Episode 231: Ready to Negotiate Like a Pro in High-Stake Conversations? Tune in with FBI Insider Chris Voss

 
 
 

Chris Voss worked as a Supervisory Special Agent for the FBI, specializing in negotiation. Now Chris is the World's #1 Negotiation Coach, Keynote Speaker, Bestselling Author of Never Split The Difference, and CEO at The Black Swan Group, Ltd.  

 

In today’s episode, Erin and Chris discuss identification versus feeling when it comes to empathy, the power of the pause in high-stake conversations, and why tactical empathy is the key to collaboration. 

 

If you’re looking for tangible strategies for improving your communication skills – this is the episode for you. 

 

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Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award. 

This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre. 

When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl. 

You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online! 

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Episode 231 Transcription

Erin Diehl (00:02.828)

Okay, this is something I've been waiting all day for. Improve It peeps, get ready, because we have the one, the only, Chris Voss on this show. Welcome Chris to the Improve It podcast.

Chris Voss (00:19.126)

Thank you, Aaron. A pleasure for me to be here.

Erin Diehl (00:22.116)

I mean, this feels already fun. I just don't even know. This is like improv. I have no idea where it's going. I know where I wanna take it, but I have no idea where it's going. So let me ask you this. Just to start off our conversation, what is one word, an intention, if you will, that you wanna set for our conversation today?

Chris Voss (00:30.412)

Alright.

Chris Voss (00:44.23)

Oh wow. Growth.

Erin Diehl (00:49.5)

Oh, I love that. Why growth? I just want to ask you that.

Chris Voss (00:54.09)

Well, it should be a steady goal constantly all the time. And I didn't put any adjectives around it, you know, like not maximum growth, not minimal. I mean, if you do look into growth just a little bit every day, the accumulation will come to you really fast. So just, you know, just growth at all and you're on the right track.

Erin Diehl (01:00.861)

Mm-hmm.

Erin Diehl (01:10.22)

That's it.

Erin Diehl (01:15.148)

That's right. I love that. And I will tell you, I'm a lifelong learner and those little hours add up. Even if you say, hey, I'm gonna give myself 10 minutes today to do something for myself, that adds up over time. So I love that. And I wanna talk about you, obviously, and your journey, your growth. But I also wanna talk about this idea that we're talking about all month, which is standing in your power.

Chris Voss (01:26.061)

Yeah.

Erin Diehl (01:44.224)

which is something that I know you have had to do your entire career. But what does that, when I say those words, what does standing and your power mean to you?

Chris Voss (01:56.494)

I think it would just be standing yourself, standing who you are. And there's all these cliches out there, you know, be you, everybody else is taken, all that nonsense. And it's not nonsense, it's true. I mean, if you just focus on being who you are, that's where your power is. So you know, be, develop, grow you.

Erin Diehl (02:01.834)

Yeah.

Erin Diehl (02:20.86)

Yeah, has there been a moment in your career where you really stood in your power, where you knew like this is who I am? I'm not trying to change. Was there a moment that's really pinnacle that you could pinpoint?

Chris Voss (02:37.15)

Yeah, you know, I don't know. I mean, I think when I first started the training for the hostage negotiation to be a crisis negotiated with the FBI, I mean, I've been I've been through actually a really difficult period of time in my professional life. Difficult is always a relative term. It was the toughest time on me personally.

Erin Diehl (03:01.836)

Mm.

Chris Voss (03:02.378)

And I remember standing in a hallway waiting for the elevator at the dormitory, the FBI Academy Quantico, and looking out the window and thinking like, you know, this is where this has led me. And I was really happy with it at that point in time.

Erin Diehl (03:14.821)

Mmm.

Erin Diehl (03:18.516)

Wow. I mean, your career is fascinating to me. I do comedy for a living. Okay. It's the opposite. And so, right, you're right. You're right. Who doesn't? But so when you think about standing in your power, the negotiations that you have had to do and this idea that you talk about in your books or your book, which I know we have potentially one in development breaking news, but your book,

Chris Voss (03:27.168)

Hey, who doesn't?

