5 Lessons in Business Negotiation from an FBI Hostage Negotiator

Shaan Puri

I'll start with this, **Chris**. I don't know if you can see this, but I'm writing down today's date because *today is the day that I become a better negotiator.* You are a master negotiator — a former **FBI** negotiator for twenty-plus years. Now you've been consulting and teaching the art of negotiation to business people and anybody who needs negotiation. The funny thing about negotiation is it's a skill we all need that I feel I personally never got taught. It's all self-taught. One of the things I realized was that so often I was negotiating and I didn't even realize it — whether it was with an investor, with an employee, or with a customer. Life is full of negotiations. So I'm excited because I think this is going to be quite useful. Maybe my starting question is this: if today was the day I'd get better at negotiation, where do I start?

Chris Voss

Yeah. Well, first thing is: let the other side go first. Actually listening is a challenge, because when the other person is talking there are times you want to jump in—it's almost impossible to resist. If there are five or six steps to becoming a better listener, the real challenge comes at step two: it's a **hijack**. If you're listening at all—as opposed to completely focusing on your internal dialogue where you're waiting to speak—most people get past that stage. But if you're listening at all, you're listening to rebut. The urge to correct is irresistible. It's insanely hard to overcome, so you'll jump in to hijack the conversation to correct. The urge to correct is so irresistible that we actually use it as one of our negotiation skills. I'll say something wrong on purpose because you will not be able to resist the urge to correct me with the truth. It's a great way for me to trigger hidden information out of you. You won't regret giving me that information because, as the old saying goes, "we don't remember what was said; we remember how we felt in the moment." The desire to correct is so satisfying that you'll never regret telling me something you shouldn't have—because it felt so good in the moment. So that's the power of this hijack moment: **hijack to correct**. Now, another thing you'll do frequently is hijack to relate. It's called *story stealing*. You won't mean to do it, but when the other person says something it triggers an incredible memory in you of a past experience. It's one of the fallacies of common ground and you'll be unable to resist the urge to jump in: "Oh my God, the same thing happened to me." You feel incredibly good in that moment, not realizing how squashed the other person feels. That's why people call it story stealing—it feels so good to you that you can't imagine how the other person feels. You don't consider that they might think, "Wow, you had to have a better story than me; you had to one-up me." So actually listening through that hijack moment is one of the big challenges—probably the single biggest challenge—of becoming a better negotiator. You have to listen to somebody all the way through. And here's how powerful it is to make somebody feel heard: just because you've been heard doesn't mean you feel heard. Just because I understand doesn't mean that you feel understood. I'm at a wedding a couple weeks ago in Ireland, and it's my first substantive conversation with the bride the night of the ceremony. As you could imagine, she's exhausted—she's making the rounds through the wedding reception [dinner]. She's obligated to speak to everybody because that's what brides have to do. A bride and groom are supposed to walk around, say hello to everybody, make them feel happy they were there, and thank them for showing up. All I'm doing in my first real conversation with her is telling her what she went through that day. I said, "It's probably easier to run a small country in South America than it was to pull off this wedding." You're here to celebrate the union of two families, and your husband is here because he's got to be—you know. I'm laying all of this out to her, showing completely that I understood everything she went through leading up to that.

Chris Voss

She runs into me the next night at dinner. She walks up to me, gives me a big hug, and says, "I have no memory of what you said to me last night. I just remember how good it made me feel." That's the power of making somebody feel understood. She literally couldn't remember a word, but she felt bonded to me because I thoroughly understood her. That's the challenge, the mission, and the goal: making somebody feel *completely heard and understood*.

Shaan Puri

"You have no idea how many times I wanted to interrupt during that story. I just knew this: if I'm ever going to do it, *this is the one time* — I need to just listen the way you're describing."

Chris Voss

And also, **congratulations** on resisting that urge. In the moment you had the thought, "I want to speak," right? I mean, good job. That urge is huge. I have trouble resisting it sometimes.

Shaan Puri

And so you're saying that the starting skill is **truly listening** — not waiting for your turn to talk, not trying to hijack the conversation with what you call the *fallacy of common ground*, where I think I'm building this bridge with you and you're like, "Dude, you just sideswiped what I was trying to tell you." You then want to tell me about you when I was trying to explain how I'm feeling, what I'm going through, or what's happening in my life. Those techniques aren't just negotiation — negotiation is only one small part of it. It seems more like *How to Win Friends and Influence People* territory; it should be the foundation of any kind of communication or relationship. So, is it that negotiation fundamentally is just connecting with other people? Or is it that these skills apply to other domains? I mean, what's the right way to think about that?

Chris Voss

**Well, it's across the board. I mean, negotiation — if your objective is to have a long-term relationship of trust where we both prosper.** If you're a complete sociopath, that should be your objective because it's low maintenance: it's the least amount of effort and the maximum amount of money. I get a number of people. One of our top-level coaching clients said, "I have made so much more money being collaborative than I ever made being cutthroat." You make deals faster, your relationships flow more smoothly. That should be your goal. If you're the most mercenary person in the world and the only thing you care about is making money, then that's the fastest, easiest way to make the money. But that's not everybody's definition. Most people think of it as a win-lose battle of arguments: "I'm going to get the upper hand on you, I'm going to have you over a barrel, I'm going to force you to do what I want." Those people-power negotiations, if you will, put you out of business. You lose friends, you lose collaborators, you lose colleagues.

