4 Principles of Influence from a Hostage Negotiator | Scott Tillema

26:07And once you know it, we're moving from something you know to a skill that you have, which is a really good step. But now over the next months and years, we take that last step and it becomes who you are. And once it becomes who you are, then we can drill down. And now I'm going to study the non-verbals. Now I'm going to work on my own posture, facial expressions. We're really starting to put the cherry on top because I've managed myself. I built the skill. It's who I am. And now I can be really present with somebody. And these are the people who can just, they get you to say yes, because they're that good.

26:43And it's not only the transformation within yourself when you implement all these skills, it's the transformation of your reality around you when you put them in the place to change it. I think a lot of people have a blind spot around how much their emotions rule the day in these situations. They think the decisions are made logically, their own decisions they logic, and then other people are acting logically in the decisions that they make. But what we're talking about here is getting comfortable managing your own emotions so that you can have the influence to manage other people's emotions. And I think that's a real blind spot for a lot of us because we like to think we're just logical and everything after we make that decision, we can logically say made sense.

27:25When in actuality, a lot of what's going on with this release of adrenaline and the emotions you're carrying into these difficult conversations, maybe getting cut off on your way to work or having a disagreement with your partner, and then you have to show up and manage a conflict between coworkers. Those emotions rule the day. A hundred percent. In our training classes, we'll do a poll, you know, are you more emotional? Are you more logic and reason? And then we segue into an exercise where people are stunned at their own outcomes where it's clearly an emotional decision. This is an outcome. And I say, all right, now let's go back and add some time and add some thought to this.

28:01And their heads are exploding going, I can't believe this is the outcome that I chose. And they realize it's all emotion based. And what we talk about is the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. And that very famous passage in there where he talks about between stimulus and the response, there is a space. And in that space is your freedom to choose your response. And that's your growth. That's your power. And how can we add more time between stimulus and response so we can bring back some of that logic and reason which we need? And some of the studies that show that we're all emotional, they say that we then go back and justify our emotional response using logic and reason to make ourselves feel better and look smarter about the emotional decision that we just made.

28:46Yeah. And I think we try to suppress or ignore those emotions instead of actually doing the more important thing, which is labeling, getting comfortable with understanding them. And then that allows you to be more comfortable with picking up on those emotions and others. Because a lot of what we're talking about here is not just managing our own emotions, but you got to manage the other person at the other side of the table's emotions, whether it's the conflict that they're heading off or whether it's the fierce negotiation they're in with you. Their emotions really matter in the outcome. For sure.

29:14And when you get to that point where you can manage yourself and then manage that other person, now you're leading. Now you are leading the negotiation. You are going to get to better outcomes nearly 100 % of the time when you are in the driver's seat. And there's negotiation trainers out there that talk about, let's separate the person from the problem. And I'm convinced that they've never actually done a negotiation because how many of us are so invested in everything we do, whether it be our work, our personal life, our relationships, that when something goes bad, we simply don't care. Like that doesn't happen.

29:46Like you feel that when there's a failure, you feel that when there's a bad outcome and we don't like that. One of the best books out there, I really enjoy this book, is called Beyond Reason, Using Emotions When You Negotiate. Dan Shapiro from the Harvard Program on Negotiation, love this one, talks about five core concerns. And it really validates the idea that we are emotional people and we should use this to our advantage. So that's a big first step is understanding and getting comfortable with your own and then moving into understanding the other side. And then in your four principles framework, you have three other principles that I'd love to cover.

30:21The next being timing. So what is timing? And let's unpack that for the audience. How can we use that to our advantage? Yeah, timing is your strategy piece, knowing when to deliver the message. So for example, I'm negotiating with a guy, I'm the lead negotiator with a man who's armed and barricade. He says, I'm going to kill you. And then he starts shooting. So we got shots being fired out of this house where he's armed and barricaded. My goal here is to get this guy out peacefully without violence. So as he's shooting at me, is this the time to say to him, pardon me, sir, I think you should put the gun down and surrender.

