Lt. Scott Tillema, FBI Trained Hostage Negotiator | Crisis Communication & Business

Welcome to the success story podcast, I'm your host, Scott Clary. On this podcast, I have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, politicians, and other notable figures, all who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas, and their insights. I sit down with leaders and mentors and unpack their story to help pass those lessons onto others through both experiences and tactical strategy for business professionals, entrepreneurs, and everyone in between, without further ado, another episode of the success story podcast. So today on the success story podcast, I have Scott Tulema, who is a FBI trained hostage negotiator and a full time police lieutenant in the Chicago area. He is a recognized thought leader in the field of police crisis and hostage negotiation actively training and working with police negotiators across the country. Scott has developed a model for hostage negotiation, which is now being adapted for the use of private sectors, sales, communication, leadership, and Scott, as an individual's very impressive, he speaks both domestically in the states and internationally on this topic, communication, negotiation, and leadership as well. He was also done, or he has done a TED talk on the same subject matter that's been viewed millions of times. He's known for giving dynamic key notes and connections with his audiences, teaching attendees how they can negotiate under pressure, and really just bringing value to their personal and professional lives through communication and negotiation. So thank you very much Scott for sitting down. I'm really excited to speak to you, because I think that the perspective you bring to the table is going to be very interesting. So thank you. Hi Scott, it is a pleasure to be with you on success story podcast, thank you for having me today. No, it's my pleasure. And outside of the joke that I want to make about you having a great name and all that stuff, it's great to speak to another Scott, but I want to give a little bit of context as to why I was excited about this, so I work in sales and I work in tech. But my family and Scott, you don't know this, but my family has traditionally always been in law enforcement. So I'm actually kind of the black sheep, so I'm in Toronto and my father, my grandfather and my uncle were all active duty RCMP when they were still working. So they've all been heavily involved in law enforcement and incredible respect to what you're doing. But I understand that not to the same extent, you do obviously, but I understand the pressure and the stress that they have gone through throughout their careers, and I'm sure that you've probably dealt with similar circumstances and whatnot. So I guess what I would love to know is sort of your origin story and unpack how you or why you decided to, first of all, become a law enforcement professional. And then let's go from there as to what you're doing over the course of your career and how you came to where you are right now. Sure, this is going to be exciting for your listeners because I've tuned into a few of your podcasts and you have on business leaders, well, known and respected business leaders, and today you have someone who doesn't know anything about business. So this is going to be a wild little adventure for listeners here today. So this is going to be fun. I kind of have the opposite story. My parents are not law enforcement and I had five roommates in undergrad at the University of Wisconsin and they all got into business school and I was the one who wasn't smart enough to get into business school. So I had to find something else to do for a career. So here I am as a police officer 18 years later. That's lovely. So like when you first went into law enforcement, did you have a specific branch that you were looking to get into or was it just like that was the job that you took on and you sort of fell in love with it as you became more immersed in it? Well, my background, my undergraduate degree is in behavioral science and I later went on and got a master's degree in psychology. So I always had an interest in people and understanding how people think and why they do the things they do. And as I spent some time, my first couple of years in law enforcement, initially you first try to learn the job and it's complex. There's a lot of different aspects to it. But I always knew that I wanted to do something that really gets in the minds of people. And I was lucky to have spent five and a half years working as a detective and what I really wanted to do was get into hostage negotiation. And I live in the work in the Chicago area and I found that at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, they had a master's level class in hostage negotiation. I thought, man, that would be really, really cool to get in that class and I wanted to audit the class and sit in and I couldn't do that without being in a program. So I finally made the decision to go back to school to get my master's in psychology to learn a little bit more about this. And it was shortly after I went to school for psychology that I interviewed to get on a regional SWAT team that serves 1.8 million people in the Chicago area and 70 different agencies throughout the Chicago and area. And I was very lucky to get selected to be one of a number of hostage and crisis negotiators on this SWAT team and was very lucky to have that assignment for about seven and a half years. Beautiful. Okay. So after you had that assignment, obviously the training that you have accumulated over the course of your career has led you to obviously speak about hostage negotiation. When did that light bulb turn on that there was more to the skill sets that you had outside of just the practical use case that you found yourself using them every day and there could be some overlap to other business or even I'm sure relationships and whatnot in terms of crisis negotiation. Yeah. When I came off the team, it was because I got promoted with my own agency. So I still had the desire to be a police negotiator, a hostage negotiator, but when I was taken off the team, I figured, you know, how can I still stay active? How can I stay involved? And I started teaching that for police officers throughout the Chicago area and it was strictly for law enforcement. I had no training or knowledge beyond strictly negotiation within the police realm. And it was in late 2016 that an organizer of TEDx neighborhood Chicago area suburb had to reach out to me and said, Hey, look, we're putting together a TED conference in the Chicago area and we understand that you teach hostage negotiation and he pitched the idea to me. He's like, you know, I think that you could bring value and how to, you know, teach society how to have an argument and how to have a conversation because the context of this, this was right during the presidential election with Trump and Clinton. And their thought was, you know, everybody in society is so angry and they keep fighting with each other and nobody knows how to listen and have a thoughtful dialogue. We want someone to come on and share some principles and some perspectives on how to do this. And the thought was, you know, we're going to have the election and