Shaan Puri

Alright, let's take a quick break because we got something for you. We pinned a survey to one of our videos and we asked, "What's the biggest challenge you have right now in your business?" The number one thing you guys said was **getting your first 100 customers**. That was the most popular response. That's, of course, the challenge—because if you can't get to 100 customers, you're definitely not going to get to a thousand. So what the team at **HubSpot** did was go through all the old episodes and pull the stories where I talked about how I got customers for my first business, how Sam did it for his first business, and some of the guests who came on and talked about what they did—how they scrapped and clawed and got those initial 100 customers to get the ball rolling. Then they put those together in a report. It's a PDF, it's totally free, and you can get it. It'll give you some inspiration and ideas around how you might be able to go get your first 100 customers. Check it out—it's in the description below. So, what is the right way to think about negotiating? In my mind—my simpleton brain—if I imagine a great negotiator, if you said "think about the best negotiator," I think of somebody who's either very powerful, maybe even intimidating, or they're just very charismatic. They're able to sort of manipulate, win the other side over. I definitely default to a **win-lose** dynamic: I'm trying to get as much as I can and they're trying to get as much as they can, and let's see who wins this negotiation. Whether I'm buying a car, I'm going and getting a **Nintendo** off of **Craigslist**, or whatever it is— that's the default for me. So how do you do relationships if you're— I mean, maybe this just doesn't apply, but if you're a hostage negotiator, are you trying to have a relationship with these people? Somebody you've never known and they're clearly, you know, off their rocker if they're taking hostages... hostages—let's, let's...

Chris Voss

"Not put them in the *'off the rocker'* category. Let's make that simpler to start with."

Shaan Puri

Okay. Let's say this isn't the first person I would think of when I say, *"I want a long-term relationship with this person."* Can you tell me a story about—maybe, I don't know—your first *high-stakes hostage negotiation*? How did you approach it, and, I guess, what was the mindset there?

Chris Voss

I learned three things, I suppose. To start with: the application of empathy from a crisis hotline—what we now refer to as **tactical empathy**. It's about demonstrating understanding (not just being understanding) in a way that makes the other side feel heard and draws them into telling you more. The first move in a negotiation is to remove yourself as a threat. Why would they make a great deal with you if you're a threat? They might make a deal with you if you're a threat, but they're not going to make a great deal. One of the first, really counterintuitive moves is to remove yourself as a threat. A hostage negotiator does that with a non-threatening voice—a calming, soothing, late-night FM DJ voice—and by expressing genuine concern for the bad guy, for example: > "I'm here to get everybody out; that includes you, mister bad guy. Now whether or not you let me get you out is going to be up to you, but that's my objective first of all, and I need to find out whether or not you're good with that." I need to know right away whether some bad guys want to die. Here's the counterintuitive thing: hostage negotiators have repeat customers. I might not see you again, but if I get you out alive, another negotiator is going to. That means if I lied to you, deceived you, or didn't take the time to understand you, that's going to be your experience when you run across the next guy—and things are probably going to go bad.

Chris Voss

The whole idea of a *long-term relationship* is that I gotta be willing to step in, to be open with that. And the bad guys are gonna be able to smell that.

Shaan Puri

"**What was your first big case** — the first situation where you had to deal with a **hostage situation** and came out with a successful outcome?"

Chris Voss

It was a *very rare* event. I was lucky enough to get involved in a bank robbery with hostages, where we trapped them [the robbers] inside with the hostages.

Shaan Puri

"And so what happened? You get the call that this is going down, and I mean, just tell me—what was that like? Tell me about it." </FormattedResponse>

Chris Voss

We didn't get the call. We became aware of it and we just went — which is really a philosophy that I live by, which is called **"run to trouble."** It's amazingly liberating if your philosophy is *run to trouble*. We ran to trouble and showed up. Since it was a bank, the FBI and NYPD were showing up. The negotiation teams from both sides knew each other really well. We had a great relationship. We had a bank robbery task force in New York at the time, so the PD and the Bureau were already aligned on the criminal prosecution. The two negotiation teams blended. The first hostage negotiator on the phone was a PD detective; I was his coach. The PD commander was in charge of the negotiation operations center on the inside. The Bureau's lead negotiator — our coordinator at the time — went to the outside in case any voice-to-voice bullhorn stuff was needed. We negotiated for a number of hours. The commander decided to disrupt the dynamic a little bit — it was stalemated at a very low threat level — so he pulled the PD negotiator and put me on the phone with the "bad guys." I had one of the bank robbers out about 90 minutes later.

Shaan Puri

What did you start with when you got on the phone?