30:56It's comical because you know it's going to be an absolute flop failure because there's no way that this is going to be effective. But why? Maybe I got to say it in the right tone, but more importantly, I have to say it at the right time. So the timing thought is, am I in the best place to deliver this message? Am I centered? Am I where I need to be? And is the person that I'm talking with, are they in a position where they can even receive this message? Can they even process that? We're negotiating with a man. He was holding a woman hostage. And you can hear in the background, he's vomiting as he's negotiating with the police negotiator.

31:35And this is the moment where we look around and be like, is anybody concerned that maybe he's got a stomach bug or early strain of COVID? Clearly, that's not the case. He's so psychologically overwhelmed. He can't even control his own body right now. So let's be mindful and thoughtful about when we deliver the message. But so often people just, they can't wait to talk. They're just waiting and waiting, waiting. And, and they're just, they just want to say whatever they need to say rather than being thoughtful. And we couple this with understanding as the first principle to say timing, have I done what I was supposed to do first, understand the situation, understand the person, this is your power.

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35:36Visit GoodToKnowFacts.org. You talked about this a little bit earlier. I'd love to talk about delivery because often it's more important how we say it than what we're actually saying in these moments with all the emotion that's running through the difficult conversation. 100 percent. Gary Nesner, one of the first or the first chief negotiator of the FBI, always talks about in his debriefings with people that he's had negotiations with. he'll always say this line. People will tell him, I really don't remember what you said, but I really like how you said it. And that's what people remember. We create feeling in others with our delivery.

36:19And in a real setup with a SWAT negotiation, it's not like you see on TV. On TV, you got Denzel Washington, he's looking good. He's on the cell phone strutting up and down Fifth Avenue, like he's looking good. But in the real world, it doesn't work like that. I am sitting right across from a coach or a secondary negotiator who is doing nothing but managing my delivery. And with that, we're looking at the rate, the rhythm, the pressure, the volume, the tone of what's being said. And in real time, I got somebody who's making adjustments to my delivery as we're having these negotiations. And it's powerful because you get excited.

36:57So we're starting to pick up the speed and the momentum. And sometimes you just need someone to give you that cue. hey, let's slow it down here a little bit. Or let's turn down the volume here. Let's take the pressure off the words. And now we're giving an entirely different feeling to somebody else just based on the delivery. My content really isn't changing at all, but the delivery changes and it's an entirely different feeling from someone sitting across the table from me. And that cadence is so powerful. You can use that to your advantage. We often don't realize internally that our cadence is picking up and having that outside perspective of saying, hey, slow down is so impactful in these moments.

37:38Do you have any checks for yourself internally in these moments to help guide you if you don't have that coach in the room with you? Yeah, well, well, two things. First of all, practice and have this opportunity to work with somebody who can say, here's where you get going. As soon as you get interrupted, you get a little louder, you get a little faster. As soon as you get frustrated, here's what happens. So understanding yourself and getting that feedback, but ask somebody, ask someone, you know, and trust, this is going to be a great moment where you can sit down and ask someone, Hey, under stress, under pressure, how is my delivery in conflict communication?

38:16And there's a person out there who's been waiting a very, very long time to give you this feedback of how you engage with them when the pressure's on. So get that. Get that feedback. Get that practice. And it's going to change. It's going to change your person effect, how people experience you just based on little adjustments of your delivery. And people are going to love it. If we're coupling it with the first principle of understanding, being a better listener, being thoughtful of when we deliver the message, and now we're starting to put these pieces together with being thoughtful of our delivery elements, people are going to experience you in a whole different way and they are going to love it.

38:58I'm sure my wife is itching to have that conversation for feedback with me. There's something she wants to tell you. Absolutely. Now, the last piece of the framework is respect. And I think oftentimes we are looking for the resolution and we're not thinking about the respect. But in these difficult conversations, most likely we're going to have to do business with this person again. We're going to have to work with this person. We're going to live with our spouse. So respect is a big part of the difficult conversation, but it's often overlooked because we're seeking resolution. I think it almost begins with that mindset of respect.

