Chris Voss joins us to go INSIDE the famous negotiation model he created and share secrets behind Never Split the Difference, from the #1 Wall Street Journal best-selling book on Negotiation.
Chris is the most decorated FBI hostage negotiator in history. He teaches his techniques at Harvard Law, Georgetown University, and others. He is the founder of the Black Swan Group.
Key Takeaways
Chapters
To grab your copy of Never Split The Difference you can buy it here (not an affiliate link). https://a.co/d/229P5UV
To find more of Chris Voss and The Black Swan Group: https://www.blackswanltd.com/
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Chris Voss joins us to go INSIDE the famous negotiation model he created and share secrets behind Never Split the Difference, from the #1 Wall Street Journal best-selling book on Negotiation.
Chris is the most decorated FBI hostage negotiator in history. He teaches his techniques at Harvard Law, Georgetown University, and others. He is the founder of the Black Swan Group.
Key Takeaways
Chapters
To grab your copy of Never Split The Difference you can buy it here (not an affiliate link). https://a.co/d/229P5UV
To find more of Chris Voss and The Black Swan Group: https://www.blackswanltd.com/
Try KiteWorks today at www.KiteWorks.com
Don't Miss our Video on this Exciting KiteWorks Offer!
Try KiteWorks today at www.KiteWorks.com
Don't miss this Video on it!
The Most Secure Managed File Transfer System.
EP2: Secrets Behind Never Split the Difference
Chris Voss joins us to go INSIDE the famous negotiation model he created and share secrets behind Never Split the Difference, from the #1 Wall Street Journal best-selling book on Negotiation.
Chris Voss is the most decorated FBI hostage negotiator in history. He teaches his techniques at Harvard Law, Georgetown University, and others. He is the founder of the Black Swan Group.
Key Takeaways
Chapters
Key topics: chris voss, never split the difference, secrets behind never split the difference, story behind never split the difference, how to convince someone of something, how to never split the difference, new ways to convince someone of anything, top techniques in never split the difference, how to ask questions better using never split the difference, how to persuade someone to do something, black swan, how to become better at communication skills, how to negotiate with an enemy, best ways to make an internal business case, how to use techniques in never split the difference, modern ways to negotiate effectively, benefits of using active listening, importance of body language in communications, importance of tone of voice in communications,
Dino Mauro (00:00.214)
Ever been told you didn't listen? Ever misunderstand somebody and be disappointed in their decision and come to find out there's something going on that you didn't know about earlier? Seems like we all can benefit from learning how to better communicate and how to practice the model in Never Split the Difference. In this episode, Chris Voss, author of Never Split the Difference, which has been taught at Harvard Law,
used in law enforcement and countless personal relationships to improve communications. He joins us to go inside the never split the difference method of negotiation. We talk about the benefits of using active listening, importance of tactical empathy and body language in communications. And we do a deep dive into the top techniques in his model. This is the story of Chris Voss.
and inside the never split the difference model.
Dino Mauro (01:26.998)
Come join us as we dive deeper behind the scenes of security and cybercrime today. Interviewing top technology leaders from around the world and sharing true cybercrime stories to raise awareness. From the creators of Vigilance, the newest global technology newsletter translating cyber news into business language we all understand. So please help us keep this going by subscribing for free to our YouTube channel.
and downloading our podcast episodes on Apple and Spotify so we can continue to bring you more of what matters. This is Cyber Crime Junkies, and now the show.
Dino Mauro (02:15.694)
Hello everybody, this is Cybercrime Junkies. I am your host, David Morrow, and we're honored and joined today by someone we've had a great deal of respect for, Mr. Chris Voss, one of the most decorated FBI agents in history, specializing in hostage negotiation. Mr. Voss, welcome to the studio. David, thank you for having me on. It's a pleasure. So for the listeners, as the viewers, that may not have read your book yet, but...
There's going to be links in the show notes and everybody that listens to the podcast, I hope will tactical empathy. How, how, how do you, how do you define it? Take empathy, um, completely understanding the other side, not agreeing, not, not liking or disliking, simply understanding. And then you got to demonstrate the understanding. You have to articulate what it is that you think you understand. It's an action as much as a perception.