Chris Voss

We went disruptive to start with, which was not the usual protocol. The commander sensed Hugh McGowan—**great instincts**. He listened long enough to realize that the secret to gaining the upper hand in the conversation was going to be how each conversation closed. The bad guy was constantly saying things like, "Hey—gotta go, they're coming, they're gonna hear me," or "I gotta—I'll put you on hold," or "I'll put you on speaker," and then he would just get off the phone. So he said, "No matter what happens, you extend every call. Every time he tries to get off the phone— I don't care what you gotta do—you keep him on the phone five, seven, ten seconds longer than you end the call. We're gonna take control of this by taking control of the end." The other thing: the normal handoff is that you hand the phone to the next negotiator, and the next negotiator does an elaborate summary of everything that's been set up so far. What you anticipate is the bad guy saying, "Oh, Chris—who's this Chris guy? Does he even know what the hell is going on?"

Shaan Puri

Right.

Chris Voss

And so, normally Chris will say, "Hey—I've been sitting here for a long time and blah, blah, blah..." So I'm up to speed; you don't have to.

Shaan Puri

"Why do you hand it off at all?"

Chris Voss

It could be for a variety of reasons. Normally, it's to *take a harder line*.

Shaan Puri

Okay.

Chris Voss

No negotiation team—whether it's business or hostage—hands the negotiator off to another negotiator to be nicer. In every business or hostage situation, if there's a change in negotiator, the negotiators on the other side always take a harder line. **Always.**

Shaan Puri

And why—why is it better to hand it off to somebody else who'll take the harder line versus **you yourself** escalating to a harder stance?

Chris Voss

> "It's going to catch the other side off guard a little. It's destabilizing without necessarily being threatening right away. And if I've been a pushover up to now and suddenly I'm demanding, you have reason to believe I've been inauthentic. You know, which guy is the real you — the other guy or this guy?"

Shaan Puri

Right.

Chris Voss

So there's an *authenticity issue* involved.

Shaan Puri

And so, how did you get them out? You said 90 minutes later you got hostages out. What resolved it, or what was the breakthrough? "The inflection. For that one."

Chris Voss

Well, I... I threw the first guy. He was a highly manipulative negotiator. In hindsight, I now refer to him as *the great corporate CEO negotiator* — a great corporate CEO. If you're in negotiations with him, it'll be like, "My God, my board's gonna fire me if I make a bad deal," or "My board is gonna kill me if I agree to that." He's blaming people who are not in the room. That way he doesn't get cornered, diminishing his influence at the table. Because if he does get cornered — that's a dude who calls all the shots. He's just smart enough not to get cornered at the table; he's always going to blame somebody outside the room. The first bank robber at Chase was telling us how dangerous his colleagues were. He kept saying, "No — these guys are crazy, I'm scared of them," while he was calling all the shots. So I took a harder line with him. I took away his comfort level and was more confrontational without being aggressive. He got rattled. While he was trying to figure out what to do, he handed the phone off to the other bank robber on the inside, who did not like how this was going down. It was not part of his plan to be stuck in a bank surrounded by snipers with 50‑caliber guns that might, you know, put a gaping hole in his forehead — then he would no longer be able to wear his favorite hat if that happened. He was scared to death about getting out of there. So I started in with him. I still had the late‑night FM DJ voice, which was calming and soothing to him. Then the real critical issue was that someone else on the team heard what was really bothering him and handed me a note. I listened and adjusted my stance in the moment based on the note. He felt so heard and understood. Then, in very short order, I was meeting him out in front of the bank — he was surrendering to me.

Shaan Puri

"*Wow*—what was... what was on the net?"

Chris Voss

We were pressuring him to let a hostage go. They had three hostages on the inside. It was shocking that the hostage negotiators would be trying to get the bad guys to let a hostage go. The note to me said, **"ask him if he wants to come out,"** and in a blink of an eye I switched from asking about the hostages and letting one go to saying, **"Do you want to come up?"** His response to me was, "I don't know how I'd do it," which is a great, big, giant yes — *just tell me how, get me out of here. I want out.* When we had him on that thread, I completely focused on the consequences he was looking at: how he was going to get out of there. He was most concerned about what was going to happen to him the instant he stepped out the door. As soon as I got enough reassurance, I almost had this guy out. Then I got another note, as it turned out from the same negotiator. The note said, **"Tell him you meet him outside."** I said, "You wanna just meet me up front?" and he said, "Yeah. I'm ready to end this shit." So we scrambled. I went around, I got on the bullhorn on the outside, and I met him out front of the bike. [transcription: "bike" unclear] </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

"Wow, that's a great — that's a great story. I like that. When you talk to **CEOs and business people**, obviously it's a different situation than a **hostage negotiation**. What's the first message you try to get through to them? Let's say you have a room of 100 of the most — *Fortune 100 CEOs* — and they're all here to listen to you. You're up on the stage. What's the **first thing** you really want to get through to them?"

