Lessons - The FBI Negotiation Tactics That Transform Business Deals | Chris Voss - Former FBI Hostage Negotiator

In this lessons episode, learn how tactical empathy improves negotiations by focusing on understanding not agreement. Learn why articulating someone else's perspective builds trust without compromising your own position. Learn how silence, curiosity, and honest acknowledgement of fears create space for deeper connection and more truthful communication. Talk a lot and speak a lot about empathy in business. Define how you, oh, this is going to, I'm saying it the wrong way. I was going to say define how you leverage empathy for business, but that's already insinuating that you're using it to a, a means to an end. What is the, what is the proper way to use empathy in business so that you get what you want, but you also don't get taken advantage of? Yeah, okay. So let's define empathy first. Let's define it as simply assessment and your articulation of your assessment. Empathy is not sympathy. Empathy is not agreement. Empathy is not compassion. Fendermind Stephen Collar struts red a number of books that are worth reading. The rise of Superman and Staling Fire too great of my favorites that Stephen wrote. And in one of his books, he said empathy is about the transmission of information. Compassion is the reaction to that transmission. So empathy truly understand where the other sides coming from. Even if you don't like it and then being able to articulate it from their perspective. What does that look like? You think I'm being unfair. You think I'm greedy. You think that I don't care about you at all. Those are empathy statements. I never agreed nor disagreed. I just pointed out what my gut instinct is telling me that you're thinking. And we teach tactical empathy as the articulation, the expression of what your gut is telling you about their perspective. If you take away agreement or disagreement, then you can be empathic with anyone. A member of Phamas can be empathetic with someone from Israel and vice versa because it's not agreement or disagreement. So if somebody from Hamas can do it with somebody from Israel, that means you could do it too. If you define it that way. Now in business, it's the way of analyzing. So let me analyze what you're probably thinking. Let me feed it back to you. You're going to feel very connected to me. It's actually going to open up the channels. One of the phrases which is the cliche about negotiation is the biggest myth about communication. Is the biggest myth about communication is that it's taken place. Now people hear that and they say, oh, I just have to express myself better. Now, the opposite is true. Listening hasn't been taken place. Hearing took place. I heard what you said, but did I analyze it that I think about what it meant? You know, the whole grade school thing, probably in seventh grade, somebody you had a teacher that said, what's the difference between listening and hearing? I can still remember that. But the difference is, did you analyze what they said and discern its true meaning, which means you're not agreeing with it? Which now puts it in the business context and then certain predictable things based on fears. You're going to feel at some point in time I'm asking for too much. You're going to feel at some point in time I'm being disrespectful. You're going to feel at some point in time I got to hit an agenda because I won't get to the point. Be saying that begins to clear the air and it puts me in a position to move forward with you. Two thoughts on that. First thought, should you actually articulate that to the person that you're speaking to? And then second thought, how do you make sure that your own lens that you see the world through does not impact how you infer what they think because it's good to be empathetic, but you're going to have your own world view that's going to impact. So yes, so should you articulate that and why? And then how do you stop your own lens from fogging it all up? Yeah, our first of all, you should. Like in any time we gots telling you, you should. And there's aspects to it that when we're coaching in negotiations, we're going to ask you to lead with like in a first meeting, you're going to say to him, look at some point in time, you're probably going to ask yourself whether or not you're wasting your time with me because there's probably 60 seconds into the meeting there. What this does is deactivates and inoculates. Most people think of plants fears. You can't plant a fear. You can just you can plant it if you deny it. If I could say to you like, look, I don't want you to think I'm being greedy. You're going to be like, Oh, I got to cover my wallet. Here it comes. And I can say, look, it's probably going to seem greedy. And then when I lay out what I want, your reaction to that is going to be like, Oh, well, actually, that was just honest. I appreciate you being honest with me. So those are examples of why you should go ahead and call it out in the moment or even in advance. Now, does my lens interfere with me seeing it? Yes, that's why you want to lay out what you think the other side saying because for not just your lens, you know, your angles on it leading up to this moment. So I frequently say and coach people say, look, before we go on, here's