Chris Voss is a former FBI hostage and crisis negotiator and author of Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Shopify: https://shopify.com/lex to get free trial - Indeed: https://indeed.com/lex to get $75 credit - InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/lex to get 20% off EPISODE LINKS: Chris's Instagram: https://instagram.com/thefbinegotiator Chris's Twitter: https://twitter.com/fbinegotiator Chris's Website: https://blackswanltd.com Chris's Masterclass: https://masterclass.com/classes/chris-voss-teaches-the-art-of-negotiation Never Split the Difference (book): https://amzn.to/3J5scNC PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (06:31) - Negotiation (12:21) - Reason vs Emotion (27:17) - How to listen (36:06) - Negotiation with terrorists (38:14) - Brittney Griner (39:53) - Putin and Zelenskyy (47:13) - Donald Trump (54:23) - When to walk away (58:37) - Israel and Palestine (1:06:16) - Al-Qaeda (1:11:46) - Three voices of negotiation (1:20:11) - Strategic umbrage (1:23:18) - Mirroring (1:26:29) - Labeling (1:33:55) - Exhaustion (1:36:09) - The word "fair" (1:39:06) - Closing the deal (1:41:03) - Manipulation and lying (1:42:58) - Conversation vs Negotiation (1:54:17) - The 7-38-55 Rule (1:58:16) - Chatbots (2:07:39) - War (2:09:10) - Advice for young people
Chapter 1: What is the background of Chris Voss as a negotiator?
The following is a conversation with Chris Voss, former FBI hostage and crisis negotiator and author of Never Split the Difference, negotiating as if your life depended on it. And now a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast.
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Chapter 2: What are the key elements of negotiation mentioned?
This show is also brought to you by Indeed, a hiring website. I've used them many times for the many hiring efforts I've done for the teams I've led in the past. I've recently actually had to write a few recommendation letters for people who I've worked with in the past. And... I really enjoy doing that because it reminds me how awesome the people are. It kind of takes me back to those times.
And those months, those years that you get to spend together on a difficult problem, you get to solve it together. The camaraderie of that, the struggles of that, the passions of that.
The ups and downs where you're really hopeful one day and then there's all these problems and you think the ideas you were doing are totally stupid and it's not going to work out and you kind of like can't quite figure out the puzzle of it and you might have to start over completely. You have to backtrack, all of that. The full mess of that and you get to share in that together.
And ultimately, at least for the things I've worked on, there's a mission, there's a dream to understand something deeply or to help a large number of people. And that just gives the whole journey of struggle together meaning. I mention that because the process of building up a team, the process of hiring a team, is so important.
Chapter 3: How does the concept of empathy relate to negotiation?
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An interesting small-scale example of that, perhaps you can hear it from my nose at the moment, is that I started getting allergies as nature wakes up from its winter slumber. And I think it's already a year ago, maybe a little bit over than that, I got a test for different things I'm allergic to. And they put different things on your skin.
It's like this grid, and you get to see what are the things that you're allergic to based on that little grid cell of the skin having an allergic reaction. And I was not allergic to most things, but there's a few that stood out. There's an interesting little data point, right?
It's probably true that over time that changes, maybe across a period of months and years based on the medication you take, based on the environmental conditions, based on your diet, all that kind of stuff. And so it'd be nice to do that same test over and over and over. to get a sense of how my allergic reaction to the world around me changes.
There's a million things like this, and the core to you making a good, effective decision and what you should do with your life, lifestyle, health, diet, whatever, is to ground that in data. So the core to the allergy thing is data. The core to everything InsideTracker does is data. I'm really excited about personalized data, driven advice for how to make your life better.
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Chapter 4: What are the challenges in negotiating with terrorists?
And now, dear friends, here's Chris Voss. What is it like negotiating for a hostage with a kidnapper? What is the toughest part of that process?
The toughest part is if it looks bad from the beginning and you gotta engage in a process anyway.
What are the factors that make it bad? That makes you nervous, that if you were to observe a situation where there's general negotiation or it's a hostage negotiation, what makes you think that this is going to be difficult?
If they want to make it look like they're negotiating, but they're not. Like in the 2004 timeframe, Al-Qaeda in Iraq was executing people on camera for the publicity. And they wanted to make it look like they were negotiating. So they'd come on and they'd say, if you don't get all the Iraqi women out of the jails in Iraq in 72 hours, we're going to kill a hostage.
That was one of the demands in one of the cases in that timeframe. Now, first of all, even if we'd have been willing, the US government, the coalition would have been willing to do that. It wouldn't have been able to happen in 72 hours. So is it an impossible ask from the beginning? And so then that looks really bad.
Like they're trying to make it look like they're talking reasonably, but they're not. So your hostage is in bad shape there. They've made a demand that you just, even if you wanted to do, you couldn't do. So then what makes that very difficult is, in kidnappings especially, you're working with family members, you're coaching people. Bad guys are in touch with family members
Or if they're not directly in touch with family members. The other thing that Al Qaeda was doing at that time was they didn't give us a way to talk to them. They're making statements in the media, but then not leaving their phone number, if you will. So that's one more thing. They're intentionally blocking you. They're asking you to do something you can't do.
