Tips From a Hostage Negotiator on Handling Difficult Conversations
Episode Stats
Summary
Scott Walker, a former Scotland Yard detective, has learned a thing or two about how to negotiate and communicate in a crisis. He shares how to apply those lessons to difficult conversations we all have in our everyday lives in his book, Order Out of Chaos: Win Every Negotiation: Thrive in adversity and become a world-class communicator. And we talk about his tips on today s show.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast
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and resolving hundreds of kidnapped for ransom cases involving gang leaders
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pirates and extortionists scott walker a former scotland yard detective has learned a thing or
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two about how to negotiate and communicate in a crisis he shares how to apply those lessons to
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difficult conversations we all have in our everyday lives in his book order out of chaos
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win every negotiation thrive in adversity and become a world-class communicator and we talk
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about his tips on today's show scott and i discuss what a red center means in a kidnap for ransom
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scenario and how to create one in your personal life the immediate action drill that can help you
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stay in that red center the importance of separating the decision maker from the communicator in a
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negotiation having a battle rhythm why you don't give hostage takers the money they ask for right
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away and how to structure a negotiation instead and more after the show's over check out our show
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notes at aom.is slash walker all right scott walker welcome to the show thank you for having me so you
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are a hostage negotiator so you negotiate with people who have taken other people hostage you also help
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organizations who have had ransomware attacks how'd you end up doing what you're doing yes a great
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question i don't actually recall the conversation at school where you know you sit down with the
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careers advisor and they say so what is it you want to do do you want to be a train driver
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a teacher a doctor whatever and at no point do i remember them saying hey scott do you want to
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negotiate ransoms for for for people because it's one of those jobs you kind of fall into so to speak
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i was a cop i was a detective in london scotland yard for about 16 years and towards the end of my
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career there i got introduced to the world of kidnap for ransom negotiation and operations to help
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resolve those and get the hostages back and i did that for a number of years and when i left the police
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i went to work for a consultancy firm that specialized in crisis response you could call it
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which ultimately was about flying off all over the world working with families and organizations to get
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their loved ones and colleagues back who'd been taken taken hostage of being kidnapped and uh and a ransom
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was being demanded are you still working with that company or are you doing it on your own now as a
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consultant yeah i do more by myself now and over the last couple years particularly it's taking all
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those lessons and themes and patterns and tools and techniques that i learned over hundreds of cases
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over many years into the business world into the corporate world and also into people's personal
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lives as well you know how can you have really difficult conversations how can you succeed in those
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situations and just have better relationships and communicate better regardless of which area of
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your life really okay so you're taking the lessons you've learned as a hostage negotiator and helping people
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be better negotiators in everyday aspects of their lives yeah it's how to you know think feel and act
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differently in a better way particularly in times of stress uncertainty overwhelm conflict crisis you know a bit
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like the world we're living in right now and in a way it doesn't really matter what the circumstances
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the principles apply or at least that you know underlying principles apply and then you can just
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adapt it accordingly depending on what your needs and circumstances are so this is a world that is
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just new to me i don't know anything about it how often does kidnap for ransom cases happen does it
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happen more often than we're aware of that you see in the news the an accurate figure for how many
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kidnaps take place each year is not really known because if you think about it the places in the
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world where these kidnappings take place the government the tourist department are not going to say hey
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we're the kidnapped capital of the world come and invest your business in your hard-earned money
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here or come and visit us as a tourist there are probably 40 to 50 000 kidnappings a year worldwide
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that's what we estimate probably only about 10 000 of those are actually recorded but when i was
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working in london in the police we had about one a week yeah about 50 52 kidnappings a year there and
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then when i worked in the private sector we were dealing with over 100 a year just us as a small team
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doing that but the chances of you know the average joe walking down the street somewhere becoming a victim
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of a kidnap is really slim you have to be unfortunate to be in the wrong place at the wrong
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time usually they're targeted because they're high net worth or there's some kind of we just call them
