This is what I do in a negotiation

Wednesday October 05, 2016 , 3 min Read

“Terrorists have moms,” he said.

Jeffrey Schilling was kidnapped in the Philippines and held hostage for 7 and a half months. The terrorists said they were torturing him.

But Chris Voss didn’t fall for it.

Chris is a former FBI hostage negotiator and the author of, “Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It.”

“Find a way to mention his mother’s concern for him,” Chris’ boss said.

“I remember thinking, ‘That’s the dumbest idea I ever heard. A terrorist is going to care about this guys mother?’”

“But my boss had great insight. And I didn’t see any downside to it. So in the middle of the negotiation I said, ‘Ya know Jeff’s mom is really worried about him.’”

“What happened next?” I asked.

“This murderous, sociopathic terrorist said, ‘His mother knows about this? You tell his mother he’s OK.’”

Months later, Jeffrey came home.

Some hostage negotiation tactics won’t work in business or with your wife.

But these 5 tactics will…

1. Use the “hand-cuff method”:

Use this line when someone yells at you: “I can’t hear you when you’re yelling at me.”

The logic is simple. People yell when they want you to listen.

But if you eliminate their reward (being heard), then they have to comply. And you’ll never get yelled at again.

2. Push past threats:

“People who make threats always leave themselves an out,” Chris said.

But the truth is they need you. If you’re not talking, there’s no deal. They could lose out on a sale, a new employee, or millions of dollars.

“The point of a negotiation is to find out how much money is on the table,” Chris said. “You have to push the other side as far as they’ll go… without insulting them.”