39:30And it's more than just being respectful. because when I ask somebody, how do you demonstrate respect to someone? I'll get the yes, please. No, thank you. Yes, sir. No, ma 'am. The politeness. But respect for me is going deeper to understand what's driving human behavior. And when I drill down on respect, there's really kind of four elements that I look at. It's fairness. Do people feel that they're being treated fairly? Empathy, which we kind of let off that conversation with. Does someone feel like someone cares about them. Autonomy is the freedom to make my own decisions. And are we giving them some element of autonomy and then recognition, which is a huge driver of human behavior, a huge driver of engagement, are people being recognized in the way that they want to receive it.

40:23And sometimes I'll get challenged on this one. Okay, I'm negotiating with a guy who's holding a knife to his throat. And he's been sitting there for 30 minutes. I've been telling him, drop the knife, put the knife down. And he's just simply not doing it. What is there to recognize? And I said, let's brainstorm. Let's do that scenario and come up with 10 statements of positive recognition and we can do it. How about thank you for not hurting yourself. I appreciate that you've taken time to share your situation. Thanks for not insulting my mother. We can come up with a whole bunch of different pieces of positive recognition, even when seemingly somebody isn't doing a whole lot.

41:02Let's look for what we want to have happen in the future and give a little bit of that positive feedback and see if we can connect these pieces, these elements of fairness, empathy, autonomy, recognition with that respect trigger inside of them and have them feel like they are a partner in the outcome of what's about to happen. Can you unpack the autonomy piece of that a little bit more for us? So this is the freedom to make our decision. So I tell people, hey, do you want to, in like a business negotiate, here's our offer. And the answer is either going to be yes or no. But what if we give three different packages and three different options for them to consider here?

41:40So now they, well, I really like this. I really like this. I really like that. You have some freedom in my world. I've arrested hundreds, if not thousands of people, they're handcuffed behind their back. We get them back into the lockup facility. I'll ask them, hey, I'm going to take these handcuffs off and get you a little bit more comfortable, but I still need to handcuff you to this bench. Would it be more comfortable for you if it's your right hand or your left hand? Seemingly, it's a small piece, but instead of me telling them what to do and having full control over them, hey, you know, maybe my right hand or maybe my left hand.

42:13In either case, I don't care. They're not going anywhere. They're still going to be locked down. But these little moments where we can offer them the freedom to make a decision is really, really powerful. And to maybe go further, there's a whole list of like unwritten rules in each of our workplaces, each of our fields. And imagine this, you're on an airplane and you got the window seat. You know your airplane ticket says you have the window seat, but it doesn't say you are in exclusive control of the four cent window shade. But you know that you are. Everybody knows that. If I'm in the window seat, I control the window shade.

42:50Because what happens when the person over on the aisle reaches across? I'm looking out the window. I'm flying wherever I'm flying, looking at this beautiful sunset. And this person reaches across and closes my window shade. I'm going to lose my mind, right? It's like, what are you doing? Like, this is mine. You are in my space. So sometimes a power imbalance can be an autonomy trigger. When you are the boss, you are HR, and maybe you're coming in and working with somebody and the power isn't quite even, the person can feel triggered just because I want the freedom to make my own decisions or micromanaging.

43:25I'm coming in and I'm telling you what to do. That's an autonomy trigger. Get out of my space, let me do my work. And it's powerful even for parents to be able to guide your children with a range of choices, all of which are acceptable to you, but create them the freedom to make the choice. They're gonna follow that direction a lot better than you barking orders at them or only giving them one option, a favor. We're going to give more if it's our idea. That puts you in a position where you have to know what the outcomes are that you would like to see and work towards them. Going in without that and then hoping that the other person maybe has that is not going to allow you to feel very confident in that negotiation.

44:08It's not going to allow you to drive to a resolution And it's just two people then staring at each other going, maybe that person will take care of it. Well, maybe this other person will take care of it. But if you have those things aligned up beforehand, you can go in excited. You can go in with a game plan. You can have an understanding and a plan of what goals need to be met in order to reach the ultimate goal and ultimate resolution. That's it. Brilliant. I know where I am and I know where I want to go. And I think those are really good starting pieces for a negotiation. Now, we might not be able to see the path on how to get there because I don't know you.