They're not giving you a way to talk to them. So you got to get with the family and discuss with the family how you're going to approach things. Now the family definitely wants to know, is this going to help? So a bunch of cases like that in that timeframe. And you got to be honest with them. It's a long shot. Our chances here are slim and none.
And when it's slim and none, I'll take slim, but it's still very, very slim. And there were a number of people that were killed in that timeframe before the tide finally got turned. And it was hard dealing with families at the time. Can you negotiate in public versus like a direct channel in private? Oh, yeah. Bad guys pick the media. They're making statements in the media. And that's a big clue.
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Chapter 5: How does repetition lead to mastery in negotiation?
You're seeing the same things show up in other places. And at the re-level, you're still in the discipline, but you're making up your own rules. It's almost a flow state. Mm-hmm. And you don't realize that you're making up your own rules. And if somebody asks you where you learned that, you probably say, my sensei taught it to me. My master taught it to me.
This will come back around to negotiating with families pretty quick.
Chapter 6: What role does empathy play in family negotiations?
We did this once because there's a bunch of people that we coach, business people that are scared of the amount of money that they're losing if we're not coaching them regularly. One of these guys, Michael, We're interviewing him for a social media posting about two years ago. And Michael says, yeah, you know, you got to gather data with your eyes.
And I remember thinking, and I went, ooh, I like that. I said, where did you hear that before? And he goes, you know, I don't know. I heard it from you, I think. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I don't remember saying that. Yeah. That's the first time I've heard that. He's in Reeve. So what's this got to do with families?
Empathy at its base level and the shoe level, I learned it on the suicide hotline, is saying like, you sound angry. I'm just calling out the elephant in the room. Your emotions, what's driving you. I'm throwing a label on your affect. And I'm saying you sound, or it sounds like you are, because that's the basic Karate Kid wax on, wax off approach.
Now, there are a lot of hostage negotiators that'll tell you empathy doesn't work at home. Not true. They've never gotten out of shoe. You're getting ready to talk to your significant other, and you want to go someplace that you know is going to make her angry. You want to go do something. Now, that's real negotiation right there.
You could say to her, you sound angry, in which case she's gonna blow up, because her reaction is, you made me angry, bozo.
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Chapter 7: How can exhaustion affect negotiation outcomes?
Can you act like you're an innocent third party, or that you were independent of how I feel bad? And you learn a little bit more, and you say, the high level is probably gonna make you angry. And then what I did with families, I knew how they felt before I walked in the door. I knew that they were scared to death.
You find out that your husband, your father, your brother has been grabbed by Al-Qaeda, who are in the business of chopping people's heads off, you're gonna be horrified. I can't walk into them and go like, you sound angry. Of course I'm angry, you idiot. But knowing what they are, I used to walk into families' houses And I'd say, I know you're angry.
Now, what do the circumstances dictate that they should also feel? They're going to feel abandoned by their government. They're going to feel totally alone. They're going to be scared. And they're going to be angry because they feel the government abandoned them.
Now, point of fact, is this an accurate statement, that their loved one voluntarily went into a war zone and voluntarily went someplace their government told them not to go? Are the facts that the government abandoned them?
Chapter 8: What are the key techniques for effective negotiation?
Absolutely not. As a matter of fact, the government tried to get them to not go, and they went anyway. But that doesn't change how they felt in a moment. And I'd walk into a house, and I'd go, I know you're angry. I know you feel abandoned and alone. And I know you're horrified. And I know you feel the United States government has abandoned you. And they would look at me and go like, yeah.
What do we do now?
Now we're ready to rock. Is there, with Al Qaeda or in general, is there a language barrier too? It could be just barriers of different communication styles. I mean, you got like a New Yorker way about it. That might make somebody from like, I don't know, Laguna Beach uncomfortable.
Do you feel that language barrier in communication is that language and communication style in itself creating a barrier?
You got a barrier when you think that your way is the way. Sure. That's the biggest barrier. Yeah. And that happens all the time. When people talk about, what about cross-cultural negotiations? You know, what hand do I got to shake hands with? Sure. So that I can get my way.
Mm-hmm.
Well, if you strip it all down, we're all basically the same blank slate when we were born. Everybody's got a limbic system. Everybody's limbic system works pretty much the same way. People are driven by the same sorts of decisions. How does this affect my future? What am I at risk of losing? How does this affect my identity? You're not a kind of kidnapper. You're a New York City businessman.
You're a tobacco farmer in the South. All making those same decisions based on those same things. So as soon as I start to navigate that and I tailor my approach, which is what empathy is, to what you think, how you see things. So I can be the biggest goofball ever from, if you live in the South, yeah, maybe I'm a New Yorker or I'm somebody from LA or somebody from Chicago.
But my geography is foreign to you. But as soon as I start dialing in on how you see things Suddenly you're listening.
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