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bad on bad where a criminal gang would kidnap another criminal or a family member of another
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criminal for retribution or to pay off some debt or for lack of respect or whatever maybe but for the
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average person you've got to be really unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time okay let's
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talk about how people can apply the lessons that you've learned as a hostage negotiator to their
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everyday negotiations or even just difficult conversations you have with work or with family
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members you say and you argue that dealing with kidnappers is easy and i think when most people hear
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that they think are you crazy that's the most like you're dealing with irrational people it's one of the
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most stressful situations you could could be in because the person who's kidnapping is often
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threatening the life of the person they've taken hostage why do you think dealing with kidnappers is
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easy at the end of the day it's a business transaction nine times out of ten they have something we want the
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hostages and we have something they want primarily money and it's coming to an agreement about how much is
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that's going to be and when how they're going to get it how are we going to get the hostages back
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i appreciate if you're the family of the hostages you're not going to see it like that but ultimately
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that's what it comes down to and there's a bit of leverage we can apply there and ultimately
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it's pretty straightforward whereas what the challenge is is is on your own side and this applies to the
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business world as well it's when the egos and the internal politics and the competing demands
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and the conflicting arguments and priorities all come into play we call it the crisis within the
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crisis and you could see that in a lot of as i said business negotiations where a lot of the time will
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be spent dealing with internal stakeholders who all want to have their say they all want a piece of the
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action they all want to feel as if they're in control or they're dictating the narrative somehow
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and i'd say probably 80 of my time on all of my kidnap and other crisis negotiations around the
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world 80 of my time was spent managing the client managing their expectations their egos their emotions
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their needs their wants the the challenges that they were going through and so at times it's quite a
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relief to be able to get onto the phone with the kidnappers and uh and and come up with you know
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straightforward negotiation so to speak but that goes back to the point you made about you know
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irrational actors irrational people difficult conversations and i think one of the most effective
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ways of dealing with those kind of situations realizing that actually it's not about me so to speak
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i need to be able to understand where is the other person coming from what's their underlying needs
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for example and it's that classic saying first seek to understand before being understood
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and by spending the time bringing more curiosity than assumption to the table and working out okay
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what's really going on for this person then that takes a pressure off you slightly and it means you can
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then tailor your communication style you're part of the conversation to actually address that okay so a
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hostage negotiation is it's a business negotiation and i imagine that's the value you bring as a
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crisis negotiator is you're a third party of course you care about this person who's been taken hostage
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but you're detached like you're not as invested as the family members who have their loved one and so
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they're thinking oh my gosh i gotta do whatever i can to get this person back home safely they're gonna get
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angry when the hostage takers don't cooperate they might say something irrational but you as a third
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party you're able to kind of keep it cool and detached yes and i think that's a great way of
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highlighting that if you can regulate your own emotions and identify the people's emotions you can
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go some way to bring in about far more calm and equanimity and balance and groundedness to the
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situation and yes by default of my position is coming in as you know a third party so to speak i bring
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that naturally because it's not my loved one that's been taken but even dealing with my own kids or in
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my own personal life where you know there's a there's something really i know triggers me or winds me up
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actually initially i've now over many many years of getting it wrong being able to regulate understand
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okay what is showing up for me now in my body my emotions and then by being able to identify and name
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it that can somehow dissipate the impact it's having on me which means i can bring around more objective
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rational thinking and decision making rather than some knee-jerk reaction and really when you think
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about it it's a skill that we're all capable of and we get plenty of opportunities all day every day
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it could be the person who cuts you up in traffic or is rude to you on the subway or it could be an
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ego-driven boss there's all these moments all these pockets of time and situations where it gives you this