Erin Diehl (03:48.032)

When you talk about this idea of tactical empathy as it relates to standing in your power, how do those two things go hand in hand?

Chris Voss (04:00.886)

Well, it starts with just defining what empathy is and what it was originally and what it's become synonymous to. I mean, empathy is just understanding, demonstrated understanding. It's not agreement, it's not disagreement, it's not liking, drawing really fine lines on it. And so you can completely understand somebody no matter how diametrically opposed they are to you and every one of your core values. It's not accepting it, it's not rejecting it.

Erin Diehl (04:12.425)

Yeah.

Chris Voss (04:30.994)

And so take empathy to start with and have it be demonstrating understanding, which is not understanding. It's demonstrating understanding. Doesn't matter if you understand, if you keep your mouth shut. And I think, you know, we put the word tactical in front of it to begin with, just to make it a little more palatable to people that were afraid of the word, thinking it was weakness or sympathy. You know, it's a little bit like, you know, the teaching seals.

Erin Diehl (04:43.541)

Yeah.

Chris Voss (04:59.818)

Navy SEALs how to breathe. And they're like, all right, so we're gonna teach you yoga breathing today. And the SEALs go, we're not doing that. And they go, well, we're gonna teach you tactical breathing. They go like, oh, okay, we could do that.

Erin Diehl (05:01.676)

Yeah.

Erin Diehl (05:10.644)

Yeah, yeah, that's so funny. Do you know Jason Redmond? We had Jason Redmond on this show. Do you know who Jason Redmond? Okay, he's a former Navy SEAL. I feel like I need to have you and him on this show together. That would be one of my favorite podcasts in the history of podcasts. Because he actually is a speaker and an author and all the things as well. And it's just so interesting because when you say, when people...

Chris Voss (05:16.733)

I'm not acquainted with him, I'm afraid not.

Erin Diehl (05:37.912)

put, say the word empathy in business or to a Navy SEAL. It has this almost, not negative connotation, but it has this almost connotation of the word love, which a lot of people don't like to use in business. So tell me, what are your thoughts about bringing these two words to life?

Chris Voss (05:56.182)

Yeah.

Erin Diehl (06:03.904)

because a lot of the speaking you do, it's to organizations and to corporations. How is tactical empathy impactful in organizations and why is it so important?

Chris Voss (06:16.546)

Well, it maximizes success. It's really the key to collaboration. Collaboration in long-term trusted relationships. Now, there's a lot of short-term thinking in the world, let alone in business. And if you're really greedy, there was a Goldman Sachs executive a long time ago that said, Gus Levy, I believe was his name, greedy, yes, but long-term greedy.

Erin Diehl (06:22.455)

Yeah.

Erin Diehl (06:43.969)

Mmm.

Chris Voss (06:44.834)

you begin to realize that the more trusted relationships you have, the wealthier you are. You know, you short-term gain, long-term loss, you know, steady, solid relationships. And you can't have a long-term relationship with somebody if you don't understand them and demonstrate that you understand them. And then the next issue is your core values lineup. But it really starts with.

Do you understand who you're dealing with? Do they understand you? That's empathy, understanding, and then demonstrating that understanding so the two of you get on the same page.

Erin Diehl (07:17.25)

Yeah.

Erin Diehl (07:21.524)

Okay, so this is never heaven in the history of this podcast, but I wanna go down this line here. Okay, okay, here, I've got my seatbelt on. So thinking about the negotiations that you had to do in your career, could you describe, just give us a case study of where you used tactical empathy in a high-stake negotiation? Can we?

Chris Voss (07:28.223)

Alright, here we go. Buckle up.

Chris Voss (07:37.846)

Meh.

Chris Voss (07:49.804)

Yeah, that's what-

Erin Diehl (07:51.188)

Yeah, go for it. Let me, my seatbelt is on.

Chris Voss (07:55.866)

That's one of my favorite stories from the book. First big kidnapping that I worked in the Philippines. Terrorists on the other side, I mean, they are bond villains as bad as you can imagine. One guy in particular, he actually had told the media at one point in time he thought a movie should be made about him. Dude named Abu Sabaya, very bad guy, liked to wear sunglasses because he thought he was a dashing, daring.