44:51I'm not sure how this is going to go. The best negotiators believe in what is possible. I know where I am. I know where I want to go. And I've got the skills and tools and structures, techniques to help guide the process through whatever you might throw at me. And I'll remind people that when somebody gets loud or they get disrespectful or they call you names, this might be them out of control, but it might be them very much in control. And this could be a technique designed to mess with you a little bit. Because I want to find out, as soon as I can start having you react to things, now I'm starting to take control of this.

45:26So this could be nothing more than a tactic. We have to be that good. Know where you are, know where you want to go, and be willing to go into the unknown with somebody else. And if you're not dealing with somebody who has the best intentions, regardless of what sort of negotiation it is. Once they see that you are being reactive, like a child understanding that now his parents are getting a divorce and he can will them against each other, they will. It's just, that's just how it works. For sure. People are going to take advantage of you out there. And that's a sad reality. I don't like the naive approach that we're all going to win and we're all going to get something and have a great outcome.

46:07People are waiting to take advantage of you. Let's be smarter than that and show up. If nothing else, protect yourself, protect your team. And people have a very accommodating style of negotiation. And I say that's a very nice, but let's not employ social norms in a business setting. These are business norms and have the mindset of, I don't negotiate for me, I negotiate for we. And that right there can change your entire mindset to say, as soon as you come up to an agreement, now you have to turn around to your team and explain to them the outcome that we just got. And it changes your mindset to say, I'm going to work harder.

46:45I'm going to get more for me and the people I serve and love.

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47:46Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. These skills are common knowledge now, and you can get this training anywhere, and we certainly work with our clients. So not only do they understand the power of these, but they can protect themselves because others will use these tools if they know they can get away with it. And that's why you should not shy away from understanding interpersonal relationships and the mechanisms that drive them. That's it. Negotiation, conflict resolution, influence. These are huge skills that we need to have. Yeah. Because the old concept of knowledge is power is gone.

48:28We're all experts. If you got chat GPT on your phone or your computer, I can give you any paper on any topic in five minutes. Yeah. If you don't have the ability to be smart about something, you're failing in your process. But how do we connect with others? How do we get better outcomes? This is still a skill. It's still an art. How can you do this? And the best leader is going to be the best leaders and everybody else by a mile. There's going to be such a divide between the people who can connect and get to the outcomes with other people and the people who are just pretenders. That gap is going to continue to widen.

49:06And I want to encourage everybody. Let's be in the leadership zone. I think there's a lot to be learned from failure in these situations as well. So we've discussed what to do, how to approach it, and hopefully led our listeners to success. But let's unpack those previous failures. Do any stand out in your mind? And what are the lessons that we can take from failures that we've had in conflict resolution negotiation in the past to become better for the future? For sure. And anybody who is in the negotiation space who says, well, I haven't had a bad outcome or I've never failed, either number one, they haven't done it or number two, they're not trying hard enough.

49:40Because in business negotiation, you should be hearing no. I want people to be telling you no, because then you're asking for a big enough thing here. But to answer your question very specifically, yes, we've had bad outcomes. One of them that comes to mind is i was uh negotiating with a man who had a gun to his head and i was face to face and usually we do this by the phone but because of the circumstances of the situation i was in his basement he was sitting in his basement and i was in his basement with him and there was some distance and here he is holding a gun to his head and as the negotiator my job is to get him to put that gunned down.

50:21And I had some different strategies that I was using. And it turned out that this was not a successful negotiation. You know, without getting into all the details, he did not put the gun down and we did not get a peaceful resolution here. And this is the outcome that sticks with you. this is when you look back and remember is there something more I could have done something more I could have said could I could I have said it in a different way did did I need different or better or more coaching because I look back and know that hey this is an outcome that I potentially had the power to change and in my world we know that we can get these bad outcomes where somebody hurts themselves, they hurt others.

51:14We know there's bad things that could come. And because of that, we take our preparation very seriously, that we know I'm the only person that I can fully control. I can work to nudge or influence or move others in the direction we want them to go, but I control me. And if there's going to be a bad outcome, it's not because I am uneducated or unprepared or not experienced enough. If we get a bad outcome, it's simply because that's a choice the other person made. And it allows us to move forward from that and not be consumed when we get these tough outcomes to say, I have failed. Did it give us an outcome that we didn't want significantly?