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great opportunity to practice this regulation and if you can do that it's a real superpower in that
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actually less and less things phase you so in your book order out of chaos you walk readers through
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a process and practices that they can implement in their own lives so that they can be more like a
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hostage negotiator that sort of objective third-party negotiator in their own personal negotiations
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and one thing you talked about the very beginning is this idea as a negotiator you want to develop
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what's called a red center what's a red center in hostage negotiation and then how can people develop
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their own red center in their own difficult conversations a red center particularly in law enforcement
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terms is the physical location where the telephone calls are being received from the kidnappers it's where
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the family member for example is receiving the demands and the threats so it could be the family kitchen it could be
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a hotel room it could be an office somewhere and that is the place where we have to bring order out of
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chaos which is why i call the book this it's a place that's high emotion lots of irrational thinking
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understandably and it's about bringing this calmness so we can actually come up with a proper negotiation
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strategy and communicate it in the most effective way possible and my job was actually to bring about
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that calm was to instill that in what is a really challenging situation and i realized over time
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and many many many cases and many years was you know what we've got our own red center within us each
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and every one of us and it's this place that no matter how challenging how many problems or issues that
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get thrown at us in life personally professionally we've all got this inner ability it's like an inner
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resilience almost that we have that ability to overcome whatever is put in front of us and if we
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can master that mindset and tap into those resources that we have then actually nothing is really going to
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knock us off our path again and just like anything it's like working on muscles muscle memory it's like
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going to the gym you don't just go once and expect to get the body of adonis you have to practice it
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and reinforce it daily which is why i was saying a while ago that you know every day life presents
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you with opportunities to practice emotional regulation getting your mindset to where it needs
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to be and developing this inner resilience this red center that actually you're going to find a way
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through this no matter how challenging or how stressful the conversation the negotiation the business
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presentation that difficult phone call with a loved one you've been putting off or whatever it may be
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this uh idea of a personal red center it reminds me of the inner citadel that marcus aurelius talked
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about yeah actually i never thought of it like that but that that that's exactly what it is and you
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know what it's the only thing really now that you mentioned it it's the only thing i guess that you
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have complete control over you can't control the weather you can't control the taxes you can't control
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traffic or what someone is going to do or not do or say or not say but what you can control
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is what goes on between that stimulus that trigger and your response and as you described it there the
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the stoic approach i guess of this citadel i control what goes on within these walls here
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and that's what you can you can become the master of that domain so to speak so i like that analogy
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there thanks yeah so in any difficult conversation and negotiation you want to develop this red center
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this inner citadel where your control like you're still going to feel emotions but you're going to
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control them and manage them effectively let's talk about how we can do that what are some things that
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you do to maintain your cool in a hostage negotiation especially in situations where you know there are
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threats about killing the hostage like do you have processes that you go through to keep yourself
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centered and in that personal red center yeah and again these these have been developed over time
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and these are tools and techniques that i know work when the stakes can't get any higher when there's
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a mock execution on the phone the family's in bits the threats are coming in the negotiation is not
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really working that well for a whole host of reasons the money's not becoming available the hostages are in
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poor health so anything that can go wrong is going wrong and as the negotiators the as the crisis response
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consultant so to speak all eyes are on me or people doing my job to resolve this and so i can't afford to let
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my emotions or mindset be anything other than really really strong and agile in the moment and so the
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techniques i've developed and have since have discovered that they're grounded in neuroscience and
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and what have you i call it the immediate action drill and this is something that i keep in my back pocket
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even to this day you know the kids know what button to press or as i said somebody on the train to
