0
SPEAKER_01
This is the art of charm.
0
SPEAKER_01
Learn everything you need to know to crush it in business, love, and life.
0
SPEAKER_01
Welcome to the Art of Charm.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
0
SPEAKER_01
Today we re talking with Chris Voss, author of Never Split the Difference.
0
SPEAKER_01
He s a former FBI hostage and kidnapping negotiator.
0
SPEAKER_01
We re gonna talk about kidnapping and hostage negotiation, complete with stories to illustrate his points, negotiation and emotional persuasion, three types of negotiators you ll encounter and how to size them up, of course, how to influence how other people size you up, and diffusing negative emotions, generating rapport in difficult situations,
0
SPEAKER_01
all this and much more in this episode of the show.
0
SPEAKER_01
And with that, welcome to the Art of Charm.
0
SPEAKER_01
We bring together the best thought leaders, teachers, and exceptional individuals to teach you how to be a top performer in life, love, and at work.
0
SPEAKER_01
If you re new to the show, we d love to send you some top episodes and the toolbox where we discuss body language, nonverbal communication, networking, persuasion, negotiation, and everything else we teach here at AOC.
0
SPEAKER_01
In the US, just text charmed to 33444, that s C-H-A-R-M-E-D,
0
SPEAKER_01
to 33444.
0
SPEAKER_01
Everywhere else, go to theartofcharm.com.
0
SPEAKER_01
We may not have all the answers, but we definitely have all the right questions.
0
SPEAKER_01
All right, here s Chris Voss.
0
SPEAKER_00
Chris, tell us what you do in one sentence.
0
SPEAKER_00
I advise people how to be more effective negotiators using hostage negotiation techniques.
0
SPEAKER_01
Right, so you re a former kidnapping negotiator with the FBI, or do you still do that?
0
SPEAKER_00
No, I don t really do that anymore.
0
SPEAKER_00
I left the FBI in 2007.
0
SPEAKER_00
Occasional random call on a kidnapping, but my involvement never lasts very long.
0
SPEAKER_01
How did you get interested in negotiation, especially hostage negotiation and kidnapping?
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, I was a SWAT guy and I had a recurring knee injury and I decided before I totally blew my knee out doing SWAT stuff, I d do something else on crisis response.
0
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, I naively thought, negotiators, they talk, I could talk, I could do that.
0
SPEAKER_00
I just wanted to stay involved in a game of crisis response, and that s how I got into hostage negotiations.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of funny, it s like, well, my knee hurts, so maybe I ll talk people down from killing hostages.
0
SPEAKER_01
It seems like there s a jump there that maybe we re not getting full grip on that.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you know, I don t know entirely what it was.
0
SPEAKER_00
Talking to people, I was always fascinated with it.
0
SPEAKER_00
As a cop, a police officer could walk into a situation with his words, change everything.
0
SPEAKER_00
even walk in and say things while other cops are standing around trying to get things done and not being able to affect it.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know, I always loved doing that.
0
SPEAKER_00
I always loved having an impact with words that just totally changed the situation immediately.
0
SPEAKER_00
So I think I was always inclined towards that.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I was into SWAT.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was slated to go to the SWAT team when I was a police officer.
0
SPEAKER_00
I got the FBI job just before that happened.
0
SPEAKER_00
I enjoyed SWAT.
0
SPEAKER_00
As exciting as SWAT sounds,
0
SPEAKER_00
I didn t realize the reality of it at the time was the SWAT guy standing around waiting for the negotiators to do their job.
0
SPEAKER_00
So, you know, the other thing about being a hostage negotiator is
0
SPEAKER_00
You go to the scene and you work and the SWAT guys watch.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know, SWAT guys may be in one shootout in his entire career and I worked 150 kidnappings in my entire career.
0
SPEAKER_00
So it got much more involved.
0
SPEAKER_00
But the jump probably was I was looking for something to supplement what I was doing while I was investigating terrorism full time.
0
SPEAKER_00
If you can imagine looking for something to moonlight while you re investigating terrorists.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I can t imagine what you would end up doing that would be as exciting.
0
SPEAKER_01
Well, maybe you don t want something exciting.
0
SPEAKER_01
Maybe you want something very unexciting when your day job is negotiating with terrorists and crazy people who are holding people in banks and things like that.
0
SPEAKER_01
When I was in law school, we did some negotiation exercises, and when I became an attorney, we did some actual negotiating, and you get a little nervous beforehand.
0
SPEAKER_01
You know that little fight or flight?
0
SPEAKER_01
You get that, like, okay, it s game time now.
0
SPEAKER_01
Do you get that?
0
SPEAKER_01
when you re negotiating kidnapping and things like that, or does that go away after a while?
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, I got it in a good way on kidnappings.
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I got to the point on kidnappings that I just, I had it cold.
0
SPEAKER_00
I knew that in any given kidnapping, there s only four or five ways they could possibly go.
0
SPEAKER_00
I got a strategy for every single one of them, and I couldn t wait to get into it because
0
SPEAKER_00
it was very satisfying helping people and actually making a difference in the darkest moments of their lives.
0
SPEAKER_00
So I was into it in a good way.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it seems like you re kind of the lifeline for a lot of these families and just anybody for the whole state or for the whole country, depending on who you re representing at that time.
0
SPEAKER_01
And in the book, Never Split the Difference, you ve got a lot of different techniques that you use.
0
SPEAKER_01
And it s funny because in the beginning, you re talking with, I guess, these Harvard negotiation faculty members that are thinking,
0
SPEAKER_01
What s this cop doing here?
0
SPEAKER_01
We ve studied this.
0
SPEAKER_01
What are you going to teach us?
0
SPEAKER_01
Tell us about that experience.
0
SPEAKER_00
When I was a hostage negotiator for the FBI, that business card was a great entree.
0
SPEAKER_00
All I had to do was hand somebody my business card, they would politely look at it, and then suddenly the look that would come across their face when they realized what they were reading, it was pretty easy to get places and get into conversations.
0
SPEAKER_00
And that s how I got into the Harvard guys.
0
SPEAKER_00
I got my boss to pay for some executive ed training up there, just three days of training.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was really more interested in going up there and handing him my business card.
0
SPEAKER_00
I waited until Bob Mnookin came by, the head of the program, and you know, I kind of stopped him and said, hey, you know, I can introduce myself and hand him the card and wait for it to work its magic, which it did.
0
SPEAKER_00
And we started talking, he walked me around, and those guys are always kind of interested.
0
SPEAKER_00
They re like, you know, so if I was a kidnapper, what would you say?
0
SPEAKER_00
I said, well, you know, I m just gonna ask you open-ended questions.
0
SPEAKER_00
Now I realize that that answer kind of lulls people to sleep because I had learned some really just devastatingly show-stopping open-ended questions.
0
SPEAKER_00
I know the one that I d been using for a while that stopped every terrorist and every kidnapper in their tracks on a planet.
0
SPEAKER_00
So I realize that this is a little bit of a lure when I say open-ended question.
0
SPEAKER_00
It sounds boring and he kind of went, really?
0
SPEAKER_00
That s what you re going to, you re going to ask me open-ended questions?
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean, yeah, it s pretty simple.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s not that much that I ask you some open-ended questions.
0
SPEAKER_00
He couldn t wait to try me out.
0
SPEAKER_00
He s a good guy.
0
SPEAKER_00
I just knew I was going to catch him off guard because the ultimate way to say no in the entire world is just kindly, calmly with the late night FM DJ voice just to say, how am I supposed to do that?
0
SPEAKER_00
He said, Chris, we got your son.
