Modern WisdomHow To Negotiate Like An FBI Agent | Chris Voss | Modern Wisdom Podcast 237
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
105 min read · 21,367 words- 0:00 – 15:00
The guy on the…
- CVChris Voss
The guy on the other side is a sociopathic killer. He literally says, "That's right," when we go into full summary. I don't know how long it took to do the full summary, but it took a while. It seemed excruciating on our end. Terrorist sociopath on the other side says, "That's right." Immediately, the ransom demand went away. We went from $10 million to zero when the phone hung up. No monetary demand was ever raised again through the course of the kidnapping. Kidnapping lasts a couple more months. The hostage walks away. He gets the opportunity of the lack in, in security, he just walks away. We fly him back to the US, he's gone. Bad guy's got nothing. I'm back in the Philippines about three weeks later, connect back up with a negotiator that I was coaching. He says, "You're not gonna believe who called me on the phone, the terrorist." "What'd he say?" He said, "Have you been promoted? I was gonna kill the American, you're really good at what you do, they should promote you."
- CWChris Williamson
(Wind blowing) Negotiating. Today, we're gonna learn how to hopefully have productive negotiations. Let's define our terms first. What should be our desired outcome from a negotiation? Why are we negotiating?
- CVChris Voss
Uh, well, really, your desired outcome should be a better relationship. I mean, um, by definition, I can explain intellectually, intellectually while it's impossible to know what the best outcome of the negotiation could be, you're holding information back, they're holding information back. Information being held back by both sides is important. Therefore, not only is your information flawed, it's flawed in important ways. So the more people get focused on an outcome, the more they have blinders on, the more they are likely to miss a better deal. So if you're focused on a better relationship, that's going to sort of permeate the interaction and increase the chances that the other side is gonna show you theirs, and you'll get a better deal. And then plus they're gonna enjoy the process, and, uh, the chances that they're gonna wanna do it again are much higher.
- CWChris Williamson
Being familiar with your work, it seems like an adversarial relationship during a negotiation is something that you try and steer clear of as much as possible.
- CVChris Voss
Yeah, because it just, it's just gonna harm, um, how much I could get. It's gonna harm my ability to get it again. Like, an adversarial relationship is gonna sting the other side. They're gonna remember that. It's gonna discourage them from wanting to continue to negotiate with me. That's not good for me long term. There was Goldman Sachs executive a long time ago, uh, Gus Levy. His phrase was, "Greedy, yes. But long-term greedy."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) That's a good way to put it. I suppose as well with the networking effect now, that everyone knows everyone, it's much easier to have free flow of information. You can't... The charlatans and the psychopaths and the conmen and- can't hide as much anymore.
- CVChris Voss
Yeah, it's gonna get out. Um, it, it, it got out before anyway. It's... But now it's just getting out faster.
- CWChris Williamson
It gets out at hyper-speed now. What do you think most people believe about negotiating which is wrong or f- ineffective?
- CVChris Voss
You know, that you gotta beat the other side. I mean, we're even really careful how we phrase it. Like, we never talk about the, the person across the table as the adversary. We refer to them as a counterpart. The adversary's a situation. And if you're negotiating with someone, you're both faced with different aspects of the same problem. Which by definition is you're both gonna be better off if you collaborate. Now most people, you know, they... And most negotiations categorize as win, lose, beat the other side, and that just, that just hurts people long term. It just does.
- CWChris Williamson
W- who is the worst sort of person to negotiate with, then? And how can we get them involved in the dialogue?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah, well it kinda, it's, it's not the worst person. I mean, it's typically what you run into is occasional type mismatches create problems. Then there's basically, the world splits up evenly into thirds; fight, flight, make friends. These are the caveman responses to survival. This is wired into us, it's baked into us. There's, there's no way around it. And, um, you know, the world we've, we pulled really the world, and we've seen that the world splits up evenly into thirds. I mean, we've taught... For a while we were teaching negotiation to executives from the Chinese Development Bank. And, you know, it, it's a, it's a great culture to have a stereotype about, whether they're very guarded or whatever your stereotype might be about them, and we're working with these people internally and we're seeing all three types. So, what does that mean, um, type mismatch? For example, if you're very thoughtful and you like time to think, which means silence. Well, if you're really conscious of the relationship and the dynamic, you see silence as a way to, peop- people trigger anger. So there's an obvious disconnect here. One person's loving the silence 'cause they wanna think-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CVChris Voss
... and the other person's going like, "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. The other person's mad."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CVChris Voss
And it, and it is a comedy sometimes. So being, being aware of type mismatch at a, at a given moment is really, really the issue. And if it splits into thirds, you don't have a lot to keep track of. Um, if you run into problems, there's probably a type mismatch.
- CWChris Williamson
How can we easily detect the type of the person who is across the table from us?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah, well, you know, um, two of them are real easy. The assertive is gonna be obvious. They're gonna be blunt. They're gonna be loud. They're gonna be forceful. They're gonna act like time is money. You know, um, not taking a political perspective on it in any, in any way shape or form, Donald Trump is a classic example of the assertive negotiator.Blunt, harsh, aggressive. Time is money. Time is of the essence. You know, eh, eh, his leadership style and he doesn't have time for the US Congress to make up its mind, he issues an executive order. Time is money. Um, that's that style. Uh, the analytical, they're gonna seem cold and distant. Um, that's 'cause they're up in their head thinking, analyzing stuff. And they're not in fact cold and distant, but again, that's how they're gonna seem 'cause they're thinking things through. So those two types are gonna be fairly obvious. They're gonna be the analytical type is gonna be quite comfortable with silence. They're gonna go silent for long periods of time. Now the one that's g- is a little tricky is the w- the accommodator, the relationship focused, really they're interaction focused even more than the relationship. They don't really understand the difference, but they want the interaction to be positive. Now many analysts become, uh, they look like accommodators. My, my daughter-in-law is chief of marketing at my company, brilliant girl. She looks like an accommodator. She is bubbly, she's happy, she laughs. She's one of the most pleasant people in, on earth to deal with. She's an analyst deep down in her bones, extremely analytical. She's just smart enough to have seen that people are more likely to comply with her if she's bubbly and, and smiling and happy. So a lot of people are convinced that she's an accommodator. She's not. She's an analyst, and an analyst is an assassin. I mean, (laughs) she's a dangerous negotiator. But you're gonna love dealing with her. So that, that's the only type that you get fooled by because the other two types catch on if they eventually, speed that they catch on varies, but they catch on that the relationship focused person makes a lot of deals, and people want to deal with them over and over again. Now they're a little annoyed by this because they're not impressed by the deals, but they do see that they make a lot of deals. And that's why my daughter-in-law's a great example. She's like, "All right, so I'll make more deals if I'm pleasant? I'll be pleasant."