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subway or in the traffic and the first part of the immediate action drill is interrupting the pattern it's
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so important that what i mean by that is something is said or something happens or you get the trigger
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there's a danger you can just stay so focused on that you get that tunnel vision and then you just
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get lost in a negative disempowering story that plays on loop over and over and over again and
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interrupting the pattern could be something as simple as standing up and going outside for a bit of fresh
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chair or going for a walk or going to the gym or having a glass of water or putting some music on
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something to or it could be some breathing techniques it could be something to interrupt the pattern the
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situation that you've just found yourself in and from that moment the second stage is about riding
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the wave so for any surfers or skiers or skateboarders listening is imagine you've interrupted the pattern
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and now we want to ride the wave and this is the wave that happens to us biologically chemically
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is for about 90 seconds two minutes maybe tops we have this rush of cortisol and adrenaline and other
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chemicals pumping through our bodies when we face the whole fight flight and freeze response
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and so that 90 seconds at two minutes we want to ride the wave we want to feel the feeling and drop
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the story it doesn't matter why we're feeding this we just need to tune in and allow that to dissipate
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and if after about 90 seconds two minutes it's still going it just means we're stuck in a story
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or some trauma pattern there but then so we've interrupted the pattern we're really tuning into
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what's showing up for us riding the wave for 90 seconds two minutes and then the third step is to ask
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better questions and you can only do that when you've regulated when you've brought the nervous
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system into balance and better questions such as okay what am i missing here what's the opportunity
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what's the learning or insight what else could this mean what could i be grateful for whatever happens
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to be and so it's asking better questions because if you ask better questions you're going to get
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better answers but you can only do that from a regulated state and if for some reason that's
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still not quite working i'll just go back to do some breathing techniques such as box breathing which
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is quite a a popular and an effective one where you breathe in for four seconds you hold it for four
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you exhale for four and then you breathe in again but you hold it and you're breathing again for four so
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you just repeat the cycle or there's the physiological side where you breathe in through
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your nose and then before you breathe out you do an extra little in breath as well through the nose
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and then there's a longer exhale and again these are just proven ways of regulating a system and i
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would do this every time before i walked into the room where the kidnappers were going to phone before
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i sat down with a family or the client i would do that so i could regulate my emotions and if we were
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using a communicator because of a language barrier he was going to speak to the kidnappers i would get
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them to do that as well either box breathing or the physiological sigh or whatever technique worked for
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them so they could regulate they weren't stuck in a pattern and they were able to ask better questions
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if we need to and the same applies to you know people's personal lives as well that the techniques
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work yeah if you're dealing with a kid who's frustrating because they're not wanting to do
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their homework you feel triggered you're like oh my gosh i'm getting angry here you can just do this
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really quickly interrupt the pattern that might just be i'm going to leave the room and say hey
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we'll talk about this here in a bit and then you can do the process of ride the wave ask better
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questions like okay what am i missing here about what my kid's point of view is and how can i better
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understand them and then maybe do some box breathing and then you can come back and begin the
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conversation again yeah and absolutely and dealing with your kids for example or a loved one a partner
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a friend colleague is you can look at it for you look at your hands look at both hands you look at
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your left hand and you go okay this is the person this is their true self this is their identity them as a
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person you know they're inherently a good person and in in the right hand you look at them and go well
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actually this is the behavior that's showing up these are the unkind unhelpful disruptive so-called
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bad behavior and it's about separating the two so then you can deal with the behavior that's manifesting
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itself rather than what we generally do is we link both together and we attack the person as opposed to
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the behavior and i think by separating that as part of that immediate action drill as well can go some
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way to avoiding you know us jumping in as well making the situation even worse by going into a
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spiral or a tit-for-tat argument back and forth which isn't really going to resolve anything i can see