everything was going to get back to normal and everybody would be happy again and things will be good. And of course, you know, that things have progressively gotten worse, you know, certainly throughout the United States and across the world that were even more polarized. So the talk that I gave for TEDx neighborhood back in 2016, I think is still relevant today and that I was just sharing a couple of principles and how we communicate with each other, how we can influence each other, how we can, you know, really, yeah, that deeper empathy of somebody else. So as people would start to listen to this, I would get people reaching out and say, hey, would you be interested in talking to this group or that group? So I've been lucky to have been invited to not only police hostage negotiation conferences across the country, but to speak from groups such as, you know, searches to businesses in Switzerland and Germany throughout the US, just saying, hey, bring this concept to us because it's familiar enough and that it makes sense that we can use it, but yet it's different from what we're used to hearing in standard business training. So the TEDx conversation was sort of like your initiation into this world of speaking to other parties outside of what you had already known. So you had never done any sort of discussions or chats about negotiation outside the scope of law enforcement until the TEDx and that's sort of what kicked off like all the conversations, the speeches, the keynotes that you've given over your career. Correct. Right. I'm doing this completely backwards because all of the professional speakers, they work and you can see it just that sort of went in and through the different courses and the different training that people work to get to the TEDx stage. And truly, I think I was a last minute villain because they didn't reach out to me until about six or seven weeks before this event that they pitched it. So with no background in public speaking and no formal training at all and no education outside of the police world, I kind of slapped this together in the course of six or seven weeks. And this was kind of my audition and my first real run at doing any kind of public speaking. So it's a little bit backwards in that most people work up to this and I kind of use this to start from and now I'm kind of growing into different areas. And from that, I've gotten some great opportunities and I like getting into executive education to learn a little bit more about business and about negotiation. I've attended Harvard Executive Education recently, IMD Business School in Europe last fall and it's great to sit in a room with 300 top level business executives and have a conversation with them and say, I know nothing about what you do. And absolutely mean it and then still be in treating enough that I might be able to bring value to the conversation. I think that your insights and perspective and lens that you look at conflict resolution and just communication is very valuable for executives in particular just because I think it's sometimes hard to see the forest or the trees for some of these people. So when they have a fresh perspective like this, that's probably where you actually provide the most insight because of the track that you took and you didn't actually build up to this but it sort of became almost not accident is putting it far too lightly but it wasn't something that was planned ahead of time and it wasn't part of your career trajectory but the fact that you've done it and now I think that's what sort of made you so valuable because when we speak about business, I think that the parallels are evident but let's okay so let's speak about and obviously this has been a successful TED talk because I think it's like you know in the millions of views. So let's speak about the high level theme that was sort of I guess I don't know if this was like the title of the TED talk but the theme that I pulled out of this and that I've seen sort of listed in line with his TED talk is can you have a productive conversation with someone when you both disagree? That was like the overarching theme for the TED talk. So yeah okay so let's answer that yeah. With this I try to also frame it that it's more than just me and you having a conversation because it's really easy for you and I to talk when we're sitting on the couch or we're hanging out and having a drink but it becomes very very different when we introduce that level of stress and that's very similar whether it be in policing or business negotiations or sales marketing there's a level of stress because there's something on the line. So under that context is how I try to frame this out to say it's not your everyday conversation that under pressure under stress you need to do this and this is why it works. I even find that you know I do a lot of the I don't want to go too much off on a tangent but when I do these podcasts I find that the second and like I've done I don't know about 30 of these podcasts now and I'm not like a podcast expert but even I the second you start interviewing someone the dynamic of the conversation the whole conversation changes and I found that it's as subtle as you know I call somebody on on Skype now because we can't really do anything face to face but you call somebody on Skype and you're having a very like casual conversation ahead of time and it's flowing so easily and then the second it's like a formal interview I find that people they start to freeze up not everybody but it's like the communication becomes a little bit more like rigid and I don't know if that's just because if people feel like they're under pressure or they have to say the right thing and I think that I've I've always personally tried to like steer away from that in the conversations because I think that leads to like like almost like robotic back and forth but I've noticed that like I've noticed like and this is like nothing to even come close to what you deal with but like it's still like a level of pressure that's outside of the norm for most people that's the truth and and I teach people that because of this and if you haven't done these high level negotiations or these high level conversations it's very very different and under pressure we we lose some ability to do things that are are pretty normal for us to do and we we lose our ability to empathize I mean take what's going on right now with the COVID-19 coronavirus going on everywhere we're in self-preservation moment we think how can I care for my own physical needs how can I care for my own emotional needs right now and people are starting to realize that under pressure we behave differently so that's why when I teach this I make it very simple I mean there are a whole books dedicated to hostage negotiation whole books on communication and I'm able to break this down and say I just want you to remember four words and this is understanding timing delivery and respect and we can take these four words and break them into one sentence principle and break that into as deep as we can go and as much as you can remember but when it becomes time for that big conversation for for when it matters most at least have a framework a flexible framework that you can use to guide you when you're nervous when you're under pressure