Erin Diehl (08:15.117)

Mm.

Yeah.

Chris Voss (08:24.354)

Bond villain. And we started hitting him with what was, I now realize is tactical empathy. You know, the FBI negotiation skills are what we use as a basis for tactical empathy. And we just, if you will, can you imagine weaponizing, hammering a guy with empathy? Ultimately our hostage walks away. There was a $10 million ransom demand for him. And it went on for months until finally,

You know, we soften them up so quietly, so in such a stealth mode and in an invisible way, you know, that our hostage ultimately just walks away. What does that mean? What that means is bad guys didn't get a dime. In a high stakes, high gain, high dollar business. And there was previously a kidnapping about a year earlier where another group associated with these terrorists.

got $20 million, and our guys in this particular case were envious of the $20 million ransom demand that the other guys got, they get zero. And when it's all said and done, I'm back in the Philippines a couple weeks afterwards, I'd coached the negotiator, I was an international negotiation coach. And I catch back up with the negotiator that I'd coached about three weeks later in the Philippines, and he said, you're not gonna believe who called me on the phone.

And I'm like, all right, you know, I don't know, who called you? And it was our bond villain from the previous case. I said, wow, really, what did he say? He said, have you been promoted yet? You're really good at what you do. I was going to kill the American. You kept me from it. And I just wanted you to know that I think they should promote you.

Erin Diehl (10:17.696)

Wow.

Chris Voss (10:18.995)

And that's empathy on a bad guy.

Erin Diehl (10:22.968)

I have full body chills right now. That is intense, insane. I hope he recorded that phone call. I would listen to that phone call again and again. I'd take it all the way up. That is nuts. So, can I get real specific? What were some of the things that you coached the negotiator on? What are their specific tactics that you used to create?

Chris Voss (10:33.083)

Oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it was nice.

Chris Voss (10:48.682)

Yeah, what we really did, you know, you sort of, you start bundling tactics to get a really powerful moment. The most powerful moment you can get, the real breakthrough, is when you get the other side to give you a that's right as a response, which is an epiphany, a revelation. And there's, it's one of the reasons why we call it tactical empathy, because it's guided by neuroscience. You give somebody an epiphany, they get a...

this great cocktail of neurochemicals, which changes their mindset towards you. They're gonna get hit with their own oxytocin and serotonin. And these are a combination of bonding drug, truth drug, and a drug of satisfaction. And to get him to that point, our bad guy had been.

uh... giving all sorts of rationale for the kidnapping and the amount of money they were looking for that made no sense that doesn't matter that it makes doesn't make any sense you know doesn't matter if it's true you can't handle the truth the famous movie line what is it to the other side how do they see it and we'd struggled in this case for a couple months i coached the negotiator so next time we get our bond villain on the phone

Erin Diehl (11:54.73)

Yeah.

Chris Voss (12:08.694)

You're going to get a that's right out of him. You're going to summarize not the situation as it is, but the situation as he sees it, along with literally a 500 year justification for their position. You know, people's memories of the past, which in point of fact have no bearing on today's facts, but still their memories of the past and their justifications for their nonsense.

Erin Diehl (12:17.26)

Mmm.

Chris Voss (12:37.474)

And I said, you know, we're gonna justify his perspective, not ours, and not the facts. The other guy's perspective, and you're gonna lay it on thick. If you're not laying their perspective on thick, you're not laying it on thick enough. If you don't feel like you're overdoing it, you're not hitting it hard enough. And we were going for the magical, that's right, as a response. I actually put it in a document that I shared with the embassy as to why we were doing it.

Erin Diehl (12:40.696)

Mmm.

Erin Diehl (12:52.002)

Yeah.

Chris Voss (13:05.73)

and what impact we thought it was gonna have. Because when I was coaching and training these negotiations internationally, I did nothing without the explicit permission of the American ambassador in charge of the country. Never went outside the lines. I was a consultant. The ambassador had total control over everything we always did. So I'd write up strategy documents and they were kinda like, ah.

