فصل 05

CHAPTER 5

TRIGGER THE TWO WORDS THAT IMMEDIATELY TRANSFORM ANY NEGOTIATION

In August 2000, the militant Islamic group Abu Sayyaf, in the southern Philippines, broadcast that it had captured a CIA agent. The truth was not as newsworthy, or as valuable to the rebels.

Abu Sayyaf had kidnapped Jeffrey Schilling, a twenty-four-year-old American who had traveled near their base in Jolo Island. A California native, Schilling became a hostage with a $10 million price tag on his head.

At the time I was a Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) attached to the FBI’s elite Crisis Negotiation Unit (CNU). The CNU is the equivalent of the special forces of negotiations. It’s attached to the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT). Both are national counterterrorist response assets. They are the best of the best.

The CNU is based at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia. The FBI Academy has come to be known by the one word, “Quantico.” Rightly or wrongly, Quantico has developed the reputation as one of the centers, if not the center of knowledge, for law enforcement. When a negotiation is going badly and the negotiators involved are directed to call and find out what “Quantico” has to say, the CNU is who they call.

CNU developed what is a powerful staple in the high-stakes world of crisis negotiation, the Behavioral Change Stairway Model (BCSM). The model proposes five stages—active listening, empathy, rapport, influence, and behavioral change—that take any negotiator from listening to influencing behavior.

The origins of the model can be traced back to the great American psychologist Carl Rogers, who proposed that real change can only come when a therapist accepts the client as he or she is—an approach known as unconditional positive regard. The vast majority of us, however, as Rogers explained, come to expect that love, praise, and approval are dependent on saying and doing the things people (initially, our parents) consider correct. That is, because for most of us the positive regard we experience is conditional, we develop a habit of hiding who we really are and what we really think, instead calibrating our words to gain approval but disclosing little.

Which is why so few social interactions lead to actual behavior change. Consider the typical patient with severe coronary heart disease recovering from open-heart surgery. The doctor tells the patient: “This surgery isn’t a cure. The only way to truly prolong your life is to make the following behavior changes . . .” The grateful patient responds: “Yes, yes, yes, of course, Doctor! This is my second chance. I will change!” And do they? Study after study has shown that, no, nothing changes; two years after their operation, more than 90 percent of patients haven’t changed their lifestyle at all.

Though the stakes of an everyday negotiation with your child, boss, or client are usually not as high as that of a hostage (or health crisis) negotiation, the psychological environment necessary for not just temporary in-the-moment compliance, but real gut-level change, is the same.

If you successfully take someone up the Behavioral Change Stairway, each stage attempting to engender more trust and more connection, there will be a breakthrough moment when unconditional positive regard is established and you can begin exerting influence.

After years of refining the BCSM and its tactics, I can teach anyone how to get to that moment. But as cardiologists know all too well, and legions of B-school grads weaned on the most famous negotiating book in the world, Getting to Yes, have ultimately discovered, you more than likely haven’t gotten there yet if what you’re hearing is the word “yes.” As you’ll soon learn, the sweetest two words in any negotiation are actually “That’s right.”

CREATE A SUBTLE EPIPHANY

I was a natural for the Schilling case. I had spent some time in the Philippines and had an extensive background in terrorism from my New York City days assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF).

A few days after Schilling became a hostage, my partner Chuck Regini and I flew to Manila to run the negotiations. Along with Jim Nixon, the FBI’s highest official in Manila, we conferred with top Philippine military brass. They agreed to let us guide the negotiations. Then we got down to business. One of us would take charge of the negotiation strategy for the FBI and consequently for the U.S. government. That became my role. With the support of my colleagues, my job was to come up with the strategy, get it approved, and implement it.

As a result of the Schilling case, I would become the FBI’s lead international kidnapping negotiator.

Our principal adversary was Abu Sabaya, the rebel leader who personally negotiated for Schilling’s ransom. Sabaya was a veteran of the rebel movement with a violent past. He was straight out of the movies, a terrorist-sociopath-killer. He had a history of rape, murder, and beheadings. He liked to record his bloody deeds on video and send them to the Philippine media.

Sabaya always wore sunglasses, a bandana, a black T-shirt, and camo pants. He thought it made him a more dashing figure. If you look for any photos of Abu Sayyaf terrorists from this period, you always see one in sunglasses. That’s Sabaya.