0
SPEAKER_00
We need a million dollars.
0
SPEAKER_00
We re going to kill him in the morning.
0
SPEAKER_00
Don t give us the money.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I said, how am I supposed to do that?
0
SPEAKER_00
And he just, it was great.
0
SPEAKER_00
He just, he kind of blinked.
0
SPEAKER_00
He didn t know how to react.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know, we were off to the races.
0
SPEAKER_00
So that was the beginning of a great relationship with a lot of really smart people up there that I really enjoy.
0
SPEAKER_01
And open-ended questions are interesting because essentially these are queries that by time they can have a wide range of answers.
0
SPEAKER_01
They re the opposite of closed-ended questions, which are things that can be answered with yes or no, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and a real short answer is
0
SPEAKER_00
But the how question is a killer question.
0
SPEAKER_00
What I learned in hostage negotiation and getting the same leverage in a business deal, there s great power in deference.
0
SPEAKER_00
And from a deferential approach, it s ridiculous how assertive you can get away with.
0
SPEAKER_00
The other side is never going to see it coming.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s a real stealth weapon.
0
SPEAKER_00
and especially a well phrased opening to question, what I do with that is I shift the burden of the entire situation over onto whoever I m talking to.
0
SPEAKER_00
And not only do they not feel what I ve just weighed them down with, you know, they feel empowered because people love to be asked how.
0
SPEAKER_00
They think it gives them an opportunity to show how smart they are, and it s amazing what it does.
0
SPEAKER_00
And so, to say it s an open-ended question that can be answered with more than a yes or no is really to sort of under-describe the power of the dynamic.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I like the how question, especially in the book as you describe it, because it s the magic sword of open-ended questions.
0
SPEAKER_01
You re right.
0
SPEAKER_01
Just saying, oh, it s something that can be answered, can t be answered with yes or no, is an under-description.
0
SPEAKER_01
The open-ended question, especially the how do I get the money, how do I do this, you tell stories in the book about, I wanna say this one was in the Philippines, maybe Nicaragua or Ecuador or El Salvador.
0
SPEAKER_01
but there was a story in which this guy who was an American had gone down there, he grew up there, he decided to be a tour guide, he got kidnapped, and the negotiator who was in the city ended up having to move back to the jungle where the hostage was, which is how you tracked him, because you kept using these open-ended questions.
0
SPEAKER_01
Can you tell that story?
0
SPEAKER_01
You re gonna do a better job than me.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, sure.
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean, the first case where we really tried, we made the shift from the classic proof of life question, which you see in Man on Fire and every other movie, which is basically your bank security question.
0
SPEAKER_00
You know, what s the name of Chris s first dog?
0
SPEAKER_00
Or, you know, what was the high school you went to?
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that just doesn t get you that far.
0
SPEAKER_00
And so I finally decided that we were just going to make a shift and we re going to go to how do we know so-and-so s alive?
0
SPEAKER_00
We ve got this kidnapping in Ecuador, Jose Escobar, Pepe Escobar, who s a friend of mine to this day.
0
SPEAKER_00
and he s a phenomenal human being.
0
SPEAKER_00
And we decided to make this shift, and I m checking with all my guys in my inner circle, and I said, we re gonna change abruptly here in what we re doing.
0
SPEAKER_00
And the guys I worked with at the crisis negotiation unit at the time, I mean, at that time I was very lucky.
0
SPEAKER_00
We were the brain trust of literally the collection of the best hostage negotiators on the planet.
0
SPEAKER_00
So if I bounced stuff off them and they said that I was on the right track, I knew that I was.
0
SPEAKER_00
We decided to shift this into this case,
1
SPEAKER_01
Ecuador was like no warning to anybody.
1
SPEAKER_01
I sent my negotiators down there.
1
SPEAKER_01
I said, this is what we re going to do.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is a strategy.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they re a little rattled by it because it s new.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I say, look, do what I tell you to do.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they were good with that because I knew him for a long time.
1
SPEAKER_01
But Ecuadorian, the gala down in Ecuador, I mean, they didn t like it at all.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we went through this and we didn t find out till after the fact.
1
SPEAKER_01
until I debriefed Pepe at his home in upstate New York.
1
SPEAKER_01
I said, hey, you know, we kept asking this Howard question.
1
SPEAKER_01
He says, you know, that was really crazy because their negotiator, who was supposed to stay in town until he had the deal cut, he kept coming back out to the jungle and saying, you know, these guys are asking me this question.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t know how to deal with it.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is what I m telling them.
1
SPEAKER_01
Am I okay?
1
SPEAKER_01
And it just caused an entire series of meetings of the kidnappers
1
SPEAKER_01
to get behind one strategy that they never would have had ever.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that s when I realized that the how question causes a unification on the other side.
1
SPEAKER_01
You just got to be persistent with it and stick with it and not get rattled.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that s what deference does.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they re going to get concerned and they re all going to get together and reunify the team on the other side.
1
SPEAKER_01
That was the first time in any kidnapping that we d ever worked, ever, where we had caused that much coordinated effort that we wanted to have caused on the other side.
1
SPEAKER_01
It lined up with our goals.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that s when I knew that the how question was just monstrously powerful.
1
SPEAKER_02
How do we use this in everyday life?
1
SPEAKER_02
For example, most of us are not going to be negotiating with terrorists, crazy kidnappers.
1
SPEAKER_02
How do we work these types of things with normal people?
1
SPEAKER_01
That s a great question, and I had come to learn in kidnappings that there s always a team on the other side.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I ve come to learn in business negotiations, there s always a team on the other side.
1
SPEAKER_01
We were competing for some training with a multinational communications carrier recently, who s trying to get better at negotiation.
1
SPEAKER_01
We found out from them that fully 50% of their deals that get killed, get killed internally.
1
SPEAKER_01
In every business deal, there s always a team on the other side, and there are always people
1
SPEAKER_01
away from the table on the other side that are looking to lay back and snipe your deals.
1
SPEAKER_01
They wanna kill those deals because they re not involved in the negotiations.
1
SPEAKER_01
They re mad that they ve got no influence on the guys at the table.
1
SPEAKER_01
So the first chance they get, they re gonna kill that deal when it comes back to the company.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now the only way to beat that dynamic is exactly the way we beat the terrorists.
1
SPEAKER_01
Asking the how question, and some of it might even be proof of life for your deal.
1
SPEAKER_01
How do we know the rest of your company s on board with you?
1
SPEAKER_01
How do we know that this fits into your company s internal goals?
1
SPEAKER_01
How do the people who are going to implement this deal, how do they see this deal?
1
SPEAKER_01
Innocently asking these questions, your negotiator, just like our guy, just like our kidnapper in Ecuador, he s going to answer those questions or she s going to answer them.
1
SPEAKER_01
But just like our guy in Ecuador, they re going to be concerned if they have to answer them four or five times that they might be climbing out on a limb all by themselves.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they re going to go back to their team and they re going to ask the same question.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is what I m being asked.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, am I on the right track here?
1
SPEAKER_01
Are we unified?
1
SPEAKER_01
Proof of life of your deal in a business is every bit as important as proof of life of a hostage and a kidnapping.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s just a different commodity.
1
SPEAKER_02
Negotiation used to be this rational, logical, kind of getting to yes type of structure.
1
SPEAKER_02
And it looks like early in the book, you re taking feeling into account, and you noticed over time, especially with events like Waco, Texas, and things like that, the Branch Davidian takedown, trying to negotiate without knowing how to take feeling into account, you said, is like trying to make an omelet without knowing how to crack an egg.