Okay, if you say so, if you think this is going to be that big of a deal, like we don't even think that you're going to be able to get him to say that's right. The fact that you think you can predict what a terrorist is going to say is almost laughable to us. But if you think you can do it, knock yourself out. So we, I get my negotiator on the phone, who previously by the way, I was the Philippine equivalent of a

Chris Voss (14:03.254)

we were talking about the seals earlier, the best seals are trainable. That's all you need from anybody. And he was trainable and he lays on the other guy's perspective 500 years of oppression on and on and on. And the critical moment is when you're done, you have to shut up. You can't say, have I got that right? You can't say, what did I leave out? You have to finish your summary and you have to go dead silent.

because you put the other person in a particular part of their brain and you gotta let it bake, you gotta let it seep in. If you say a word, it puts them in another part of their brain. And he finished the entire summary and we go dead silent. And it's, I don't know, those silent moments are excruciating to sit there and wait. And that's what we did. And a few moments later, the Bond villain says,

Erin Diehl (14:38.3)

Hmm.

Erin Diehl (14:41.676)

Mmm.

Chris Voss (15:02.342)

That's right. And my negotiator, they sit there in silence for a couple more moments, and he says, you know, let's talk again in a couple of days. And they hang up the phone. Now at the beginning of this phone conversation, there was a $10 million ransom demand for the hostage. And when the phone hung up, the ransom was never mentioned again. It was just gone, it vanished. We went through the case a couple,

Erin Diehl (15:04.905)

Wow.

Erin Diehl (15:19.381)

Hmm.

Chris Voss (15:32.194)

a couple more twists and turns. Ransom never came up again. And then a couple of months afterwards our hostage walked away and three weeks later our bond villain called.

Erin Diehl (15:45.376)

That is insane. Okay, I have so much I wanna unpack from this. Okay, so much, so much, much. Okay, first, can I ask you, I study a lot about the brain and positive and negative thinking. Was the part of the brain that you were trying to activate the frontal lobe or is there a specific part of the brain that you were trying, what is the specific part of the brain?

Chris Voss (16:13.93)

Yeah, well, you know, actually we're trying to get completely around a frontal lobe, the prefrontal cortex, all of that. You know, there's a lot of discussion as to what that does in a brain. Some people call it the executive function. Some people just say it's just a traffic cop. But what's really the important area is and as a layman, so, you know, no by no means no PhD in neuroscience or neural anatomy. You know, we're.

Erin Diehl (16:19.745)

Yeah.

Erin Diehl (16:24.937)

Yes.

Yeah.

Erin Diehl (16:38.356)

Yep, right here. I just have a, I am a PhD, pretty huge deal. Okay, but that's the thing. Keep going, Chris, keep going. Got it all day. But okay, so it's frontal lobe, right? That's what they're active, you're trying to act.

Chris Voss (16:42.817)

Hahaha!

Chris Voss (16:46.454)

Yeah. Yeah, we're.

Well, we're trying to get into the limbic system. We're trying to get into, it's an oversimplification into the portions of the amygdala where the negative thinking is, and we're trying to deactivate it. You know, suck all the electricity out of it entirely. And then when the neurochemicals get kicked in, I'm not entirely sure how or why or where they come from, but we're really intentionally trying to activate very specific neurochemicals.

Erin Diehl (16:54.124)

Okay.

Erin Diehl (17:03.432)

Yeah, that's my next question.

Erin Diehl (17:08.042)

Yes.

Erin Diehl (17:20.516)

So interesting. And then the tactical empathy piece, you are speaking about this person, you are putting yourself in that person's shoes. You are literally saying, I'm going to try on a pair of your Nike Ducks. And that's how we're going to conduct this conversation is if I'm almost speaking in first person as you, or how does that

Chris Voss (17:42.558)

Yeah, you know, and there's some really subtle, it depends upon a person how you wanna define it. Like to me, to put yourself in somebody else's shoes is to feel it, and you don't have to feel it. To see it from their perspective is to identify it. And for me, I need that distinction because I don't need to feel it. And quite frankly, you don't care if I feel it. You care if I can see it. And whether or not I feel it is completely irrelevant to you. You wanna know that I see it.

Erin Diehl (17:52.737)

Yeah.