Steven Kotler wrote repeating it through. Yeah. Like repeating back to them either through summary or through comments. Like, um, it seems like you're feeling this way or it seems like we're in this scenario, whatever that might be. Right. Yeah, there you go. That's, that's, that's exactly right. And I was going to say, uh, Steven Kotler, an author who's I read all this stuff. He wrote in one book, empathy is about the transmission of information. Compassion is the reaction to that transmission.
So empathy is a transmission of information. Now we put in the word tactical for a couple reasons. One, to take this sympathy, remove it from the sympathy vernacular and to make it more usable. And then also with tactical, even since the book has been written, the advances in neuroscience are incredible. We're tactically adapting based on things that we've learned.
collectively as humans about neuroscience, which is a hard science. Psychology is a soft science. Neuroscience is a pretty hard science. It's electrical wiring in the brain. It's chemicals that have an impact on a brain that are released internally, oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine. They do things to us. Science has shown that to us. And so you want to do things tactically that have an impact on...
Dino Mauro (04:36.258)
the way the brain is functioning and the way the neurons are firing within one another. And neuroscience is still discovering stuff. They're not completely sure about a lot of stuff, but it's much harder science and psychology is. Since you wrote Never Split the Difference, since it's been out and you've talked about it, you've been asked a million questions about it, how has the Black Swan method evolved since then?
You've you're you just Yeah, you mentioned recently, now you guys are looking at the at the term of art of tactical empathy espionage. Explain that to me, please. Well, it's really helping people understand to start with that the impact is going to be invisible. You know, it's going to be it's not going to be like when you went into slot machine in Vegas.
and bells are going off and everything's ringing and lights are flashing. And it's a huge celebration. The empathy breakthroughs are going to happen because suddenly you're in a different point in the conversation that made no sense two days earlier. One of the guys on my team, Don Feeselman is a, uh, still a retired Vegas Metro PD and still doing private detective work and actually just got back on the Cole K squad as a part-time investigator.
He's telling a story where he's hunting down a woman to serve a subpoena on a white-collar fraud for a million dollars. And he gets hired to do this because nobody else can track her down. Donna's really good. And he finds a location that he thinks she frequents, and he's talking to a woman through one of those ring doorbells, which means even though he's talking to the doorbell, there's no guarantee she's inside. She could be anywhere.
And she's not admitting that it's her and he's going to lay a subpoena on her that's, you know, a million dollar negativity. And so he just starts using empathy. And he's talking to this person through the ring doorbell and talking about how her perspective is this is what it looks like to her. All this looks like a bad idea. It looks like she's being pursued. How does she perceive?
Dino Mauro (06:58.294)
Now he thinks he's talking to her, but he's not 100% shit. But in Don's terms, he's making it all about her. Just how she sees it, how she looks at it. How hard it is for her. And two days later, he's sitting in a coffee shop, calmly having a conversation with the fugitive and calmly handing her the subpoena and she's accepting it. And he's astonished.
And how he got from two days earlier, he's talking to some female in a ring doorbell, not knowing where she is. It is not in her interest to admit that she's the fugitive, nor is it in her interest to meet with him. Two days go by based on the conversation he had with her, making it all about her, demonstrating empathy, and they're calmly talking in a coffee shop. Now where did that transformation happen? It was invisible.
It's astonishing, but there was some sort of empathy espionage going on from the ring doorbell to the coffee shop. There was no celebratory ringing of lights and flashing and calling attention. But then it happened. And that's what it's really about. It's invisible. Yeah, and there was no direct, like he wasn't playing, yeah, and he wasn't playing like hard cop, like I'm coming after you, this and that.
this was more relating to her context and building trust. It pulled her walls down, right? Yeah, yeah, it really does. It's amazing. That's phenomenal. You know, you talk about black swans and your organization's called the Black Swan Method. Can you share with us how you define black swans? Is it unknown unknowns? Is that the best way of saying it?
Well, yeah, kind of. I mean, although that's a little bit of a cliche, what does it mean? All right. So first of all, you're always holding stuff back in every negotiation. There's stuff you're unwilling to share because you think it makes you vulnerable because you think it gives the other side all the leverage. Well, if it, if it has that much of an impact on a negotiation, then it's important and it could change everything. Now the other people are doing that too. They're holding back stuff. So what, what don't you know?