1
SPEAKER_02
So why this transition to emotions and to emotional persuasion, I guess, in negotiation?
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, you know, that s a great point.
1
SPEAKER_01
You said negotiation used to be this logical, rational, getting to yes.
1
SPEAKER_02
Like bargaining, right?
1
SPEAKER_02
This rational bargaining.
1
SPEAKER_02
I give you this, you give me that.
1
SPEAKER_02
Thanks, okay, that s fair, bye.
1
SPEAKER_02
That kind of thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
And did we ever live in that world?
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t know that we ever did.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, we tried to.
1
SPEAKER_01
I ve read getting to yes, I bought getting to yes.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s still one of the best selling negotiation books on the planet.
1
SPEAKER_01
I ve never had anybody say to me, wow, I read Getting T.S.
1
SPEAKER_01
and immediately began to apply the principles that made a difference in my deal.
1
SPEAKER_01
Getting T.S.
1
SPEAKER_01
is like trying to learn the English language by reading the dictionary.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s technically nothing flawed about it.
1
SPEAKER_01
You go, well, how do I use this?
1
SPEAKER_01
What am I gonna do with this?
1
SPEAKER_01
When were human beings ever logical and rational?
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, there s this funny skit that somebody found for me on Star Trek, because I was telling them that, you know, there s this line that Spock says, you know, logic is a butterfly flying in the breeze.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it just doesn t exist.
1
SPEAKER_01
We wish it did.
1
SPEAKER_01
But the reality that we ve come to show now that they re actually putting wires in people s brains on brain science and scanning their brains, they re showing that every single decision is made based on what we care about.
1
SPEAKER_01
which by definition, as much as we hate it, and some people just tear their hair out over this, every decision is an emotion-based decision.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the people that are tearing their hair out of it are actually proving the point.
1
SPEAKER_01
Those that wanna argue it most are the ones that are the most passionate slash emotional about their decisions.
1
SPEAKER_01
And even my hostage negotiators, I d have them read Getting to Yes, and they d go, wow, this makes a lot of sense.
1
SPEAKER_01
Why can t I do it?
1
SPEAKER_01
So.
1
SPEAKER_02
Right, why doesn t it work, yeah.
1
SPEAKER_02
I guess if emotionally driven incidents like hostage takings were normal, you gotta focus on that.
1
SPEAKER_02
You can t focus on the rational actors in a business.
1
SPEAKER_02
And then we start to see the non-rational actors in business, like you mentioned earlier, the guy who didn t have influence over the deal who says, huh, this is somehow an affront to my ego, so I m going to squash this, even though it s a good deal for us.
1
SPEAKER_02
and it looks like what you discovered is that the emotional element is important regardless of whether or not you re negotiating in business or you re negotiating with terrorists or kidnappers.
1
SPEAKER_02
It s just that s always the underlying language is that of emotion.
1
SPEAKER_02
Is that correct?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the underlying language is always that of emotion.
1
SPEAKER_01
The selfishness of what s in it for me.
1
SPEAKER_01
Not necessarily what s in it for a company and what s in it for me at the moment because I gave a talk last night where
1
SPEAKER_01
Somebody pointed out, like, you don t know if the guy you re talking to across the table, his wife was screaming at him early this morning because he s not advancing fast enough.
1
SPEAKER_01
So he feels extra pressure to pay for that car that she wants.
1
SPEAKER_01
Or, you know, the boss yelled at him.
1
SPEAKER_01
The company s doing fantastic, but he hasn t closed the deal in a month and he s falling behind on his quotas.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, you just don t know what sort of
1
SPEAKER_01
pressure the guy on the other side of the table is under, no matter how unified they may look on the surface.
1
SPEAKER_01
So there s always an emotional element.
1
SPEAKER_01
A friend of mine, an international banker, phenomenal guy, one of the most intelligently smart people, emotionally intelligent people I ve ever met in my life.
1
SPEAKER_01
In his international banking role, his bank takes over a company in Korea.
1
SPEAKER_01
He s as American as it gets.
1
SPEAKER_01
He comes across as an American no matter what, so people are worried, what s an American going to do with our company?
1
SPEAKER_01
His first slide to the employees in his PowerPoint presentation, he had the title translated
1
SPEAKER_01
from English into Korean, and it said, what s in it for me?
1
SPEAKER_01
And as soon as he showed that to all these Koreans, they broke into applause.
1
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t matter who we are or where we re at.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, the emotional aspects of what s in it for me is a driving influence on all our decision-making.
1
SPEAKER_02
So we see negotiation as communication with results, or applied people smarts.
1
SPEAKER_02
How do you size someone up and get a feel for what their emotional biases might be on their side?
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, sizing people up, it s a great thing to do, it s a great challenge, and it s where the delay to save time comes into, because we re all under time pressure in business, and we wanna get the deal done quickly, which is gonna cause people to size people up too fast.
1
SPEAKER_01
The other person s tone of voice is gonna give you a lot of clues right off the bat.
1
SPEAKER_01
The guy who naturally speaks with almost what we call a late night FM DJ voice probably sounds a little bit more like the Assassin s voice.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, this is the highly analytical guy.
1
SPEAKER_01
These guys come off, their tone of voice is being very cold and distant.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, very distant.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they re not, and they actually have no idea they re coming off that distant.
1
SPEAKER_01
But these are really analytical people, which means you ask this guy, gal, a question, they re not going to want to give you an answer until they ve thought it completely through, and that s going to take at least 48 hours.
1
SPEAKER_01
So the tone of voice is an initial clue.
1
SPEAKER_01
No one other than an analytical person is going to talk in that kind of voice consistently.
1
SPEAKER_01
Although many of the analysts come to learn that a friendly voice makes for better deals, they re going to learn to act very friendly.
1
SPEAKER_00
Hey, Art of Charm listeners, I m excited to share a new podcast I ve been absolutely binging.
1
SPEAKER_00
Winning is an everyday mindset, and Craig Robinson and John Calipari are here to help.
1
SPEAKER_00
On Ways to Win podcast, Craig and Coach Cal use their on-court wisdom to solve your off-court problems.
1
SPEAKER_00
Whether it s trouble at home or a workplace dilemma, the coaches will help you find a winning formula for success.
1
SPEAKER_00
You ll hear from prominent athletes, business leaders, and celebrities who reveal insights that made them into the leaders they are today.
1
SPEAKER_00
And don t miss President Obama sharing how he deals with pressure by projecting confidence, believing in your team, and taking criticism.
1
SPEAKER_00
Listen to
2
SPEAKER_01
ways to win wherever you get your podcasts.
2
SPEAKER_02
Over the last 17 years, we have launched our fair share of online courses, coaching programs, and finding the right platform has always been a challenge.
2
SPEAKER_01
They say if you do what you love, you never work a day in your life.
2
SPEAKER_01
But if you re an entrepreneur, you know the hard work that comes with it.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s why you need Kajabi.
2
SPEAKER_01
Kajabi makes it easy to run your entire online business from one platform so you can focus on what you love, creating.
2
SPEAKER_02
Kajabi is the ultimate all-in-one platform that helps creators and entrepreneurs build successful online businesses by unlocking predictable recurring revenue.
2
SPEAKER_01
No matter your niche, Kajabi makes it easy to turn your skills, passions, and experiences into enriching online courses, exclusive membership sites, subscription podcasts, thriving communities, personalized coaching, and more.
2
SPEAKER_02
The best part, Kajabi doesn t cut into your revenue because everything is owned and controlled by you.
2
SPEAKER_02
So keep 100% of what you earn.