Erin Diehl (17:56.49)

Right.

Chris Voss (18:12.266)

And so that's why for me personally, I make the distinction between seeing it from their perspective versus walking in their shoes. Because I don't need to feel it in order to be able to identify it. Like I don't need to be able to feel your sense of loss to say that to you that feels like you get kicked in the gut. You feel like you get kicked in the head. A very good friend of mine died about three years ago and it was devastating for his wife.

Erin Diehl (18:20.556)

Mmm.

Erin Diehl (18:25.463)

No.

Erin Diehl (18:33.654)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Voss (18:40.694)

Phenomenal human being Shawn Stevenson one of the world's God's gifts to the planet if Shawn if there ever was one Shawn Stevenson was one and When I first time I spoke to his widow after he died I Said you probably feel like not that you got ran over by a train, but that a train fell on you And I didn't have to feel that personally I couldn't imagine the depth of the devastation

Erin Diehl (19:00.856)

Mmm.

Chris Voss (19:08.93)

to feel it, but I could do my best to call it out. And she appreciated that response. She didn't care if, I was hurting because Sean died, but nothing compared to what she was going through. So I just tried to describe it.

Erin Diehl (19:21.084)

Yeah, that recognition. This is just fascinating on so many levels. I wanna touch on one more thing that you said. I've literally thrown all my notes out the window. I've got nothing but this conversation because it's just blowing my mind. The power of the pause at the end. So again, relating this to my world in improv.

We do that when we have what we call the economy of words on stage. We might say a few words and then pause because we're waiting for our scene partner to, this is again, low stakes. I mean, these are low, low stakes. We're talking the flip side of the high stakes, but it does do something to the person in that scene. It allows that person to take in that information.

Chris Voss (19:55.851)

Yeah, yeah.

Erin Diehl (20:13.288)

and to respond and justify that response in a meaningful and authentic way. Can you describe in this high-stake negotiation why that pause is so important?

Chris Voss (20:28.194)

Well, you gotta let what you've said sink in. I mean, again, very much layman's terms. If I'm summarizing and I'm triggering your emotional responses, you know, I want it to run its course. I want it to go all the way through. And if I speak up, there's a pretty good chance, if I say, do I have that right? I pull you into a different part of your brain. I stop the process in one section and I light you up someplace else.

Erin Diehl (20:31.441)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Voss (20:55.934)

And it probably short-circuited the process to triggering of the neurochemicals in the other section. Because if I ask you a question of any sort, it probably pulls you back up into the prefrontal cortex. Like we were talking before. You engage again in executive thinking or traffic cop thinking. You begin to formulate a response. And what I did was stop the process that I had gone before. And I probably stopped it too soon.

So I needed to go sink all the way in. I needed to go through every molecule, hit every synapse in whatever part of that brain that I'm hitting, and then wait for you to then avail yourself of the freedom of response at your choice.

Erin Diehl (21:42.304)

Wow, can I say this? You also do a great succinct ending in how you talk just naturally. It's so nice. Like you're always just like, and boom. It's very, it's nice that it lands and it allows people to take in what you've said. And I think a lot of people in the go, you're welcome. Take that in, take that. Cause it's thoughtful, but I can see in a high stakes scenario.

Chris Voss (22:01.46)

Thank you.

Erin Diehl (22:13.088)

why it makes sense with the science behind it, the neuroscience behind it, but what it does for the person you're communicating with. Now, okay, all of this to say I wanted this backstory because it's fascinating. We've literally never had anyone like you on the show. So in three years, you are a first. So let me ask you this. I have so many people who listen to this show.

who are people leaders, they lead teams, whether they're small or large, they lead organizations and communities. We all negotiate all day long. How do we take this case study and apply it to the people that we serve? How do we communicate using tactical empathy, but also negotiate so that both parties end up being happy? Because...

In a leadership scenario, I don't necessarily always need to get what I want. I just need to meet that person at some mutual understanding. So how do you take negotiation from what your career was built upon and put it into a leadership position?