Dino Mauro (09:13.742)
It's, you know, if you, we live in an imperfect world, our military guys would say an asymmetric world. You don't know, you don't have all the information. It's one of the things I just started writing a piece about the yesable proposition. You know, my academic brothers and sisters still hang on to this idea that they say, create a yesable proposition where you can lay a proposition on the table where
No further negotiation is necessary. The other side's gonna see it and go, this is perfect. Where do I sign? Let's get this underway. And it sounds very attractive. Does that fall under the belief of the, yeah, does that fall under the belief that if they get the yes at first that somehow warms you up to saying yes to something that matters later? It's, there's a similarity to that, yeah.
But the yesable proposition, well, if it's an imperfect world, you can't create a yesable proposition where no further negotiation is necessary. Number one, a point of fact, because there's stuff that they are hiding from you that you don't know. And on top of that, you're denying the other side the opportunity to participate. You're taking away their autonomy. The feeling of participating, the feeling of collaboration.
is essential for people being vested in the outcome. If you threw something in front of me, even if it was perfect, if I had nothing to do with putting it together, then at the sign of the slightest problem, I got no problem throwing it in the trash because I'm not vested in that outcome in any way. I did not collaborate on it. I was not consulted about it. I did not have the opportunity to say yes or no to anything.
You just laid it on me. I am not vested in any way, shape or form. And even if it was perfect, I'm gonna walk away from it first chance because I don't care, it was your idea, it wasn't mine. Right. Well, and that's where you get to, you talk about how the accusation audit and tactical empathy, it evolves to creating trust. And then from there, there's collaboration. And then that's where the agreement ultimately comes. And that can't happen.
Dino Mauro (11:41.662)
Exactly. Yeah, there's no collaboration. Right. You've talked about there's three types of black swans, right? There's concealed motivations, I think, and undisclosed needs. Can you walk us through the three types? Yeah, you know, well, I mean, effectively, yeah. What's undisclosed, what's concealed, probably very much the same. But the really interesting thing is
What's in the overlap? That's where the magic really is, the innocuous stuff. Like, you know, if you know it's important, you conceal it, you hold it back. That, you know, that's just all this nonsense about reading their tales. But what about the stuff that they're holding on to? They just don't know it's important. Because you're holding stuff back. So there's an overlap. And so that's why reading body language tells, well, do you know good? Because if I have no idea this is going to have an impact,
I'm not going to conceal it. I'm not going to have any tell us. Yeah. I'm just, you know, I don't know. I, you know, I didn't know that Thursday was an important day for you. You know, how would I, how am I supposed to know that? I don't know what you're holding back. So the real critical issue in the black swans is what's in the overlap of the hidden information. That's where you come up with stuff. That's like, wow, we're both better off here. You know, a couple of years ago, young ladies trying to get funding for a film. And, and, uh,
in Hollywood, she's telling me about it. And she's after 300 grand. And through the course of mirroring and labeling in a conversation, she finds out that the woman investor that she's talking to owns a castle in France. And she's like, oh, I got another film that this would be a perfect setting for. This changes everything. Now, how does the investor know that their castle in France is going to have anything to do with a movie that's being shot in Hollywood?
You just don't know that. And that changes everything. As soon as, oh, wow, we got a two-pitcher deal instead of a one-pitcher deal here. You got a setting, you got a castle in France. When you shoot this whole thing in, save half a million dollars on the next production, game-changers stuff. And the investors are like, how am I supposed to know that castle matters? Right. Well, and the only way to do that is by calibrated questions, right? Like open-ended.
Dino Mauro (14:06.83)
questions, discovery questions, collaboration, right? Taking them away from that amygdala hijack so that they feel comfortable and you can build trust. Yeah, exactly. And your conversation, I mean, any one of the skills, any one of the nine skills hits the brain in a little bit different way. And so that's why we often look at them as if you're mixing cocktails at a party.
A friend of mine used to say, at the beginning of a party you're hosting at your house, you're probably going to put a little more vodka in the drinks. But later on, once people have gotten going, you're not going to put as much vodka in the drink. You're going to mix as the conversation evolves. Yeah, absolutely. So how else has the Black Swan Method evolved since the book was first published?
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, we're discovering something new every few months. The concept of proof of life was a brand new concept that we just didn't really talk about at all in the book that I didn't even think was important. And point of fact, there's some really solid evidence that every bit of 20% of the negotiations that you engage in will never come to fruition for a variety of reasons. The other side is looking for free consulting.