Chris Voss

To make them aware that there's information they need that they could only get at the table. I remember a long time ago somebody wrote a book—I'm not sure if they called it "The Ten Commandments of Negotiation." I don't remember the exact title, but I remember taking a look at it. One of the commandments was—and which I completely disagree with, by the way—"it is what it is," which essentially says: your experience, you were not new, it's not your first rodeo, you've dealt with these people before, it is what it is. So I'll ask these **CEOs**: when are you ever in a negotiation where you don't have closely held information you don't want to reveal to the other side? Whether it's your budget, your pressures, deadlines on other deals, quarterly profits, or demands from your board—when is there ever a negotiation where you don't have **proprietary information** that, if the other side had it, would change everything?

Shaan Puri

Right — you *always* have.

Chris Voss

Yeah, like all the time. I go, "Okay, so that means the other side's got that too," which means it isn't what it is. The other side will tell you—if they could trust you not to hurt them with it. So your first negotiation is *trust*, because they've got stuff. If they could tell you, it would change everything. That gets people out of the perspective of "I gotta make my case" or "what's my leverage? What's their leverage? What are our giveaways?" A lot of executives say, "Know, what are our 'must-haves' and what are our 'giveaways'?" Well, they've got proprietary information that would change everything. Then your "must-haves" and "giveaways" could be completely wrong. You've got imperfect information. What you want to do is sit down, gather information and trust, and then rethink what the best deal looks like. It's really hard to get experienced executives to do that because they say, "No, I know the lay of the landscape; this is not my first rodeo—I've seen this before." Getting them out of that "I've seen this before" mindset is a really hard thing.

Shaan Puri

Right. Okay, so that's great. I'm an executive in that room, and I hear you. I say, "First of all, even though I've been through a lot of negotiations, there's more to learn, so I'm **open-minded** to this." Secondly, I **buy what you're saying**, which is that if I had more perfect information, we could make a better deal—one that might be mutually beneficial if we were willing to trust each other. What are the simple ways to build that **trust** when you do meet with the other side? They're naturally, initially not going to be super willing to trust you. What are the simple ways to build trust? </FormattedResponse>

Chris Voss

Well, the simplest way to **build trust** and **gather information** simultaneously—it's something almost nobody has been taught. Basically, what you're saying here is: number one, I have to build trust. Number two, I have to get the information. Number one, build trust: find *common ground*. Let's find out what we have in common. Ask things like, "Did you play Little League baseball growing up?" "Are you married? What are your kids doing?" "How many times have you been married?" This whole common-ground thing makes people feel good when they share. They don't realize that sometimes they're squashing the other side. That's one of the worst ways to build trust. Number two, gathering information: you're taught to gather information by asking good questions. But questioning somebody makes them feel cornered, which then diminishes trust—because nobody trusts you if you corner or interrogate them. The counterintuitive answer is the hostage negotiator's tried-and-true tool called an **emotion label**. In business negotiation it's just a label. I can start triggering information out of you right away if I sit down and take a sense of you. I said this to a colleague recently—someone I hadn't seen in months. Instead of saying, "Hi, how are you? How can I help you?"—all those nonsensical "how" questions—I looked at him, soaked him in for about three seconds (it sounds short but always feels like an eternity), and I said, "You seem centered." He sat there for a second and said, "You know, I just came off the mountain." The mountain is where he goes to meditate and work out; he's into Asian philosophies and martial arts, which makes him feel phenomenal. He said the last time I saw him he hadn't been on a mountain in months and was wound really tight. "I just came off the mountain; I've been up there for about a month now." If I'm listening, he just told me a lot about himself and where he's at right now. If I had sat down and said, "Hey, Nick, how are you?" he would've looked at me and gone, "Yeah, fine."

Shaan Puri

Right, right. And you did it with an *observation* — a *label* — but it was almost a compliment. It wasn't like you said, "Oh, you seem stressed out before you get defensive," right? You said, "You seem centered." Is it important if it's a positive or negative label in that way?

Chris Voss

It's just gotta be what it is. Okay? Like, if he just seemed stressed, I'd have said, "You seem stressed." *Mhm.* Or if he seems stressed—one thing I like when somebody seems stressed is: it's probably that day. I'll say, **"Tough day,"** and you can watch them get their balance back when you say that. So the observation's gotta be—you have to observe what it is. Because if they look stressed and I go, "You seem centered," then I'm an idiot. </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

Okay, so you put the *label* to give some information. That was... what happens next? What's the *next move* to continue to build the **trust**?

Chris Voss

Yeah, well... I may feed it back to him. I'm going to sit back and let the other person talk, and then I'll see if they have a next step. It's a little bit of a dance; we may need to take a circuitous route to where we both need to be. If you pick the route, we'll get there faster. If I pick the route, I don't know where you're going, I don't know where the friction points are for you, and I don't know what's going to make you leery. I'm going to let you pick the route because it'll be faster. So I'm going to sit back and wait to see if you pick a next step. I mean, try to trigger you to see if we can go. Is it... is it ridiculous to talk about what we're here for? So you caught that question, didn't you? Yeah — it was a **no-oriented question**. Instead of "Do you want to talk about what we're here for?" which pushes them toward "yes" (and going for "yes" creates friction), going for "no" creates *protection and safety*.