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this happening in a business negotiation maybe in a business negotiation there's multiple issues being
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discussed and let's say there's one issue where you can sense that there's a trigger like people are
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uncomfortable there's some tension there you can interrupt that pattern there with that issue by
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saying hey i sense we're reaching an impasse here let's table this for now and then we can discuss these
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other issues that are not as pertinent or not as heavy and then you can come back to that one issue
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once you've calmed yourself down absolutely which is why you get saying such as well okay well let me sleep
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on it or let's have a coffee break let's you know people can if you if you have a what i call the
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sensory acuity if you can walk into a room or you're sat in a room for a long period of time
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and sense actually this is we need a break it is the tension is getting too much something's not quite
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right people are flagging the the air was getting quite irritable we just need to interrupt what is going
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on here so we'll go outside for a bit of fresh air let's grab a coffee and we'll come back in half an
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hour and it's something as simple as that you're right it may sound really really super simple but it
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works yeah and which is why i always recommend clients now in business negotiations particularly
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if they're face-to-face is have somebody in the room on your side whose sole job is to observe
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they're not to actually take part in the negotiation itself their job is just to pick up on all the
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nuances and the context and the the body language and what is not being said and the mood and the energy
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because so often we can get narrow focus we get tunnel focused on to the the specifics of a
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negotiation we can sometimes miss the bigger picture and those people who are the observers
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they're worth their weight in gold because they're the ones who can pick up stuff and go well actually
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we're not in alignment here there's a mismatch there's an incongruency between what's being
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said and everything else i'm noticing we need to take 20 minutes out because we need to have a
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conversation about this we're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors
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and now back to the show that reminds me that idea of having an observer in a negotiation reminds me of
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another point you make as a hostage negotiator one of the things you do is you have a team there's a
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big team going on in a hostage negotiation one thing you do is you separate the people who are the
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decision makers in the hostage negotiation from the person who's communicating why do you do that
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commanders command and negotiators negotiate absolutely because if i'm the key decision maker and i'm
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jumping on the phone with it could be anybody it could be kidnappers it could be the business deal
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i have nowhere left to go i can't put any buffer any firewall i can't stall for time so i can't go well
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let me check with the boss if i am the boss and not only that it allows even if it's just you even if
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you're buying a car for example you could still separate the negotiating and the decision making
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yourself which again it goes back to that point i made just now is well let me sleep on it i want to
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think about it let me come back to you on that it's really important to build that buffer so you don't get
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caught up in the whole emotion of it because we do make decisions emotionally and then look to justify
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them rationally afterwards whereas because we know that well let's put a bit of time in so we can
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make sure they're the right emotions and we're not making a decision in the moment out of fear greed or
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whatever it may be and so by separating that idea with two or more people but even if it's just you the
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same principles apply and while what this does it just helps you bring in that idea of you being a
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disinterested objective third party you're trying to get to that as close as possible by doing that
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yeah it just brings a bit more space and control and enables you to make the better decisions that
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are going to be in your interest ultimately rather than agreeing to something and then you come off the
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phone or you walk out the room going oh we could have asked for more money yeah or do you know what
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we've been ripped off here which happens to all of us because we make those decisions too quickly
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because we're caught up in the emotion and the high drama the negotiation rather than having some
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time to think about it and so the idea is you need to have a plan whenever you reach one of those
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decision points where you could get caught up in the emotions as the communicator and negotiator
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you know doing it by yourself have a plan where okay i reached this point where i can see my emotions
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are getting the best of me that's when i need to separate the two you know the inner negotiator the
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inner communicator and then take a break and then let the decision maker do the decision making and then
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come back and let the communicator do the communicating yeah and that could even be a five minute gap it