when you have to make a decision to know this is the roadmap I need to follow and within that I've got a lot of flexibility to help me get to where I need to go with the specific person or group that I'm working with so so I want to unpack that a little bit but I do want to start I want to start with that higher level theme so how do you have is that so to say to have a productive conversation with someone under pressure is is that framework but when to have a productive conversation with someone when you both disagree is that doesn't always have to be like a high pressure situation so let's just start with the that piece and then let's take a productive conversation with someone who you're disagreeing with then under pressure so how do you at first have a productive conversation with someone when you're not agreeing on a point but it could be casual but you still worry about your way and and that's that's the first principle I talk about understand and we we become really adverse to listening to someone else and this starts with having the mindset that you are willing to tolerate and listen to a point that's different from your own and what I mean listen to it I mean thoughtfully working to understand what they believe by asking questions and exploring what they're saying and how they're saying it to to have an appreciation for who they are and I think that we as a society have really become afraid of this to say I'm not going to listen to your point of view because if I listen to it I'm afraid that I might have to believe it or accept it we have this fear that we might have to change that we we might have to break out of what we know and what we believe so to have an open mind and come in with with a blank slate to say you know what help me understand you and make it not about yourself make it it's not about me it's about you to be thoughtful and asking these engaging questions and then you know at maybe a higher level studying their expressions micro expressions body language so you can do some behavioral analysis to see you know do we have some deception in here or is this all legit is everything pretty consistent so the very first step that not under pressure is let's let's take time to number one give someone our attention put down your phone put down the computer quit multitasking and give them your complete attention and and be interested in them and rarely rarely do we see this in society anymore why outside like why is there such an aversion to because I think the root cause of this like you mentioned is for people to not want to accept or or fear of having to open up their mind to other opinions I don't know the answer to this is probably a much more deeper you know higher level philosophical conversation but do you have an opinion as to why people have such an aversion to that I think it's because people don't want to admit that we don't know as much as we think we do it's much more comfortable to have a certain base level knowledge about something and say well I believe this and I've formed an opinion based on a very small amount of knowledge and it's really a lot more easy to feel something than it is to truly think about and learn and analyze and come up with a thoughtful opinion and position on whatever issue it is and people don't like to be challenged we don't like to feel that uncertainty we're afraid of being embarrassed we're afraid of you know saying you know what I just don't know the answer to this I'm not sure why I feel like this I'm not sure where I learned this piece of information so none of us really want to have to defend what we know or what we believe so I think that that's a big piece in why we're not willing to really engage someone in a thoughtful conversation we don't want to say you know what I don't know that and you know what you're saying does make sense I don't necessarily have to agree with it but what you're saying has a lot of merit and maybe that's something that I need to consider now it's it's funny because that that's essentially saying the key to winning an argument if you know winning I put that term in quotations and air quotes the key to winning an argument is actually allowing yourself to know that you could be wrong because you cannot understand someone if that's the case if you aren't willing to open up to them and you're saying that's the basic that's the basic premise of of getting what you'd like you have to be able to understand someone and make them feel hurt is that more or less correct right absolutely and from a negotiation standpoint how can I solve a problem if I don't know what it is I think one of the killer minds in any discussion is well I understand no you don't understand and even if you think you understand by saying well I understand you're really invalidating that person it's it's an insensitive thing to say and really is going to get them to shut down to say how can you possibly understand I just share with you a couple sentences about my life how can you come back to me and say well I understand your situation now if you have some similarities if you have something that that you can share with them then try and figure out that timing piece and figure out you know at what point would it be right for me to say you know what I've had a similar experience let me share this with you so that the second the second big piece of timing is trying to get right of when when it is your time to share with them that maybe you have an understanding or at least an interest in what they have to say so how do you how do you map out when that so the first piece is understand so that's that's one that we just sort of we went into so the second piece is timing you're saying so how do we how do we understand when that timing is what's the threshold for understanding a nine well for me timing like this is a strategy piece for me and it's it's not always about tactics at the table I think that your power and negotiation comes from information and options so I'm trying to grow the information that I have and in a conversation with somebody that could be you know just listening one on one but when we're doing a high level police negotiation I'm working with an entire team so I've got people behind me behind the scenes that are digging every piece of information they can on this person and that should absolutely be happening in business negotiations as well to get information because that's going to put you in a stronger position the same with options the more options I can roll on my side and the more options that I can take away from the other side is really going to put me in a much more powerful position to say now I'm going to introduce an idea or a thought for your consideration so I think that it's really kind of a balance of once I've gathered a good amount of information about the situation I've asked a number of questions and my open-ended questions are not really yielding a whole lot of new information anything that I can inquire from expressions that I see anything that I can inquire from body language that that I might be able to you know dip my toe into a question about hey I get the sense that you're a little bit uncomfortable when you talk about this particular area and I'm not I'm not sure that you can ever run out of good questions to ask with