Shaan Puri

Right. *No—no*, it wouldn't be ridiculous for us to do that.

Chris Voss

There you go. Exactly. Yeah. And so that's how I—when I want to go someplace, I'll trigger the decision via **"no" versus "yes."** </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

Mmm... And you know, there are all these words when it comes to negotiation — those sort of classic words, you know: *"compromise."* Tell me about... tell me your thoughts on compromise. </FormattedResponse>

Chris Voss

"Do you think the United States Congress deserves an A+ rating?" No. They compromise all the time, don't they? So if you think politicians are awesome, then you think compromise is good. And that's a crazy thing about it, because everybody preaches compromise. "How do you feel about compromising your principles?" Not good. Yeah, it gives you an instantaneous uneasy feeling inside, right? So, *compromise* is, by definition, to make something lose–lose. That is not compatible with a long-term relationship of trust and prosperity. It's compatible with being a **C player** — mediocrity. Compromise correlates very strongly to **mediocrity**, and you gotta decide whether you're good with mediocrity.

Shaan Puri

And so what's the replacement to *compromise*? I don't think anybody goes in saying, "I can't wait to compromise." They sort of feel like it's a *necessary evil*: "I guess we'll have to compromise in order for us to agree." I think that's where people land — they settle for that. That's the mediocrity part. So what's a more effective, more powerful way of thinking besides expecting and accepting that you need to compromise?

Chris Voss

Well, let me make you feel heard first. If I can make you feel *completely heard on your position*, my guess is more than 30% of the deals will be made in my favor on the spot, and about half of the deals are made on the spot once the other side feels completely heard.

Shaan Puri

But let's say it's *only 25%*.

Chris Voss

And it's well more than that. Alright, so now you've knocked out — you've just accomplished something. You have to negotiate **25% less** because you just made the deal by making the other person *fill* or just knock **20%** of your work off the table. Now, what happens to the remaining **75%**? Their position is going to move closer to yours, and they're going to be more honest with you about what exactly that position is. They're going to tell you what they perceive the "must-haves" to be. They're going to move away from their throwaways right away. So I'm either going to make the deal on the spot, or I'm going to find out what we really have to negotiate about immediately — which is also going to save me a massive amount of time. Now, there's a difference between compromise and high-value trades. And, you know, I'm not 100% sure whether or not this is a great example, but I like it: steel is 2% carbon and 98% iron. So let's imagine that carbon and iron were two negotiating factors, and they said, "got to compromise and go fifty-fifty because we need — we need a 50% representation here." In fact, 2% of one person's idea and 98% of the other person's idea made a stronger **alloy** that mankind had never seen before. So your real challenge is: what's the *blend*, not the compromise? Right — what's the blend?

Shaan Puri

You know, there was a guy who came on this podcast and he said something great. I don't know if this aligns with your philosophy, but he told me something that really helped me in negotiating. > "Most people, when they go into negotiation, see themselves on one side of the table and the other person on the other side of the table. It's sort of me versus you — I'm tugging this way, you're pulling that way. > > "This is a guy who buys companies, and he said the best thing we did was realize that's the wrong mental model. The right mental model is: *me and you are sitting on the same side of the table*, and across the table is the problem. Maybe the problem is you think the price is X and I think maybe it's Y. There's some problem that's preventing us from just doing this deal instantaneously, but it's not me versus you — it's *us together*, jointly looking at this problem on the other side of the table." That was a very effective visual metaphor for me. Is that something you would — I don't know — agree with? Is that something you... you probably know more about than I do.

Chris Voss

"No, no — I agree completely. I mean, for the longest time on my side we've always said the *adversary is a situation*, and what you just did was explain what that model looks like through that example. It becomes real when you describe it that way, and yeah, that's a very smart way to describe it."

Shaan Puri

And where does *leverage* come into this? Because, when I've negotiated I always think about leverage—deals I... deals I feel I do, but I'm not 100% happy with, not too happy with. It's typically because I felt the other side had a lot more leverage in the situation and this was my best option. It was *98% their blend and 2% mine.* In other situations where I have leverage, or create leverage, or apply leverage, I tend to feel like I do better. But is that too simplistic? How do you think about the word "leverage"? For me, that's always been key in negotiation.

Chris Voss

It's not simplistic. It's a step up from floundering entirely to... you know. And it's gonna sound harsh: if you get yourself to a B-level negotiator, you'll never get yourself to an A+ on **leverage**. Leverage is the ability to inflict harm. If you're making deals based on the ability to inflict harm, these... those don't lead to stable, long-term relationships. They don't lead to the other side sharing information with you. That would change everything. If you have leverage, you're a threat. Why would they give you important information if you're a threat? And vice versa. "How much leverage do they have on you?" "Holy shit, I can't give them that. I can't tell them; they'll have more leverage." Oh my God. So leverage can be useful in some situations, but it'll never get you the best outcome. In many cases, you can think about when you made a better deal because of leverage, and that becomes really addicting—really satisfying. You lose track of the deals you should have made but didn't because you didn't have that thought, you didn't have leverage, or... </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

Right.