2
SPEAKER_01
And with Kajabi, you also get robust analytics, easy payment options, email marketing tools, and customizable website templates, all built in.
2
SPEAKER_02
You don t even need a huge audience to make sustainable income.
2
SPEAKER_02
There are thousands of creators on Kajabi making six and seven figures with less than 50,000 followers.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right now, Kajabi is offering a free 30-day trial to start your business.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you go to kajabi.com slash charm, that s K-A-J-A-B-I.com slash charm.
2
SPEAKER_02
Go to kajabi.com slash charm and join the creators and entrepreneurs who have made over $7 billion.
2
SPEAKER_03
that s an analytical type of person, so they have that type of voice, they might lay on a layer of friendliness, but are there multiple types of negotiators that we re gonna encounter?
2
SPEAKER_00
We believe there s three types, and we ve got the data to back it up.
2
SPEAKER_00
One of those types is the analyst.
2
SPEAKER_00
The second type is the assertive, who s very direct.
2
SPEAKER_00
Donald Trump, assertive, shocking.
2
SPEAKER_00
Then there s the person we refer to as the accommodator, who s friend-oriented, very relationship-oriented.
2
SPEAKER_00
And really, these three types are
2
SPEAKER_00
breakdown of the caveman type, you know, because it s coming from our amygdala, some people refer to as the caveman brain or the reptile brain.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the caveman walking down the jungle path way back when he encountered something alive, he had one of three thoughts.
2
SPEAKER_00
Can I kill it and eat it?
2
SPEAKER_00
Is it going to kill me?
2
SPEAKER_00
Can I mate with it?
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, those are the three basic instinctive responses.
2
SPEAKER_00
Do I make friends with it?
2
SPEAKER_00
Does it kill me?
2
SPEAKER_00
Do I kill it?
2
SPEAKER_00
If it s going to kill me, do I have to get away from it?
2
SPEAKER_00
So those are the three types.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s in any instant where all our thinking starts is in the amygdala and then goes into our rational brain and we come up with reasons that back up our gut instincts.
2
SPEAKER_00
And yeah, those are the three types.
2
SPEAKER_00
The world splits pretty evenly into thirds.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I ve taught Chinese Development Bank personnel and I ve taught Colombians and I ve taught Nigerians and I ve taught Iraqis.
2
SPEAKER_00
and I sit back and I look at them, the group always splits pretty evenly into thirds.
2
SPEAKER_00
So the bad news for us as human beings, and that is, is that two out of three people we encounter are gonna be different than we are.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you ve gotta adjust for type.
2
SPEAKER_03
Once we ve figured out that there are these three types, what do we look for in each of these three types of people, and then how do we negotiate with each of these three different types?
2
SPEAKER_00
Great, great question, perfect.
2
SPEAKER_00
So the first thing is, it s gonna come up most at impasse,
2
SPEAKER_00
and it s gonna evidence itself principally, the first thing it s gonna be in the view of the use of time.
2
SPEAKER_00
An analyst is always gonna think this is gonna take longer than anybody imagines, so they tend to be very, very patient, because they expect it to take a long time.
2
SPEAKER_00
The assertive is time is money.
2
SPEAKER_00
I need to get this done now.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they re in a big hurry.
2
SPEAKER_00
The analysts actually have kind of a secret joke about assertives.
2
SPEAKER_00
They like to say, you know, why take the time to get it done right when we can do it wrong now?
2
SPEAKER_00
That s their view of an assertive.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then the accommodator feels, you know, as long as you and I are enjoying each other s company, it s a great use of our time, and it doesn t matter if we get anything done, because the relationship is much more important.
2
SPEAKER_00
So what we do with that is, the first thing is just be willing to take a step back first, and a step back usually only takes three seconds.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s interesting data that actually indicates that a moment, if you will, is three seconds long.
2
SPEAKER_00
And in three seconds, you can get a good feel for the type, and then if you just adjust a little bit to resonate with them,
2
SPEAKER_00
And of the nine negotiation skills that we like, because we pulled the types consistently across the board, all three types like what we refer to as label.
2
SPEAKER_00
It tend to be drawn toward them they want to interact and they want to be more productive and a label is just it seems like something about this is bothering or it seems like you re concerned about this or even if i know you don t like me i ll say it seems like i ve been overly harsh it s gonna draw the other side much more quickly into the conversation into a productive conversation and then i can have their guard up and you can move much more quick.
2
SPEAKER_03
Right, so we draw people out so that the label makes sense, right?
2
SPEAKER_03
It s almost like if you re living with your wife or your girlfriend and she s being really quiet or she s shutting doors to the refrigerator just that much harder, instead of ignoring it and hoping it goes away, most of us guys know to say, it seems like you re angry about something.
2
SPEAKER_03
and just get it done, get it out, don t let it boil over the next 72 hours, because that s gonna be a lot worse, right?
2
SPEAKER_03
I m not just saying women are like that, I mean, everybody I know has that, myself included, where when people say something like, it seems like you re frustrated with this, I feel instantly better because it s then okay to discuss that, it s not a taboo topic, I feel like the steam valve is just releasing a lot of the pressure, and I can imagine pressure builds up a ton,
2
SPEAKER_03
in not only negotiation, but especially in kidnapping or hostage negotiation or high stakes with millions and millions of dollars or with a company in which you have equity.
2
SPEAKER_03
Those types of high stakes negotiations, that pressure must build up really, really fast.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you re right.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a great relief valve.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s different from venting.
2
SPEAKER_00
I actually don t like venting.
2
SPEAKER_00
but you do have to relieve the pressure, and there s an old saying, you know, unexpressed feelings never die, and whether it s business or hostage negotiation, people harbor feelings, I mean, people harbor feelings in business interactions, and they hold on to them, and they will wait forever to pay somebody back, and they will never let it go until they get a chance to pay somebody back, and that s why leaving negative feelings in a business deal are just absolute killers, because if they can t pay you back, they re gonna trash your reputation.
2
SPEAKER_03
We know how to size other people up.
2
SPEAKER_03
We know what to look for with the aggressive, the accommodator, and the analytical.
2
SPEAKER_03
Is there any advantage to influencing how other people size us up?
2
SPEAKER_03
Do other people do this consciously or subconsciously, and is there any advantage to maybe pretending to be one type while really being another, or is this a purely cooperative negotiation?
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, you know, I don t think you want to change your default type because there are advantages to each default type.
2
SPEAKER_00
As you get better at negotiation, you began to see what other types are good at and you want to add those skills.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, there s the old saying, you know, what got you here won t get you there.
2
SPEAKER_00
We try to counsel people, you know, that there are elements of the analyst that are really good and you want to know what s good and you want to know what the companion skills are from the accommodator that you want to add to your skill set.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the assertive, you know, you need to be assertive with what you need.
2
SPEAKER_00
Otherwise, if you don t get what you need out of a deal, you re not going to perform, the deal is going to fall apart.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you have to be able to assert on your behalf, just not in the blunt, aggressive way that, you know, we ascribe, unfortunately, or fortunately to Donald Trump.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I have great respect for Donald Trump and his abilities to get things done.
2
SPEAKER_00
and I got no problem with being assertive.
2
SPEAKER_00
I just want to be nicer about it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then your deals stick.
2
SPEAKER_00
People want to cooperate.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s about adding the positives of the other skill sets.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, I don t like deception in negotiation.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t like lying.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, as a hostage negotiator, I always had a phrase, you know, don t lie to anybody that you re not going to kill.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they asked me about that at Harvard Law School.
2
SPEAKER_00
They thought that was really funny because they realized that, you know, as an FBI hostage negotiator, that s what I actually meant.