Chris Voss (23:30.862)

Well, it's about accelerating collaboration and accelerating them following your direction. You know, the biggest friction to them following your direction as a leader is gonna be their second thoughts, were they understood, do you understand? Have you taken everything into account that I've taken into account? And that's gonna create, if they don't know that, if the people that are following you don't know that, it's gonna create long-term friction that's gonna slow everything down.

And so the summary to demonstrate an understanding of what their perspective is, is really about how do you shift into a higher gear. And you know, the old, today's car transmissions, it's not as obvious a moment, but in the old car transmissions, I mean, you had to pull a car out of gear, push in a clutch to shift into the next higher gear. You know, there's this moment that's required to accelerate. And...

Demonstrating understand is very much along those lines. And it's mostly driven around negative thinking. The big friction to collaboration is negative thinking. And you don't get away from negative thinking by denying it. You deactivate it by observing it. You go from, I don't want you to think I don't understand to you probably think I don't understand. The first was the denial, the second one was an observation.

A number of years ago, we're doing a negotiation training for a hospital holding company, and we're laying this thing out called the accusations audit, which is listing out the negative thoughts that the other side has. And these guys are going like, yeah, well, you know, our CEO did that recently. You know, we've got all this change in the medical industry, and this was back when they were getting ready to kick Obamacare into gear, and there was all this, the health services industry is up.

I have no idea what's going on. And there's a lot of friction in the company to implement the CEO's vision of what he wants to do. So he calls everybody together. He brings everybody together in one place. And they're like, he's probably gonna tell us what to do. He's probably gonna get angry at us because we're not following orders. And he stands up in front of them and he goes, you probably think I'm crazy. You probably think I'm not listening to what's going on here.

Chris Voss (25:59.722)

You probably think I'm completely out of touch. You probably think I don't know where the kind of stress you're under. And they all kind of went, wow.

He does get us. So taking the time to do this really inefficient thing, to bring everybody together, so he could show them he knew what they were thinking. Not to tell them what to do, not even to give them a pep talk. You know, not to say, you know, our greatest days are ahead of us. You know, we're awesome. We got such a great team. What he did was he got up in front of everybody and shared.

Erin Diehl (26:11.009)

Hmm.

Chris Voss (26:38.178)

Openly what their reservations were about his leadership. I said this is probably what you guys are thinking And they go to feeling understood And it deactivated the uh, it eliminated the friction everybody kicked it into gear then They went like all right. So this guy's not an idiot. He is aware of all this stuff He he does appreciate our perspective. He does he doesn't say I understand what you're feeling. He said this is what you're feeling

Erin Diehl (26:44.789)

Mm.

Chris Voss (27:07.314)

And then he named it. You know, the I understand what you're feeling is, is a horrible attempt at connecting. You gotta tell people what it is that you understand. You know, remove all doubt as to what you understand by laying it out. And it seems very inefficient and it's necessary to shift into a higher gear.

Erin Diehl (27:09.202)

Mm.

Erin Diehl (27:23.799)

No.

Erin Diehl (27:31.633)

All those things make complete sense to me and it seems so obvious but you even said it was inefficient to stop productivity and get all these people together but it was so sufficient to making productivity for the future. And I think I'm relating this to what I do because there's so many parallels in improv we say yes and on stage.

Chris Voss (27:58.878)

Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.

Erin Diehl (27:59.152)

Are you familiar with yes and? Okay, so literally it has this same concept of yes, I hear you and but your and isn't adding it's just understanding and naming that specific emotion. So you're yes anding using a tactical approach of empathy. It's a yes and of empathy is what it

As if I'm in that audience, I'm a person of that hospital organization, and I walk away feeling understood. It is the greatest catalyst to productivity and change. And all that this president, right, did was get on stage and empathize with this group of human beings to create that change.

Chris Voss (28:56.374)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And this is such a, it's a universal skill. This is not just American. Because as you're talking, as we're talking about it, a friend of mine is an international banker and when his bank had assisted in a buyout of a company and I believe it was Korea, it was either Korea or Japan, I'm pretty sure it was Korea. And they're like, this American.

What's he gonna do when he comes in? He's gonna upset the apple cart. He doesn't understand us. And he stands up in front of him and he puts up his first slide and he says, I've got on my slide here what's uppermost in all of your minds. And he had it translated into Korean. And the slide said, what's in it for me?

