How To Negotiate Like An FBI Agent | Chris Voss | Modern Wisdom Podcast 237

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."

(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?

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.

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.

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."

(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.