the questions that they become more narrow they I think they should work from open-ended questions and become a little bit more focused as you go on but I think that it's really going to come from the experience of understanding that I've gotten some good information I have a number of different options that I can use and and now I'm in a good position to start implementing a good strategy of when I'm going to deliver my message I love it and like when you're if you're listening and I'm sure now you can pick up on as you as you say these things like the the the hallmarks of a successful sales negotiation or business negotiation are very like they're very apparently you can draw the parallels quite easily in terms of doing discovery for understanding how to sell something or to to bring a product to a customer understanding the pain points a customer has doing as much research I had it it all it all lines up very but you know I think that there's other things like you mentioned like in the communication not just the strategy but the actual way that you communicate to an individual that can be brought out from what you're discussing that can be very useful in any negotiation now you mentioned sorry I apologize I don't have a pen on me so I didn't write this down you mentioned four things so you mentioned understand then you mentioned time and then delivery and respect so you let into the third principle perfectly to talk about how we are going to present that so when I talk about delivery really when when you get into a negotiation or you're going to have these high level conversations so much of this goes toward your your preparation how much preparation you put into it and I think the good negotiators take time to prepare but really most people stop at the content we prepared the content of what it is we are going to present what it is we want to say what our talking points are going to be but nobody ever gives consideration to how we are going to present that and these these are tactics at the table and this is where police negotiators are exceptional very very good at how to deliver the message and and I can break this down into a couple different areas though rate the rhythm the pressure the volume and the tone these five different areas are the areas that we can really give thoughtful um consideration to when we're delivering the message and in police negotiation I'm very lucky that when I've been the primary negotiator I have a coach right at my side that can give me a real-time feedback into not only what I'm saying but how I'm saying it and I'm not exactly sure how you can do that in the business world if truly you're at the table having a negotiation but having a coach there to think to guide you and think through the rate the rhythm the pressure the volume and the tone of what you're saying is going to is going to create a feeling on the other side and truly we want to create a positive emotion to help them be in a good spot where they can make thoughtful decisions because a lot of times in my work when we're dealing with someone who's in crisis who's suicidal they're way up way down they're all over the emotional scale and we want to get them in a very comfortable groove where they don't have to worry about hey I'm going to yell at them it's going to be some kind of surprise that every time they engage with me it's going to be a very very comfortable feeling that they get when they start talking with me and with that I hope that I can solicit more information and hope to get them to be more agreeable to me to get them to like me because that's what's going to give me the influence that I need to get to the resolution for where I want to go now I understand everything you're saying it makes a lot of sense because I've also listened to to podcast with another another individual who does this so Chris Voss if you're in this world you've heard his content before and he speaks about like the late night FM DJ voice when you're when you're trying to get what you like is that something that is like a known in the in the hostage negotiation crisis negotiation world absolutely it's it goes along lines of how are you saying this and part of that is taking your rate and slowing it down a little bit and maybe dropping the volume a little bit and studies show that the lower the voice the more authority one is perceived to have so you take some of these scientifically proven pieces and put them into play that when I'm talking with you and I'm talking about teaching and sharing about negotiation I get excited I know that my my rate is a little bit too fast I know that my my cadence is sometimes not always very steady because I want to talk about this now let's talk about this over here and now we're going down here but when we get into this type of discussion you get a little bit slower you get a little bit softer get a little bit lower and that is it's really working the mind of the other person to get them in a better place where they can think and make better decisions and that's ultimately what we want I just want someone to come to an agreement with me and and that's really what negotiation is that we can come to agreement that maybe you don't have to change your your beliefs maybe you don't have to change and we just have to get to a position where you and I can each move forward on on a particular thing but yes absolutely Chris boss very very well respected later in this field without question now do you notice that after a certain amount because I noticed this when I'm first jumping on the phone with somebody for the first time and I've never spoken to them before I definitely speak a little bit quicker but once I get to know them and once I understand how to communicate with them or at least I think I can understand how to communicate with them and how they like being communicated to I find that I have an easier time slowing my own self down and and talking with a little bit more of cadence kind of like what you're discussing is that is that like the end result like is that desired objective to sort of get somebody on the same wavelength as you or communicate on the same wavelength as them like what is how do you sort of bring them and you sort of meet so that you're in sync with that person because I assume that would be an important an important point if you're talking somebody you know metaphorically off the ledge or what not you're trying to you're trying to get them to calm down and slow down so is that something that's built into this the speaking cadence right and and we literally are talking people down from wedge I didn't want to say that for you and we very each other in conversation we we mirror each other from what we hear and and you'll find that it's really really hard to keep yelling at me when I'm very very calm people are working for that fight they're looking for you to bury it up a notch and and get a little bit more angry because we feed off each other when we get louder it's very very tough if I decide I'm going to go a little bit more quietly on my mind and just because I'm speaking softly doesn't mean I'm not speaking with strength and you go a little bit lower and then it's going to force them to listen a little bit harder to you just just physically we have to listen a harder because