how I think you see things. Now, I'm going to lay it out in wherever my vision has been clouded. If I approach you with genuine curiosity, not judgment, I can't say, here's how I think you see things. You know, my tone of voice is telling you negative things about my thought patterns towards you. But if instead I say, all right, so before we go on, here's how I think you see things. You know, that's exploratory collaborative. Whatever I'm missing, whatever I'm wrong on, you're going to want to correct me because the urge to correct is actually very satisfying, and you're going to feel good about it. So that's how you keep your filter from getting in the way. Check it with the other side and invite correction. One last question, when people deploy this tactic, and then I want to move on to something, a couple other ideas, but when people deploy this tactic, what would one thing be that they get wrong the majority of the time? What is one common misconception about deploying tactical empathy? First of all, that your perspective is their perspective. Even if your perspective is accurate, they're going to have a different perspective. So, you know, and so common misconception is that you guys are on the same sheet of music, or you see things the same way. Among other common misconceptions, they got to go first, and you got to lay out your position first. That's the mark of an average negotiator. So, I need the information in your head, which is why I'm going to invite you to go first. And in two out of three negotiators, it's impossible for them to shut up. Shut up more. You're going to find that in those golden moments of silence, there is going to bond with you, or they're going to give you information. Both those things are good. You know, it's so funny. That's one thing that I remember one way, way, way back in a past life when I was in sales. And I can't remember who told me this, but the sentence was, whoever talks less wins. That was it. And so far, I mean, this is what I do for a living. I try and talk as little as possible and just let the guest. Now, it's not a negotiation. It's hopefully, hopefully, it's beneficial to both of us. But yes, when you shut up, good things happen. When you shut up, good things happen. Amen. Let's talk about people being deceitful, counterfeit, yeses. I thought it was so interesting because when I was first putting, you know, some of these talking points together, of course, I like to call them lies. I'm pretty sure that's what the rest of the world calls them. You don't like to call them lies. So this plays a big piece of negotiation. Obviously, you have to figure out what's the truth and what's not. First of all, why do you not like calling lies lies? Because of the emotional reaction to it, you know, lies, slice, deception, the vast majority of it is dissett defensive in nature. People are deceiving, people lying because they're scared because they're afraid to tell you the truth. Now, that doesn't mean they're trying to victimize you. They're scared of the relationship. They're scared as you're going to say, no, they don't know how to tell you the truth. So the deception takes place on a massive level. But it's not predatory. It's some of it is predatory, a small percentage. What's the percentage? Let me put it like this. There's guests that the incidence of someone being a social path or a psychopath, as trying to read the current differences in the definitions as social paths or somebody that intentionally pray upon you in the moment, a psychopath is somebody who plans on praying on you in a future moment. So it's a planning issue. One in 35. So that means 34 out of 35, if that number holds. When they deceive you, they're not trying to victimize you. 34 out of 35 lies, let's say, is this defensive? They don't know how to tell you the truth there. They don't know how to fix it if they do. It's all fear-based. Not necessarily the same as being a coward. Those are two different instances. But fear-based because they're trying to preserve the relationship with it and how to get around it. So why am I going on this rant? Yes, it exists all the time. Stop yourself from being triggered on it. You're going to assume that they're lying to you because they're trying to victimize you. That's not the case. 34 out of 35 times. So you encourage people to become straight shooters and how do you do that? You deactivate their fears. How do you do that? You're saying it's probably stuff you're holding back. You're scared if you tell me it's going to blow off the deal. I know you've got things that you're afraid to tell me because you think if I know them, I'll exploit you. Me even sharing that recognition is going to get you to start to loosen up. Now, my walk has to match my talk. And I'm very careful about that. But I'm also very concerned about if I say something that doesn't add up to you, you're going to instinctively react that I'm trying to hurt you. So I got to be careful about making sure those two things add up. I got to be careful about being vague. I can, in fact, under promise instead of over promise. And then I got to talk to with you about how we're going to fix things when we come to the inevitable glitches that life brings in no matter what happens. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.