Because human beings everywhere, if there's brand new people in charge, there's a new sheriff in town, they want to know how it's going to affect them. Am I going to survive? Am I going to get let go? Am I going to get demoted? Am I going to get a different... What's in it for me is uppermost in everybody's mind.

Erin Diehl (29:59.751)

You okay?

Chris Voss (30:08.994)

when somebody's just taken over their company, they are scared. What's in this for me? I know, you know, all your executives got bought out, all the gold parachutes, all the stock options. You know, I'm a first line troop here. What's in this for me? And he said, when he put that up there and translated into their language, they started cheering. Because he demonstrated that he understood what they were thinking. And what they were thinking is, what's in this for me? I'm scared.

Erin Diehl (30:35.576)

Mmm. God, that's so good. I mean, anything you can literally use that train of thought for building any presentation, any speech, writing any type of literature, writing any type of marketing material, because it's so true. When people read or listen or hear, they are thinking, how can this impact my life? What is in it for me? Yeah.

Chris Voss (31:01.558)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What does this leave me? Of course, yeah, look, I'm a team player. You know, I want all the core values. I want everybody to hold hands and sing kumbaya. But at the end of the day, if I'm left out, none of this does me any good. So it's in survival. How do I survive? Way back when Maslow's hierarchy needs. First thing we wonder is how we're gonna live. There's some other stuff we're gonna wonder about right on the heels of that, but first of all, am I gonna survive? What's in it for me?

Erin Diehl (31:31.028)

Ugh, so good. Now, okay, empathy and listening. I want to talk about this when it comes to negotiating. Active listening and empathy, are they the same thing or are they different?

Chris Voss (31:46.582)

Yeah, you know, that's a great question. And I often try to make that distinction with my team because we'll use very specific skills that are designed to trigger decision-making, but are not about listening. Like one of the things we do on a regular basis, one of our main bread and butter skills is, I don't try to get you to say yes, I try to get you to say no. I say instead of, is now a good time to talk, I'll say, is now a bad time to talk. I was on a conference call earlier and I wanted to hand the call off to somebody else on my team.

And instead of saying, is it all right if I hand to the CEO on the other side, instead of saying, is it all right if I hand this off to Matt? I said, would you be offended if I handed her off to Matt? He's like, no, no. So, you know, I would categorize that as empathy, but it's not listening. It's triggering decision-making in a way that I understand how people's brains work. Now, empathy is about actually me actually, or listening is different. Like if I say, so it sounds like.

Erin Diehl (32:25.869)

Hmm.

Erin Diehl (32:34.292)

Yeah.

Chris Voss (32:46.114)

You had something in mind. And then I actually listened to the answer and I paraphrased it or I summarized it or I mirror it in some way. I've shown that I was actually listening. And there's a subtlety here that most people miss because it doesn't matter if your answer's accurate if I don't think you listen.

Like how much time do you have for somebody that does, once you figure out they're not listening to you at all?

How much time do you have for them? I ask that question all the time in keynote speeches and people universally say, not. Like if I know you're not listening to me, I'm not letting you waste my time. So I'm sitting at a conference several months back and it has to be people that develop commercial real estate investments, which I don't have any, but I'm interested in. So I'm at the VIP lunch and

the guy I'm sitting next to at the VIP lunch, he's gonna try and pitch me. Now, cool, I'm cool with this. I might wanna invest. He asked me a great question, I answer it, and he immediately gives me an answer. And I think, all right, so you've been in this business long enough, you know that however I answer is gonna be probably one of three ways, and you're gonna have a solution for that. Which means you didn't actually really listen to it.

you were waiting for, am I gonna get door number one, door number two, door number three, without taking the time to find out if you heard me. So I thought, all right, I'll respond to his next question. And he hit me with another question, which I answered. And instead of demonstrating in any way, shape or form that he heard me, boom, he had another answer.

Chris Voss (34:40.246)

So I turned away from him, didn't speak to him again.