- CWChris Williamson
Ends justify the means, man.
- CVChris Voss
(laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
I- I'm, I'm, I'm very-
- CVChris Voss
It adds something, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
I, I agree. I'm very, very interested in the way that negotiations work, and especially people's confidence within negotiating. I think the way that we... It's interesting, right? Because sometimes, um, someone's interaction style is a projection of their kind of inner emotions, and for other people, you, you mentioned, uh, the marketing, uh, your daughter-in-law, um, who is essentially sort of almost playing a little bit of a role. So she's able to adapt the person who she is during the interactions to get a better outcome. Doesn't mean completely compromising but perhaps, you know, glazing over some bits and enhancing other bits and so on and so forth. Um, how can someone who maybe doesn't feel like they have a massive amount of confidence normally day-to-day either in themselves and/or in negotiations, what can they do to make themselves feel a bit more assertive and, and, and in charge when they sit down?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah, you know, um, uh, I'm gonna quote one of my favorite actors, Denzel Washington, from a movie called Man on Fire, and, and, and in-
- CWChris Williamson
Amazing movie.
- CVChris Voss
... one way or another, I think Denzel Washington has played me in several movies. You know, he doesn't call, he doesn't write, I don't get invited over to the house. Uh, but, uh, in Man on Fire, he's training a little girl that he's guarding to be a better swimmer, and she says, "I'm not any good." He says, "There's no such thing as good or bad. There's only trained and untrained. Only trained and untrained." So if you don't feel confident, you just haven't got your practicing. Um, s- same thought, Daniel Coyle wrote a great book called The Talent Code. Code's, uh, Coyle's contention is that everything is learned. Now I'm, I'm not sure that everything is learned, but he's got enough data that backs up the fact that the vast majority, the ridiculously overwhelming skills of people that are really good learned it. They weren't born with it. Again, you can become confident with practice. You can learn it. We advise small stakes negotiations for high stakes results. You know, practice a calm demeanor when you order coffee. It's practice. Practice a calm demeanor when you're talking to your, your Lyft or your Uber driver. I mean, we got no shortage of practice. One, one young lady I'm, I'm coaching in some negotiations now 'cause of COVID and the economic switch, she's moved back into her parents' house, which means (laughs) her mother is there giving her a hard time every day.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) .
- CVChris Voss
And she said, "My mother punches my buttons." And I said, "Perfect, it's practice." Practice being calm with your mom. If you can't do it in the moment, you rehearse the interactions or prepare for them constantly. You sit, you, you know, you sit down in, in, in the basement, the fully furnished basement, and you know when you go upstairs, your mother's gonna punch your buttons and you can just see yourself getting mad. So just rerun it in your head and see your, yourself if not staying calm, see yourself being silent. It's practice. How you envision your performance, it's what great athletes do. You know, Michael Jordan, LeBron James, they see themselves hitting the game-winning shot over and over and over. They practice it on, on the court.You know, they're, they're out there by themselves, but they imagine being surrounded by fans screaming for them to miss. They imagine being in a hostile environment. This is all practice. You could, you, you, that's the way great athletes become great. You could do it yourself in negotiation.
- CWChris Williamson
The term that you've kept on using there is calm. Does confidence come from being calm?
- CVChris Voss
Um, you know, it, you could do it either way. You know, you could practice a calm voice. And, you know, and, that, that's an interesting point because if you could just practice, you know, what we refer to as the late night FM DJ voice, there's a neuroscience response behind that. If you hear my voice when I use that voice, there's a neurochemical change in your brain triggered by your mirror neurons which is an automatic response, it's not a choice, and you'll start to calm the brain down. Now, the great thing about that voice is when you use it, you hear it too, which means you can force a system override. If you're upset and you just start talking out loud in a calm voice, your voice is gonna hit your mirror neurons and you can force yourself to calm down the same way that you would trigger the reaction in the other person. So, once you discover some of the system overrides, you can use them on yourself.
- CWChris Williamson
Recently had Fiona Myrdin on who's a cognitive psychologist. Her new book is called Mirror Thinking which is e- exclusively about the mirror system. It might be an interesting read for yourself or you can listen to on the episode. She's fascinating, fascinating woman, uh, teaching a lot of leaders in business, and, uh, yet some of the, uh, examples that she came up with from the mirror system are outrageous. There was, uh, one girl in, I want to say Yugoslavia or somewhere, um, who had parents, a young infant, parents that were drinking a lot and not caring for her and they left her out in the cold one night, and she got taken in by a pack of wild dogs between the age of three and eight. And at eight years old, she was finally sort of seen by someone who then took her back into Child Protective Services. But by this time, she was walking on all fours, she was drinking from a tap by licking, she was unable to speak, she was unable to write, she was unable to do any of this stuff because she had been around animals that had done that. So, the ability for us to completely transcend what we would naturally probably consider our nature, bipedal, talking, using hands, you know, like the mirror system is so pervasive and so powerful that it can turn a child essentially into a, you know, kind of a mirror of a canine.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Yeah. And, and very…
- CWChris Williamson
Um, one of the things I'm fascinated by is your strategy for mirroring. Can you take us through that and explain why it's effective?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah. And, and very much along the lines of what we were just talking about, you know, there's the mirroring the body language and then the, the hostage negotiator's mirror puts a slightly different spin on it. And it's, it starts with repeating the one, the last one to three words, you know, three-ish, could be as many, no more than five, uh, but one to three is the general rule, of what somebody has just said. It causes this great thought connection in your counterpart's thinking. They, they go on, they reword. It's actually a much, much better thing than to say, "What did you mean by that?" You know, because most people when you say to them, "What did you mean by that?" Um, they're gonna repeat it, the exact same words only louder, kind of like an American overseas.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CVChris Voss
So, but with the mirror, people have a tendency to reword. There's something in the message that clicks with the other person which tells them, "Okay, I heard your words and I still don't understand."