2
SPEAKER_00
But they worked very hard at the Harvard Law School when I taught negotiation there.
2
SPEAKER_00
Getting people to understand that lying, deception is a bad idea.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a bad long-term strategy.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re going to pay for it.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I don t believe in trying to be something you re not.
2
SPEAKER_00
I do believe in respecting where the other person is coming from, and I don t see that as being exactly the same thing.
2
SPEAKER_03
No, I definitely see the difference there.
2
SPEAKER_03
And just to be clear, the reason that we never lie to somebody that we re not going to kill is precisely because that person will never trust us moving forward.
2
SPEAKER_03
We ve permanently damaged the relationship, but if you re gonna kill them and they re dead, it doesn t really matter what their opinion is of you and whether or not they trust you, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s true, but I would always put the follow-on after that.
2
SPEAKER_00
But even if you kill them, people they know are gonna find out about it, and you re gonna pay for it anyway.
2
SPEAKER_00
Deception is a bad idea.
2
SPEAKER_00
I met a panel at a conference at Harvard several years ago, and some of the professors, all right, so let s give you a hypothetical.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s a terrorist that has a nuclear bomb, and you know that if you lie to him, that you could probably get the nuclear bomb defused, and you re gonna save the whole city.
2
SPEAKER_00
Will you lie to him?
2
SPEAKER_00
And my answer was no, because number one, he s probably a better liar than I am anyway, and lying to him is a trap that he s trying to lure me into.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s probably just a test.
2
SPEAKER_00
And secondarily, there s a really good chance he s going to find out before I get that bomb defused that it s going to go
3
SPEAKER_00
They go off anyway, so lying is just bad.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can t paint a scenario to me where I m gonna like lying.
3
SPEAKER_00
This makes sense actually.
3
SPEAKER_00
So no matter what you do, lying is gonna burn you.
3
SPEAKER_00
Is this something that you never do unless it s your absolute last option and the choice is kill the hostage taker or lose a hostage or two, that s the only time that you actually use deception?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you know, I would equate lying to dropping a nuclear bomb.
3
SPEAKER_01
No matter how righteous the reason for that is,
3
SPEAKER_01
you re gonna have to realize that there s gonna be radioactive fallout that you have to deal with for a very long time to come, and your game better be worth that long-term radioactive fallout, because it is not going away.
3
SPEAKER_00
Tell us about the New York bank robbery at Chase.
3
SPEAKER_00
This was an interesting story that encompassed a lot of the techniques that you use.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the bank robbery with hostages at the Chase Bank
3
SPEAKER_01
A number of cool things about that, and one of them is that even though bank robberies with hostages happen in the movies all the time, they happen in the entire country, the whole country, maybe once every 20 years.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I was, you know, the universe lined up for me to be able to negotiate a bank robbery with hostages.
3
SPEAKER_01
You really look forward to this stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is the Super Bowl for you, somehow.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, it really is.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was the Super Bowl, and if you re gonna play in the pros, you wanna play in the Super Bowl, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, if you decide to make that decision, you wanna get in that game.
3
SPEAKER_00
What s interesting, though, for you is it s not actually the Super Bowl where you got months lining up, you re strategizing, you re working on everything, everything s at peak.
3
SPEAKER_00
You wake up like any other day, you didn t get enough sleep, you stayed up late watching the hockey game, you get up, you didn t have time to get coffee, and then, da-da-da, Super Bowl, right in your face, instantly zero warning.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s how this stuff crops up for you.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you re right.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you go from zero to 100 miles an hour in probably about 60 seconds.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was an amazing situation.
3
SPEAKER_01
And actually, the day that it happened, I was waiting to do an interview with another guy that we d been waiting for to interview for quite a while.
3
SPEAKER_01
And Charlie Baldwin, a phenomenal hostage negotiator I worked with in New York, comes up to my desk.
3
SPEAKER_01
He says, man, there s a bank robbery with hostages in Brooklyn.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s go.
3
SPEAKER_01
I didn t hesitate.
3
SPEAKER_01
We jumped in his car and went.
3
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, we expect the guy to be rattled, trapped in a bank, you know, surrounded by the seventh largest standing army in the world, which is NYPD.
3
SPEAKER_01
And this guy gets on a phone and he is as calm and rational as you could possibly be.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he did something, it taught me a great lesson, which is actually a great trait of very powerful business negotiators worldwide.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think Adam Grant probably wrote a piece about this recently that I read that said, you know, the most powerful negotiators in business will always use plural pronouns because they re trying to hide their influence on their side.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if you re talking to somebody on the other side of the table who s in love with a singular pronoun, the I, me, my, this is what I want, this is how I want to do it, that guy has no influence on his side of the table.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of like going into one of the top bars in your entire city and the bartender says, well, this is what I had behind the bar, and he just got the job that day.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not his bar, but he s trying to show that he s in charge.
3
SPEAKER_00
So people that use we are more in charge?
3
SPEAKER_00
Why does this conversely play out for us?
3
SPEAKER_01
The more influence somebody has with their team, the more they will use plural pronouns, the more they will say we, they, and them, because they know they have influence and they don t want to be cornered at the table.
3
SPEAKER_01
And they are the masters at deferring to the guy not in the room.
3
SPEAKER_01
And they ve learned the hard way that if they accept the amount of decision-making responsibility that they have and influence, everybody in business wants to get past the blockers to the decision-maker.
3
SPEAKER_01
And decision-makers know this.
3
SPEAKER_01
So if they come to the table, they have to hide
3
SPEAKER_01
And the best way they can do that is say, you know, I gotta run this by other people, we got all these other people on my side of the table.
3
SPEAKER_01
Man, the more that guy or gal lays it off the people behind him, the more important that person is.
3
SPEAKER_00
So this is what this person was doing on the phone.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when you listen to a hostage taker on the phone, what are you listening for specifically, besides the pronouns?
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, we start out, first we re listening for emotions.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because I m expecting a guy who s rattled, you know, he doesn t want to get his head blown off by a sniper.
3
SPEAKER_01
No way did this guy plan on getting stuck inside this bank with 50 caliber rifles pointed at him.
3
SPEAKER_01
So he should be concerned for his life.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the moment he shows any sort of emotional concern, that s a thread that I m going to glom onto and I m going to pull it out.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we get on the phone with this guy.
3
SPEAKER_01
And he says, well, you know, there are all these other people with me, and I don t know what they re gonna do, and these other guys, they are so much more dangerous than I am, and here comes one of them right now.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let me put you on hold, because they re gonna overhear what I m saying.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, this guy was the master of deferring and deflecting, and we found out after the fact that he had lined up the whole bank robbery and manipulated everybody, and actually, some of the people that were involved in a bank robbery
3
SPEAKER_01
thought that they just went out to rob a cash machine that day.
3
SPEAKER_01
They didn t even know they were gonna go in the bank and try and get involved.
3
SPEAKER_01
He was a master manipulator, and he did that by a number of things, by making himself look deferential and not in charge, and he was really great at maneuvering people like that, and it initially threw us off at the beginning.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you got a bank robber in there who brought a bunch of accomplices with him who didn t even know that they were going to be taking hostages that day.
3
SPEAKER_00
They thought they were doing basically some really ghetto kind of grand theft larceny where they were gonna grab a cash machine and jackhammer the thing open or crowbar the thing open or throw it in a truck and that was it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Then they end up in a bank with, like you said, the seventh largest standing army in the world surrounding him.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now you re on the phone with this guy.
3
SPEAKER_00
You ve got multiple people on the phone, and you re listening for different types of emotion.
