. Yeah, you know what? Threaten me? Fine. Fine. Make me cooperate. Make me tell you about problems in the early stages as opposed to when they're turning into The landmine has gone off. It's really an issue of how we're going to do the implementation. And so the whole issue of do we start? And then you're even going to talk about how we're going to cross the bridges when we get to them, because there are going to be problems. I'm at a training a long time ago before the book came out. A CEO said, this is my CFO, and I want you to teach him how to put clauses in contracts that'll penalize the other side for non-performance. And my thought was, if penalizing the other side for non-performance is your biggest problem, it started a lot sooner because you're not making great deals. If you can't— you're telling me you can't get your deals implemented. That's what you're telling me. So you need to back way up and find out what the problem was well before that, because implementation is where it's at. And if we don't trust each other, if I can't count on you to work through problems with me, it's going to cost us a lot of money.

What are some examples of kind of the great deals you've seen, maybe the great dealmakers or great deals that you've seen? I think Oprah is a great dealmaker.

And visible examples of that. She gets Lance Armstrong to come on TV and answer yes or no questions. Straightforward. As to whether or not he doped and whether or not he did things. Now, I'm not acquainted with Oprah. I am acquainted with Lance and I like Lance a lot. And when you look at the totality of the circumstances, you get quite a different picture as opposed to somebody giving you a very narrow view. But anyway, the Lance Armstrong interview, he wasn't caught off guard by those questions. That was the negotiation between him and her in advance as to whether or not he was going to get on camera and what she was going to ask him. You don't see anything in the media about Lance Armstrong being upset with Oprah Winfrey, which means they negotiated a great deal up front that they were both good with, and then they executed it, and it was no bad blood after the fact. That, to me, that's a great deal. And that's an example and a reason why. And also, and if you look at the totality of Oprah, think about the fact that she's dealt with some of the most difficult-to-handle people on Earth— celebrities who are used to getting their way at all times, And she doesn't have any dust-ups, any arguments with any of them. Now, how is that possible when in today's day and age celebrities love to have feuds with each other all the time as a way to gather attention? But that's not her method of operation. And her success is extraordinary, especially thinking about where she started. And I take— I take a very small percentage of her network and be quite happy.

Do you have a sense of what she does or how she accomplishes that?

You know, the interesting thing is it's very similar to what we did in the Chase Manhattan Bank, because I was talking about a woman, talking with a woman in Los Angeles several years ago to work for Oprah. And I'm laying all this out. And I said, the last impression is the lasting impression. We did it. Lieutenant did it by instinct at the Chase Bank. I found out later on from— I was at a Gallup Poll conference on human nature. You know, the Gallup Poll, the longtime collectors of polling data. Of course, they're sitting on decades of human performance information. And this one speaker stands up and says, people don't remember things how they happened. They remember, and they don't remember how it started. They remember the most intense moment and how it ended. The last impression is the lasting impression. So I'm laying this on my colleague who worked for Oprah, and she says, oh yeah, Oprah's lived by that all her whole life. She said in the entertainment business, the joke is in a limo, out in a taxi. As soon as they get what they want from you, you know, you're out hitching out front, finding your own way out. But at Oprah, it was in a limo, out in a limo. And the philosophy was no matter what happened on any interaction, no matter what, You had to make sure they felt respected, heard, appreciated, and loved at the very end. And I've had several conversations related to me when Oprah didn't see something eye to eye with somebody else, and her last words are, "Well, always, no matter what, I will always love you and I will always be supportive of you." And the last impression is the lasting impression, and she's a master of it.

How do you, um, prep for an interview, for a negotiation? So you, let's say you're gonna go try to make a deal, and some people have this idea of like a, what's it called, BATNA, or the best alternative to whatever. Uh, you know, they sort of think about their, their desired outcome and then the worst case scenario they're going to accept. Other people do lots of research and they try to, try to, you know, find as much as they can about the other party to be, you know, fully armed when they walk in. Some people do power moves. How do you prepare for something that's a negotiation in the business sense, in the business context?