- CWChris Williamson
Could you give us an example?
- CVChris Voss
Sorry, what? Um, yeah. My son and I (laughs) , it's one of the negotiations in the book. We're going back and forth, we were prepping for, uh, some training, and I ask him if we've got the notebooks ready. Now, the, the, the notebooks, uh, that I have in mind, you know, they kind, they kind of look like this. You know, they're just, you know, a notebook. Or that's the notebook that he has in mind. Now, what I have in mind are three ring binders, but I'm calling them notebooks. So, I say, "Do you have the notebooks ready?" Now, he senses there's a disconnect in our thinking, so in order to try to clear it up, he says to me, "What do you mean by notebooks?" And I go, "No books!" (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CVChris Voss
And he says, "Yeah, but what do you mean by notebooks?" "No books!" And finally he just mirrors me, he goes, "Notebooks?" And I go, "Yeah, three ring binders." (laughs) So whatever reason, there's, there's something in the way the hostage negotiator's mirror hits the brain that gets people to reword and continue even when they're closely guarding what they're saying. And the first time I ever did it, you know, um, I practiced it, so it's a great default tool to go to when you're at a loss for words. I'm in a bank robbery with hostages, talking to the bank robber. We got his van outside, and I, I said, you know, "We, we found this van outside." And he says, he says, "We only have one vehicle." And I, I said, "You only have one vehicle?" He said, "Yeah, we don't have, we don't have one vehicle." "You don't have one vehicle?" Said, "Well, you, you chased my driver away." I said, "We, we chased your driver away?" He goes, "Yeah, when, when he saw the police, he cut and run."Now, what he just did was admit that there was an accomplice that we didn't know about, which also meant he's giving us a witness against him, 'cause this is a guy who could tell on him. In no way, shape, or form is it in his interest to tell me about the getaway driver that got away. But I start mirroring him, and this guy was a very control freak negotiator. He was probably... He embodied all of the characteristics of a really dangerous business negotiator. He pretended like he was powerless. He acted like we were the problem, that he was cooperative. He did all these things that actually kept him completely in control while looking powerless, which meant his words were ridiculously well selected. And so to get him to start sharing information he had no intention of sharing is a great example of how m- how mirrors gets information out of people.
- CWChris Williamson
I love that. Is that linked to our addiction to correction that you talk about? Is it a similar pathway that works with that?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah, it's an interesting question. I think it probably is. It has to be. There has to be something similar to it, because, uh, the compulsion to talk is just-
- CWChris Williamson
Precisely the word I was thinking there. Precisely the word.
- CVChris Voss
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I had, uh, Robin Dreeke, who you may be familiar with, uh, with. I had him on years and years and years ago, and, uh, I remember he, he was the first person before I read your book. Uh, he taught me about that, that compulsion to correct, and I think his example was, um, how he would get someone to give him their birthday, and he was like, uh, "I bet that you were bu- you were born in September, aren't you?" "No, no, November." "Oh, yeah, yeah, it must be the 16th." "No, no, the 17th." And you're like, "But, but..." And you can feel, it's, it's like a visceral response that you want... When, you know, when someone says a thing good-naturedly, not accusing, not saying, like, "I bet that you can't lift this weight," more just, you know, a, a natural conversation of something that's a little bit off. This compulsion to want to correct them is, uh, powerful, unstoppable.
- CVChris Voss
Yeah, it's an interesting point. A lot, a lot of people... And you're triggering some other thoughts that come to mind. A lot of people outside of negotiation, they s- they tumble over the power of the compulsion to correct, and they use it in a lot of different ways, and nobody ever notices. That's the other thing too, like, when somebody corrects you, they never notice that they've given you a bunch of information. They, they, their guard never comes up, which means, you, you know, they're, they're na- they're not gonna backtrack on you.
- CWChris Williamson
It's, um-
- CVChris Voss
That's cool.
- CWChris Williamson
It's really cool. Really, really cool. Can you talk about how to say no more productively? Like, there has to be a point that you reach during a negotiation where, like, you h- you have to give a negative answer. You have to say that that's too far or that's something that we can't do. How can we say no more productively?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah. And that, and, and it, and there are a lot of negotiators that actually out there that are gonna continue to, to pound on you until you say no, not once but twice. I'm gonna run across no shortage of hard bargaining negotiators, and their rule of thumb is they're not gonna let up until you've said no twice. So, how do you, how do you say no productively, is, is, is the question. You know, our, our first way of saying no is, "How am I supposed to do that?" I mean, it triggers so much in the other side. It's, it's, it's the opening story in the book, Never Split the Difference, and, um, you know, really good, really bad about that being the opening story. People get it right away. I mean, I got no shortage of people who come up and say, "Wow, how am I supposed to do that? I've closed so many deals at my terms." Oh, and that's all I ever say, but the problem is that's the only thing they ever learn. (laughs) So they could be doing so much better, but they, the first time they say, "How am I supposed to do that?" I mean, it's, it alters everything in the moment. 'Cause what the other side hears when you say that is, "I'd love to comply, but you're giving me an impossible task. And so let's figure out a more productive way to proceed." And that's why typically the other side, you know, if they don't feel attacked, uh, they feel collaborative. It triggers, it triggers collaboration. My son also refers to this phrase as forced empathy. It makes them take a look at you involuntarily. They don't, they don't do it on purpose, but they step back, and they take... They say, "Wow. All right. So let me, let, let me rethink everything." Even if they come back at you with, "If you want the deal, you have to," you have to. The point isn't the answer. The point is the thought process you put them through. And so that's why that's, that's our first way to say no. Now, you can, you can become a little bit more firm each time. I mean, basically we, you know, I teach people four ways to say no. "How am I supposed to do that?" "I'm sorry, that just doesn't work for me." "I'm sorry, I can't do that," and, "No." And each one is a little more firm, and the other side feels no coming, but they don't get punched in the face with it.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Yeah. Is that... Uh, of all of the phrases that you have in the book, do you think that's the most powerful one that someone could sort of take today and plug into their negotiating?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah. It's probably the, uh, the most powerful, the most applicable phrase, the easiest to learn, and it just...It's fun to watch a t- (laughs) it's fun to watch a war.
