The Evolving Leader

Deploying Tactical Empathy with Chris Voss

• Chris Voss • Season 6 • Episode 21

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In this episode of The Evolving Leader, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Sara Deschamps are in conversation with former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss. During his 24 years in the FBI Chris changed the game in negotiation from one of stoicism to one of tactical empathy, persuading kidnappers, terrorists, and bank robbers to see things his way, saving countless lives in the process. Chris has translated his high-profile experience and synergy of collaboration and empathy into his negotiation consultancy The Black Swan Group, where he and his team of expert hostage negotiators apply negotiation skills in business contexts to help their clients make better deals, develop new relationships, and uncover valuable pieces of information the other side is hiding.

Chris is a household name on the Masterclass platform where he’s garnered a following for his accessible courses that teach everyone how to better communicate using behavioural science and human nature. He is also a successful author - his book Never Split the Difference explores how everything is a negotiation, and how anyone can use FBI negotiation tactics to solve problems, get what they want and resolve conflicts in all aspects of their life.


Referenced during this episode:
The Edge negotiation newsletter: https://www.blackswanltd.com/the-edge
The Black Swan Group: Blackswanltd.com


Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:
Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)
The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)


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The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

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Jean Gomes:

Making better sense of ourselves and others has always been central to leadership. But today, the stakes continue to rise when we get it wrong. In this show, we talked to Chris Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator, whose masterclass is the platform's most downloaded show, and his book never split the difference has sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. We talk about what Chris has learned about how empathy is a super skill in understanding others intentions and needs and his robust belief in the power of authenticity and integrity as a cornerstone of leadership. His experience in the toughest of human interactions brings to life the perennial wisdom of how we can build trust, and that women negotiating we often benefit from not giving in to our compulsions, tune in for an amazing conversation with the brilliant Chris Voss. Welcome to the evolving leader, a show born from the belief that we need deeper, more accountable and more human leadership to confront the world's biggest challenges. I'm Jean Gomes and today I'm joined by my colleague and wellbeing specialist Sara Deschamps. Hi, Sara. How are you feeling?

Sara Deschamps:

Hi, Jean. I think I'm feeling intrigued. But I think that's like not even close to describing how I'm feeling. But we'll go within treat today. Very excited to speak to our guest. How are you feeling?

Jean Gomes:

I'm feeling amazingly excited about this conversation. I've read our guests books in the past. Actually, I've read one I remember where I was on a flight to LA, reading it on the plane the whole way through and I consumed the whole book in one reading. And I think I shared it with about half a dozen friends straight after that. So yeah, I'm I'm also feeling a bit on high alert because today we're joined by Chris Voss. He's a leading expert on the art of negotiation. As a 24 year veteran FBI negotiator, Chris changed the game in negotiation, from one of stoicism to that of tactical empathy persuading kidnappers, terrorists and bank robbers to see things his way, saving countless lives in the process. And Chris has translated his high profile experiences and synergy of collaboration and empathy into his negotiation consultancy The Black Swan group, where he and his team of expert hostage negotiators apply negotiation skills in business contexts to help their clients make better deals, develop new relationships and uncover valuable pieces of information. The other side is hiding. He's also a successful author. His book never split. The difference, which I was referring to earlier on, explores how everything is a negotiation, and how anyone can use FBI negotiation tactics to solve problems, get what they want, and resolve conflicts in all aspects of their life. He's a household name on the masterclass platform, where he has garnered a following for his accessible courses that teach everyone how to better communicate using behavioural science and human nature. Chris represented the US government as an expert in kidnapping at the international conference sponsored by the g8. Before becoming the FBI as lead international kidnapping negotiator, Chris served as the lead crisis negotiator for the New York City Division of the FBI. He's also a member of the New York City joint terrorist Task Force for 14 years and negotiated notably the surrender of the first hostage taker to give up the Chase Manhattan Bank robbery. And if that isn't enough, he's also the recipient of the Attorney General's Award for Excellence in law enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and exemplary service. So Chris, welcome to the evolving leader.

Chris Voss:

Apologise that took so long I know we are almost out of time now. Thanks for everybody. Thanks for coming. On the next episode. Sorry, I'm so sir.

Sara Deschamps:

I mean, Chris, that is extensive resume. The first question we want to ask you we ask at the beginning of every episode is how are you feeling today?

Chris Voss:

Yeah, I feel pretty good. You know, I'm a I'm a morning person, you guys would get me in the sweet spot of my day. So I'm energised, optimistic and playful.

Jean Gomes:

Wonderful. Can we start at the beginning? What's the origin story of your fascination with negotiation?

Chris Voss:

It was mostly because it was an aspect of crisis response and law enforcement. I was a member of the SWAT team. And I was a cop in Kansas City, then an FBI agent, terrorist Task Force, but I was also a member of the SWAT team. I like crisis response because Um, response or crisis requires decision making. And I'm comfortable inaction is sort of the bane of my existence, you know, procrastination not to decide is to decide, I've always hated that. I think it's one of the most costly things in everybody's lives. So I had a recurring knee injury, and didn't want to end up a cripple, as a SWAT guys. So we had hostage negotiators, and they were part of crisis response. And I'm thinking, it didn't look that hard to me. So I thought, well, let me try this hostage negotiation thing. So it works out and ended up making me happier than anything else over that.