Sabaya loved, loved, loved the media. He had the Philippine reporters on speed dial. They’d call him and ask him questions in Tagalog, his native tongue. He would answer in English because he wanted the world to hear his voice on CNN. “They should make a movie about me,” he would tell reporters.

In my eyes, Sabaya was a cold-blooded businessman with an ego as big as Texas. A real shark. Sabaya knew he was in the commodities game. In Jeffrey Schilling, he had an item of value. How much could he get for it? He would find out, and I intended it to be a surprise he wouldn’t like. As an FBI agent, I wanted to free the hostage and bring the criminal to justice.

One crucial aspect of any negotiation is to figure out how your adversary arrived at his position. Sabaya threw out the $10 million ransom based on a business calculation.

First, the United States was offering $5 million for information leading to the arrest of any of the remaining fugitives from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Sabaya reasoned that if the United States would pay $5 million to get its hands on someone it didn’t like, it would pay much more for a citizen.

Second, a rival faction of the Abu Sayyaf had just reportedly been paid $20 million for six Western European captives. Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi had made the payment as “development aid.” This absurdity had been compounded by a significant portion of the ransom being paid in counterfeit bills. It was an opportunity for Gaddafi to both embarrass Western governments and get money over-the-table to groups with whom he sympathized. I’m sure he laughed about that episode until the day he died.

Regardless, a price had been set. Sabaya did the math and figured Schilling was worth $10 million. Problem was, Jeff Schilling came from a working-class family. His mother could come up with $10,000, perhaps. The United States wasn’t about to pay one dollar. But we would allow a payment to be made if it could be run as a “sting” operation.

If we could draw Sabaya into an offer-counteroffer bargaining situation, we had a bargaining system that worked every time. We could beat him down to where we wanted him, get the hostage out, and set up the “sting.” For months Sabaya refused to budge. He argued that Muslims in the Philippines had suffered five hundred years of oppression, since Spanish missionaries had brought Catholicism to the Philippines in the sixteenth century. He recited instances where atrocities had been committed against his Islamic forebears. He explained why the Abu Sayyaf wanted to establish an Islamic state in the southern Philippines. Fishing rights had been violated. You name it, he thought it up and used it.

Sabaya wanted $10 million in war damages—not ransom, but war damages. He held firm in his demand and kept us out of the offer-counteroffer system we wanted to use against him.

And he occasionally dropped in threats that he was torturing Jeff Schilling.

Sabaya negotiated directly with Benjie, a Filipino military officer. They talked in Tagalog. We reviewed transcripts translated to English and used them to advise Benjie. I rotated in and out of Manila and oversaw the talks and strategy. I instructed Benjie to ask what Schilling had to do with five hundred years of bad blood between Muslims and Filipinos. He told Sabaya that $10 million was not possible.

No matter what approach we took to “reason” with Sabaya over why Schilling had nothing to do with the “war damages,” it fell on deaf ears.

Our first “that’s right” breakthrough actually came when I was negotiating with Benjie. He was a true Filipino patriot and hero. He was the leader of the Philippine National Police’s Special Action Force and had been in his share of firefights. On many occasions, Benjie and his men had been sent on rescue missions to save hostages, and they had a sterling record. His men were feared, for good reason. They rarely took handcuffs.

Benjie wanted to take a hard line with Sabaya and speak to him in direct, no-nonsense terms. We wanted to engage Sabaya in dialogue to discover what made the adversary tick. We actually wanted to establish rapport with an adversary. To Benjie that was distasteful.

Benjie told us he needed a break. We had been working him nearly twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for several weeks. He wanted to spend some time with his family in the mountains north of Manila. We agreed, but only on the condition that we could accompany him and spend several hours both on Saturday and Sunday working on negotiation strategy.

That Saturday night we sat in the library of the American ambassador’s summer residence working on the strategy. As I was explaining to Benjie the value of establishing a rapport-based, working relationship, even with an adversary as dangerous as Sabaya, I could see a snarl coming over his face. I realized I needed to negotiate with Benjie.

“You hate Sabaya, don’t you?” I said, leading with a label.