- CWChris Williamson
I bet it is. Uh, can you explain what labeling is?
- CVChris Voss
Labeling, um, is, s- has to be simple and it's elegant. Labeling is self-defining, labeling an emotion or dynamic in the moment, um, doing it as a verbal observation. It seems, it sounds, it looks, it feels. Now you've got to use those exact words. We'll run into no shortage of people that'll say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I already know how to do that, and I do it all the time." And I say, "Well, what I'm hearing is..." Well, those aren't the same words that I just used, and it's completely different. Um, so the label has got to be concise. It's a verbal observation. What it does is it- it puts people into a thoughtful mode, it provokes their thoughts, and then it- it... People have a tendency to give you complete direct, um, downstream download of their thought pattern. They're less guarded. I could say to you, "What do you think?" And you'll stop and think, and you'll fully go through your brain what you should say, and then you may or may not give me the answer. Or I could say, "Seems like you're thinking about something." And the chance of you starting to blurt out what's on your mind immediately are much higher, and there's a massive difference in the response. Do you want a guarded answer? Do you want an unvarnished answer? The label gets you an unvarnished answer.
- CWChris Williamson
It seems to me that a lot of the tactics that we're using here during the conversation is to get people out of the semantic games and the linguistic games and- and kind of take them from the- the- this level, the very superficial, visceral level, and kind of take them upstairs into their brain without insulating them. Am I in any way sort of correct here tr- trying to conceptualize that?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah. No, you're on the right track. You- you- you want to find out what's in their head, and you don't want the guard to go up. Um, you're- you're triggering collaboration is what you're doing. You know, uh, I was at a gathering with some people once, and one of... uh, a young lady came up to me and she said, "Your book is how to make the other side collaborate with you whether they like it or not." Now collaboration's a good word, you know, and she- she nailed it right. I'm not looking for people to cooperate. You know, that's when I'm victimizing you. I'm looking for you to collaborate with me so that we can make something better together. If you don't want to collaborate with me, you know, that's a defensive move on your part. You've been stung in the past, you've been- you've been cheated in the past, you've been betrayed in the past. Th- those are nine out of ten of the people that don't want to collaborate. Now one in ten is trying to cheat me, and that's why they don't want to collaborate. But the- the- the cutthroat negotiators have an outsized reputation. Not that many people really want to cut your throat. They might act like it, but it's principally defensive in nature. They're just trying to protect themselves. There are some people out there that are- that- that are trying to cut your throat. They're a minority, but everybody's scared of them. When if you- if you trusted everybody just by percentages, 70% of the people, 70, 75% of the people that you encounter, you would be okay trusting them blindly. The problem is we don't notice that because the people that betrayed us, that stings so bad that that experience fogs everything else and obscures our actual view of reality. It's one of the reasons why I love the phrase fortune favors the bold, because the universe really is on our side. If you're fearless, 70- 70% of the time it's going to work out. That's a great batting average. You know, V- Las Vegas, which is where I happen to live, they're building casinos on 51% success rate. Imagine what you could do with 70.
- CWChris Williamson
We're wired evolutionarily to avoid that multiply by zero, right? You know, like it's-
- CVChris Voss
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... the anxiolytic effect of just fearing the tiger in a ca- I'm gonna guess tigers don't live in caves. The- the- a bear in a cave or whatever, some- something bad is in a cave, right? Avoiding that, avoiding the snake behind the bush, avoiding the whatever, um, it has led us... It's very, very... it's... you know, it's right back here, it's right at the top of your spine where it meets the back of your- back of your cranium. And, um-
- CVChris Voss
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's hard to get rid of. Uh, so that makes sense. And you're correct as well, um, forget the successes, remember the losses very much is the way that a lot of people lead their lives. There's some strong neuropsychological, uh, research that shows we're not even pleasure seeking, we're simply pain avoiding.
- CVChris Voss
Yeah.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Yeah. Well, uh, y-…
- CWChris Williamson
of leads me nicely into something that I- I really love that I've taken from your work, which is about implementation and agreement. Like, yes is nothing without how. Can you explain what that means?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah. Well, uh, y- even if people mean to agree with you, a lot of people just don't think it through.So, like you and I could intend to have a great, great agreement. I just haven't thought of how I'm going to implement it. And as soon as you start asking me how, y- you put me in an implementation phase, and, you know, uh, ho- as they say, hope is not a strategy. We c- we can't hope this is going to work out. We, we actually got to think it through. So that's the, that's the first issue with genuine people. Second issue is this whole yes thing. There's three kinds of yeses, commitment, confirmation, and counterfeit. Now there's this nonsense out there called the yes momentum or momentum selling, and that is if I get you to say yes enough times to the little things, you got to say yes to the big one. They refer to each yes as either a micro-agreement or a tie-down. Just tie them down. Each micro-agreement means they have to say yes. Now everybody has been stung by this two or three times. So it prob- you know, it worked on me when I was 21 and a salesperson called me to tell me about this discount coupon book that only cost me $25 and I get $15,000 in benefit. I'm like, "Yeah. Yeah, I want that." You know, everybody's been suckered into this. You know, there's, uh, you know, I'm, I'm hearing things about the timeshare profession these days, you know, people buying timeshares. "Do you want to live in a five-star resort for free?"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CVChris Voss
"W- would you like to have a great vacation home that paid for itself that you could visit whenever you want?" "Yeah." And then people find themselves in a massive amount of debt, and every time they call and try to get out of it, they find themselves more in debt. Like, you're gonna get stung by the yes momentum until you learn to be suspicious of everybody trying to get you to say yes. People are yes-battered, uh, the same way children, battered children are battered by adults. Every time an adult raises their hand, they think they're gonna get hit. So you might not be trying to lure somebody into a deal with yes, but somebody else already did. And you're like the adult who's trying to give a child a legitimate hug. They're still gonna duck. So the more you try to get people into yes, the worse your problems are going to be. And as soon as you shift into how, you're out of this yes problem entirely, and you're about how do we make a great deal? How do we move forward? How do we profit? Then your deals sail through in a, in a much faster and much smoother way.