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doesn't have to be five weeks you know i mean it's uh it's just separating it you bring an intention
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intentionality to it i guess right i am deliberately consciously putting a firewall in
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place now between this negotiation okay well let me i'm going to go off for half an hour i'm going to
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come back and then i'll make a decision what do you do in the situation as a hostage negotiator
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because i'm sure this this this happens there because this happens in regular negotiations let's
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say you do want to put some space okay i want to interrupt the pattern here i want some time to
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think about it but the other party is like no you got to make a decision now it's do or die how do
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you handle that okay well we would have preempted this ahead of time and we can come on to that
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later about what we call that and how we do that but in terms of it's just explaining well if
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you want me to get the money we need time to do that and all the time i'm on the phone to you i'm
00:27:10.220
not going to be able to get the money it's a lot of money you're asking for we're a poor company we're
00:27:14.780
poor family whatever actually i need to go and speak to people i need to try and get the money
00:27:20.540
from them i need to raise the funds whatever it is so you're building in a narrative you're building
00:27:25.580
in a story a credible story as to why you need time and then you can go well do you know what let's
00:27:32.940
speak again same time tomorrow and that helps with what we call the battle rhythm of being able to
00:27:41.100
manage this over a long period of time without getting burnt out and see if we can buy time if we
00:27:46.620
can separate the negotiation from the decision making and it just means it's far more sustainable
00:27:53.980
and everybody stays far more alert and in better shape and they can make better decisions and ultimately
00:28:01.020
it's about the safe and the timely release of the hostages tell us more about this battle
00:28:05.900
rhythm idea in hostage negotiation yeah what it is is well when you don't have an effective battle
00:28:12.380
rhythm what that looks like is people on edge 24 7 every phone call notification ping on their phone
00:28:21.340
or computer they think it's from the kidnappers they don't sleep they can't eat they don't get any rest
00:28:27.580
and that's fine for a couple of days but after a week two weeks two months three months six months
00:28:35.100
it's just not sustainable and the longer that goes on without an effective battle rhythm people get
00:28:40.860
burnt out and make poor decisions and ultimately people can die as a result of that and so a battle
00:28:46.220
rhythm really is it's about a routine it's about a structure again this applies to the business world as well
00:28:53.740
is okay we're going to sit down and we're going to negotiate between
00:28:58.700
two and four pm every day and outside of that each side is going to work on their side of the deal
00:29:05.500
you know their offers and counter offers and and dealing with all the demands and threats maybe that
00:29:10.860
that are showing up but it also means people get chance to to sleep to eat to rest to think through
00:29:17.420
things to work out you know four five six steps ahead particularly kidnapping okay well we need
00:29:24.940
to start thinking about how we're going to get the money together and who's going to transport it
00:29:30.460
who's going to curry it to the kidnappers for example so that's really what we mean by a battle rhythm
00:29:37.660
it's interesting i didn't know this about hostage negotiations you'd think a hostage negotiations
00:29:42.300
they'd be resolved really quick but the way you describe it it can be a very long drawn out
00:29:48.460
affair it's worth emphasizing the different terms here the hostage taking that people think of when
00:29:57.100
we use that term they think it's like a bank robbery gone wrong always in a domestic situation where
00:30:03.420
usually a disgruntled husband is taking the wife hostage because i know she's having an affair with
00:30:09.660
somebody or the bank robbers according the bank that can't escape those situations aren't that common
00:30:17.580
so really what we're talking about is somebody's on the way to the factory in west africa or latin america
00:30:24.460
or southeast asia somewhere and a kidnapping gang want to take them and then we're going to ransom the
00:30:31.980
family or the company for money and that is what we're talking about really here and i said that could
00:30:37.820
take days weeks or months to resolve so the battle rhythm is just establishing structure to the
00:30:45.260
conversation that you're having yeah so you can have a sustainable negotiation which ultimately is
00:30:52.540
important because if you don't have it it can impact the efficacy of the negotiation which ultimately can
00:30:58.860
impact the chances of the hostages coming back alive and you can do this in your own personal
00:31:03.900
negotiations where you say hey we'll discuss this for 30 minutes and then we'll take a break if it
00:31:09.260
hasn't been resolved and then we'll come back to it you know 10 minutes later yeah and and well as i said
00:31:16.300
we'll sit down we'll meet up here in the meeting room between two and four o'clock every day and look to
00:31:22.140
work through this and then in the time outside of that each side will have their own challenges and
00:31:28.460
issues as i mentioned at the beginning they'll have their own crisis within a crisis so to speak
00:31:32.780
where they'll have to brief upwards they'll have to come together and work out what they're going to
00:31:39.420
do and all the challenges and all the issues and problems that can come from doing these big
00:31:45.020
negotiations and so it's in everybody's interest to do this well another aspect of establishing
00:31:50.460
parameters for the negotiation not only establishing a rhythm it's actually establishing who will be doing the
00:31:57.260
talking and who you will talk to because one thing you talk about in the book is a tactic that
00:32:02.780
hostage takers will often use they'll go to multiple parties and try to negotiate with
00:32:08.220
multiple parties why do they do that to spread fear distress dissent confusion which is why one of my
00:32:17.660
key roles at the very beginning is to try and get some control over those communications and so we say
00:32:24.460
it's we want one number one voice and one message we want the kidnappers and us to be speaking on one
00:32:32.140
number we want one voice on either side and there's going to be a clear message certainly from our side
00:32:37.500
to them one clear message we don't want four five six different people all trying to get involved or
00:32:44.460
trying to have their say all in these parallel negotiations because ultimately it confuses the situation
00:32:51.500
it can lengthen the the negotiations and ultimately threaten the ultimate outcome which is the release
00:32:57.660
of the hostages or in a business context the deal but you often see that particularly in the business
00:33:03.420