Chris Voss

You know, it's a **very limiting factor**. It gets you into a passing grade, but it doesn't get you to the top of the class. </FormattedResponse>

Shaan Puri

Gotcha. So what gets me to the top of the class? We've talked a little bit about it, right? *Truly listening* and **using labels** to collect information and make the other side feel heard and understood. What else is key to get me to the top of the mountain when it comes to negotiation?

Chris Voss

Well, what you're really negotiating—what people really don't understand—is how important **trust** is. Trust is based on how predictable you are. Take out the word "trust" and put the word **predictability**, and you automatically become more trustworthy because you're predictable. The ability to collaborate as we deal with issues matters, because there's always going to be issues. Making the deal is the beginning; you have to get into implementation. If we don't trust each other, problems are going to crop up and we're not going to tell the other side if we've compromised. I'm going to resent that compromise. When problems crop up, I'm going to keep my mouth shut because it's going to hurt you—I didn't like the leverage you used on me, I didn't like the way you forced me into this deal. You know, "threaten me? Fine—make me cooperate; make me tell you about problems in the early stages" as opposed to when they're turning into land mines and the land mine has gone off. It's really an issue of how we're going to do the implementation. So the whole issue is: do we start, and are you even going to talk about how we're going to cross bridges when we get to them? Because there are going to be problems. I was at a training a long time ago before the book came out, and the CEO said, "This is my CFO and I want you to teach him how to put clauses in contracts that'll penalize the other side for non-performance." My thought was: if penalizing the other side for non-performance is your biggest problem, it started a lot sooner—because you're not making great deals. If you're telling me you can't get your deals implemented, that's what you're telling me. So you need to back way up and find out what the problem was well before that, because implementation is where it's at. If we don't trust each other—if I can't count on you to work through problems with me—it's going to cost us a lot of money.

Shaan Puri

"What are some examples of the great deals you've seen? Maybe the great deal makers or great deals that you've seen?"

Chris Voss

I think **Oprah Winfrey** is a great dealmaker, and a visible example of that is how she gets **Lance Armstrong** to come on TV and answer yes-or-no questions—straightforwardly—about whether or not he doped and whether or not he did things. I'm not acquainted with Oprah. I am acquainted with Lance, and I like Lance a lot. When you look at the totality of the circumstances, you get a quite different picture as opposed to somebody giving you a very narrow view. In the Lance Armstrong interview, he wasn't caught off guard by those questions. That was a negotiation between him and her in advance about whether or not he was going to get on camera and what she was going to ask him. You don't see anything in the media about Lance Armstrong being upset with Oprah Winfrey, which means they negotiated a great deal upfront that they were both okay with, then executed it, and there was no bad blood afterward. To me, that's a great deal and an example of why she's so effective. Also, if you look at the totality of Oprah's career, think about the fact that she's dealt with some of the most difficult-to-handle people on earth—celebrities who are used to getting their way at all times—and she doesn't have dust-ups or ongoing arguments with them. How is that possible when, in today's day and age, celebrities love to have feuds with each other as a way to gather attention? That's not her method of operation. Her success is extraordinary, especially considering where she started. I'd take some very small percentage of her network and be quite happy.

Shaan Puri

Do you have a sense of what she does or how she accomplishes that?

Chris Voss

You know, the interesting thing is it's very similar to what we did in the Chase Manhattan Bank. I was talking with a woman in Los Angeles several years ago about working for Oprah, and I'm laying all this out. I said, **"The last impression is the lasting impression."** We did it—the lieutenant [unclear] did it by instinct at the Chase Bank. I found out later when I was at a Gallup Poll conference on human nature. The Gallup Poll, the longtime collectors of polling data, are sitting on decades of human performance information. One speaker stood up and said: > "People don't remember things how they happened. They don't remember how it started. They remember the most intense moment and how it ended. The last impression is the lasting impression." I shared this with my colleague who worked for Oprah. She said, "Oh yeah—Oprah has lived by that her whole life." She explained: "In the entertainment business the joke is 'in a limo, out of a taxi.' As soon as they get what they want from you, you're out—hailing a taxi out front, finding your own way. But at Oprah it was 'in a limo, out in a limo.' The philosophy was that no matter what happened in any interaction, you had to make sure they felt respected, heard, appreciated, and loved at the very end." I've had several people tell me that when Oprah didn't see eye to eye with someone, her last words were: "Well—always, no matter what, I will always love you and I will always be supportive of you." *The last impression is the lasting impression*, and she's a master of it.

Shaan Puri

How do you prep for an interview for negotiations? So you'll say you're going to go try to make a deal, and some people have this idea of, like, what's it called—**BATNA** (the "best alternative to..."). They sort of think about their desired outcome and then the worst-case scenario they're going to accept. Other people do lots of research and try to find as much as they can about the other party to be fully armed when they walk in. For some people who do power moves—how do you prepare for something that's a negotiation in the business sense, in the business context?