It's going to be a combination of two things. First of all, I'm going to think about what negatives you're going to harbor about me in advance. And I'm not going to— and everybody's got that. Actually, interestingly enough, everybody could do this right away, even if it's a first interaction. What are the things you want to deny? I don't want you to think that I'm going to be greedy. I don't want you to think I'm another slimy salesperson. I don't want you to think that I'm here to maximize my opportunity. I don't want you to think I'm wasting your time. That, uh, I always tell people, what would you want to deny walking in? That's your gut instinct telling you a negative is there. And you make the shift from a denial to the straight observation. Look, I'm probably going to seem greedy. I'm probably just going to seem like another slimy salesperson. I'm probably going to seem like somebody that's wasting your time. That then instantly makes me the straight shooter, the honest person. And so I'm going to think about what negatives you're going to— you are likely harboring because the brain is 75% negative. And that's the fastest way for me to build a relationship, deactivate the negatives and make me look like a straight shooter, which increases your trust in me. And then there's going to be some stuff that you're going to be thinking about that you're going to be offended if I don't appreciate. And you're going to be offended if I don't appreciate how hard you work. Um, the fact that, that I'm talking to you at all means you have value and that you have legitimate reasons in your own right to be respected and admired. And it's taking what a lot of people would refer to as flattery, but then articulating that it's not vacuous flattery. It's genuine appreciation from where you're coming from. And I might say something like, you worked very hard to get to where you are today. You have been in this business for a very long time and you know what you're doing. Otherwise, if you didn't, you wouldn't be sitting here in front of me at all. And you have things that are valuable and worthy of my attention and of my respect. And you put those two things together and you kind of got empathy.

That's what you were calling tactical empathy earlier. Right.

Yeah. Because there's, there's brain science that backs up that approach, particularly starting with the negatives before the positives. Right.

And why is it so important for— I mean, this is going to sound like a dumb question, but like, it just seems like it's the most important thing. So I want to talk a little bit more about it, which is why is it so important for somebody to feel understood and heard? And why do we default? It seems like what we default to is, I can't wait to make my case so that you understand me and I feel heard, right? And like, it seems like the biggest swing I could make as a negotiator is to let go of my need of that, or at least initial need of that, and really hone in on your need for that. And if I just did that one switch, I'm a much better, much better trust builder and therefore a much better negotiator. When it comes— is that the right summary from what you said? Yeah, you know, it really is.

And it's fascinating to think about the fact that people come to the table with such a desire to be heard. And to make their case. They can't imagine that's what's driving the other side. It's blinding. And neuroscience-wise, what difference does it make to make somebody feel hurt? I will trigger the release in you of your neurochemicals, oxytocin and serotonin. If you get a hit of oxytocin, in interacting with me, you're going to bond with me and you're going to be far more honest with me. Oxytocin, it's bonding and truth. Serotonin is a drug of satisfaction, which means you're going to be less demanding. So if I can make you feel heard, you bond with me, you're more honest with me, and you're less demanding. That's a pretty good start for a negotiation.

How does Chris Voss you know, buy a car? How do you do it in just day-to-day, everyday situations? Have you had any, uh, any, uh, implementation of any of your techniques that— on like the low-stakes stuff? We've seen the hostage negotiation, but like, what do you do when you're on Craigslist? Do you need a couch? Or you're, you know, you're at the market?

Yeah, well, you know, I, I tell the other side, um, why what they are selling is worth what they're asking. You know, I make their case because that's what they're going to say to me. So what I've done is I've just now left them with nothing to say. And then, like, see, I can, I can, I can, I can pound you down on price. I mean, I, I And I still, if I choose to be, I can be, I can really pound you down. But I better never need to come back to you for anything. And there are a few deals that are complete one-offs. So if I'm buying a car, depending upon who I'm buying it from, I will tell you, I do not have great regard for car dealerships across the board. I no longer ever get any vehicle I own serviced at a car dealership. I don't care what the warranty says because I don't trust them. So I don't mind pounding down a car dealer. Right. I got no problem with that. And I will do that to them. I will make their case and then I will become very passive-aggressive. And my favorite is, how am I supposed to pay that? Well, you would have said all the things that I just got done saying if I hadn't said them first. But now if I said all, if I took away all the wind out of your sails, took all the bullets out of your gun, then when I give you the opportunity to point the gun at me, you got empty chambers. You got nothing to say. And I know, and you're dealing on a margin and in real short order, I'm going to get you down to your bottom line. And then if I like it, we'll make a deal. If I don't, I'm walking out. But I better not ever need to come back to you because once I've killed you on price, you are not going to forget that and you are not going to lift a finger to help me ever again. Right.

Okay. What about other sort of day-to-day negotiations? This is— I got little kids. I have a 5-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 1-year-old. And so my most frequent negotiation is with them. And I'm just curious, do you have any parenting negotiation tips? Maybe it's just don't negotiate at all, but I don't know. I find myself in that pickle a lot.