3
SPEAKER_00
Why are there so many people on the phone talking, and what else are you listening for?
3
SPEAKER_01
There s so much intercommunication, actually.
3
SPEAKER_01
One person can t hear everything by themselves, let alone if they have to talk also.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I ve been in business negotiations with my colleagues
3
SPEAKER_01
When we went on a break and I was doing most of the talking and they said, wow, you know, the other side brought up this point.
3
SPEAKER_01
I can t believe you didn t say this.
3
SPEAKER_01
I ve looked at him and said, I have no memory of them saying that because I was busy thinking about what I was going to say next.
3
SPEAKER_01
And when you re thinking about what you re going to say, you don t hear what the other side is saying.
3
SPEAKER_01
So you miss a lot when you re by yourself, which is why now we always negotiate important deals with wingmen, if you will.
3
SPEAKER_01
And typically I prefer having somebody else on my side, on my team in a business deal doing the talking so that I can do the listening and I can do the assessment.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s the same way in a hostage negotiation.
3
SPEAKER_01
We ve got up to seven people listening to everything that s being said on the other side because you can break down use of personal pronouns.
3
SPEAKER_01
You can break down adjectives of choice.
3
SPEAKER_01
You can break down the tip of the iceberg of the adjectives, you know, what really matters to them, what they re most emotional about, depending upon the specific adjectives that they use.
3
SPEAKER_01
You can break down whether or not they re using profanity, whether or not they re using cliches.
3
SPEAKER_01
You can break down how long they speak to you, how long your conversation is, and how long they go for a break.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, there s so many different ways you can break down communication.
3
SPEAKER_01
If you got somebody watching body language, actually there s more information coming off their body language
3
SPEAKER_01
than is coming off from the words that they say.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you wanna see how the body language lines up with the words.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we do that a lot at AOC boot camps.
3
SPEAKER_00
Congruence, does the body match what they re saying?
3
SPEAKER_00
Does this make sense?
3
SPEAKER_00
And it makes sense that you ve got multiple computers, multiple brains on each of these calls looking for specific things because not only can one person miss something, but also we re all subject to cognitive bias, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
We can get things wrong.
3
SPEAKER_01
One other trick that we ve learned in our negotiations, which is why we like to have multiple people on both sides of the table, because while the speaker on the other side of the table is going to be guarded in his body language when he s talking, the people with him are not.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so they think you re focused on the speaker.
3
SPEAKER_01
When the speaker says something that they don t like, or they don t agree with, or that they think is wrong, since they don t think they re being watched, they will almost flip around in their seats because they think nobody s watching them.
3
SPEAKER_01
So another reason to negotiate in teams is to have your wingmen watching their wingmen because their wingmen are gonna be the most unguarded in their physical reactions.
3
SPEAKER_00
And thanks for listening and supporting the show.
3
SPEAKER_00
For a list of all the amazing sponsors and discount codes, visit theartofcharm.com slash advertisers.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now, back to Chris Voss.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s interesting.
3
SPEAKER_00
So we re watching for incongruence not only between what the person says and what their body says, but incongruence between what that person says and what their body says and what the other people s bodies say.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s like a different level of body language observation.
3
SPEAKER_00
You mentioned before as well the adjectives, listening to the adjectives and what those tell us.
3
SPEAKER_00
What do you learn from adjectives or profanity or cliches?
3
SPEAKER_00
That s interesting.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, because everybody, we call it, what s their religion?
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, everybody has stuff that they believe in that s larger than them, that they re dedicated to, that they ll sacrifice themselves for.
3
SPEAKER_01
Now, some people, it s their company.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I ve got one of my MBA students who s getting ready to go to work for one of the big three consulting firms.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, he walks around with one of their pens on the
4
SPEAKER_00
lapel of his jacket.
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, he believes their color and he believes so much in their mission that he sees it as being larger for them.
4
SPEAKER_00
So when you see someone being driven by what is larger than they are and their adjectives are going to give that away or their cliches, you then understand how you can change some of your adjectives so that they resonate with you.
4
SPEAKER_00
As an example, I had one potential client
4
SPEAKER_00
that was a born-again Christian and he was always using these phrases and he was talking to me about in this one particular deal how misunderstood he felt by his advisors and he was trying to tell me how important he thought this deal was to his company and he didn t want to bungle this responsibility because he felt that was this enormous responsibility to the greater good of his company.
4
SPEAKER_00
And at one point in time I said you know this is really a stewardship for you isn t it?
4
SPEAKER_00
Now this is just an observation on my part.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m not trying to pretend I m what he is.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m just using a term that he resonated with.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m not trying to say, you know, I believe in stewardship too.
4
SPEAKER_00
I didn t do any of that nonsense.
4
SPEAKER_00
I just used it in the same sort of description to recognize how he felt.
4
SPEAKER_00
And when I said to him, this is really a stewardship for you, isn t it?
4
SPEAKER_00
He went, you are the only one that understands me.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I got the contract immediately.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I didn t try to pretend I was something that I wasn t, but I did recognize it, I appreciated his point of view.
4
SPEAKER_00
With respect, not trying to make him think that I was adopting it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the resonance for that and the trust building is immediate.
4
SPEAKER_01
One of the things that you mentioned that you do a lot in these negotiations is that you slow things down.
4
SPEAKER_01
Going fast being a very common mistake that people make when they re negotiating, especially these high stakes kidnapping and hostage situations.
4
SPEAKER_01
Rapport builds over time.
4
SPEAKER_01
We ve talked about that here on the show, and we do a lot of rapport building at our live workshops, keeping things calm, building rapport over time, making it seem like time is moving faster than it is.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you also tie this in with, like you said, the FM DJ voice, the playfulness or the assertive voice, and things like that.
4
SPEAKER_01
to what extent are you using your own speech and body language or your accent or your vocabulary and your tone?
4
SPEAKER_01
You mentioned using adjectives or using similar maybe memes to build rapport, but are you trying to be more similar in every case, or is there a situation in which you would disassociate yourself from the other person?
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, yeah, first of all, slowing it down sounds crazy when we re all under time pressure, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
We like to use a phrase, this is gonna be a delay that saves time.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know we find out that by slowing it down you spend less time over on the negotiation it s hard to see that until you start keeping track of how many conversations it takes to get something done and you want to go from twelve conversations to three.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so you told time to go should be less each conversation will be longer but your total invested time is less.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that s why you want to slow things down because it actually saves time.
4
SPEAKER_00
Now, you only want to be similar to the other person.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, that s very narrowly limited.
4
SPEAKER_00
If the other person is rattled, you don t want to be rattled.
4
SPEAKER_00
If the other person is excited and high pitched, you know, well, so the theory that, well, I need to be excited and high pitched also.
4
SPEAKER_00
So he thinks I m like him.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s really bad advice.
4
SPEAKER_00
The only similarity that works or where you want to take people is you want to take people into a good mood.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because there s scientific data that shows that our brains work up to 31% more effectively when we re in a positive frame of mind.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s no small advantage.
4
SPEAKER_00
I like to be playful in a negotiation because it makes me smarter.
4
SPEAKER_00
And when I m playful and I m smarter, then that automatically is sort of infused in the other person s brain.
4
SPEAKER_00
They get smarter, they re in a better mood.
4
SPEAKER_00
What means they re going to be better at thinking of ideas that benefit me.
4
SPEAKER_00
The missionary and mercenary combined at the same time.
4
SPEAKER_00
I want a better deal.
4
SPEAKER_00
I want you to be smarter.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because if you think you made a smart deal, you re going to implement it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s where the real money is made on implementation, not an agreement.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if you re happy with the deal, you re going to implement it, and you re going to implement it in a very smart way.