Jean Gomes:

I'm struck by this term tactical empathy. How did that approach differ from conventional negotiation approaches that you were learning as part of your craft?

Chris Voss:

Well, it was really more to try to get people to accept that empathy was not the same thing as simply, yeah. People that are afraid of sympathy and empathy and sympathy are two completely different things. Even though synonymous in today's vernacular, you know, I have empathy with you, I have empathy for you, people always trying to express sympathy with that. On the crisis hotline way back, when they drew the distinction, immediately, he said, sympathy is when you get in somebody's quicksand with them, and then both of you are stuck, nobody gets out. So I always knew that empathy was different than sympathy most of the rest of the world doesn't, because of the way it's used. So the first idea was the poor tactical in front of the word, to sort of decouple it from agreement or sympathy. And get people that were afraid of it that think empathy is weakness, which is just absurd. To get them to not be afraid of the word, then as we learn more about neuroscience in the book is been out on eight years now. And so there's a lot of neuroscience that has been uncovered while the book was coming out and even since, and really, it's a neuroscience honed application of emotional intelligence, it's neuroscience is a hard science, psychology is a soft science, you get it, you have a psychology convention, and none of the psychologists are going to agree on anything. Well, the neuroscientists they might disagree on what part of the brain does what but they don't really disagree on the outcomes, or the neuro chemicals. It's, it's hard science, and tactical is really, you know, the intentional use of people smarts.

Jean Gomes:

And just before we go on, so I was wondering, in terms of your understanding of empathy, as an individual, rather than the intellectual kind of understanding of the distinction between these things, how, how did you come to understand yourself in that sense, and your ability to be empathetic towards others? Is this something that was kind of inherent in you? Is it something that you've developed? And how did that kind of understanding developing you owe

Chris Voss:

the third party is just observation. And then the articulation of that observation, it's in many ways, it's getting out of your own way. In on a hotline, you know, we had to be non judgement. And that sounds simple, but an applications very hard, and then even taking it to an extreme degree as a hostage negotiator. I got to negotiate successfully with somebody from al Qaeda, you know, somebody from any extremist organisation, I'm never going to agree with them. Probably. It's gonna be hard for me to have sympathy formulas. I know the origin story. And they grew up in in squalor, if you will. I remember seeing the documentary one day in September about the Black September, terrorists. And one of them was talking about the squalor that he grew up in, in a refugee camp, and he had originally thought of himself as a wretched refugee. And so then you have an understanding, not an agreement, but an understanding. And to me, then when I was taught that, from the beginning, I thought, all that simple, I do empathy. I don't have to agree. I just have to understand.

Sara Deschamps:

I love that and maybe to keep going with this. It's it's related. You talk a lot in your in your leadership and your thought leadership about connecting with authenticity connecting with trust based influence. And can you talk a little bit more about how you create this, so maybe perhaps giving us examples of situations where the outcome differed when you adopted authenticity? And when you adopted that idea of trust based influence? Yeah,

Chris Voss:

well, I think authenticity should be everybody's currency. And many people are afraid of that, or, you know, my, my credibility is my currency. And a lot of people are afraid of being honest. They don't know how to be honest. It's it's extremely common for people to say, well, we didn't SLA tell them the whole truth, we just didn't lie. Well, that's errors. You know, that's deception by omission. It's very common in the business world. And it's kind of common in human interaction. Not because we intend to be deceptive, or we have malicious intent in mind is that people don't know how to tell the truth. So authenticity, you really got to kind of start from that from the very beginning. In the United States, and I'm sure it's a common phrase globally, or similar phrases, we love straight shoots, what's a straight shooter? Somebody tells the truth, somebody who doesn't hide things, but they do it in an emotionally intelligent way they make they make sure the words land. And it starts with tone of voice. And it starts with really being honest, which is a much bigger challenge than most people are aware of, in a day to day life, you know, how am I always honest? How do I avoid the white lies? And then white lies, if you accept them, then the definition of a white lie becomes bigger and bigger and bigger depends upon who you are pretty soon, you scared to tell anybody the truth. So authenticity is really got to be the cornerstone that you build from? And

Sara Deschamps:

have you seen a situation where the outcome was completely different? Because you adopted that? Can you give us an example of what that could look like in practice? Well,

Chris Voss:

and Alright, so hostage negotiation sample that springs to mind earliest is one that sounded horrifying. But it was one of my early training. So there's this, there's this hostage taking, I believe it's in Portland, Oregon, and possibly in some in some office. Now, there's a guy who wants to commit suicide by cop. But he's got this really bizarre way of doing it. And suicide by cop was a problem. In any hostile situation, you didn't know that the bad guy didn't go there to die, you got to understand whether or not he went there to die. And this guy's elaborate circumstance was he was going to go to this office building, commit capital murder, murders. And then law enforcement was going to take him into custody, and he'd be found guilty and be given a death penalty. So it goes to this office, and he shoots several people. And they're drug out procedures on and the people who shoot don't die. So the hostage negotiators at this point in time had been talking to him, they know what his plans. Now the people that he shot are at the hospital, and it's gonna get out in the media that they're going to live. And so they're confronted with? Do we engage in deception by omission? And pretend like we don't know this? This guy is probably going to find out before we get him up where it is that leaks? Do we call him a talent? In an effort to preserve our credibility or authenticity? Do we want him to believe that we will never lie to him no matter what the consequences, and they go back and forth. And you can imagine the thinking, like, if we call him and tell him that he hasn't killed anybody, yet, he's gonna kill people. And they debate it, and internally, and the negotiators make the decision to call them and tell them that the people he shot are going to survive. And he ends up bonding to them so much. Because he's just overwhelmed. And their desire to never lie, to not hold anything back from that they end up talking him out as a result, he doesn't hurt anybody else, but their intention to maintain their credibility no matter what. And in point of fact, that should be everybody's intention. Because if you lie to somebody they're gonna find out. And when they find out, they're never going to trust you again. So how do you how do you get out in front of that? I mean, you just you got to maintain your credibility. And the other thing about lying, too, is many times it's a test. You know, I say, don't lie to people, because they're better lives than I am. And they're going to figure it out. They're going to test me to see if I will lie to him. Or potentially, if they're a better liar than me, they're going to smell it right away. I'm going to lose my long term influence, and I'm about long term influence and credibility. I got another kidnapping that I'm working in Saudi Arabia. This is 2004. And Saudi Arabia is very different place and stays much more well organised, well run, regardless of what you think of the government there. I mean, that's Saudi is making phenomenal games in the world and they were tolerant of factions of al Qaeda in their country in that timeframe. And Al Qaeda takes some hostages, and they've got a guy that they are threatening Paul Johnson threaten to kill him on deadline. And we think it's probably going to happen, which an important effect and it ends up happening. Now I'm talking to his then wife is with her to be and his boss is we're getting ready to make a statement in the meeting. And we're coaching her she's very coachable. She's willing to do whatever we want her to do. And as we're discussing with him the strategy, his boss looks at me and says, If she does this, is this gonna say? And I looked at him, and I said, this probably isn't within reach. And he looked at me, and he said, I didn't think so I just want to see if you're going to lie. We're going to do everything you guys. So you got to, you got to get out there, your currencies got to be your integrity.

Jean Gomes:

So this is fascinating, because in this situation, in the previous scenario, the pressure to lie, because telling the hostage taker the truth might result in him killing other people to fulfil his prophecy, or is that a desired outcome? Is there ever any situation where the stakes are so high? That you would compromise on that? Or do you just think this is something that you always lose by doing that? By lying?

Chris Voss:

Yeah, no, my experience is you always lose. I mean, you have set yourself up for a trap that there is no coming back from. And, you know, I live in Las Vegas, so but I've always used the Las Vegas analogy, like nothing is guaranteed there is no, there is no guarantee of success. What you need is the optimum approach. The optimum game theory approach is what friend of mine described it as recently, what's going to work for me more than anything else, just because I could see how this is gonna go bad. Like, you can see, everything's gonna go bad. Nothing is guaranteed. What gives me my optimum success. My optimum success comes from integrity and preserving that integrity. And yeah, every now and then something's gonna go bad. Yeah, the problem is not preserving your integrity goes bad more often. Yeah, in preserving that's

Jean Gomes:

absolutely love that that's such a clear sighted perspective on this. So let's just kind of added another element into the mix of complexity. So you've got these very high stakes negotiations. But you've also got such a diverse range of cultures and backgrounds and moat drives, how do you navigate all of that? I

Chris Voss:

was in a negotiation conference about 10 months ago. It's in Europe, I believe we in Germany, it was conference of negotiation, thought leaders, practitioners, academics, all the peoples very been specialising in negotiation, of course, is a cross cultural negotiation expert there. On his premise exactly what you're just saying, he says, You got to understand Germans to negotiate with Germans, you got to understand Asians, you got to understand the Thai and got to understand all these different cultures to navigate. And he's familiar enough with my work, which is all of us are humans. And what you really need to do is understand humans. Yeah. But he's pitching this, this culture, that culture, this culture, and you can tell from the look on my face, and I'm just not fine. And finally he blurts out to me. Everybody just wants to know that you know where they're coming from. And I said, bango, that's empathy. That's exactly what I teach. Everybody. You didn't say only Germans want to know. Or only Italians want to know, or only Chinese want to know, you said everybody. And the definition of empathy. Tactical empathy is showing people that you understand where they come from, or this is what you do understand by your articulation, and then being open to correction. So they want to know if I've got it, everybody. And then the second part open to correction. There's nothing more satisfying than correcting another human being. And if I'm open to being corrected, a you're, you're you're Arab, you're Chinese, you're South American, you're whatever. Because you're a human being, you're gonna love that. So it's, we are humans first. Like I'm a white Anglo Saxon, Protestant, Midwestern man, grew up in Ireland. If you take me as a baby, if the if the gipsies kidnapped me as a child, and they dropped me in the middle of a former Soviet republic, that's age That's who I am gonna look like. Because as human beings, we start as a blank slate, we're human beings, period. And we're all born with the same wiring.