Chris Voss

It's going to be a combination of **two things**. First, I'm going to think about what negatives you're going to harbor about me in advance. Everybody's got that. Interestingly enough, everyone could do this right away, even in a first interaction. Ask yourself: what are the things you want to deny? "I don't want you to think that I'm going to be greedy. I don't want you to think I'm another slimy salesperson. I don't want you to think that I'm here to maximize my opportunity. I don't want you to think I'm wasting your time." I always tell people: *what would you want to deny walking in?* That's your gut instinct telling you a negative is there. You make the shift from a denial to a straight observation: > "Look, I'm probably going to seem greedy. I'm probably just going to seem like another slimy salesperson. I'm probably going to seem like somebody that's wasting your time." That then instantly makes me the straight shooter—the honest person. So I'm going to think about what negatives you're likely harboring because the brain is about 75% negative. That's the fastest way for me to build a relationship: deactivate the negatives and make me look like a straight shooter, which increases your trust in me. Then there's going to be some stuff you're going to be thinking about that you'll be offended if I don't appreciate—you're going to be offended if I don't appreciate how hard you work. The fact that I'm talking to you at all means you have value and legitimate reasons to be respected and admired. It's taking what a lot of people would refer to as flattery, but articulating that it's not vacuous flattery; it's genuine appreciation from where you're coming from. I might say something like: > "You worked very hard to get to where you are today. You have been in this business for a very long time and you know what you're doing. Otherwise, if you didn't, you wouldn't be sitting here in front of me at all. You have things that are valuable and worthy of my attention and of my respect." You put those two things together and you kind of get *empathy*.

Shaan Puri

That's what you were calling *tactical empathy* earlier.

Chris Voss

Right. There's **brain science** that backs up that approach, particularly *starting with the negatives before the positives*.

Shaan Puri

Right. Why is it so important? I mean, this is going to sound like a dumb question, but it just seems like the most important thing, so I want to talk a little bit more about it. Which is: why is it so important for somebody to *feel understood and heard*? And why do we default— it seems like what we default to is, "I can't wait to make my case so that you understand me and I feel heard," right? It seems like the biggest swing I could make as a negotiator is to let go of my need for that—or at least the initial need for that—and really hone in on your need for that. If I just made that one switch, I'm a much better trust-builder and therefore a much better negotiator. When is that the right summary from what you said?

Chris Voss

Yeah, you know, it really is. It's fascinating to think about the fact that people come to the table with such a desire to be heard and to make their case. They can't imagine that's what's driving the other side — it's blinding. Neuroscience-wise, what difference does it make to make somebody feel heard? It will trigger the release in you of neurochemicals: **oxytocin** and **serotonin**. If you get ahead of oxytocin in interacting with me, you're going to bond with me and you'll be far more honest with me. Oxytocin — it's *bonding and truth.* Serotonin is a drug of satisfaction, which means you're going to be less demanding. So, if I can make you feel heard, you bond with me, you're more honest with me, and you're less demanding. That's a pretty good start for a negotiation.

Shaan Puri

"How does **Chris Voss** know how to buy a car? How do you do it in day-to-day, everyday situations? Have you had any implementation of any of your techniques on the *low-stakes* stuff? We've seen the host of negotiation, but what do you do when you're on **Craigslist**? Do you need a couch, or you're, you know, at the market?"

Chris Voss

Yeah. Well, you know, I tell the other side why what they are selling is worth what they're asking. I make their case because that's what they're going to say to me. So what I've done is I've just left them with *nothing to say*. Then — see — I can *pound you down on price*. I mean, if I choose to be, I can really pound you down. But I better *never need to come back to you for anything*. There are a few deals that are complete one‑offs. If I'm buying a car — depending on who I'm buying it from — I will tell you I do not have great regard for car dealerships across the board. I no longer ever get any vehicle I own serviced at a car dealership. I don't care what the warranty says, because I don't trust them. So I don't mind pounding down a car dealer.

Shaan Puri

Right.

Chris Voss

I got no problem with that, and I — I will do that to them. I will — I will make their case, and then I will become very *passive-aggressive*. You know, my favorite is: "**How am I supposed to — how am I supposed to pay that?**" Well, you would have said all the things that I just got done saying if I hadn't said them first. But now, if I took all the wind out of your sails, took all the bullets out of your gun, then when I give you the opportunity... you got empty chambers. You got nothing to say. And I know you're dealing on a margin. In real short order I'm gonna get you down to your bottom line. If I like it, we'll make a deal. If I don't, I'm walking on. But I better — I better not ever need to come back to you, because once I've killed you on price, you are not gonna forget that, and you are not gonna lift a finger to help me ever again.

Shaan Puri

"Right. Okay—what about other sort of day-to-day negotiations? I have little kids: a five-year-old, a four-year-old, and a one-year-old. My most frequent negotiations are with them, and I'm just curious: do you have any parenting negotiation tips? Maybe it's just *don't negotiate at all*, but I don't know. I find myself in that pickle a lot."