you're a little bit more quiet and with that now you're tricking your brain into thinking man I'm really listening hard so this must be something that I care about or want to be attention to and that is really getting yourself in the next piece to have that influence over that person to get to where you want to go we're just going to take a quick break and we're going to speak about our sponsor for this week's episode of the success story podcast the good love and bar now let's be honest we're all quarantined at home right now this is very topical and the good love and bar has released a snack that is very appropriate for the times when we're stuck at home we don't have as many you know we're not as active we don't have the 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name as a promo code they guarantee you will be loving the good love and bar and you'll also love how healthy and in shape you maintain your body your physique your lifestyle as we're all stuck at home anyways that's it for this week's sponsor the Good Love and Bar now I have one more point that that I've sort of been taught over I've taken like some executive courses at universities over my careers and they speak about they speak about individuals communicate differently so there's some people that are I think in the sales world they're categorized by color spectrum which is like a red a red personality a blue personality a yellow personality a green personality and I don't know what those actually correlate to I'm sure there's some you know much more probably prolific psychological principle but it's like the reds are aggressive and they speak this way and then the yellows are a little bit more logical I can't remember exactly but is that something that you tie into how you communicate with somebody effectively is that you have to and that's why we start with understanding to say I can't go into this with this is Scott's communications style and this is just how I do it and you're either with me or you're not I think that's that's really putting yourself in a bad position I need to communicate with someone in a way that they are very comfortable and I learned this as a detective when I was a young detective I remember going into to do an interrogation and my partner was a much more seasoned detective and as a young detective you know I I watched all the same cop shows that everybody else watched so I had my nice white shirt and tie I looked nice because that's what they do in the movies and that's what they do on TV and my partner he had on some kind of collared shirt and he took it off and he was down to his t-shirt as a white t-shirt probably at one time with some yellow stains on it and it looked it looked like a bum and I said what are you doing you goes I'm gonna go in there and I'm gonna get a statement from this guy and he was thinking about how can I connect with this guy where he's at and I'm thinking about I want to do it my way or what I believe would be the right way and and the big takeaway here is meet these people where they're at and sometimes you need to up your game and put on the shirt time put on the suit and and and meet them there and sometimes hey let's let's meet over a beer and and have a very casual conversation so in the end with the communication it's not about you and a successful communicator has to have all these tools available that they can very quickly adapt to what's going on and find out what's working and continue down that road and then the last point that you had brought up was respect and I can see once once all of this is done properly is the respect does that come naturally or is that something that you still have to because like it seems like if you do all these things that almost should lead to a certain level of respect with the individual because you're putting so much time and attention into the way you deliver and the way you communicate and the words you use in the tone and the and the cadence so what is the respect piece outside of just delivering everything to the best of your ability for the first three for me respect is about emotion and a lot of people believe that we make decisions based on thought and reason and being rational and I think that that's that doesn't play nearly as much into how we make decisions as people might think so when I talk about respect of course we're going to be polite and how we deliver this but think about how we can foster these emotions and it's not about wanting to be understood instead I want to create the freedom and the autonomy for the person I'm talking with to make their own decisions because if I force them into a yes or no answer how am I ever going to get them to go through with this if this is in a police negotiation they might say yes just to get me to go away a little bit but how am I then going to get them to get off the couch put the gun down and come out of the house or come out of the room or whatever and the same thing in business negotiations how are you going to get them to go through with this and do their very best to hold up their end of the deal so you get the best product the best agreement however that that negotiation is working out so I think about two big emotional triggers that I always want to keep at the forefront of my mind when I'm having a negotiation or a conversation with somebody and that's going to be autonomy and fairness in in police negotiations in an effort to limit the options of the other side you'll see a slot team surround a house you'll see a lot of all this there's kind of locked down in area so this person's not free to leave you have the flight the flight the freeze and when you take away the flight where they can't get out of there now they're they're limited and what their options are and I think how how terrible is that for somebody who is used to being in control they're used to having all the freedom in the world and we just taken that away from them how do we respect their autonomy and their freedom and and still respect them as a person so I always want to present this with options I'm never going to tell them you need to do this nobody likes to be told what to do in any context but if I can phrase it in a question hey when you come out would you prefer to come out the back door or the side door now for me it might all be the same it doesn't matter um perhaps the uh operational tactical team will want them out one side or another but if I can give them that little bit of freedom and that little bit of choice and influence over their own might that goes a long way for for their for them to feel respected because hey this person respects my autonomy I'm still in control I made this decision for myself and that's someone else and then the second big emotional trigger that I always try to work with is the fairness piece we don't like being treated unfairly and no matter what it is if we feel we're treated unfairly we're going to stay with this and it's going to bother us for a good long time one example that I'm going through right now I bought some batteries from a major battery manufacturer and there's a five dollar rebate that you get and this is these are the biggest scams on earth these rebate names so if this battery company owes me five bucks and right and this was months ago and I've sent