Jean Gomes:

What's the mix between? And I probably kind of know the answer based on some of the things you've said. But I'm just intrigued to understand what's going on inside your head. What's the mix between, like, you've got this process mapped out in your head versus the amount of improvisation you're doing the whole time? How does what does that look like inside your? Your mind? Yeah,

Chris Voss:

you know, it's, it's both a lot. I mean, I try not to over prepare, you've got to prepare some. Yeah, I tried to just practice dialling into reading the room saying who you are perceiving you from the very beginning. We do a lot of work with, you know, behind me this book for free agent, co authored with a guy that teaches residential real estate agents, who's a former NFL player. And his analogy, I think, is fair. And it's the same analogy as any sport, you practice, you plan, your game plan, you look at the other team's tendencies, and then the game starts. And it's all in provoke improvisation. Based on your preparation, so you prepared and then you improvise the ball snaps in a football game, everything chaos ensues on both sides. You know, the ball is kicked in real football, which Americans call soccer. Or whatever it is, when the game starts, it's complete improvisation based on your preparation.

Sara Deschamps:

Chris, if we could go back to some of the examples that you gave and and you in these moments in these high stakes situation, I'm fascinated to understand the role of the physical body and how you're listening to your physical body and what your physical body is telling you in these moments. What are these physiological cues that are coming out? When you're in the moment? What does that feel like? Alright,

Chris Voss:

so me, like what am I monitoring? Or how's it? How's that feeding back to me? Exactly? Well, yeah, you're almost gonna tilt metaphysical conversation here. So, which is fascinating to me. And what I mean by metaphysical, we still discovered in neuroscience, so what's my gut telling? Any challenge for a person is separating what they're hearing from the gut and what they're hidden from their amygdala, their fear centres in our head. Like our amygdala is massively pessimist, pessimistic, massively negative, you know, ballpark, rough, layman's terms. My amygdala is 75%. Negative, you know, what are those phrases that people say, you know, so many horrible things in my life, some of them actually happened, you know, so it's just all in our head so much. And it's that being said, it's extremely inaccurate. Now our gut, you know, what's my gut telling our guts really accurate? If we can listen to it and not get sidetracked by the amygdala? So I'm often trying to sense what the meaning is, which is a little bit more Yeah, I don't know what it is, but I'm my body, my gut instincts are giving me feedback. And syncing in the moment, what's coming off a view is going to help me a lot if I'm listening, or if I'm looking for insight, you know, what's what's on the surface of what you're saying? What's really driving, you know, you're really angry with well, actually, youth, if you're actually angry you, you're under a lot of pressure. But you're not really exhibiting fear based response to pressure. I'm feeling like you're just attacking that, you know, there's a two for things like, that comes from the combination my experience in my gut and contemplation and discussion. Now, other than that physiological care of myself, you know, all the cliche stuff. If I get a good night's sleep, if I get diet and exercise, you know, the, what are the five pillars a healthy diet, exercise, sleep, relationships, and spirituality. The more I take care of all five of those pillars, the better negotiator I am, because my mind is much more agile in the moment.

Sara Deschamps:

And can we can we talk about the role of fear the role of fear when you're in a negotiation so what have you learned about handle how to handle it for yourself? And maybe even how to handle it for others? Does that come up? Yeah,

Chris Voss:

well, the you know, there's the the intellectual overhead of fear. I mean, fear is a liar. Oh, your amygdala is alive. Fear at best is a ridiculous Exaggerator if not an outlier. So that's something that I need to practice Mental Hygiene to keep under control. And then, if I know that's happening in the other side tactic limpley, we got very specific things, responses tools to deactivate your fuse. And a really counterintuitive way to deactivate a fear is to simply call it out, I refer to it as the elephant in the room. You don't get rid of the elephant in the room by denying it's there. Because then the people will say, what are you crazy, there's an elephant right here, you know, you're delusional. You ignore the elephant, at least the outcome is not as bad as denying it. The worst thing you could do is deny fear. ignoring your fear then makes you look oblivious. But the two millimetre shift on fears is to simply call them up. And that's what really blows people's minds. First of all, they've never heard anybody call out fears before, they'd say, I don't want you to think I'm being disrespectful. That's the denial of the elephant the denial of fear. And they read every time we teach them, No, instead say, probably looks like I'm gonna be disrespectful. When I did that, in the past, it blew up. Well, in point of fact, what you did was the night, you just didn't understand the difference, and you did it by accident. And there have been neuroscience experiments that have been duplicated a number times they put people in fMRI so they can watch sort of the mental activity in their head. And they show him pictures that induce negative emotions. Whatever those pictures might be, might be a puppy in the rain might be a child begging for food, you know, it doesn't matter, but they induce negative emotions. The fMRI lights up functional magnetic resonance imaging, showing either electrical activity or blood flow, I'm not sure which one it is in the head, in predictable areas where roughly the fear centres are. That's an imprecise location, but effectively about three quarters of the amygdala and some other components. They light up. And then they simply ask people to identify the negative emotion, self label if you do I, what do you feel right now? anger, fear, concern. And every single time you simply identified every time the electrical activity diminished. Now, the important aspect of that is the degree of impact changes. The type of impact doesn't show calling it out, diminishes, sometimes we call out one negative emotion and it all goes away. And other times you got to call it out five times to get it to go. So what does that mean? In the negotiation? What that means is all I will call out what your what I sent your feeling. Or here's the other part that really scares people. I'll call it out in advance, and it did not kill it. And people think I can't I can't speak the devil into existence. If I give them a fear, then they're gonna say, Well, I wasn't thinking of that. But thank God, you've mentioned it. Now I am, you know, I never thought you were wasting my time. But when you said, you're probably afraid I'm wasting your time. Now I'm gonna think actually, the opposite happens. If I can deactivate a negative emotion in advance? Why not do I'm teaching in a question and answer session? Almost every time somebody asks a question, no matter how out of touch, the question is, I try to find something that I'd like I try to compliment them on some aspect of thinking of the question a little bit more than saying, That's a great question, which almost every instructor does, if they have any sense, you know, I'll pick out what in the question I like. gentleman asked me a question, right, nothing there. Like there ain't nothing in this question. Like, I don't know where his head is that he's not paying attention. And because of the nature of the question, I know that my answers is going to kind of say, you weren't paying attention. And so I go, this is gonna sound off. Now understand, I haven't said anything yet that that there is a negative hair. I'm looking for an inoculation. Because I know what's going to happen. When I answer this question. This is gonna sound like a wait about a second kind of a mole, if you will. And I answer his question, which is kind of like pretty blunt. And pretty much you weren't paying attention. And then I move on to the next question is that as I'm talking to you, the person who says wasn't harsh at all. I inoculated him from a negative response.

