CHAPTER 08: Guarantee Execution

Summary

• A dangerous and chaotic prison siege in St. Martin Parish, Louisiana
• Inmates armed with makeshift knives took the warden and some of his staff hostage
• The negotiators sensed that the prisoners didn’t want to hurt the staff and wanted the situation to end
• The inmates were afraid that the prisoners who gave up after taking correctional officers hostage, not to mention the warden, would end up beaten, and badly
• The negotiators deliver a pair of walkie-talkies to the inmates and designed an elaborate surrender ritual
• Inmates would send out one of their guys with a walkie-talkie, and he’d walk past the three perimeters of combined multiagency law enforcement that were stationed outside the prison.
• Once he’d walked past the final perimeter, he’d get into the paddy wagon and be transferred to jail. There, he’d use the walkie-talkie to call the guys back in the prison and say, essentially, “They didn’t kick my ass.”
• They’d know it was okay to come out just like he did, one at a time.
• The inmates agreed with the plan but the plan failed.
• The point here is that your job as a negotiator isn’t just to get to an agreement. It’s getting to one that can be implemented and making sure that happens. Negotiators have to be decision architects.
• The negotiators barely stop themselves from slugging the guy before they tear off to the jail to have the first inmate call in.
• Crisis averted, but barely.
• “Yes” is nothing without “How.”
• Success isn’t the hostage-taker saying, “Yes, we have a deal”; success comes afterward, when the freed hostage says to your face, “Thank you.”
• In this chapter, I’ll show how to drive toward and achieve consent, both with those at the negotiating table and with the invisible forces “underneath” it; distinguish true buy-in from fake acquiescence; and guarantee execution using the Rule of Three.
• A kidnapping negotiation is taking place and the negotiator is close to a ransom that the family can afford.
• The negotiator receives a phone call in the middle of the night from one of his deployed team member in Ecuador, Kevin Rust.
• Kevin informs the negotiator that the kidnapee, José, had escaped and was on his way out of the guerrilla territory.
• The negotiator is relieved and says "Holy shit! That’s fantastic news!"
• The negotiator and the team later learned that due to the delays and questions, some of the guerrillas peeled off and didn’t return and José found an opportunity to escape.
• The negotiator mentions how calibrated “How” questions are a surefire way to keep negotiations going.
• They put the pressure on your counterpart to come up with answers, and to contemplate your problems when making their demands.
• With enough of the right “How” questions you can read and shape the negotiating environment in such a way that you’ll eventually get to the answer you want to hear.
• The trick to “How” questions is that, correctly used, they are gentle and graceful ways to say “No” and guide your counterpart to develop a better solution—your solution.
• The first and most common “No” question you’ll use is some version of “How am I supposed to do that?”
• This question tends to have the positive effect of making the other side take a good look at your situation.
• This positive dynamic is what I refer to as “forced empathy,” and it’s especially effective if leading up to it you’ve already been empathic with your counterpart.
• Starting with José’s kidnapping, “How am I supposed to do that?” became our primary response to a kidnapper demanding a ransom.
• The negotiator also gives an example of how he used the same technique with an accounting consultant named Kelly who was owed a pile of money by a corporate client.
• To get to “Yes” and get a deal implemented, you have to discover how to affect the people who can act as deal makers or deal killers.
• When implementation happens by committee, the support of that committee is key.
• Identify and unearth their motivations, even if you haven’t yet identified each individual on that committee.
• Analyze the entire negotiation space, When other people will be affected by what is negotiated and can assert their rights or power later on.
• Beware of “behind the table” or “Level II” players, parties that are not directly involved but who can help implement agreements they like and block ones they don’t.
• It only takes one bit player to screw up a deal.
• A few years into private practice I’d lost sight of the importance of assessing and influencing the hidden negotiation that happens “behind the table”
• Ask calibrated questions like: How does this affect everybody else? How on board is the rest of your team? How do we make sure that we deliver the right material to the right people? How do we ensure the managers of those we’re training are fully on board?
• Identify lies and aggression, and learn how to spot and interpret the subtleties of communication that reveal the mental state of the person you're negotiating with.
• The kidnapper had agreed to the kidnapper's promise to not hurt Alastair through a repetitive series of "What" and "How" questions.
• The 7-38-55 percent rule explains that only 7 percent of a message is based on the words, 38 percent on the tone of voice, and 55 percent on the speaker's body language and face.
• Observing body language and tone of voice are important tools for negotiators to understand and modify the mental state of their counterpart.
• When tone of voice or body language does not align with the meaning of the words, negotiators can use "labels" to discover the source of the incongruence and improve their relationship of trust.
• The rule of three is a tool to avoid the trap of counterfeit "Yes" by getting the other party to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation.
• The author, Chris Voss, is a lifelong hostage negotiator and shares his experience and techniques for negotiation.
• He suggests humanizing yourself by using your name in a friendly way and letting the other party enjoy the interaction.
• To get counterparts to lower their demands, use indirect "No"s such as "How am I supposed to do that?" and "Your offer is very generous, I'm sorry, that just doesn't work for me."
• The "No" series can be done four times before actually saying the word "No."
• The author also mentions the "7-38-55 percent rule" which states that 7% of a message is based on words, 38% on tone of voice and 55% on body language and face.
• Paying attention to tone and body language can reveal when someone is lying or not convinced.
• The "Rule of Three" is also recommended which is getting the other party to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation.
• The art of closing a deal is staying focused to the very end and drawing on mental discipline
• Use calibrated “How” questions and ask them again and again to keep counterparts engaged and off balance
• Use “How can I do that?” as a gentle version of “No” to push counterparts to search for other solutions and bid against themselves
• Identify the motivations of the players “behind the table” by asking how a deal will affect everybody else and how on board they are
• Follow the 7-38-55 Percent Rule by paying close attention to tone of voice and body language to detect incongruence and lies
• Use the Rule of Three to get counterparts to agree to the same thing three times in the same conversation to triple the strength of the agreement.