- CWChris Williamson
I guess that links back to what we said at the very beginning as well about not just battering the other side, because if someone's agreement is based on implementation, they are more likely to have thought through what they're agreeing to and less likely to, uh, uh, over-agree, uh, I guess, uh, as in agree to something that they didn't mean to or that later on they're going to regret. Like, I often use this, um, example. So I work in the nightlife industry, and I've s- stood on the front door of 1,000 different nightclubs and watched a million drunk people go into them. Uh, and a lot of the time you'll have, um, an event, let's say it's a really popular date, maybe Halloween or New Year's Eve, something like that. And someone comes up and it's, uh, it's r- rammed to the rafters. There's very, very few spaces left over, and this person is desperate to get in. All of their friends are in there. All of their, they, all o- their friends have got a table, or it's a group of guys that are local but didn't manage to get tickets or whatever, and it's, it's the final table and they're absolutely desperate to get in. And the temptation is to say, when, uh, demand outstrips supply, what do you do? You, like, throw the price through the roof. So you char, you say, "You can come in, but it's gonna be some astronomical figure," right? Like some, like 10X-
- CVChris Voss
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... 10X what it would be, 20X what it would be. And they might pay it.
- CVChris Voss
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
So they might have agreed to the price, but they might not be happy about having paid that price. So that's a real key insight that I got from your work, which is not to assume that just because someone has agreed to the deal that it means that they are happy about the deal.
- CVChris Voss
Ah, good point. Yeah, exactly. 'Cause you're gonna ru- you're gonna run into problems on down the line. And, uh, when, as soon as they get a chance to try to get you back, they're, they're gonna get, get you back with interest.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CVChris Voss
You know, they're not gonna try to get even. They're gonna try to get way past even when they get you back. And so then that's, you know, that's bad, that's bad long term. It's a great way to put yourself in a position where you got lots of people who want to pay you back (laughs) in a negative way.
- CWChris Williamson
Very much so. Um, so going on from the club promotion situation, a lot of the time I will be stood next to the doorman. So we work on the front door. You'll have seen it, the guys with the clipboards and making sure that everything runs right and there's no catastrophes. And a lot of the time someone that's drunk who's inside of the venue will be, uh, in varying degrees of delicately brought outside. They may have had a little bit too much to drink. They may have been involved in an altercation. They may have just done something that has warranted them... Their night, their night is now over, and they've been brought outside by the door staff, and then they tend to come back to the guys who are stood on the front door, the front doormen, and they're (imitates rapid speaking) just yapping away. "Uh, uh, why is that? Why have I been thrown out? This is unfair. All my mates are inside. Blah, blah, blah." That is a situation I must encounter every night, once a night at least, sometimes multiple times per night. Sometimes it compounds and one of the mates gets thrown out, then another friend that they were maybe even play fighting with also gets thrown out, and then it's like a, like a compounding effect where they both have a go. How can we deescalate...... a heated negotiate- uh, negotiation. Let's forget the fact that they're drunk, because I'm guessing that adds a layer of complexity that even you can't, uh, get (laughs) can't get us around. Um, but what can I, what can I tell the door staff? I work with these guys all the night, I don't want them to have to s- spend their time getting a- abused by, by people who are a little bit unhappy. What can they do try and deescalate this?
- CVChris Voss
Well, um, first of all, the tone of voice is critical, late night FM DJ voice. You know, the calming, soothing voice. Whatever advantage that gives you, take it. I mean, many times you, y- each individual tactic might just be a small advantage, but the cumulative effect is what you're looking for. You're looking to score up some points. So, the calming, soothing voice to start with, e- even with drunks. That's at best not going to aggravate the situation. You know, commanding voice is an aggravating voice. It doesn't help people think. So, first of all, the late night FM DJ voice. Secondly, you know, repeat back to them what they're saying. A lot of times people just want to have their say. If, if all I got to d- got, have to do to get you to go away is to let you feel like you've had your say, then if I repeat it back, it's clear your point has gotten through to me. Now, the really, the, the tricky part is, is when they want to articulate negative stuff about you or your establishment or, you know, that they... Again, they say they've been treated unfairly, "This isn't fair," you can look at somebody and say, "You feel you've been treated unfairly." Now, that's not agreeing it, but then people, they need, if they need... If satisfying the need to be heard is enough, and now you've scored some more points, you may conclude the deal there. Late night FM DJ voice. Make sure they know they've been heard, particularly with the negative stuff about you. The, the, the most effective way to deactivate negativity is to simply call it out. Now, sometimes you got to call it out more than once, but there's brain science that backs this up. It's the most effective stuff. You, you don't want them continuing to be mad and go away and stew on it and come back even madder. You know, you want to deactivate the negativity with the best way possible, so, so let them feel like they're heard. You're gonna solve enough of your problems just with those two things, that if there's anything that requires any sort of an escalation, at least you didn't need to escalate unnecessarily.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I like that a lot. Uh, uh, you're very, very correct as well about people just needing to be heard. Think you can... In an ideal world, the people who are ejected by the door staff who are inside would go, "That's my night over, I'll, I'll head home," in... That must happen one time in 50, maybe, or one time-
- CVChris Voss
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
... one time in 30. It's very rare. Vast majority of the time when the people, all of us who have stood at the front see someone being brought upstairs, you'll see the promoters who are usually dressed in, like, skinny jeans and, like, cool shoes or whatever, will just part a l- Like Moses sort of moving the Red Sea, will just give the door staff a little bit more room, 'cause we know that he's gonna turn around and come back and start shouting at one of them, m- more often than not. But we have to work with the world the way it is, not the way that we would have it be. And in that situation-
- CVChris Voss
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... it, it's going to happen. And I feel for the door staff with this. This is one of the things I feel quite strongly about within the nightlife industry that they... Part of their job is to be a verbal punching bag.