Jean Gomes:

I think this is incredibly valuable for everybody listening to this. Just wondering how I mean, how you do this in the very most difficult situations that you face where fear might be, at times overwhelming. Have you experienced times where you've got close to feeling overwhelmed by it? It sounds I mean, from the perspective you're talking about at the moment, it's hard to imagine Chris Voss being frightened. But tell us about the experiences that might have pushed you there.

Chris Voss:

Well, you know, I'm in the thing I is, for me is the type of person I am I'm sort of, you know, we believe that the world splits evenly into thirds, sort of analysts accommodators, fight, flight, make friends, and our data, our experiential data, not academically rigorous, but I'm happy to rely on it bears that out. Doesn't matter if we're talking to chat people in China, or Western Europe or Africa or South America, the world splits pretty evenly into thirds. So the third that I'm in is the assertive Natural Born assertive. Worldwide poster child for assertive is Donald Trump. Like direct, blunt, honest, talking to us is like getting hit in the face with a brick sometimes. So what triggers me is anger. And I get particularly angry at being deceived or lied to. That sets me off so I don't get set off by fear I do get set off by what do I do in a moment? The infamous late night, FM DJ voice also calms me down. And when I use it, everyone that hears it, it comes it soothes our negative emotions, whatever they may be in a moment. And if I'm using it, not only am I using it, I'm dialling it up in my head, which is calming my negativity. But I also hear it one way or the other. So when I need to smooth out any sort of negative emotion, so I get caught up in a moment, if I find myself and because I'm human, it happens. Then I'll shift to the late night FM DJ voice to calm my negativity down.

Jean Gomes:

You've already given us an awful lot to think about as as leaders. But let's just try and make the connection between negotiation and leadership a bit clearer. What else do you think your work does to help leaders to be better at their jobs

Chris Voss:

to first of all, recognise what the reality of that dynamic if you leading you spend, people are far lower maintenance, your guidance takes less time. If you're mentoring versus directing. If you're mentoring, you're encouraging people to think, which minimises the number of times you have to have a conversation. If you're directing, it's essentially didactic instruction, one way instruction. When the black swan group is teaching a company, and we do a lot of corporate training, we interact with you in the negotiations so that we have to teach it to fewer times, a long time ago, if I just tell you what to do. That's didactic instruction. And I remember in the early days of learning instruction, I don't know what the source of my statistic is, but I didn't, I didn't make it up. And I didn't do the data. I'm just feel comfortable. This was good. I gotta tell you 19 times, I don't get something to your head simply by telling 19 times, whether you're an employee, or whether you might shy. That's pretty inefficient. And by and large, we're when we're bosses, superiors, employers or parents, that time we tell somebody something three times what it is, I told you three times you still didn't get it? What's the matter with you? Well, I didn't realise that. If I tell you, I gotta tell you 19 times. Simultaneously, if I'm encouraging you, if I'm mentoring, if I don't, if I don't take an approach is a boss, an employer, that I'm directing you, but instead, I'm mentoring. I'm going to change my tone of voice. I'm going to be a little softer. I'm going to have tolerance for guidance more. I'm gonna encourage you to think with me. And a point of fact, I'll be giving you instruction far less. And that's a lesson I've learned really the hard way in my company, because people are interacting with me on a regular basis. Now. We're up to our proximately 30 people in the organisation at one point in time, it was just me. And shortly thereafter, it was one of the two. And I directed a lot more. And now that I need, I need us to be efficient, because I'm a service believe that time is money. And kind of no matter who you are in life, you got to recognise that time is money. It's not the only thing that's money. Relationships are money. Also information is money. But there's a limit to how many hours in a day no matter what we think of it, how many minutes we have time is money. Time is a scarce commodity. How do I make my time most effective and leading my employees, the people that work for me, I mentor more? Because it's more effective.

Jean Gomes:

You've talked a lot about authenticity and honesty. really interested in how leaders can increase trust in relationships and within teams, what else have you discovered in terms of accelerating trust?