4
SPEAKER_00
So if you re in a good mood, that s really the only time I m going to mirror your mood, because it s good for both of us.
4
SPEAKER_00
But if you re excited, if you re rattled, I m not mirroring that at all, because that s bad for both of us, and I don t want to go there.
4
SPEAKER_00
I want us to go where we re both going to be productive.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that s sort of the only time I thought similarity works for us.
4
SPEAKER_01
You ve got some pretty cool tactics that you use in the book, and I wanna get through some of these before we run tight on time here.
4
SPEAKER_01
One of them is using mirroring and an inquisitive voice to reword, or to have other people reword whatever they said.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the example you gave was this old boss has this employee, and he doesn t trust digital, you know, he s kind of this old crusty guy, and he wants one of the employees, one of his team members, to spend two weeks making two copies of every document.
4
SPEAKER_01
and she used one of your techniques, this technique in particular.
4
SPEAKER_01
Can you give this technique and teach us how to use this?
4
SPEAKER_01
I think this is really easy to implement and probably very useful for most of us.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, mirroring is a great technique, and it s repeating the last one to three words of what someone has just said, or if you re real show-off, you can pick one to three words that are an essential component in the middle of what they said, but you can almost always repeat the last one to three words.
4
SPEAKER_00
And this sounds stupid,
4
SPEAKER_00
And sometimes we refer to it as a Jedi mind trick, and it is ridiculously effective.
4
SPEAKER_00
We talked about the three types before, and mirroring is one of the very few skills that work very well with all three types.
4
SPEAKER_00
And what it actually does is it opens up people s brains while they re in the midst of explaining stuff.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if you ever tried to open somebody s thinking up while they re explaining, you realize that it s just darn near impossible, because they re so focused on what they re explaining.
4
SPEAKER_00
And this tool actually opens up their thinking while they re in pretty much a non-thinking and non-listening mode.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that begins to create opportunities for you to influence them or to get them to reword and explain what they re saying so that they can kind of hear it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Also, you know, the assertive is kind of like the American overseas.
4
SPEAKER_00
When we say something and the other side doesn t get it and they say, what do you mean by that?
4
SPEAKER_00
Will we just repeat it with the exact same words only louder our words are so perfect that how could you possibly be so stupid as to not understand what i just said because my word selection is perfect and it s obvious.
4
SPEAKER_00
Unfortunately my default type happens to be assertive which is something i had to get out of you know i got employees that mirror me.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because if i say something they don t understand and they ask me a classic opening question what do you mean by that.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ll repeat the same thing back to them, only louder, because I can t believe that they don t understand it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And they ll mirror me and I ll reward it.
4
SPEAKER_00
It ll open up my thinking while I m in the midst of explaining and being mystified at how they could not understand my explanation.
4
SPEAKER_00
So the mirroring is just, until people try it, they can t believe how effective it is.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then once they start doing it, they love it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve got one client who will mirror, in every negotiation, will always mirror the other side s position.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it immediately tells them how firm that position is or whether or not it s one of their soft throwaway puffing sort of positions and how they reward it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it gives them a great pulse, a great way to map the terrain.
4
SPEAKER_00
of what it is they want, what they really want, just by mirroring, and they have no idea that he s doing it to them.
4
SPEAKER_00
He does it to them all the time.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s enormously powerful.
4
SPEAKER_01
So to give a little example here, one of the things this old, crusty car-mudgeon of a boss had said is, make two copies of all the documents.
4
SPEAKER_01
And your client said, all the documents?
4
SPEAKER_01
And he said, yeah, I ll make two copies of all the documents.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then this sort of enormity of what he was asking set in because he had to reword what he was saying.
4
SPEAKER_01
He had to think about it again because of that inquisitive tone.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then he finished, well, maybe just digital copies, which is a 10-second task instead of a 10-day task.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the examples you give in the book, there s tons of them, but it s just over and over, just repeating, essentially, the last bit of what they said.
4
SPEAKER_01
I at first thought, oh, this is gonna get so irritating, people are gonna spot this, it s gonna be so transparent.
4
SPEAKER_01
And later in the book, you give an example of how your son spotted someone using this on you for an hour straight and you didn t even notice.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, yeah, unfortunately.
4
SPEAKER_00
I sucker for mirroring all the time.
4
SPEAKER_00
And in that instance, I mean, my son finally, he just yelled at me, he said, I can t take it anymore.
4
SPEAKER_00
He s been mirroring you for the last hour and that s all he s been doing.
4
SPEAKER_00
He said he was gonna do it before we sat down and you didn t even know it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I was kind of embarrassed.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it was true.
4
SPEAKER_00
And there s another instance where I was teaching someone to mirror.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I said, yeah, you know, when you re marrying someone, you listen to what they say.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if nothing else, repeat the last three words.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the person I was teaching it to said the last three words.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I said, well, yeah, you just repeat the last three words.
4
SPEAKER_00
And they re going to go on and they re going to say more.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he goes, so did I just do it to you?
4
SPEAKER_01
That s perfect.
4
SPEAKER_01
One of the other things that you do is acknowledge negatives and diffuse them, and the phrase you use is, look, I m an a-hole here, because naming the negatives, labeling as you call it, takes the sting out, and you kind of bring up these negatives first, and going after that negativity brings us to a place of empathy, which is super important when we re talking about hostage negotiation, or any negotiation.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you know, and I gotta tell you, those of us that have gotten used to doing this with the accusations audit, as we call it,
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we love doing this and showing off because it s just, it s absurdly powerful.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s so counterintuitive.
4
SPEAKER_00
Nobody else
5
SPEAKER_02
does it, and it moves us ahead so quickly and so much faster, we just get a kick out of it.
5
SPEAKER_02
And anytime I sense there s a negative or there s going to be a negative, you know, I proactively label it and make it go away before it ever happens.
5
SPEAKER_02
We sometimes refer to this as a matrix moment.
5
SPEAKER_02
I know I got a choice of one or two futures, and I can label the negative in advance.
5
SPEAKER_02
I could say this is going to sound harsh.
5
SPEAKER_02
Then I could say whatever I have to say, and your reaction after will be like,
5
SPEAKER_02
No, that wasn t bad.
5
SPEAKER_02
I don t know why.
5
SPEAKER_02
Why did you say it was going to sound harsh?
5
SPEAKER_02
Or instead of using the preemptive negative label, I ll say what I m going to say, and then it will bother you.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I can tell a difference in your tone of voice that it bothers you.
5
SPEAKER_02
And until you get a chance to let it out later on, it s going to keep bothering you, which then we talk about things that fester.
5
SPEAKER_02
And that means that ultimately when it comes out, it s going to be worse.
5
SPEAKER_02
So the labeling the negatives in advance is just ridiculous.
5
SPEAKER_02
I think I first started doing it to get myself out of trouble when I just didn t have time to argue with people and we needed to move on.
5
SPEAKER_02
I just found it was so effective and I tried it out at different times.
5
SPEAKER_02
And like you said, if somebody s mad at you and you say, look, I ve been an a-hole the entire time, they ll say every single time they come back with, well, it wasn t that bad or all right, so you convinced me.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s ridiculous how
5
SPEAKER_02
over-labeling a negative, how that moves you forward very quickly.
5
SPEAKER_00
One thing that I use a lot that I notice in the book, and I love this technique, and I didn t even necessarily realize it was a technique until we started fleshing it out in the book, coming in on the back of an argument is a great place for a negotiator.
5
SPEAKER_00
The other side is always desperate for this empathetic connection.