emails and emails and you think what is five dollars of your time what your piece of mine but this is stuck on me because I feel I haven't been treated fairly so I think through the logic of why why are you wasting your time your email and your thought why does this even come across your mind simple it's not fair so what I teach people is this a great line that I like to use in negotiation is really really simple and I tell them and not even negotiation as a supervisor in the police world I've used this many times with great success when you're dealing with somebody who might be upset for a variety of reasons you say you know what one thing that I can assure you is that I'm going to treat you fairly and if at any point in this conversation you feel that I'm treating you unfairly I want you to stop me right then and we're going to fix it right away and what a great empowering thing to say to someone and what a very empowering thing to hear maybe you don't have influence over the final outcome but if you feel you've been treated fairly in the process and that you had some autonomy and some freedom and some input for the final result you're going to be fully on board with the result whatever it might be I like that a lot I really really like that statement that's something that I think in a business negotiation or even not even trying to like I think businesses like close a deal but think about all the times you're dealing with upset individuals in a business that's very very empowering employees you know customers there's so you know even now actually this is a question that I want to ask I think about this for relationships so not everybody here is in the position in a business where they're dealing with you know very difficult communication well I think that actually to be quite honest at some point in everybody's career they'll have to speak or negotiate with the boss if it's something uncomfortable or you know a peer co-worker or a customer doesn't matter but let's take a step back say you know maybe not in the business even in a relationship is this something if you're trying to discuss something with your spouse is this something that you can use or does it seem too robotic if you said something like that this is it this makes sense and I think that most spouses of trained police negotiators know what's coming when I go to say emotion labeling oh you sound really upset they know what's coming they know that I'm trying to label the emotion my wife doesn't like that one bit so after a while when you have somebody who knows some of these techniques maybe they're not as useful all the time but I think back in every time I have a problem in in my relationship with with my wife which like everybody else I'm sure is frequent you think back to which one of these areas has gone wrong did did I not take time to understand what she was saying was the timing bad and I watch in a football game right now and she's telling me hey you need to go out and do this the timing's wrong well that's why that's failure you asked me to take the garbage out right as they were going four down four down I didn't hear anything you had to say the timing was wrong the delivery I get in trouble not because I asked for this to happen but hey you you said it road you didn't say it politely you didn't you sounded upset so it's a delivery fail and then the the respect this is a big autonomy violation saying you know I'm asking the kids to do something and she can jump and say no we're doing it like this all right why am I upset it's a respect thing it's an autonomy violation so anybody in any relationship I want your your listeners to take this and take these four areas and say every time something goes wrong whether it be your personal relationship internal communication at work problem with a sale or some outside convention find which one of these four areas didn't work and see if that makes sense see if if if that fits into one of these categories you know what I didn't take time to understand or I'm upset because they didn't take time to understand me whichever one it might be and I would bet in a majority of these situations is going to fit into one of these things and once you have that framework of understanding ah now I know tears where the problem is I'm going to build on some of these techniques to use so I can properly address and that's another really good segue how do you this seems like for somebody listening to like okay that makes sense but like holy shit like that's a lot of stuff to like think about every time I speak to somebody so how do you start how do you look what's the first step so that you just don't give give up on because like thinking about four things every time you have a conversation if you if it's not natural it can seem very daunting in my opinion how would you how would you just start incorporating this is is there like an easy way to sort of check yourself in certain conversations or is this something that sort of dive into and it will be easy it will be easy and and just like anything eventually it's going to become second nature and you can analyze things as they're happening for now take take a problem that you've experienced and then step away from it and reflect on it once it's over and kind of go back and give it a little psychological autopsy and figure out where did it go wrong what was the problem and then come back to it and say hey Scott last time I was on your podcast I felt that it went very very poorly because I didn't take time to understand what it is you were saying or I felt it went very very poorly because I was delivering my content in a way that seemed to upset you it didn't seem to sit very well and and I want to apologize for that and now I come back with a different strategy and delivery so it's okay to do this analysis after the fact but if you keep focusing on this you become very very good at it and you can see where things are going wrong and adapt to that and make those adjustments in real time and again if you can do this in a professional setting where you have a coach and you have a team to support you that's when you become very very powerful because nothing in police negotiation is done like it is in the movie where you have one Kevin Spacey superhero negotiator that's going to knock it all out by himself it takes a team so put your ego aside and be willing to accept that coaching be willing to accept that feedback and work as a team to say you know here are the areas that we need to improve on that I need to improve on that you need to improve on and be willing to get that feedback I think that's so important and an area that a lot of us have trouble taking it I like that a lot I wanted to touch on one more point that that I guess can sort of weave in between all of these all of these subjects I want to speak about nonverbal communication right so I'm going to ask although I have my opinion I think it's very important but how important is nonverbal communication and also actually let's start with that because then I just want to understand how to sort of read into nonverbal communication clues so how how important is nonverbal completely important 100% absolutely everything and I think people are starting to see that as now we interact with people wearing masks and this is