Chris Voss:

Well substitute the word, take the word Trust out, put in predictability, like the less you get people caught off guard, the more they trust. And what does that mean? You get some negative feedback to give somebody let them know that negative feedback is on the way. You're not going to like this, this is going to seem harsh. You're going to think I'm being unfair, of course, that's what you're the people, that you're the work for you. As soon as you start to criticise or take issue with what they've done, they're going to think it's harsh. They're not gonna like it, they're gonna think you're being unfair, warm, it's coming in advance that increases trust. Let them know don't don't let them dangle. Given given the feedback as soon as possible to get them on track. That your guidance evolve, the smarter you get, be willing to be smarter today than you were yesterday. What do I mean by that? I'm adopting very strongly these days. Basically, a phrase I heard from Jeff Bezos. And Bezos is saying, Do as you're told, unless you have a better way. And I want to hear when you have a better way. Now understand the difference between better and different. Like, I need you to follow my instructions. And I need you to be really good at it. Unless you have a better white now if your answer is that's not the way I like to do it, or I got a I got a different idea differently. And I'm very clear with the people that work for me, I expect you to find a better way, if I ask you to do the same thing enough times where you've done more than I then if you learn at all, you're going to be able to tell me a better way to do it. But until you got a better way, then you're going to have to follow instructions is that the end of the day, since I'm paying for all the mistakes anyway, if we have a disagreement, let me be the guy who's well, so I'm constantly encouraging collaboration and growth, and teamwork, and honesty. And do as you're told, only, by itself, treats people as if they're drunk, as if they're robots is if they're not human. They're not going to grow. They're going to resent it, and your performance is going to decrease. So how to wine not get trapped in that paradigm, but also minimise them making mistakes, who lack of experience. Do as you're told, until you figure out a better way, because I hired you because I think you're smart, I expect you to find a better way. And I'm really encouraging growth a lot in my direction. One that I get.

Sara Deschamps:

Chris, you mentioned, feedback. You mentioned giving feedback. Are there any other components of a leaders position or any other situations that leaders find themselves then where they can start to flex this negotiation muscle where they can start to practice these skills in the leadership and in the business world where you would suggest leaders double down on that?

Chris Voss:

Yeah, I think in all aspects of your conversations. And, you know, I think this is related to what you asked me, but I had another thought that I wanted to make sure that I included which is the last impression is a lasting impression. So and this is different than the sandwich version of feedback or say some positive given the negative, say some positive. That's a formulary. No thought goes into it, that it's not as bad as just negative feedback. The problem with the positive and negative part Positive feedback is you fail to let people know that negativity is coming. You're catching people off guard. If you're catching people off guard, you're decreasing predictability, lack of trust. So if I've got a corruption, I gotta say, Look, I got it, I got a correction coming your way. And it's gonna sound harsh. I could say, I love you, you're wonderful employee. Now, here's how you're screwing up. But I love you, your wonderful employee. Well, in the middle of that they're confused. You didn't want them that the pain was come. Now that the upside and a sandwich is the emphasis on ending positive. Now that's correct. The last impression is a lasting impression. It's what I we refer to as the Oprah rule. Because after hearing about it in a sort of a neuroscience conference, I mentioned it to a young lady that worked for Oprah. And she said, Oh, yeah, it's Oprah offerings by that, like, everybody. Oprah ever interacts with his value in the entertainment world. They have a phrase in and a limo and a taxi. Well, when he worked for Oprah was in a limo out and make sure people feel valued at the end. And so take a look at Oprah's track record. Like you go to work for Oprah, you work hard, I got news for you. She didn't build the networks and her billions. Starting with less she started from less than zero. If you want to consider her demographic handicaps to begin with, you know, she was dealt, she's black, and she's a female. And she's from a poor area on top of everything else. Like so she had no Headstart line. But you worked for Oprah you worked on heart, I've I've had interactions with people while they were working for people formerly the workforce. None of them resented how hard they worked. And they all worked very hard. Because Oprah always made people feel fine. And if she had to take someone to the woodshed to use another American phrase, the last thing that she made clear to them was how much she cared for. And, and she would always be supportive of them no matter what decision. And that's a way to have people love working really hard for you. Because she was always finishing with genuine comments of positive regard, no matter what circumstances.

Jean Gomes:

When you look at the news today, either business or in the kind of political realm, where do you think you're most? Where's that need for tactical empathy most in the world?

Chris Voss:

Well, I I think everybody empathy is there's no downside for him. But empathy for anyone, anywhere, no matter what the intensity of the conflict is empathy is not agreement. Empathy is just about demonstrating an understanding of the other side. And it's not just understanding it's, you know, it's showing that you understand principally through Look, here's what I think your perspective is, and then laying it out, I'd shown somebody that you understand. And there it would make every aspect of life but now I've kind of given up on governments and politicians. Because, you know, a book that I've read, I'm reading recently called ship. And it makes this the development of the semiconductors, principally to collaboration with Silicon Valley, and a variety of countries in Asia, Southeast Asia, Asia, Taiwan, China, South Vietnam, Japan, Korea, and all sorts of contributors to the global semiconductor industry, principally in airport war. They make an interesting comment. They say the US military was the war in Vietnam, and the chip industry won the peace. And in that what government ever won the peace, governments win and lose wars. But the peace is won by the growth of the private sector. Vietnam War theoretically, was waded into, not necessarily started by the United States, but certainly weighed into and with both feet to stop the spread of communism throughout Asia, Southeast Asia. And all the military did was lose the war. chip industry comes in. So it's given people jobs. And you got the private sector flourishing throughout the region. Even China likes the private sector. And they're theoretically a communist country. So it's your government's don't want a piece of private sector dice and the more the private sector, exercises, empathy and collaboration with generating a better future for everybody, the more is there's going to be throughout all governments not when so is