Well, with your kids, there are ages for thinking, if you will. But what you're really trying to do as a parent is help your kids think. And so recognizing where they are in the stages I heard a long time ago, up to age 5, treat a kid like a king. 5 to 15, you know, work them like an indentured servant. At 15, let them go. There's a lot of brain science that overlaps very closely with that in the development of the brain. But all along the way is you want your kids to feel slightly challenged. And you want them to get them to think. Now, do they have the ability to process that? At about age 4, 5, 6, they start to cross over into ages where they're starting to process that. And what a lot of parents want to do is just order kids around, like, go to bed because I'm dad. I'm— why? Because I said so. I'm— because I'm the father, that's why. Right. Well, that's not— that's not really helping them think. It's demonstrating to them that the only way you can get stuff done is by through use of force. Now, that doesn't mean you want to put up with bad behavior either. One of my favorite videos is this mom trying to talk her 5-year-old son into getting in the backseat of the SUV. And she's, "Come on," and he's crying and making noise. And his 9-year-old sister walks up and grabs him and throws him in the SUV and they get up. And they leave. You know, at some point in time you got to toss the kid in the car. But in the meantime, you know, your job as a parent is to help them think. And it's not to shield them, but it's to challenge them and make them better people, help them think.

And after all these years of helping people be better negotiators, and you teach certain, you know, techniques and certain frameworks for this, what do you think is the most easy to implement of all of the frameworks, meaning the easiest way to get points on the board and start the process of improving in this area?

Well, it's really going to be the different ways to repeat back to somebody what they just said. Label, you're focusing on their emotions or affect. Mirrors and paraphrases focuses specifically on what they said. It seems like it's a waste of time and it ends up being a relationship accelerator, which then is a deal-making accelerator. So however you do it, the more you can make somebody feel heard, the less you could be a threat. And there, yeah, sometimes charm is involved. Charm and empathy are very close. Yeah. But who's the most interesting at the table? If I make you think I'm the most interesting person, Okay, cool. We had a great conversation, but are we ever going to make great deals? Now, if I made you think you're the most interesting person, our likelihood for collaboration is very high, right?

And how do you find that balance, or do you need a balance between, um, like my business partner Ben, he's like this. He goes into a lunch, he asks, uh, so many questions because he's genuinely curious, and he's, he tends to know a lot about the other person and what they're interested in because he's paid attention. He observes And he remembers what they said, he remembers where they went, and he's just, so he'll feed them things that he knows they're interested in, not to manipulate them, he's just, that's like who he is, I don't know, it's his nature is to be that way. And he leaves the lunch and they've talked 98% of the time, he's talked 2% of the time, he's asked them a couple questions, he knows everything about them, they know nothing about him, and they go, "This was amazing, we gotta do this again. This was one of the best, this was so fun. I would love to do this again." And, you know, he comes back, At the same time, I'm curious if there's a sort of a downside to going too far in that direction where, you know, you haven't sort of demonstrated value or, you know, provided the other side with an, you know, sort of an almost like a, in tech, like an API connection, like an ability to understand what your needs are and how they might be able to help or intersect with what you do. Is there a danger in going too far down the kind of like let the other side talk route?

Well, first of all, curiosity is a superpower. Like, it is a superpower. It's ridiculous where it shows up in terms of your survival, their survival, long-term relationships, your resilience, your ability to discover new things. Curiosity, I can tell you so many different ways it's a superpower. So now what's the danger? At some point in time, you got to keep in mind while we're talking, And if you get too curious, then we have a finite amount of time. We got an hour together. If we got an hour together and we get nothing accomplished, what are you going to remember? You really enjoy the conversation, but we didn't get anything done. So you might feel like it was a waste of your time. You have to be aware of the progress that has to be made. And My team, what we always do is we set finite periods of time for meetings, period. And we never go over. It doesn't matter where we are. We'll set another meeting before we'll go over a meeting because time is this commodity that is so limited that if I don't help you manage your time and your interactions with me, then pretty soon you're going to start avoid me.

Well, speaking of, you seem like a guy who is very conscious of his time. I want to make sure— wait, it looks like we're 11 minutes over. So I want to make sure we—

I didn't mind. I enjoyed the conversation. I do want to tell some people about some stuff. Yeah, tell them, please. So we've started this new thing called the Black Swan Negotiation Community, and you go to our website and find it. And it really is an across-the-board Amazon, one-stop shopping for where you are in your negotiation journey. If you can't afford anything, come into the community because membership is free and get started getting a return on the investment of your time in terms of dollars. So, you know, get started on your journey. Any incremental change could be monumental very quickly.

Awesome. Well, Chris, thank you so, so much for coming on. Also for, I don't know, all the content that you've put out over the years. I've always picked and picked and chewed on different little bits of it, especially whenever I was in the process of either raising money or selling my company. It was these very brief periods of time, maybe 3 weeks, 4 weeks, 6, 6 weeks where the value of my years of effort would swing by 50% depending on how good I was at negotiating and understanding. You know, the other side and being able to find a mutually beneficial deal. So it's one of these arts where it can make a really big difference in a very small amount of time being, you know, the difference between being bad at it versus good at it versus great at it. And so I appreciate you coming on and helping us be a little better at it today.

It was a pleasure. I enjoyed the conversation.