becoming very common and I don't like it at all because I can't get enough information when my boss comes into my office and she's telling me this and this I can't see her face I can't see if this is a smile I can't see if this is a straight line book if it's a menacing directive we lose that communication when we can't see each other's faces so expressions are super important body language super important and I think that for great communication it's really important to do a face to face now in the police world I don't like doing face to face when somebody's holding a gun to their head and I've done that on a couple occasions but it really puts my safety in jeopardy a little bit now that's not really a problem that you're going to have in the business world but if you can see and study the nonverbals and the facial expressions you're going to be really really powerful there's a couple leaders in the field Paul Ekman, Joan Navarro, Chase Hughes I'm actually reading a book right now by Chase Hughes that ellipsis manual and he's got 22 different pieces of nonverbals that we do and within those that each one or a lot of them have subsections of each so I think for people who aren't reading emotions through expressions and through body language you're missing out in two different areas first of all you can't read what somebody else is telling you and second you don't know what you're telling the other side the people who are really good at this I can make sure that my nonverbals line up with my burbles and then I become very convincing and very powerful because everything is very consistent and then when I know how to read this if I see the inconsistencies then I start to think there's deception here they're not being truthful or they're not being completely open and when this is in the negotiation context you could be losing millions and millions of dollars because you missed the contempt micro expression you missed the adjustment and the chair the arms what are the hands doing where are the eyes looking this is going to cost you so much money so take the time to read these books to go to these classes and invest I think it's absolutely fantastic to study behavior analysis to study how we can engineer behavior that we want I think it's absolutely terrific and and it's everything it's absolutely everything and for people who are not on board with this you're you're missing you're missing on talking now so great that's good but we're like for us we had this entire conversation we're not on video right now and I actually I like doing on video because I can read facial expressions and I'm not a master of nonverbal cues by any means but I do still feel like when I'm speaking to someone face to face it's a little bit easier to be comfortable with them like you know when we're doing this conversation we're having this conversation we're doing it you know over Skype is there is there inflections in the voice you can hear like when is there a point where I think there is but I'm asking you is there a point where you felt like I was more comfortable speaking to you is that something that you can pick up on if you spend enough time even with nonverbal I think we can't even without seeing each other just the inflections absolutely it it happens and you can probably analyze it in yourself if people don't believe this I would say just hit the record button and report yourself doing the podcast and I probably have the same evolution throughout the time that we've been talking here today that that I've gotten more comfortable and we can all recognize this in in the inflections and how we'd say it so even without seeing it the pauses and how are we pausing what what is emphasize the rate the rhythm the cadence all of this stuff in the delivery that I spoke about earlier goes a long way and really conveying what it is you want to convey it and I would maybe make the point to say use all of this to your advantage because I know where I am poor in communication one of your ideas that I'm really really bad at is keeping a poker face my good friends would love to play poker with me because they know they would destroy because when I see something that I like the smile is coming and it's coming in a big way I'm happiest can be and there's no way around it I'm like a child I mean people wonder you know how can you function in the professional world when you have no control over your smile and your emotional state so I think you know what maybe would there be times that it would be beneficial for me knowing that this is an area that I'm not so good at to work over the phone with somebody or work over email because I'm going to mask my weakness and use it to my advantage so something to think about in the self understanding and giving some thoughts of where can I protect myself from from my vulnerabilities I like that now would you would you also though argue that if you can own your vulnerabilities and they no longer are vulnerabilities if you if you just come across as authentic is that is there is that just like you know like a wishful thinking I yeah it might be more wishful thing because I can say you know what I'm really really bad in this area but I know it you know just take a baseball analogy you know I'm really really bad at hitting a curve ball and I know it's so I'm going to own it that doesn't make me any better at hitting the curve ball I'm still going to need to step up to the fight and get the job done so to some extent you know in a negotiation and a conversation there are certain things that you can control but there's a lot that you cannot and you don't want someone else to exploit this and I could exploit it in a very polite friendly kind way so you feel you know I'm being very respectful of that but at the same time I'm going to the well over and over and over again and using this to my complete advantage and you don't want that so not not only should you be aware of it but go ahead and work on that and work to fix that so you can be even stronger for your next conversation good stuff is there anything that you had discussed in the TEDx talk that you that you wanted to highlight today that we didn't discuss sort of like the open floor over to you I think that you you've covered the big principles and so people who are just kind of hearing about this or what we've heard about this and are interested in doing this there's a lot of good literature to read a lot of good books to read there's a lot of good videos to watch but at the end of the day knowledge is one thing but putting into practice and doing it as a whole different body I was very lucky to have completed the Chicago triathlon a couple of years back and I was pretty decent at running and pretty decent at biking but I'm not much of a swimmer other than sitting at the pool with a beer in my hand so I needed to learn how to swim so I started by watching Michael Feltz videos and this dude is awesome and I saw what he was doing and in my mind I'm doing the exact same thing and I got it down but then I had to go jump in the pool so make that step take that uncomfortable step of now I need to try this now I need to put this into practice and and it's okay to fail it's okay to not succeed at everything we do but that's what's going to make you better so for anyone who