Jean Gomes:

Black Swan group being brought in by leadership teams to help you know from a strategic point of view to understand competitors and customers using this lens,

Chris Voss:

you know, by the by the ambitious ones. Now that sounds obvious, but one thing that I've come to be aware of a clear distinction is the difference between somebody who's ambitious and somebody who's competitive. The vicious person at first got turned my attention get turned to that trait with masterclass. I've got my class on master classes, the best selling course you've ever had far away. They even now in trying to explain it to you say, Well, you know, Chris Voss has courses and outline and nothing, nothing compares to it. Because they, you know, we still can't quite understand the alchemy of why it's globally so successful. The masterclass told me a long time ago, that their ideal customer was the cat, the curious ambitious 30 cent and very familiar with curiosity is a super power. But when he said ambitions, and I looked up ambitious, ambitious people are by definition, innovative. Now competitive person is not necessarily innovative. A competitive person wants to set a goal. And once they reach that goal, then they quit. They give up. And you see it among athletes, the athletes that are competitive own, they have a great game, and then having a great game than the next game. They're horrible. Because they had a great game. What else is that though, you know, I can relax now, I reached my goal, or they didn't quit when they get near. Now the ambitious person, they can't get enough, they want to learn new ways of doing things. You know, their competition is their own performance the day before, not the guy or gal next door. So we find we're brought in by leaders who are truly ambitious, because they want to innovate stuff. They love that their people get better and smarter because it's more profitable. And their people are happier. And they retain them longer. The competitive people, you know, they cut each other's throat within the company, you know, you got a bunch of competitive executives inside a company. They're busy trying to beat each other not not improve their own performance. Those companies don't do as well over the long run if they survive at all. But it's the people that entrepreneurial spirit, through the ambitious, truly collaborative, those are the people who have been.

Scott Allender:

Friends, if you're enjoying the evolving leader, I encourage you to order a copy of Jean's new book leading in a non linear world, which provides a new understanding of mindset, and how to build it in order to thrive in a more uncertain future. It's available online at all major retailers. And there's a link in the show notes.

Sara Deschamps:

Chris, I've been dying to ask you this question. You've mentioned before, that when a counterpart asks for a win win in any situation, this is actually a red flag. And that really stuck with me. And I'd really love to hear you expand on that.

Chris Voss:

When when when negotiations first started coming out, the really competitive cutthroats line that if they asked for a win win right away, the other side's gonna drop their guard. I can say hello. Okay, you know, what I want is a win win deal. Then people start open. Oh, yeah. Okay, well, here's what I do. Here's what I can do it, here's what I can. And they lay all this stuff out. And they give away the farm, they give away tremendous amount of information. You know, they're driven by the hope of AI, they become a hostage to hope hostage to the future. And the contract negotiators learn somewhere along the line, that if I articulate when, when right off the bat, you are going to be so gullible, you're going to be so drawn in. And then if I can paint this picture of all this great opportunity, if you'll just come in and do this, I mean, I get this all the time, like I got a win win deal for you. I'm gonna put together all these rich people in a room and there's going to be so much opportunity for you there. And all you got to do is come in and give this presentation for free. And then you're gonna make all this money. And like, Okay, I've seen this movie. I know how this baby turns out. And I started looking forward very much like I started looking for the word fair early on, pops up all the time. So let me see what is an indicator of what does it lead to. And if you're articulate an award, Win Win, which is not the same as a living a collaborative spirit, it's me wanting to make sure that you don't feel like you lost, or me wanting to avoid beating you, I don't gotta beat you to win. So matter of fact, if we're going to win famine to win big, I need to win big with you, as opposed to add your expense, the much more lucrative deals or winning together, much more money. So that doesn't mean I've ever had the spirit of great collaboration. It just the words being articulated early in a conversation, correlate extremely strongly was someone who's trying to get me to do something for free forever.

Jean Gomes:

So just take that one step further. So when somebody does make you this offer, which is basically a deception, what do you do to ensure that you keep the thing moving forward? Do you just do to shut them down? What's your next move?

Chris Voss:

We refer to these people as half hard, annoying, lame and frustrated. And there's two types. And this is from my friend Joe Polish, founder of Genius Network says there's two kinds of counterpart two kinds of counterparts. Elf easy, lucrative and fun, half hard, annoying, lame, frustrating. It's not a sin to not get to deal with sin to take a long time to not get the deal. It's also said to take a long time to get a bad deal. Not half is a bad deal. And you go to work for me. Then early on, you take Yeah, Chris Voss negotiation guy wants to make every deal. I do not, not only do I not want to make every deal, I know there's going to be a significant portion of times where you're never going to make the deal with me. So it's a sin to take a long time to not get the deal. Now, what about the second thing, so I tell my business development people, hi, three years ago, maybe for now, like alright, so here these two types, half's and ALFS, let's develop a profile for what the halfs do and say the people who are hard, annoying, lame and frustrating the pain in the ass people that pay this, they're gonna have a behaviour profile, they're gonna have certain things are gonna say over and over again, they're gonna have certain focus over and over again, that smell it. And I encourage you to walk away, as you asked me before door, try to make the deal that we walk away, I'm encouraging my people to walk away. And they don't want to do that initially, because they feel an obligation to bring revenue in the door. So instead of walking away, they start pulling data, they start pulling our analytics, how many interactions with how much time do we put in my head of business development comes back and says, Here's what we've learned. The people that are difficult, they take us from two to five times the amount of time to make the deal. And then to execute the deal two to five times as much time. So at a minimum, if we make the deal, we've taken a 50%, cut in pay Ataman. On top of that, if they're hard, annoyingly and frustrating for us, we are for them. They don't repeat. So the people that are difficult to do business with them requires we accept a 50% cut in pay and no repeat business. That is not the way you keep a business afloat. And what we found is, effectively there's a line of people waiting to do business with us. And every difficult person is keeping the easy, lucrative and fun, the good client away from us. And if we can get the annoying people out of line, then suddenly the people that want to do business with us and want to pay us start showing up much more quickly. So our pipeline actually accelerates by firing certain types of clients. I

Jean Gomes:

love that I can feel I can feel the resonance on that experience. So many, so many experiences that come to mind in in what you're saying there. So that's, that's wonderful. So the final question if you've got time to, to stay with us for a moment is just this about building our ability to listen and what you've learned about that because I know that you're a brilliant listener. So can you tell us what you've learned about your capacity to do that?

Chris Voss:

Listening to thinking listening is analysis. Looks like this listening is looking For insight, listening is me trying to make myself smart in the moment it's celebrate, accelerate the interaction, celebrate the deal. And it does. It's, it requires thinking, it requires involved. It can be tiring, if you're not used to it. It's like any new skill in meditation. You tried meditating, clear my mind, I can't do that I'm too busy thinking about other things. So they'd say, are you gonna meditate, just do it for 15 seconds at a time. And then you build your ability to meditate. So get it get better a little at a time. And you're gonna find that life is generally much more delightful. And you find yourself here and stuff other people don't hear. And figuring things out faster than other people figure it out. Or predicting problems before other people even see him coming. Men really listening. And really hearing that dynamic is definitely a superpower and a strategic advantage, tactical edge over everybody around you. And I not only am I ambitious, I am also competitive. I'm both you know, I pay attention to the people that I'm competing with how they're doing. Ultimately, I got to improve myself. But every now and then I get slapped in the face and a competitor outperforms man, I'm like, alright, you know, I've gotten a little lazy here. I gotta get back to doing this, right. So if you're competitive only, listening is a great thing, because you will add this into your competition very quickly, because they don't listen.

Jean Gomes:

What's next for you, Chris?

Chris Voss:

Well, we got we got a lot of stuff on a tech. Talk and having having a legitimate serious conversation with a company about probably doing a podcast. We're expanding globally, we got more and more deals coming at us from the other side of the world opportunities, principally out of the United Arab Emirates. It's a pro business environment over there. At some point of time, we'll probably establish an office over there. Not only pro business, but it's one of the best geographical locations in terms of access and demographics worldwide. So we're doing that. And then you got we got another crazy project in the works. We're probably going to start the first business oriented party to celebrate making great deals, and having very serious discussions about that. So there's a lot of fun stuff and we continue to train. We continue to provide help people accelerate the prosperity in their life on a regular basis by the coaching and training that we do. Can I can I give a quick commercial add on out to find out more about that half? Absolutely.

Jean Gomes:

Yeah.

Chris Voss:

So are we put out a weekly newsletter, the edge, it's complimentary. But that's not really why it's valuable. It's valuable because it's concise and action, there's going to be one 700 to 1500 word article, which is short and digestible. It's going to give you actionable and useful advice for us in negotiation today. Give us your email address. You get a roughly 730 In the morning, whatever timeframe wherever you are in the world. It's also the gateway to all of our information. All the training, all the coaching, we just finished today's training in Philadelphia, we got training coming in open enrollment coming up in Los Angeles and in Dallas. You want to come in and get immersion I mean immersion. In negotiation, you come to one of our in person trainings, you find out about it by being subscribing to the edge to go to our website, Black Swan, ltd.com VLA ck, Swa n ltd.com, you're gonna get the opportunity to subscribe to the edge right away, do that first. Take your time exploring the website later on when you have more time. But the edge subscription is going to be the gateway and also help direct you to specific things. If you have trouble making the time to navigate the different offerings and opportunities we have on the website, start with the edge that that'd be your your gateway, the doorway, the gateway to the goal.

Jean Gomes:

On the full well, we'll put all of that into the show notes together with links to your book and other pieces of work that you've done. Chris, on behalf of Sarah and I were absolutely enamoured with your work. It's been a wonderful conversation. There's so many valuable takeaways here. It's a very rich show and I think it'll for many people, they'll be listening to it several times to kind to think deeply about what you've been saying. So we're we're indebted for you spending your time we know how busy you are. So thank you so much.

Sara Deschamps:

Thank you so much Chris.

Chris Voss:

the pleasure was mine. I really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks for letting me ramble so much. No,

Jean Gomes:

great if that's rambling. Bring it on. So folks, until the next time remember, the world is evolving. Are you

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Jean Gomes

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