Benjie unloaded on me. “I tell you I do!” he said. “He has murdered and raped. He has come up on our radio when we were lobbing mortars on his position and said ‘these mortars are music to my ears.’ I heard his voice come on our radio one day and celebrate that he was standing over the body of one of my men.” This outburst was Benjie’s equivalent of “that’s right.” As he acknowledged his rage, I watched him get control of his anger and calm down. Though he had been very good up to that point, from that moment forward Benjie became a superstar. He blossomed into a truly talented negotiator.

This “negotiation” between Benjie and me was no different than any other negotiation between colleagues who disagree on a strategy. Before you convince them to see what you’re trying to accomplish, you have to say the things to them that will get them to say, “That’s right.” The “that’s right” breakthrough usually doesn’t come at the beginning of a negotiation. It’s invisible to the counterpart when it occurs, and they embrace what you’ve said. To them, it’s a subtle epiphany.

TRIGGER A “THAT’S RIGHT!” WITH A SUMMARY

After four months of negotiations, Sabaya still refused to budge. I decided it was time to hit the reset switch.

Benjie had gotten so good at extending the conversations that you could tell that there were times that Sabaya must have paced back and forth for an hour before calling Benjie, trying to figure out how to get what he wanted. He would call in and say, “Tell me yes or no! Just yes or no!” We had to get Sabaya off this war damages nonsense. No matter what type of questioning, logic, or reasoning we tried with him, he wouldn’t release it. Threats against Schilling came and went. We talked him down each time.

I decided that in order to break through this phase we needed to reposition Sabaya with his own words in a way that would dissolve barriers. We needed to get him to say, “That’s right.” At the time, I didn’t know for sure what kind of breakthrough it was going to give us. I just knew we needed to trust the process.

I wrote a two-page document that instructed Benjie to change course. We were going to use nearly every tactic in the active listening arsenal:

1. Effective Pauses: Silence is powerful. We told Benjie to use it for emphasis, to encourage Sabaya to keep talking until eventually, like clearing out a swamp, the emotions were drained from the dialogue.

2. Minimal Encouragers: Besides silence, we instructed using simple phrases, such as “Yes,” “OK,” “Uh-huh,” or “I see,” to effectively convey that Benjie was now paying full attention to Sabaya and all he had to say.

3. Mirroring: Rather than argue with Sabaya and try to separate Schilling from the “war damages,” Benjie would listen and repeat back what Sabaya said.

4. Labeling: Benjie should give Sabaya’s feelings a name and identify with how he felt. “It all seems so tragically unfair, I can now see why you sound so angry.”

5. Paraphrase: Benjie should repeat what Sabaya is saying back to him in Benjie’s own words. This, we told him, would powerfully show him you really do understand and aren’t merely parroting his concerns.

6. Summarize: A good summary is the combination of rearticulating the meaning of what is said plus the acknowledgment of the emotions underlying that meaning (paraphrasing + labeling = summary). We told Benjie he needed to listen and repeat the “world according to Abu Sabaya.” He needed to fully and completely summarize all the nonsense that Sabaya had come up with about war damages and fishing rights and five hundred years of oppression. And once he did that fully and completely, the only possible response for Sabaya, and anyone faced with a good summary, would be “that’s right.” Two days later Sabaya phoned Benjie. Sabaya spoke. Benjie listened. When he spoke, he followed my script: he commiserated with the rebel group’s predicament. Mirroring, encouraging, labeling, each tactic worked seamlessly and cumulatively to soften Sabaya up and begin shifting his perspective. Finally, Benjie repeated in his own words Sabaya’s version of history and the emotions that came with that version.

Sabaya was silent for nearly a minute. Finally he spoke.

“That’s right,” he said.

We ended the call.

The “war damages” demand just disappeared.

From that point forward Sabaya never mentioned money again. He never asked for another dime for the release of Jeffrey Schilling. He ultimately became so weary of this case and holding the young Californian that he let down his guard. Schilling escaped from their camp, and Philippine commandoes swooped in and rescued him. He returned safely to his family in California.

Two weeks after Jeff Schilling escaped, Sabaya called Benjie:

“Have you been promoted yet?” he asked. “If not, you should have been.”

“Why?” Benjie asked.

“I was going to hurt Jeffrey,” Sabaya said. “I don’t know what you did to keep me from doing that, but whatever it was, it worked.”