- CVChris Voss
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, because this person has to do it. They are compelled to say this thing, to vent this anger, to do whatever. The Zeigarnic effect, for the people who know what that is, this open loop, closed loop system that we have. There's an open loop. I haven't had my say. I don't feel like I've closed the door to hell that is currently open in my mind about the injustice that's just been caused downstairs. I need to do my thing. And even if it's just for the person who requires being heard, that might be it. That might... But even that person, even the most sedate person in the world, like I say, you know, one in 30, one in 50 decides to just walk away, um, even the ones, like I say, that are the most collaborative, that are the most sedate, out of those ones, they still want to turn around and say that they've been hard done by. And of them, some of them decide to walk away once they feel like they've been heard. But that, that open loop is a, is a hell of a drug.
- CVChris Voss
(laughs) Yes. Yeah, it is. And it's... And the crazy thing about the negativity of it, in many cases until people get the opportunity to feel heard, uh, they feel even more self-righteous about having to express it. There's usually a lot of self-righteousness in, in, in that anger loop.
- CWChris Williamson
I would agree. Um, the converse of what we said earlier on, the most powerful phrases that we've got in negotiating, are there some that people overuse, or, like, some, um, like, uh, lore, uh, artifact grandfathered in, old school tricks of the trade that people think work during negotiating, but are just, they just need to be thrown out? Or there's stuff that you see people using a lot which just totally need to be stopped?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah. Well, I, I, I really... Uh, the phrase win-win bothers me, principally in the way that it's applied, not the theory behind it. But someone, someone who uses, "Hey, you know, let's do a win-win deal," if they tell me that right off the bat, look, I know you're trying to pick my pocket, and I just know you are. Um, if it comes out of your mouth in, in the first, in the opening moments...Because they sucker a lot of people with that. You know, win-win, oh yeah, cool, yeah, excellent. So, pe- you know, people get taken by that. Or somebody who comes in who's openly, uh, you know, they exude they want the collaboration. Well, they, you know, they're, they're, they're a sucker for that person, you know, that, that, that two in 10 maybe, that's, that's looking to just take them to the cleaners. So I'm, I'm always leery about the utterance of the phrase win-win. And then, you know, are, are you trying to shortcut the situation? Like you don't know what a win is 'cause you don't know what I'm holding back. I don't know what you're holding back. So it, it ain't, it... One way or the the other, you're not trying to get the best collaboration out of this deal if you're using those words.
- CWChris Williamson
The thing-
- CVChris Voss
So that's, that's one of the big things.
- CWChris Williamson
The thing that I really love about your particular approach to communication style in general is that it doesn't require you to really remember very much. Obviously, you have to learn the skills and such forth, but the intricacy, anyone knows, if you've ever told a little bit of a, like, a little white lie, and then the next week someone comes and asks you about the previous white lie, and then you, you got to hold this, like, meta conscience in your mind and start to construct all of the different ways that that lie would interlink with the other lie, and it's, you know, cliché, it tumbles, snowballs into the big gray lie that overtakes your life. But by focusing on not even, as you've said there, not even playing the character of someone who has to be overtly about the win-win, "I am here, this is a collaborative o- uh, opportunity, but I still have things that I want. I have things that I want because that is true. You have things that you want because that is also true. Let us add our two truths together and see where we can find a middle ground."
- CVChris Voss
Yeah, yeah, or... A- a- and I'm cautious of... I'm... L- let's look for overlapping ground, you know, as opposed, versus middle ground. 'Cause middle ground, uh, that phrase starts getting dangerously close to compromise, and compromise is impossible
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
I like that. What…
- CVChris Voss
for human beings. Because i- in 2002, Danny Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Behavioral Economics for prospect theory. Uh, the shorthand version of that is, uh, a loss stinks twice as much as an equivalent gain. So we distort loss in our head, we distort our gives. So let's say I want 15, you want five, and we wanna meet in the middle at 10. Well, for both of us, that loss of five feels like a loss of 10 if you, if you go with Kahneman's 2X rule. And Kahneman has actually given some interviews where he indicates that it's much more than 2X, that he and Amos Tversky said 2X just to limit the amount of argument. Um, I, I think I heard him say it's closer to five to 7X, which means you can never feel okay in an equivalent nature to what you've given in on until you've gotten the other person back for double what you gave up. So compromise always becomes a downward spiral, always, which is why it's to be avoided, which is why you want to get into a conversation where instead of compromise, you're talking about collaboration, where we come up with new opportunities that neither one of us envisioned, or new possibilities. That takes us out of loss entirely, and therefore we're not trying to pay each other back.
- CWChris Williamson
I like that. What are your opinions on Trump as a communicator? If you were coaching him, what would you say that he does well, and what would you say that he needs to improve on?
- CVChris Voss
See, I'm a natural-born assertive, very much. You know, Trump and I are both from the same caveman tribe, the assertive. And what, the problem with assertives are that since we leave people feeling bruised, the people that are willing to deal with this become fewer and fewer and fewer and fewer. You know, you're, you're, you're fishing out the reservoir, you know, you're, you're, you're hunting out the game. And a cruel classic example of what happens in every one of these is where i- where is... what is the status currently of the US North Korea negotiations?
- CWChris Williamson
I'm not sure. You're gonna have to tell me.
- CVChris Voss
That's exactly the point. Nobody knows. That's what happens to the assertive negotiator. Negotiations just start to slowly fade. They don't get concluded. The other side learns that when you... when they interact with you, that if they don't surrender, that you attack.