world is where well actually in kidnapping where people come out the woodwork they all feel as if they
00:33:09.900
should have a say or an involvement and sometimes i'll open up these parallel lines of dialogue without
00:33:16.540
each you know the other part of negotiation realizing this and it rarely ends up well you
00:33:23.500
know who does this tactic very well of you know causing discord and confusion kids do this when they
00:33:31.340
they go to their parents they're like hey dad can i go to the amusement park and then your dad gives
00:33:36.140
an answer and then they also go to the mom mom can i go to the amusement park and then you know but
00:33:40.220
they give different answers yeah kids are kids are they know about that they're the best best
00:33:46.460
negotiators going around and i tell you what if anyone's listening has got kids that realize actually
00:33:53.580
we want to watch and learn how they do it because kids are masters at it it must be an inherent thing
00:33:57.900
that there's adults we lose it over time perhaps i don't know yeah so something you can do when your
00:34:02.460
kids do that and they ask you a question where it's kind of like oh i'm not sure just be like well
00:34:06.620
let's talk about it with your mom as well yeah absolutely yeah you just nip that in the bud another
00:34:13.740
aspect of prepping for a hostage negotiation is this idea of bunch of fives what is that
00:34:21.740
yeah this is something i was alluded to a short while ago around as part of the preparation for any
00:34:27.900
form of negotiation if you can come up with a bunch of fives and again just imagine your hand the palm of
00:34:33.100
your hand if you can think of okay what are the top three four five objections challenges
00:34:41.180
opticals questions threats demands issues whatever the other side is likely to levy against you if you
00:34:51.180
can understand and work out what they're likely to be ahead of time that's a great position to be in
00:34:56.140
because you can then preempt and you can mitigate against them you could even introduce them yourself
00:35:02.220
you know they're the elephant in the room so to speak and you could just introduce them into the
00:35:06.380
negotiation and it gets it out of the way because if if there's a chance that the other side are going
00:35:11.500
to levy them against you it means that it's going to be playing on their minds some somewhere which is
00:35:17.500
why if you can have and we use this in a kidnap negotiation we want a conflict call we call it the
00:35:23.100
conflict call we want that as soon as possible and this is the phone call with the kidnappers where
00:35:28.780
they'll ask for say i don't know a million a million dollars and the family has got about
00:35:34.060
20 000 so there's a huge huge disparity between the two and so that initial conflict call is when
00:35:40.780
we're looking to manage the kidnappers expectations our initial offer could be i don't 10 15 000 and
00:35:47.740
obviously the kidnappers are not going to respond too well to that but it's far better to have that at
00:35:52.940
the outset than wait till you two three four five weeks into the negotiation and so this bunch of
00:35:59.260
fives allows you to get to that position and have that conversation from a place of strength because
00:36:05.340
it's not going to phase you when the other side suddenly come out with the threat the demand the
00:36:10.940
question the challenge the obstacle the objection and so it's time spent preparing for that
00:36:17.180
is time well spent in my experience okay so all things we've talked about so far the the
00:36:21.340
immediate action drill where you interrupt the pattern ride the wave maybe do some breathing
00:36:27.180
the separating the decision maker from the negotiator this bunch of fives this is all about
00:36:33.180
developing that red center that mental fortitude that you'll stay calm when you're in the process
00:36:38.620
of negotiation let's talk about actually just the negotiation process specifically you talk about
00:36:44.620
how it's important to establish empathy with the other party that you're negotiating with and i
00:36:50.380
think people can understand that when you're in a business negotiation you want to understand what
00:36:54.140
people's needs and wants are why would you want to develop empathy with a hostage taker who
00:37:00.780
is threatening the life of somebody i think it's worth emphasizing what empathy is not at the outset
00:37:08.620
empathy is not agreeing with somebody it's not acquiescing it's not condoning it's not even
00:37:15.260
necessarily being particularly pleasant or nice empathy it's a verb it's a doing word it's what you do
00:37:26.220
to demonstrate you understand where the other person is at or where they're coming from or what's going on
00:37:33.020
them in their mind or their position and people have a have difficulty with that because they
00:37:41.420
they they bring their own ego to bear in the in the driving seat and they allow that to get in the
00:37:47.180
way and they'll then be judging the other person where again it's really worth emphasizing it doesn't
00:37:55.020
matter if i disagree with the person in fact empathizing with the other side when we do disagree
00:38:01.660
when we have nothing in common is really really powerful but if i can do that i'll explain how we can
00:38:08.380
do that in a moment but if i do that if i can demonstrate that empathy it enables them to feel
00:38:15.340
seen heard and understood and this is not some kind of woo woo fluffy
00:38:22.140
nonsense this is it's grounded in neuroscience and it works i've seen it work time and time again both
00:38:29.100
in situations where high stakes life or death situations and in a more benign let's say corporate
00:38:35.500
environment if people feel as if they've been listened to and that the other side gets them
00:38:42.060
they're more likely to agree to your terms and suggestions and actually by empathizing
00:38:49.500
you're earning the right you're building the trust you're earning the right to then look about
00:38:55.020
influencing and persuading the other person to do something that they may not initially want to do and
00:39:00.380
the way we can demonstrate that empathy is first of all remove our judgment and ego out of the way
00:39:07.020
and it could be something simple as just summarizing where you think that the person is at it's like
00:39:13.580
okay well before we go any further is it okay if we just share with you where i think you're at with
00:39:18.620
this deal you think actually this deal it's a lot of money it's probably more money than you want to pay
00:39:23.820
right now you feel that actually we're in a stronger position here and you may even feel as if we're
00:39:29.740
looking to rip you off because we've inserted these terms and conditions or clauses in the deal
00:39:35.500
that you probably feel as if they're not really fair to you and this isn't the first time this has
00:39:39.900
happened this is the third time as two businesses we've we've we've been in this position and they'll go
00:39:47.180
actually scott yeah scott gets me he understands even if i disagree with him thinking well actually
00:39:52.300
this is all above and beyond it's a standard contract standard terms and conditions and
00:39:57.260
actually you've signed this many times before without any problem it doesn't matter about that
00:40:03.660
i just want to decide to think ah they understand me they get me and then you're almost given an open
00:40:11.420