They're looking to kick the tires. They're looking to preserve the status quo. And so proof of life is, is there a deal and is the deal with you? Are you competing bid? Are they pumping you for a methodology so that they can get their preferred provider to provide? So proof of life has become, since the book came out, probably, it's every bit as important as accusations are because it's not a sin to not get the deal. It's a sin to take a long time to not get the deal.
And how do you sniff that out? Or recognize earlier, right? Yeah, that's exactly I'm so glad you said that. Isn't it a sin to not recognize it earlier if you could? Like if you could have by asking the right questions, recognize it early on rather than spend six months of time and resources and meetings to not get the deal, then that's where the sin lies. Exactly. Yeah. And you can recognize it early. I mean, there's.
Dino Mauro (16:30.782)
We learned it in a hostage negotiation. There's some guys that are never gonna come out. And if they got hostages, it means that, the only way to resolve this is gonna be through tactical action, because they're gonna kill hostages. And my old boss, Gary Nessner, came up with a block of instruction called high-risk indicators. What are the nine high-risk indicators that the guy ain't never coming out? And so we just took that idea, what are the high-risk indicators that they're not gonna make a deal with you? And...
what's the methodology where you can tease it out in the first half hour of the conversation. And we teach that. It's very important. It saves people a lot of money. That's phenomenal. How do people identify proof of life? Is it through open-ended questions, seeking knows, accusation audits? Is it through all of the methodologies or is there a specific way of identifying? The first specific thing really is to ask them.
The only time you ever asked a why question, why do you want to do business with us? And most people are horrified at asking that question because they think it's going to push the other side away. But their answer is going to give you a real clear picture. And if they push it back on you, you're the fool in the game. They say, well, it's up to you to show me. You're the fool in the game. You're being free consulting, competing bid, protecting the status quo. They're not giving you the deal. Yep. Absolutely.
And then after that, like if they're overly focused on any one aspect of your offering, it could be price. If they're really, really focused on one thing, your competing bid, and they're in common with you, what they do is they want a better, they're driving down the price or they're driving up the services on somebody else. And they're getting real clear in their head what their ask is going to be.
of the company, the provider that they're really going to do business with. So you're looking for what instead of one thing that they're interested in about your offer, you're looking for questions about various things. Yeah. Right? If they have an interest in what does it look like after implementation? What does it look like two years down the road? Asking questions like that and if they're interested in...
Dino Mauro (18:51.138)
Or if they have an answer. Like, you know, what's our relationship going to look like two years after we start to implement? If they go dead silent, then since they never had any plans of being involved with you two years from now, that question is going to stump them. Right. That's outstanding. What are some of the other high risk indicators? Those are the main ones. You know, are they having a conversation with you? What's your gut telling you? Are they gathering information?
or are they talking about how to move forward? And go with your gut, because your gut's really, really good if you go with your gut. You gotta be careful of, you know, you're driven by hopes and fears, your amygdala and your hopes. And hope can be as much a problem as fear. So I'm hoping this is gonna work out. You're not listening to your gut. You listen to your gut. Are they gathering information, are they talking, actually asking questions that's gonna lead you forward and doing business?
And you know what? Ask them straight out. And it's often and what we call an asking label is really effective. And the asking label would be, seems like you're still shopping around like that. Like it's OK. That's a label. Right. You know, it's an inquiry. And it's said in a tone of voice that says it's OK.
And if you go, seems like you're still shopping around, downward inflection on around. Like I understand, you know, it's cool, I get it. You can get one or two responses. They're gonna be like, yeah, we are. Or no, it's they're not shopping around. You're gonna get a real strong correction at that point in time. Cause correcting makes people feel safe. People love to correct. So that's it. And they're not gonna feel cornered.
Yeah. I really like the idea of dealing with somebody and, and making a wrong statement almost, and then having them correct you because it helps them feel in control. And it really, it, it illustrates a lot about where they're at, doesn't it? It illustrates a lot about where they're at. And they actually bond with you when they correct you because they see correcting is helping.