- CWChris Williamson
Ah, that's interesting.
- CVChris Voss
And there's, there's... I... If, if I want to talk, I'm gonna... if I don't surrender, I'm gonna get attacked. And so what you become conditioned to do is to stop talking entirely, which means deals go away. And if you look at the history of everyone that President Trump has interacted with since he's been president, he showed up, he starts calling them names again, they start arguing, North Korea doesn't surrender. They want... They just... They want to have a dialogue before they surrender. He, he just won't surrender. Now, where's the negotiation? Nobody knows. Every single person that I ask, "Where are we on North Korea?" Everybody goes... That's the response.
- CWChris Williamson
I'm glad that wasn't a trick question. (laughs)
- CVChris Voss
(laughs) I mean, I'd be, I'd be happy to. Nobody says we're in a great place.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CVChris Voss
Like if you're a Donald Trump supporter, you will not answer that question saying, "We're in a great place." Okay? Nobody says that.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I think I, I, I can really get a sense of what you mean. Obviously, Donald Trump isn't directly negotiating with me, but he is, uh, secondarily negotiating with everyone, right? He wants, when he is giving his speech, he is up on stage, he is debating Joe Biden, he is having a collaborative discussion where he wants people to come onto his side of the table. He needs to put himself across in a good way. And, um, I really do get that sense a little bit that four years ago, the novelty of someone who was going to drain the swamp and kind of didn't play by the rules and was brash and forthcoming and like kind of like, like alpha, masculine, in a, in a, in a kind of a assertive Hollywood style president sort of way. You know? Like, if Denzel, if Denzel was doing it, it would... There's like the touches of that, like the almost charisma. But after four years of never seeing, um, the collaboration come through, the tarnish has been taken off the, the shine a little bit, and it just feels, it feels a lot more brash than it did previously. Does that make sense?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah. And there, there are a lot of people that are going like, "Yeah, well, I'm not a big fan of government anyway." You know, and, and every few years in American politics, an American businessman holds their hand up and a massive amount of the country goes like, "Yeah, we need a businessman in charge." And what was it? The 1990s, Ross Perot put his hand up and then instantly a huge portion of America was like, "Yeah, we're tired of the inefficiencies of government. We're willing to give a businessman a shot." You know, everybody's disenchanted with government and some of his approach when he wasn't running the government was, "Yeah, you could do worse." (laughs) But you can't say that anymore.
- CWChris Williamson
No, you are very right. I mean, we keep on seeing this. Mike Bloomberg, you know, like, "I'll put my hand up. I'll have it... I'll, I'll throw my hat in the ring," so to speak. There is a... I kind of get it, right? Because I think people who maybe don't do politics and don't do business presume that someone who has spent a lot of time in a boardroom has some transferable skills maybe that they can kind of put across onto the other side, and I can utilize my business acumen in a way that allows me. And I don't know, like there's certainly part... Like this Middle East thing that Trump's done is very, very impressive and has kind of been pushed under the rug a little bit, I think. I don't think it's been given quite the media attention that it deserved. Um, but-
- CVChris Voss
Agreed.
- CWChris Williamson
... by the same token, I, I'm not convinced. I, I, I... It's not for me to say that a career politician is the best person to become president. But similarly, I don't think that this shows us that someone who's come in from a business background happens to have some sort of competitive advantage when it comes to communicating or diplomacy or anything else. I think that, that ship's sailed a little bit now.
- CVChris Voss
Well, I, I, I can tell you from personal experience, you know, having spent 27 years in a, in a public sector. You know, the public sector sees the private sector and, uh, in a, in the public sector we go like, "Yeah, I could, I could do that. I could do that over there." And vice versa. Private sector looks at the public sector of government and says, "Yeah, I could do that." It, it has taken me every bit of 10 years and we are still figuring out how to operate effectively in a private sector. And principally because the majority of my team were never in a public sector. But you, you look over there and you say, "I could see how I could do better." And in the, in the jet... And moving from the public sector to the private sector, there's no shortage of military generals there or superstars in the military that started consulting companies that fell flat on their face because they're, they're two very different animals. They look a lot alike. You know, maybe, maybe a zebra looks like a horse, but a zebra is not a horse. And until you've got enough experience in either of the arenas, you, you're not gonna realize how new you are to it when you get in. Private sector people say, "Our, our run of government aren't a better business. Uh, you know, it needs to be more efficient." Some of what I was willing to see what Donald Trump was going to do is 'cause I want to know how much is an inherent problem in government and how much is an inefficiency that just needs to be gotten rid of. You know, we've had that experiment. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CVChris Voss
A lot more of it, a lot more of it is inherent (laughs) than what-
- CWChris Williamson
I think it's a... I, I think it is inbuilt. It's part of the source code, you know?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
It's, it's bootstrapped into, um, the inevitability of any structure that is just so big and such a leviathan. Um, we have, in the UK, we have the, the NHS, the National Health Service, and I have a number of doctor friends, many of whom will be listening, and they constantly talk... They still run on Windows 95. They're still faxing stuff. Like, they have to fax things around and like mail post. There's no app. There's no iPads that you can walk around. "Oh, so what's this patient's thing?" It's printed medical records. It is such a humongous beast that to try and enact any sort of change is essentially now untenable. You can't get change to occur. Uh, and this is something that should be considered when talking any country. The grandiosity of potentially having nationalized healthcare is that when you... If you're talking like truly, truly, truly nationalized in a country like yours of 330 million people, you are...... um, f- attaching everyone to the same flagpole, every single person. And if it starts to blow quite a strong wind, all the flags are fucked. Like, they are all, all over the place, they're getting tangled up together, and then you've got to try and untie them. It is, it's a, a real challenge. So I think that's a, that's a side of the, the NHS that I think people don't see because it still functions, at least from the outside looking in, you go in, you get your healthcare, you kind of leave. But the knife edge that it operates on, like, the closeness that almost every patient is to their records being lost, or their appointment being canceled, or whatever it is, it constantly feels like everyone's kind of like Road Runner, you know, just moving their legs as quickly as possible in a desperate attempt to try and keep up with the pace of what needs to be done. I think that's probably a consideration for, for a lot of countries that are considering nationalized healthcare.