goal in which you can then start to influence and persuade so yeah you can do this even when the guy's
00:40:16.300
saying i need a million dollars now or i'm killing this person yeah and it's like okay well
00:40:22.380
hey you know it sounds like uh getting a deal here pretty quickly is important to you so you
00:40:26.620
can get back to your family or whatever it is you're doing and actually you believe that we've
00:40:31.180
got the money to hand to pay you so we can get our loved one back and they go yeah that's what
00:40:37.260
that's right yeah yeah you've got the money we wanted otherwise we're going to kill them okay well
00:40:41.900
then we can actually at that point go well please the responsibility of the hostages is down to you
00:40:48.140
i know this is important i know you want this resolved but you must look after the hostages
00:40:52.140
and if you do that we're going to do our best to get you as much money as possible another thing
00:40:56.860
you do in a hostage negotiation is this idea of decreasing increase what is that and how do you use
00:41:03.340
that in a hostage negotiation decreasing increases how the offer counter offer demand counter demand
00:41:12.540
etc how that goes so say there's an initial demand for a million dollars and we the family or the
00:41:20.620
company they can maybe get quarter of a million that's the maximum amount of money they can get
00:41:25.740
and so we would make an initial offer of i don't know let's say 150 000 and then each time we we make
00:41:35.020
an offer we would do slightly less than the previous one so each time we offer some money it's less than
00:41:42.620
the other on the previous offer which signals to the kidnappers where this is going to go actually
00:41:48.220
they're not going to get a huge jump a huge increase anymore and the longer this goes on the less
00:41:53.660
and less we offer the challenge comes when sometimes the kidnappers will say okay okay this has gone on
00:41:59.660
long enough we understand where you're at you can't get this much money but actually you know what
00:42:05.340
what can we'll settle first let's say we're at um two hundred thousand dollars so far they've refused
00:42:11.260
they've declined that offer and they'll go okay actually if you can get 220 000 to us by tomorrow
00:42:19.020
we'll release the hostages if our last couple of offers have been in increments of maybe
00:42:24.940
a ten a five and a three thousand and then all of a sudden we're going to find an extra 20 000
00:42:30.940
overnight the kidnappers are going to go well hang on you've been telling me you could only find 3 000
00:42:37.100
for the last couple of days now you suddenly found 20 000 overnight well then they're going to hold on for
00:42:41.580
more and so it's a way of bringing some discipline i guess and some structure to the negotiations and
00:42:49.020
again as i said it manages expectations it sets the trajectory of where this is going to end
00:42:55.980
that seems counterintuitive that you wouldn't just give the money that you have available
00:43:00.540
because i'm not sure a loved one's like geez i want my son back alive so just give him the 250 000
00:43:05.100
dollars why wouldn't you just want to give the hostage takers the money they asked for right up
00:43:10.460
front that question probably gets asked on every single case um and the reason we don't do that the
00:43:17.740
reason we don't want to do that will you imagine if we paid what they asked for too quickly what do you
00:43:25.660
think is likely to happen as a result of that i guess those ask for more they'll go thank you for the
00:43:31.020
down payment thank you for the deposit now we're ready to negotiate i'm not only going to keep
00:43:36.620
are we going to keep that money the poor courier the poor person who you've managed to persuade to
00:43:42.300
bring us the ransom money we're going to keep him as a hostage as well and so what we want to do
00:43:49.740
and it's counterintuitive i get that but by bringing about this discipline in the negotiation
00:43:56.780
it actually shortens the amount of time that the hostages are kept for and so we want the kidnappers
00:44:04.140
to feel as if there's no more money left because in the business deal as well if you think there's
00:44:08.700
more money left on the table you're not going to agree to a deal and the kidnappers are no different
00:44:13.580
to that we call it squeezing the orange we want them to feel as if they squeezed every last drop of juice
00:44:20.140
out of us so they don't come back for more so they don't release the hostage and then they kidnap
00:44:25.180
them or family member next week for example so to come back to the decreasing increases technique
00:44:33.340
this would be like you're negotiating for a new car and you throw out a low number and then that's
00:44:38.620
rejected and with your subsequent offers what happens the money goes up my offers to pay more money
00:44:46.700
would increase but the amount that they would increase would decrease each time gotcha well scott
00:44:52.700
this has been a great conversation i think the big takeaway is from this conversation in a negotiation
00:44:57.580
or a difficult conversation you got to keep that red center that inner citadel we talked about some
00:45:01.980
tactics you can do to do that is there like one thing you would think that if someone started
00:45:07.020
implementing today with difficult conversations they're having whether it's at work or at home where
00:45:11.900
they'd see immediate return on investment i would say it's the emotional regulation piece it's any
00:45:21.420
conversation well every conversation you have now and you can feel yourself getting a bit riled it's
00:45:28.940
just pause even if it's for a split second and just notice actually do you know what i can really feel
00:45:34.220
that tension coming up in my body okay well let me just focus on that let me breathe through it and then i can
00:45:39.820
re-engage and the more you can practice that this can be a split second or one or two seconds maximum
00:45:46.140
by the time you practice this and i would urge people to then seek out worthy opponents i call
00:45:53.180
them those are those people who always annoy you and frustrate you or the situations you know are likely
00:45:59.580
to be testing because it's just a great practice to work those emotional regulation muscles and if you can do
00:46:07.420
that it means you're never going to get phased again in a negotiation when it really counts
00:46:12.940
where can people go to learn more about the book and your work yeah they can go to the website
00:46:17.740
scottwalkerbooks.co.uk and there's more details on there sign up for the newsletter and get a copy of
00:46:23.820
the book and and learn about my negotiation workshops and other good stuff fantastic well scott
00:46:30.700
walker thanks for your time it's been a pleasure thank you my guest today was scott walker he's the author of
00:46:35.980
the book order out of chaos it's available on amazon.com you can find more information about
00:46:39.900
his work at his website scottwalkerbooks.co.uk also check out our show notes at aom.is walker we find
00:46:46.620
links to resources we delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the aom
00:46:58.540
podcast make sure to check out our website at art of manliness.com where you find our podcast archives
00:47:02.460
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00:47:22.420
until next time i'm brett mckay reminding you to listen to aom podcast but put what you've heard into action