51:54And that's what motivates us during practice. Every time we sit down and we prepare and learn and educate with a team, it's because we're driven by the fact that we know if we don't get a good outcome, somebody is going to get hurt. And the frame, you know, what if I'm wrong, I think is such an important perspective to take in these scenarios, not only the life-threatening ones, but in those negotiations that didn't go your way. What were those preconceived notions, suspicions, ideas that you brought to the table that you thought maybe was their problem or maybe was the solution they were looking for?

52:27And as you start to unpack where things went wrong, start to ask yourself, was I actually asking the right questions? Was I seeking the right information or was I making assumptions that ended up hurting the negotiation? And the people who make assumptions are probably going to be at a disadvantage. And in this particular case, I knew that he had been released from the hospital maybe nine days earlier. And I don't know if maybe I didn't know that up front or I learned that later and just kind of glazed over that information. But I remember in this negotiation with him, I was trying to convince him to go to the hospital because I know that everybody expects that we're going to put the handcuffs on and take him to jail.

53:08and they're going to be sitting at the police station. And that's kind of a lousy place to be. Nobody really wants to be there. But my thought was, if I could get him to agree to go to the hospital to do a wellness check and evaluation, psych evaluation, physical evaluation, this is going to be very preferable to going and sitting in a jail cell somewhere. And at the time, I was very lucky that I had a very healthy life. I had never spent a night in the hospital before. but now I have had the pleasure of spending 21 straight days in the hospital last year and I realize that's not a place that anybody wants to go.

53:43If you've ever been in the hospital, you know I don't want to be there. I would probably prefer to sit by myself in a jail cell than be having somebody coming in and taking my blood and poking me with a needle and waking me up at three in the morning. So here I am trying to convince him, let's go to the hospital. But what if I'm wrong in that? What if I had a coach that came up to me and said, hey, What if this isn't the right strategy? What if this isn't the right approach? Let's try something different. It's not about me. It's not about my ego. It's not about me being right. Everything we do is about the outcome we're trying to achieve.

54:17And so often people won't ask themselves a question. What if I'm wrong on this? Because we think we might be embarrassed. It's not about you. It's about the outcome. And if we can set ourselves aside for a minute and say, hey, team, come together and give me some thoughts on this. Maybe we can get to better outcomes. One of the cherries on top that you stressed earlier was nonverbal communication. And we've seen this in our own clients, that it's a big blind spot. Oftentimes internally, we feel that we're showcasing different nonverbal signals than we actually are under tension and pressure. And we actually film our clients in these high stakes moments to practice for them to see, okay, now I'm trying to flirt or I'm trying to talk to a stranger.

54:57I'm in a conflict with someone. What are those nonverbals that come up that maybe I didn't realize or were blind spots for me? How do you approach delivery of nonverbals in these situations where those emotions are running high? This is where things have changed, at least in the police SWAT negotiation world over the last five or 10 years, because traditionally everything we did was by phone. Just because it's safe when I can talk to you from three blocks away. and if I'm on the phone, then I can have people around me and I can have this coaching and be passing notes back and forth. But the world has changed significantly in the last 10 years.

55:32Even five years ago, if I were gonna be on a Skype with somebody, this must be some stranger in a foreign country or something because it's not really something that we do. But now are we spending our whole life on Teams or Zoom or doing video chats with people around the world? All the time, everybody is in the professional space. So this is a very normal thing. And is this going to change how we communicate? And for sure. And that comes down to even the uniforms that we're wearing. We wore the green like army man SWAT uniforms. I was like, I don't know if that's very warm and approachable and friendly.

56:07Might I look a little bit more approachable if I were wearing a polo shirt or a T-shirt or something where we can have a bit of a conversation. So what we see is so powerful. And what I love in the nonverbal space, I like studying Joe Navarro. I like this group called the Behavior Panel, four guys that came together during COVID and they got this YouTube channel. Now they're on Dr. Phil and they talk about and they go deep like these are the best of the best. They're looking at your pupil dilation. They're studying your blink rate. And I said, wow, that's pretty good because I was a detective for five and a half years.

