How To Negotiate Like An FBI Agent - Chris Voss - #237

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, friends. Welcome back. My guest today is none other than Chris Voss, the ex-lead international kidnapping negotiator for the FBI, now turned CEO and bestselling author. Chris is someone who has negotiated under the highest imaginable pressure, with kidnappers, bank robbers and terrorists. Also, we think that Denzel Washington has played him in a couple of different films. So, Chris is definitely someone who is worth his salt. Today expect to learn the single most powerful phrase in communication, how to say no more effectively, how to improve your confidence during a discussion, Chris's best strategies for de-escalating a disagreement, his opinion on Trump's communication style and much more. This episode is just so much fun. It's been over 18 months that I've been planning this with Chris and his hectic schedule has meant that we've kept on moving it back and kept on moving it back, but it was so worth the wait. I would love to know what you think of it. Give it a share. Send it to some people that you think would enjoy it because it's just so cool. Chris's stories are phenomenal. And I'm hoping that he's going to write a new book so that I have an excuse to bring him back on. But for now, it's time to negotiate like our lives depend on it with Chris Voss.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back. I'm joined by Chris Voss. Chris, welcome to the show.

**Chris Voss** (1:44)
Thank you very much. Pleasure to be on with you.

**Chris Williamson** (1:46)
Pleasure to have you here as well. Negotiating today, we're gonna learn how to hopefully have productive negotiations. Let's define our terms first. What should be our desired outcome from a negotiation? Why are we negotiating?

**Chris Voss** (2:03)
Well, really, your desired outcome should be a better relationship. I mean, by definition, I can explain intellectually why it's impossible to know what the best outcome of the negotiation could be. You're holding information back, they're holding information back. Information being held back by both sides is important. Therefore, not only is your information flawed, it's flawed in important ways. So the more people get focused on an outcome, the more they have blinders on, the more they are likely to miss a better deal. So if you're focused on a better relationship, that's going to sort of permeate the interaction and increase the chances that the other side is gonna show you theirs and you'll get a better deal. And then plus they're gonna enjoy the process and the chances that they're gonna wanna do it again are much higher.

**Chris Williamson** (2:56)
Being familiar with your work, it seems like an adversarial relationship during a negotiation is something that you try and steer clear of as much as possible.

**Chris Voss** (3:05)
Yeah, because it's just gonna harm how much I could get. It's gonna harm my ability to get it again. Like an adversarial relationship is gonna sting the other side, they're gonna remember that. It's gonna discourage them from wanting to continue to negotiate with me. That's not good for me long time. There was Goldman Sachs executive a long time ago, Gus Levy, his phrase was, greedy yes, but long term greedy.

**Chris Williamson** (3:37)
That's a good way to put it. I suppose as well with the networking effect now that everyone knows everyone, it's much easier to have free flow of information. You can't, the charlatans and the psychopaths and the con men can't hide as much anymore.

**Chris Voss** (3:51)
Yeah, it's gonna get out. It got out before anyway, but now it's just getting out faster.

**Chris Williamson** (3:58)
It gets out at hyper speed now. What do you think most people believe about negotiating which is wrong or ineffective?

**Chris Voss** (4:07)
You know, that you gotta beat the other side. I mean, we're even really careful how we phrase it. Like we never talk about the person across the table as the adversary, we refer to them as a counterpart. The adversary is a situation. I mean, if you're negotiating with someone, you're both faced with different aspects of the same problem. Which by definition is you're both gonna be better off if you collaborate. Now, most people, you know, and most negotiations categorize as win, lose, beat the other side. And that just hurts people long term, it just does.

**Chris Williamson** (4:45)
Who is the worst sort of person to negotiate with then? And how can we get them involved in the dialogue?

**Chris Voss** (4:53)
Yeah, well, it kind of, it's not the worst person. I mean, it's typically what you run into is occasional tight mismatches create problems. I mean, it's basically the world splits up evenly into thirds. Fight, flight, make friends. These are the caveman responses to survival. This is wired into us. It's baked into us. There's no way around it. And, you know, the world, we polled, really, the world. And we've seen that the world splits up evenly into thirds. I mean, we've taught for a while, we were teaching negotiation to executives from the Chinese Development Bank. And, you know, it's a great culture to have a stereotype about, whether they're very guarded or whatever your stereotype might be about them. And we're working with these people internally and we're seeing all three times. So what does that mean? Type mismatch. For example, if you're very thoughtful and you like time to think, which means silence.