says you know what this might be a little bit overwhelming to maybe learn the eight skills of active listening and try to use one of these every so often yeah it might not work out it might not fail and just because you have the knowledge doesn't mean you're going to be good at it but don't be afraid don't let your fear overwhelm you to the point where you can't function and you're not willing to try because wherever people are at in their journey to negotiation excellence and I would trust that you have some listeners right now who are way better at this stuff than I am my hope is that wherever they're at in their journey that this can add a little bit more value to help you get a little bit better a little bit smarter a little bit quicker to have even better outcomes in their negotiations yeah I agree and I think that it's something that I think I you know I'm going to go back and listen to this after it's over and take some notes because I think I have to be more again it's being that self-aware and I think that I think that a lot of us you know just sort of jump into conversations like bull in china shop and then you mentioned you know I prepare the content well I do prepare content even for these and this I'm just you know the podcast context not the sales context I do prepare content I prepare thoroughly but there's other points that could come naturally to some I think some of this comes naturally to people that are like are gifted but I don't think it's something that is I don't think communication style effective communication style is something that a lot of people focus on or enough people focus on in my experience I think even if they're very good yeah no you can even get better yeah you can even get better don't ever get complacent very good a couple a couple wrap up questions that I like and you kind of already touched on those but I always like asking their sort of like life lesson insight questions from you know the variety of people that I have on so you know I guess one lesson that you would that you would tell your younger self that sort of helped you get to where you or would help you get to where you are quicker or more comfortably professional personal something something to tell yourself I think one of the big things is always prepare for opportunities we don't know when and where these opportunities are going to come from but if you are not prepared to step through that door it doesn't matter if the door is going to open or not if you're not ready to take this step so always always work on preparing yourself for wherever it is you want to go to be as great as you want to be but you have to prepare we might not have the the control over when that opportunity is going to come or if it ever comes at all but when it comes if you're not ready that's where you're going to miss so to have the the mindset the growth mindset to find excellence to be ready for that opportunity it could lead to great things and and when you have the opportunity take it don't let fear control your decision of maybe maybe I'm not ready for it that fear of failure get get rid of it and go for it and see what you can do was that was that the conversation you had when you when you did the TEDx? no the conversation I had was I was certain it was one of my co-workers messing with me I was like there is no way that that TED is calling me because I wasn't doing this I mean outside of a very limited scope of police training this is not what I do I mean this is not my thing at all so I was certain like I had a couple people for sure that were in on this that they're they're messing with me that they're going to wait for me to get excited and be like all right I'm doing it and then they're going to let me know no we're just messing with you so so my my first song was you know this isn't real and police have terrific terrific senses of humor so I just figured it was all just a big joke I love it and and the last question I like to ask is where where do you go to you mentioned some good books is there anything else any other outlets podcasts that you're tuned into right now other good books you know other mentors that you've that you've listened to that can sort of be agnostic of of industry or or you know job title that people should go check out yeah there's so many great books that I've read and so many great leaders right now I'm big into behavior so a little bit outside negotiation with Ekman Navarro Hughes that's kind of what I'm really working on right now because it's there's a change in negotiation from being over the phone to now we can it's very 3D so these are skills we have to take on but in in negotiation George Cole Reeser professor of leadership psychologist and negotiator it has some really really good books and videos out there hostage at the table is his book and I thought that was a pretty powerful book that brought in psychology leadership and negotiation I was part of his his class in person class not so long ago you had mentioned Chris boss he's he's probably the the biggest name ambassador right now coming out of police negotiation field processing into business he's got some really good stuff and I'm FBI trained and he's FBI so I find that what I know is very consistent to what he teaches I work with the Schroiner Negotiation Institute they have a lot of great material out there so take some time grab book it starts with one book one video and build that interest and my negotiation library could keep people busy for the next couple of years but that's a couple things just to get started good thank you um and where do where do they where do they go to find you if they want to get in touch or can they get in touch and where do you get in the next one yeah yeah yeah that's a cool thing um I'm a police officer I'm not I'm not I don't have a book to sell you I don't even have my own website for you to go and check out I've got a profile on LinkedIn be happy to connect with anybody on LinkedIn I have a couple videos on YouTube my my TED talk is the secrets of hostage negotiators feel free to check that out I do corporate training through the Schroiner Negotiation Institute and I'm a professional speaker with a big speak speakers bureau so you can find me on those websites Schroiner.com bigspeak.com be happy to connect with all of your audience and all of your connections and really I'd be excited to learn from them how they might use this how they've used this or ideas that they have on how to make this model a little bit better so I can steal your expertise and to bring it back into policing so we can turn that around and say life. That's over today thanks again for joining me on another episode of the success story podcast you can download or stream this podcast wherever podcasts are available including iTunes Spotify Google Stitcher I Heart Radio and many others you can also watch this podcast on YouTube if you haven't already please subscribe and share this podcast with your friends family co-workers and peers please leave us a rating on iTunes it takes about 30 seconds as it allows other people to find our podcast and let's our amazing guests reach even more people with their message and remember any rating is fine as long as it contains five stars I'm Scott Clary from the success story podcast signing off