Five Lessons from Drug Dealers and Hostage Negotiators
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There’s so much you can learn from people who are able to create positive outcomes daily from tense situations. Here are four business skills I’ve gleaned from studying the ways of hostage negotiators, and one from the drug dealers who live down the hall.
Negotiations…are weird
I was never a good negotiator until I realized:
- People get all weird when they have to negotiate. They try to act like lawyers and overlook the basic characteristics of being human.
- Most people go into negotiations underprepared. Most of the time, there’s not enough thought put into what the other side is likely to say, what they want, what questions they are going to ask, and what your responses should be.
- There are “magic phrases” the coaches tell you to use. But the most valuable thing you can say is, ironically, nothing. It’s all too common for people to overcommunicate and mess up a deal going their way.
There are people much more intelligent than me about this. I’m going to discuss four things I’ve learned from studying the FBI SWAT team and hostage negotiators (and one from the drug dealer three doors down the hall).
1. Emotional labeling
One of the tactics that highly skilled hostage negotiators use is emotional labeling. They try to get the hostage takers to surrender. I heard this in a TedTalk with Scott Tilemma, a former SWAT team member. But this was also something I’d learned to do with my kids.
Intense emotions can often be confusing and overwhelming, and it’s common for them to surface in a negotiation. If you call the emotions by name, you help the person sort it out. It helps them to express with what they really want. It also helps them feel more comfortable having these feelings. It’s humble and shows you’re trying to relate to them. It also shows they don’t have to be ashamed of how they see the situation.
Try:
“You seem worried.”
“You sound uncertain.”
“You seem bothered by that outcome.”
Not:
“I understand.”
“I get it.” (rolling my eyes)
Remember it’s “you” not “I.”
2. Effective pauses
As I’ve said before in another article, you’ve got to give the person room to breathe. Pauses slow down the negotiation. Even better, they make the person pay more attention to you by creating suspense.
According to Tilemma, “A pause at just the right moment can really draw your listener back in. Or leave them room to keep talking.” The next time you are in a conversation, and you feel it’s not going in the right direction, just stop talking. See what the other person does.
3. Show the most kindness at the peak of conflict
George Kohlriser tells the story of how a hostage taker once seized him and held a knife to his throat, to which he calmly responded, “Sam, how would you like your children to remember you?”
It turned the whole situation around; not only did he lower the knife, but he also eventually he gave up the hostage.
Why did these words carry so much power?
There is a lesson here about dealing with difficult people. Kohlriser explains that often adversarial people are trying to make a bond by challenging you. Messed up as it seems, it makes sense. People who do awful things aren’t given any respect by society; they’re shamed and judged. By showing them kindness when they are most difficult, you allow them to bond with someone, which is what they so desperately want in that moment.
4. Respect
Chris Voss is a well-known FBI negotiator. He describes a situation in which a trainee of his defused a $10 million ransom attempt by reflecting on the life experience of the hostage taker. According to Voss, when you get the person to say, “That’s right,” it’s a winning combination of empathy and epiphany:
Stalemated for four months, and I tell my guy, ‘You know what we’re going to do today, we’re going to get a “that’s right” out of the other side.’…So we get the guy on the phone and my guy repeats chapter and verse all the other guy’s nonsense. You’re not asking for ransom; you’re asking for war damages. You’re asking for $10 million of economic harm that’s happened in the Philippines the last 500 years from the Spanish to the Japanese to the Americans, the atrocities under Pershing…So we summarized all the nonsense that this terrorist had been spouting…When my guy got done, there was a moment of silence and the terrorist said, ‘That’s right.’ We went from $10 million to zero in that moment.
I’ve heard other hostage negotiators say the same thing – it’s gamechanger when you make the other side feel respected.
5. Make the other person as comfortable as possible
My last skill isn’t one I learned from someone who enforces the law, but rather from someone who breaks the law for a living.
We moved into what we thought was a nice building a few years ago.
Turns out it wasn’t so nice.
We found out there are drug dealers who live down the hall. But they aren’t your typical dealers; they are highly elite drug dealers with a well-managed practice.
The head of the ring seems to be serving the entire neighborhood. I go to drop my kids off at the bus, he’s dealing in the lobby. I go to pick them up, he’s dealing on the front stoop. Antonio goes out to buy some milk at 10 PM, he’s dealing in the staircase.
Just to be clear, I never interact with these people directly. But I can’t help but notice how he operates, since every time I turn around, all I see is Harold (not his real name) with his burner phone working a deal.
People come to him in all sorts of messed up ways, and he makes them feel comfortable. That’s why he’s so successful.
The other day I overhead heard him talking to some woman who was on the verge of nervous breakdown. The way he put her at ease, you would have thought he was an MD prescribing the cure for a terminal illness. He even stuffs tissue paper in the building’s front door to keep it ajar so his “clients” can come in during the night without having to use the buzzer. I once heard a former FBI agent say that when police are trying to get a confession from someone, they seat them near the door, so they’ll feel more comfortable.
What could you do to make people feel more relaxed?
Sara’s upshot
I wrote a book about how to communicate over LinkedIn messenger, I teach people how to use social media, and there are other ways I help.
I’m also very interested in hearing from you directly if you’ve appreciated my writing. What else do you want me to write about? What do you like, not like? Any feedback is welcome.
Or if you’d just like to say hello, that’s cool, too.
Sara Grillo, CFA, is a marketing consultant who helps investment management, financial planning, and RIA firms fight the tendency to scatter meaningless clichés on their prospects and bore them as a result. Prior to launching her own firm, she was a financial advisor.
Sources
(2016, December 6). TEDx Talks. [YouTube Video]. The Secrets of Hostage Negotiators | Scott Tillema | TEDxNaperville.
(2014, September 22nd). TEDx Talks. [YouTube Video]. A hostage negotiator teaches leadership through bonding | George Kohlrieser | TEDxFultonStreet.
(2019, Jan 7th). Inc. [YouTube Video]. An FBI Negotiator’s Secret to Winning Any Exchange | Inc.
(2021, August 3rd). WIRED. [YouTube Video]. Former FBI Agent Explains How to Negotiate | WIRED.
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