Erin Diehl (34:49.135)

I wasn't sure where this was going, Chris, but that is the best answer. Good for you, A. And B, you felt super unheard in that entire scenario. And C, I mean, we can all think about a time, I'm just speaking for the audience and myself here, where...

We know we're being sold to and it feels icky and it feels gross. And people know that and you knew that and you're like, peace out, dude. See you never.

Chris Voss (35:17.578)

Yeah, and the issue of whether or not his solutions were accurate was irrelevant because at some point of time he's going to come up with a solution that needs adjustment. And the best indicator of future behavior is past behavior. And so if you haven't listened to me all along the way, then when the time comes where the adjustment is necessary, you're not going to do it.

Erin Diehl (35:44.35)

Yeah.

Chris Voss (35:45.066)

And I'm not interested in that moment coming. It's an inevitable moment. It's a train coming down the tracks. His first and second responses could have been perfect for me. As a matter of fact, I think his first response probably did fit. But I know there's gonna come a point in time when it doesn't fit. And if you're not listening, you are never gonna be able to make that adjustment and I don't need that problem.

Erin Diehl (36:03.947)

Mm.

Erin Diehl (36:09.592)

That's right. That is right. There's so many parallels. Obviously you're doing it because you're speaking about it. You're writing books. Never Split the Difference is the name of your book. And I wanna make sure everybody listening knows and gets a copy of this book. And I wanna make sure you can leave a lasting impression on our audience. Truly I've never.

Talk to anyone like you on this show. So this has been so freaking cool. The work that you do has so many parallels to entrepreneurialism, to corporate America, to leadership. Is there anything that you haven't talked about yet that you wanna make sure our audience walks away with today?

Chris Voss (37:00.37)

These are perishable skills. A friend of mine that used to coach and train that I worked with, Jim Camp, who's not deceased, wrote a book called Start With No, used to call negotiation a human performance event. So that if you're not working at this, you're getting worse. There's just no way around. You wanna be at the top of your game, you gotta be, you gotta be, not working hard. This is this.

Erin Diehl (37:19.027)

Mm.

Chris Voss (37:28.118)

this growth and change thing that we were talking about earlier, just a little bit every day. And your skills will continually increase. And if you're not taking the time to show people that you understand, when you really need it, you're not going to be able to do it. So small stakes practice for high stakes results. And you'll be able to produce astonishing results if you give yourself the chance. But you've got to keep after it.

Erin Diehl (37:50.936)

I love it. Small steps every day. High stick. Small to high. I love it. Okay, now where can the Improve It peeps find you? Is there anything that you want to give our audience?

Chris Voss (37:53.334)

Yeah, amen.

Chris Voss (38:02.442)

Yeah, the best gift I could give you is to get you started with us. We have a newsletter comes out every Tuesday morning. It's complimentary, but that's not why it's valuable. It's valuable because it's concise and it's usable. It's called The Edge. How do you get on The Edge? How you get it is you go to our website, BlackSwanLTD.com. B-L-

Chris Voss (38:30.634)

upper right hand corner, there's a tab for the edge. You can get all the back articles concise, about 700 to a thousand words, search it by topic, and sign up, get it emailed to you. You get it Tuesday morning, and it's actionable, and it's the gateway to everything that we have, and we've got a lot of stuff. Wherever you are, we'll meet you where you are, we'll bring you along, and you know, have a better life.

Erin Diehl (38:55.32)

I love it.

Erin Diehl (38:58.896)

Okay, The Edge, Tuesday mornings. We'll put the link in the show notes for everybody and I have one final question for you, Chris. Improve It is the name of our show, the name of our company, and we always say you're it. Is that thing, that purpose, that reason that you're here on this earth. What is Chris Voss's it?

Chris Voss (39:21.13)

Yeah, helping people collaborate to have better lives.

Erin Diehl (39:24.764)

I love it. Also, I have to tell you this has been an incredible conversation. Thank you so much for what you're doing for organizations, for teams, for helping us collaborate. Come full circle on all the things that we've discussed today. All the links will be in the show notes. Chris, you're the man. Thanks for being here.

Chris Voss (39:45.662)

It was a pleasure, I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Erin Diehl (39:50.508)

Give me one.

 

 

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