Chris Voss

Now, with your kids — this is their "ages for thinking," if you will — what you're really trying to do as a parent is **help your kids think**. Recognize where they are in the stages. I heard a long time ago: "Up to age five, treat a kid like a king; five to 15, work them like an indentured servant; at 15, let them go." There's a lot of brain science that overlaps very closely with that in the development of the brain. All along the way, you want your kids to feel slightly challenged and you want to get them to think. They gain the ability to process that at about age four to six, when they start to cross over into ages where they're beginning to handle more complex thinking. What a lot of parents want to do is just order kids around: "Go to bed." "Why?" "Because I said so. Because I'm the father — that's why." That isn't really helping them think. It's demonstrating that the only way you can get stuff done is through the use of force. Now, that doesn't mean you should put up with bad behavior either. One of my favorite videos is of a mom trying to talk her five-year-old son into getting into the backseat of the SUV. She's saying, "Come on," and he's crying and making noise. Then his nine-year-old sister walks up, grabs him, throws him into the SUV, and they get in and leave.

Chris Voss

In time, you have to toss the kid in the car. But in the meantime, your job as a parent is to help them think. It's not to shield them; it's to challenge them and make them better people. **Help them think.**

Shaan Puri

"After all these years of helping people become better negotiators, and teaching certain techniques and frameworks for this, what do you think is the **easiest to implement** of all the frameworks? In other words, what's the **easiest way to get points on the board** and start the process of improving in this area?"

Chris Voss

Well, it's really going to be the different ways to repeat back to somebody what they just said. You know, *labeling* — you're focusing on their emotions or affect. *Mirrors and paraphrases* focus specifically on what they said. It seems like it's a waste of time, and it ends up being a **relationship accelerator**, which then is a **deal-making accelerator**. So how do you do it? The more you can make somebody feel heard, the less you will be perceived as a threat. Yeah, sometimes charm is involved. **Charm and empathy** are very close. But who's the most interesting person at the table? If I make you think I'm the most interesting person — okay, cool, we had a great conversation, and we are going to make great deals. If I make you think *you're* the most interesting person, our likelihood for collaboration is very high.

Shaan Puri

Right. How do you find that balance, or do you need a balance between—my business partner, Ben, is like this. He goes into a lunch and asks so many questions because he's genuinely curious. He tends to know a lot about the other person and what they're interested in because he's paid attention. He observes, he remembers what they said, he remembers where they went, and he'll feed them things he knows they're interested in—not to manipulate them, it's just who he is. I don't know, it's his nature to be that way. He leaves the lunch and they've talked 98% of the time—he's talked 2% of the time—he's asked them a couple of questions. He knows everything about them, they know nothing about him, and they go, "This was amazing, we gotta do this again. This was so fun, I would love to do this again." And he comes back at the same time. I'm curious if there's a sort of downside to going too far in that direction, where you haven't demonstrated value or provided the other side with an almost API-like connection—an ability to understand what your needs are and how they might be able to help or intersect with what you do. Is there a danger in going too far down the *let the other side talk* route?

Chris Voss

Well, first of all, **curiosity is a superpower**. It is ridiculous where it shows up—in terms of your survival, their survival, long-term relationships, your resilience, and your ability to discover new things. Curiosity... I can tell you so many different ways it's a superpower. So now, what's the danger? At some point, you have to keep in mind that while we're talking, we have a finite amount of time. If we have an hour together and get nothing accomplished, what will you remember? You might really enjoy the conversation, but if we didn't get anything done, you could feel like it was a waste of your time. You have to be aware of the progress that must be made. My team and I always set **finite periods of time for meetings**, and we never go over. It doesn't matter where we are—we'll set another meeting before we go over—because *time is a commodity* that is so limited. If I don't help you manage your time and your interactions with me, then pretty soon you're going to start avoiding me.

Shaan Puri

Well, speaking of—you seem like a guy who is **very conscious of his time**. I want to make sure... Wait, it looks like we're 11 minutes over, and so I want...

Chris Voss

I made sure I didn't mind. I enjoyed the conversation. I *do* want to tell some people about some stuff.

Shaan Puri

"Yeah, tell it, please."

Chris Voss

So we've started this new thing called the **Black Swan Negotiation Community**. You can go to our website and find it. It really is an across-the-board, Amazon one-stop shopping for where you are in your negotiation journey. If you can't afford anything, come into the community because membership is free. Get started getting a return on the investment of your time in terms of dollars. So get started on your journey—incremental change could be monumental very quickly.

Shaan Puri

Awesome. Well, **Chris**, thank you so much for coming on—and for all the content you've put out over the years. I've always picked and chewed on different little bits of it, especially when I was in the process of either raising money or selling my company. Those were very brief periods of time—maybe three weeks, four weeks, six weeks—where the value of my years of effort would swing by *50%* depending on how good I was at negotiating, understanding the other side, and being able to find a mutually beneficial deal. It's one of those arts that can make a really big difference in a very small amount of time: the difference between being bad at it, good at it, or great at it. So, I appreciate you coming on and helping us be a little better at it today.

Chris Voss

It was a pleasure. I enjoyed the conversation.</FormattedResponse>