Dino Mauro (21:18.986)
And that's an automatic step away from the adversarial process into the collaborative process. Yeah, absolutely. When there's cost structure and price, I've always wanted to ask you this. If, if, if you don't mind, let's say you're, you're discussing, there's some deal and your cost structure, let's just say is like $14,000 a month. Right. And you know, you can go down below that to a certain part. Uh, let's say you can go down.
three, four grand or something a month. But if you're doing this and there's a negotiation on the price, when you have the agreement, you guys are close to that, you talk about in the book, this formula for kind of negotiating down. Can you walk me through that? Some of it is like you give the biggest amount upfront, and then you just go small increments after and then you hold firm. Right. Like what's the
logic behind that? How is that effective? Because it is effective. I've used it and it's very effective. I'm curious how that is. And I'd like to hear more about that from you. Well, if you're bargaining, and sometimes it's appropriate, it should be the last move. But if you're bargaining, you've got to go in decreasing increments.
incremental change. Like every change in your position, it's got to be roughly half the distance of the last one. The other side feels that they're working hard and they feel the brakes slowly being put on and they feel that they're ringing every last dime out of you. Now you can't go with two changes in a row. You can't bargain against yourself ever.
because then you're losing the decreasing incremental effect. But you cut down by half each time, roughly. You got a target location, price that you're going to. And by the time you get there, you got to make them feel like they worked really hard from it and they ran every last dime out of you. Because the other side is satisfied when they feel they've gotten the best deal they can. And your job is to make them feel that way. It's an emotional...
Dino Mauro (23:40.458)
approach. Human beings are emotion. So make them feel like they worked really hard to get there. That's phenomenal. And how about when people are addressing, let's say it's not even in business, perhaps it's personal life, and somebody is irrational, somebody is aggressive. The accusation audit is really helpful. What other techniques can be used? Like how do you...
calm the person down without agreeing. Let's say they're saying things that are not accurate, but they're hostile and you want to still build agreement between the two of you. Oh, call out what's driving them, whether you like it or not. Like the more hostile somebody is, the more pressure they feel they're under. Hostility is either genuine or it's a manipulation. So you gotta know which one it is. And
A great way to figure it out, to diagnose it, is the labeling. I mean, it sounds like this is really important to you. It sounds like you feel backed into a corner. Sounds like you're under a lot of pressure. Sounds like you really want me to hear you. If it's genuine, that'll deactivate their aggression. If it's manipulative, they'll shrug it off because they didn't actually feel the aggression. They're trying to manipulate you with it. So it won't have the neural impact on it.
on them which will tell you what you're dealing with.
Dino Mauro (25:08.878)
Right. Excellent. Yeah. And we're in those scenarios, we're seeing, we're seeking a that's right. We're not seeking your right, right? Yeah. That's a critical decision. The distinction. Cause your right is what people say to you to try to get you to shut up. Not when they agree. It's when they just don't want to talk to you. Yeah. When they, when they give us a, yeah, when they give us a, you're right. That just means shut up basically. Right. But when it's, but when it's, that's right. That means
You've acknowledged the elephant in the room. You've inoculated it essentially. Exactly. That's right. As we wind down, I want to ask you what's on the horizon? What do you guys have coming up? Well, the best way, we've got a lot of stuff, a lot of cool stuff that's always coming up. In-person trainings, we're going to be in Philadelphia before long for some, what we call, very specialized training. So the best way to keep up on everything that we got coming up.
We've got a complimentary newsletter we put out called The Edge. It comes out on Tuesday mornings, wherever you are in the world, about 730 into your inbox, whatever your time zone is. It's complimentary, but better than that, it's concise, concise actionable advice that you could put into play that day. And also it's the gateway to everything that we have. Our website is blackswanltd.com. B-L-
Dino Mauro (26:33.934)
When you go to the website, you're going to see an opportunity right away, either at the top of the page or on the right-hand side, to subscribe to The Edge. The Edge is a gateway to the gold mine. You subscribe to The Edge, you're going to get actionable, usable advice, digestible one article, not a bunch of articles. You can get through it quickly and then you can see what's on the horizon and different ways that we can help you improve your negotiation outcomes. Also, we appreciate the time that you spent with us today.
It was my pleasure. Thank you very much, David. Thank you so much, sir.
Dino Mauro (27:11.714)
Well that wraps this up. Thanks for joining everybody. Hope you got value out of digging deeper behind the scenes of security and cybercrime today. Please don't forget to help keep this going by subscribing free to our YouTube channel at Cybercrime Junkies Podcast and download and enjoy all of our past episodes on Apple and Spotify podcasts so we can continue to bring you more of what matters. This is Cybercrime Junkies and we thank you for joining us.