5
SPEAKER_00
I use this, I feel like, at airports all the time.
5
SPEAKER_00
Whenever anybody s complaining about something, and I m next in line,
5
SPEAKER_00
The first kind of gut reaction is, oh man, this guy s making her so mad, she s gonna be so annoyed.
5
SPEAKER_00
But if you come in there and you label it, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
You come in on the back of that argument and you label it, it s really easy to get somebody to open up to you right away.
5
SPEAKER_00
You just form a team almost instantly.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, that was a great case and great instance.
5
SPEAKER_02
And my student did that.
5
SPEAKER_02
I mean, he was so set up by the people in front of him.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s almost like having somebody warm the audience for you in a reverse way, right?
5
SPEAKER_02
I was stunned at how far he got.
5
SPEAKER_02
You know, he ends up getting booked onto a flight and getting an upgrade.
5
SPEAKER_02
before the seats were officially open just because the airline attendant knew they were gonna be open and he established such a connection with her by labeling and like you said, coming in on the back of an argument.
5
SPEAKER_02
It was huge.
5
SPEAKER_02
Again, it s almost unfair.
5
SPEAKER_00
Essentially, the person in front of him in this line for the flight was so upset, really leaning into the flight attendant, really leaning into the person at the gate.
5
SPEAKER_00
He thought, I m screwed now, because she s super, super upset.
5
SPEAKER_00
So the first thing he did was say, wow, seems like they were pretty upset.
5
SPEAKER_00
And she said, yeah, you know, I hate doing this to people, but yeah, these flights are full.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he kept expressing empathy.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then, of course, a little bit of mirroring, and boom, he ends up on the next flight by getting an upgrade, which she didn t process for the other guy, who was being kind of a jerk.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I find that just being able to put yourself in this juxtaposed position of, oh, I m the cool, laid-back guy who understands your plight, you re so much more likely to get good service or to have your problem solved because that person is now on your team versus yelling at them, why can t you do this?
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, you guys need to get your shit together.
5
SPEAKER_00
That never really works, and it s a really tactical way of saying you attract more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, right?
5
SPEAKER_02
Sometimes people say, well, how do I do that?
5
SPEAKER_02
And so how you do that and I gotta tell you, I think that s what makes our book great.
5
SPEAKER_02
And it s just not my book, but Paul Ross contributed significantly to it.
5
SPEAKER_02
This is how you do this stuff.
5
SPEAKER_02
You know, a couple labels, a couple mirrors, you know, those ridiculously simple little things.
5
SPEAKER_02
You sit back, use a nice, nurturing, deferential tone of voice.
5
SPEAKER_02
and you let the stuff work its magic.
5
SPEAKER_02
And he gets a seat on a flight that isn t even technically vacant yet just because the woman working behind the counter was gonna make those seats open.
5
SPEAKER_02
That was one of the craziest things that I ever saw.
5
SPEAKER_02
I just loved it.
5
SPEAKER_00
a lot more on bargaining, negotiation, some more tactical things, things to do and not to do, including your concept of the black swan, why you should be careful with the words fair, things to really look out for, and of course, peppered here and there with Philippine kidnapping and different hostage situations that illustrate the points that you re making in business as well as in the field.
5
SPEAKER_00
So Chris, is there anything that I haven t asked you that you wanna make sure you tell the AOC fan?
5
SPEAKER_02
You know, there s a phrase, never be mean to someone who can hurt you by doing nothing.
5
SPEAKER_02
Everybody understands the universal truth of that nearly everybody that you interact with on any level doesn t matter what the interaction is they can hurt you by doing nothing.
5
SPEAKER_02
What s also true is the flip side is there s almost no instance when you re interacting with someone where they couldn t help you by doing something if they just like you enough to do it you know if you just made a label like that one with the airline.
5
SPEAKER_02
I was talking to someone the other day that said, yeah, we cut all these licensing deals for music with Sony Corporation and they got these people that rotate in and out and there s no negotiation because we just send them an email and we contact them and they check.
5
SPEAKER_02
So there s no negotiation here.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s all moving forward and there s no negotiation.
5
SPEAKER_02
I remember thinking like, I guarantee you, everybody that you interact with has a choice of whether or not to put your request on the top of the stack or on the bottom of the stack.
5
SPEAKER_02
And if you treat them as if they re clerks, they can t do you any good and they re not gonna be there tomorrow, there s a pretty good chance that they re gonna take your request and put it at the bottom of the stack and delay you by two weeks.
5
SPEAKER_02
And the person that came on the phone after them, who mirrored and labeled with them and used a different tone of voice, they took the request and they put that on the top of the stack and they got service in 24 hours.
5
SPEAKER_02
And if time is money,
5
SPEAKER_02
then you have just cost yourself lots of money by not taking a few more moments in a conversation and mirroring and labeling and seeing if you can t gain an edge.
5
SPEAKER_02
So in my view, there s never a single conversation where you can t gain an edge and save yourself a lot of time just with the application of a couple of these ideas.
5
SPEAKER_00
Chris, thank you so much.
5
SPEAKER_00
Much appreciated.
5
SPEAKER_00
We ll link to the book Never Split the Difference in the show notes as well.
5
SPEAKER_00
Thanks so much, Chris.
5
SPEAKER_00
Thanks for having me on.
5
SPEAKER_00
Really interesting stuff.
5
SPEAKER_00
I love this book because of the stories of the bank robberies and the kidnappings and the hostage situations, but it s really well done in how he ties that into sizing up the person on the other side of the table, figuring out how to talk to the people in their language, in their religion, using rapport and generating more rapport and getting people to flesh out their own thoughts so they come to the same conclusions as you.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s really, really cool.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of overlap with what we do
5
SPEAKER_00
at our live programs, which I find fascinating, because I always love learning more about why what we teach works.
5
SPEAKER_00
And of course, I think I ll be checking out some more of Chris  stuff as soon as he s got it available.
5
SPEAKER_00
If you enjoyed this one, don t forget to thank Chris on Twitter.
5
SPEAKER_00
We ll have that linked in the show notes, as well as the other resources mentioned on the show, including, of course, the book, Never Split the Difference.
5
SPEAKER_00
You can tap our album art in Most Mobile Podcast Players to see the cheat sheet for this episode, and we ll link to the show notes directly on your phone.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m also on Twitter, at The Art of Charm, and it s a great place to interact with me there.
5
SPEAKER_00
I love talking with all the show fans and the guests on Twitter, and I also post articles and other things people who like AOC might find interesting.
5
SPEAKER_00
Of course, join us as well in the Social Capital Challenge at theartofcharm.com slash challenge.
5
SPEAKER_00
or in the USA only text charmed to 33444, that s C-H-A-R-M-E-D to 33444.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s all about improving your networking, rapport, connection skills, and inspiring those around you to develop connections and relationships with you.
5
SPEAKER_00
We ll also email you our fundamentals toolbox that I mentioned earlier on the show, along with regular videos with drills and exercises to help you move forward.
5
SPEAKER_00
It will make you a better networker, a better connector, and a better thinker.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed in the USA to 33444.
5
SPEAKER_00
This episode of The Art of Charm was produced by Jason DeFilippo.
5
SPEAKER_00
Jason Sanderson is our audio engineer and editor.
5
SPEAKER_00
Show notes on the website are by Robert Fogarty.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
5
SPEAKER_00
Go ahead and tell your friends because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else either in person or shared on the web.
5
SPEAKER_00
Now stay charming and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
5
SPEAKER_01
Thanks for listening to the Art of Charm.
5
SPEAKER_01
Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.