56:38And all we do is interview interrogation. I was like, these guys are top notch. But for the rest of us, I really suggest two things. Are we looking for clusters of behavior? You know, I'm talking to you and I'm leaning back, my palms are open and I'm maybe exposing my neck. Signs that this person could be comfortable. I'm giving you all the vital organs. You can see the hands, you can see the neck. These are generally considered pretty comfortable spots. And then are we looking for changes from baseline behavior, particularly in your teams with people you know well and you know this is normal?

57:13You know, is there a change in something that I'm used to seeing or we're seeing something that I'm not used to seeing? And anybody who tells you, well, I can use this nonverbal thing and tell you that's a lie. I don't know that that's a pretty bold assertion. I'm going to challenge you to say it's going to make me curious. If I see somebody kind of move to this nonverbal where they're going to protect their neck, it's going to make me curious what was just done, said, or thought that maybe made them feel a little bit uncomfortable here. Then let's go back and probe this a little bit and be curious about it and see if we can line up some more of what's being said with some of the nonverbals that we see.

57:52And one last tip on the nonverbals. Please, please do not ever let anybody know that you are reading their body language. I had a I have a colleague who will tell you oh you just uncrossed your legs I can tell you're comfortable with this it's so invasive when somebody says I'm reading your mind based on your body language like it's a really offensive thing you're like get out of my brain you're not allowed to be here but practically if you tell me that you're reading my body language I'm going to start doing weird things that you've never seen before and you can't google fast enough what is this nonverbal mean?

58:30What is he doing over here? And what does this mean? So now you've lost whatever advantage you thought you had because you told them, hey, this is what I'm up to. Thank you for encouraging our listeners to check this out on YouTube so they can see all of those nonverbal signals you were giving us. Thank you for joining us. Where can our audience find out more about the work that you do, Scott? Yeah, negotiationscollective.com is our homepage. We offer negotiation and conflict resolution training courses. I love giving keynotes to a variety of audiences and conferences and people around the world.

59:02And I'm a real person. I'm on LinkedIn. I still manage my own LinkedIn. If anybody wants to connect, connect, tell them you heard me here and I'll send you a note back. Thanks for having me. Take care. Thank you, Scott.

59:24What a great episode. And now comes the part of the show where we showcase one of our X-Factor Accelerator members. Take it away, Dave. It was like the start of self-improvement journey, you know, and a lot of the concepts with so much. I remember Johnny even said, like, this is going to take months to years to kick in to really get this shit. And he was fucking right. Then you start like reading more and you start seeing things more. You start like testing the waters with little ideas. For me, I lacked the confidence. and I thought that like I was a shitty engineer that I could never get a job at like a fang company or like a unicorn startup where I'm at now and like I was sort of like oh well I'll stay in my even when I moved from PNC this was after AFC I still still stood in my little comfort zone but like I moved to like another bank sure I was making like 20 grand more but it was still peanuts compared to what I'm making now right once I jumped ship and realized oh it's kind of just the same everywhere just a little bit different processes and slightly different code base and slightly different architecture then i'm like okay i'll move again and then that job really sucked and i was only there for five months and like now i'm where i'm at and it's like well shit maybe i should move again really it was honestly for me the biggest difference was the lack of confidence in myself to know that i can make it elsewhere i felt like no one else would ever want to hire me because i'm i'm just this like low value person like why would anyone want to hire me i'm lucky to have this position and then versus the mindset after it's like no bitch they're lucky to have me and like it sounds easy that's a really tough switch of the mind that it takes a lot of time to do that it takes like being too cocky or being too like i fucking go and it's like whoa dude like slow down a little bit like you have someone check you it's like okay I need to scale back a little bit.

1:01:16Thank you for the kind words, Dave. And it was an honor and a pleasure working with you too. And good luck to you and all of your future endeavors. If you've gotten value out of this or any of our podcasts, head on over to your favorite podcast player and rate and review the show. It means the world to us and it helps others find the show. And before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery until next week. Go out there and make it amazing. Yeah, I remember you. You were the bad boy. You threw your love away. Like you were just a toy. And you sold the world.

1:02:03You're a song of a tragedy. Cause you had your taste of black on the yesterday. Yeah, but I remember you Oh yeah, I remember you

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