- CVChris Voss
Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That's a, that's a view that people that are espousing national healthcare, uh, don't want you to see.
- CWChris Williamson
No, not at all. So final question, Chris. Uh, you've been through a lot of very, very high pressure situations. I wondered if there was one that comes to mind that you could tell us a story about, and then also if that would be a good way to illustrate how you can deal with pressure. There will be people who have a, a job interview, have the final negotiate in, uh, negotiation to keep their job or to, uh, apply for a promotion or to get the business deal or the merger or whatever it might be. Would that be able to illustrate how they can perhaps cope with pressu- pressure in a high-stakes situation?
- CVChris Voss
Yeah, you know, really, um, the ability to, uh, articulate the other side's point of view in a way that they say, "That's right" to you is, is the single biggest game changer. Or, you know, their point of view, when you express it, they'll say, "That's right. That's, that's it exactly. You've got it exactly." That, that's a game-changing move. Now, there's no negotiation approach that works 1000% of the time. Yeah, I was, I was coach, I coached a guy through negotiation just a couple of days ago, and we weren't getting a person where we wanted them to be. And I said, "Well, look, I got to tell you, as a hostage negotiator, we were successful 93% of the time." That also meant that 7% of the time, we had to shoot the guy. And our, you know, our success rate's 93, right In- 'cause this guy's trying to negotiate as a, as a vendor whether or not he's going to give a refund of guys demanding a refund he doesn't deserve. And he, he wants to be nice about it. He doesn't, he doesn't want to tell the guy to just, you know, F off. And I said, "This may be a guy you gotta shoot." You know, uh, this is a guy that no matter what, you, you can't be nice to. 'Cause we were summarizing and expressing the other guy's point of view, and I s- and I said to him early on, "I smell this guy is not gonna come across. He's, he's, he's not gonna come out of his position. We can imply this, but I don't think he's coming out." So express the other side's point of view. Now, there's two really good things about that. Uh, a significant number of your deals are gonna make themselves in your favor once you get a, "That's right" out of the other side. The other thing is too is we found it levels you out. Everybody that takes the time to thoughtfully be able to try to express the other side's perspective, that levels them out. It takes them out of anger, which then is also very good for you because anger is a poison. You know, it's a poison you want to give the person you want to poison, but you're the one that's actually taking the poison. I mean, it just pollutes your system and, and it's, it's bad for you physically, it shortens your life span. There ain't nothing good about anger. So try to express the other side's perspective in a way where they say, "That's right," will level you out as well. Now, we had a negotiation, a kidnapping negotiation in the Philippines. The other side's got outrageous demands. I coach my guy after about two or three months into this, "Look, let's just get a, 'That's right' out of this, out of our bad guy." Because we were stalemated and been stalemated for a while. So express his point of view. Tell him that, you know, the Philippines have been ravaged for 500 years by colonial powers, and the ransom that you're asking for this hostage is not a ransom, it's for war damage, it's for economic harm over 500 years. And repeat back all the other utter nonsense, the ridiculousness of his justification, 'cause people always over justify. They always throw in every, you know, they, y- you know, your Aunt Millie, uh, wore the wrong socks. You know, they're thinking of ridiculous stuff, right? So just feed it back. Don't argue with any of it. Just feed it back to him, we're gonna get a, "That's right" out of him. The guy on the other side is a sociopathic murdering, raping killer. He literally
- 1:00:00 – 1:03:03
Chris, I love that.…
- CVChris Voss
says th- "That's right" when we go into full summary. I don't know how long it took to do the full summary, but it took a while. It seemed excruciating on our end. Terrorist sociopath on the other side says, "That's right." Immediately, the ransom demand went away. It went from $10 million to zero when the phone hung up. No monetary demand was ever raised again through the course of the kidnapping. Kidnapping lasts a couple more months. The hostage walks away. He gets the opportunity they lack in, in security, he just walks away. We fly him back to the US, he's gone. Bad guy's got nothing. I'm back in the Philippines about three weeks later, connect back up with the negotiator that I was coaching. He says, "You're not gonna believe who called me on the phone, the terrorist." "What did he say?" He said, "Have you been promoted? I was gonna kill the American, you're really good at what you do. They should promote you." Which was a sign of respect, which is also him saying...... I'd deal with you again. He was calling to tell him that he'd deal with him again, that they were okay. And not every negotiation is going to turn out that well. But wherever summarizing the other side leaves you is guaranteed to be better than when before your summary. And where that place going to be, I can't guarantee. I can only guarantee that you will always be better off if you take the time to summarize the other side's perspective, if only that it leveled you out. And that's why it's worth doing.
- CWChris Williamson
Chris, I love that. What an amazing story. Today's been just phenomenal. So much for everyone to take away. If people want to check out some more, obviously, Never Split The Difference will be linked on Amazon in the show notes below. Where else should they go?
- CVChris Voss
You know, come to the website, um, BlackSwanLTD.com. B-L-A-C-K-S-W-A-N Ltd.com. We got a massive amount of free material. We got a, a, a weekly newsletter that comes out on negotiation tips and advice. It's concise, which is even the most... it's, it's complimentary, which means there's no cost. But better than that, it's concise and actionable. Plus, the newsletter happens to be the gateway to all the other avenues on the website. So go to the website, newsletter's listed as a blog in the upper right-hand corner, sign up, you get the book and the newsletter. A lot of people start changing their lives with those two tools.
- CWChris Williamson
Amazing, man. Thank you. Today's been, today's been absolutely phenomenal. It's been 18 months that we've been trying to schedule this in, and it was absolutely worth the wait, mate. So, I really appreciate you s- uh, having some of your time today.
- CVChris Voss
Thanks for your persistence. I have enjoyed the conversation.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
Episode duration: 1:03:03
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