In June 2002 Sabaya was killed in a shoot-out with Philippine military units.

In the heat of negotiations for a man’s life, I didn’t appreciate the value of those two words: “That’s right.” But when I studied the transcripts and reconstructed the trajectory of the negotiations, I realized that Sabaya had changed course when he uttered those words. Benjie had used some fundamental techniques that we had developed over many years. He had reflected Sabaya’s vision. He had stepped back from confrontation. He had allowed Sabaya to speak freely and exhaust his version of events.

“That’s right” signaled that negotiations could proceed from deadlock. It broke down a barrier that was impeding progress. It created a realization point with our adversary where he actually agreed on a point without the feeling of having given in.

It was a stealth victory.

When your adversaries say, “That’s right,” they feel they have assessed what you’ve said and pronounced it as correct of their own free will. They embrace it.

“That’s right” allowed us to draw out the talks and divert Sabaya from hurting Schilling. And it gave Philippine commandos time to mount their rescue operation.

In hostage negotiations, we never tried to get to “yes” as an endpoint. We knew that “yes” is nothing without “how.” And when we applied hostage negotiating tactics to business, we saw how “that’s right” often leads to the best outcomes.

“THAT’S RIGHT” IS GREAT, BUT IF “YOU’RE RIGHT,” NOTHING CHANGES

Driving toward “that’s right” is a winning strategy in all negotiations. But hearing “you’re right” is a disaster.

Take my son, Brandon, and his development as a football player. He had been playing on the offensive and defensive lines all through high school. At six foot two and 250 pounds, he was formidable. He loved to knock every player wearing an opposing jersey to the ground.

Having played quarterback, I didn’t fully appreciate the blue-collar nature of being a lineman. Linemen are like mountain goats. They put their heads down and hit things. It makes them happy.

At St. Thomas More prep school in Connecticut, Brandon’s coach moved him to linebacker, and his role suddenly changed from hitting everything he saw to avoiding players who were trying to block him. He was supposed to play off blocks—dodge them, if you will—and get to the ball. But Brandon continued to confront opposing blockers head-on, which kept him from getting to the ballcarrier. His coach pleaded with him to avoid blockers, but Brandon couldn’t change. He loved to hit. Flattening opposing players was a source of pride.

Both his coach and I kept trying to explain it to him. And every time we got the worst possible answer—“You’re right.” He agreed, in theory, but he didn’t own the conclusion. Then he would go right back to the behavior we were trying to get him to stop. He would smash blockers and take himself out of the play.

Why is “you’re right” the worst answer?

Consider this: Whenever someone is bothering you, and they just won’t let up, and they won’t listen to anything you have to say, what do you tell them to get them to shut up and go away? “You’re right.” It works every time. Tell people “you’re right” and they get a happy smile on their face and leave you alone for at least twenty-four hours. But you haven’t agreed to their position. You have used “you’re right” to get them to quit bothering you.

I was in the same situation with Brandon. He didn’t hear me and embrace my request. What could I say to get through to this kid? How could I reach Brandon and help him change course?

I thought back to Benjie and Sabaya. I took Brandon aside before a crucial game. I had searched my mind for a way to hear the two critical words, “That’s right.”

“You seem to think it’s unmanly to dodge a block,” I told him. “You think it’s cowardly to get out of someone’s way that’s trying to hit you.”

Brandon stared at me and paused.

“That’s right,” he said.

With those words Brandon embraced the reality of what was holding him back. Once he understood why he was trying to knock down every blocker, he changed course. He started avoiding the blocks and became an exceptionally fine linebacker.

With Brandon on the field tackling and playing star linebacker, St. Thomas More School won every game.

USING “THAT’S RIGHT” TO MAKE THE SALE

Getting to “that’s right” helped one of my students in her job as a sales representative for a large pharmaceutical company.

She was trying to sell a new product to a doctor who used similar medication. He was the largest user of this kind of medication in her territory. The sale was critical to her success.

In her first appointments, the doctor dismissed her product. He said it was no better than the ones he was already using. He was unfriendly. He didn’t even want to hear her viewpoint. When she presented the positive attributes of her product, he interrupted her and knocked them down.

Making the sales pitch, she soaked up as much as possible about the doctor. She learned that he was passionate about treating his patients. Each patient was special in his eyes. Improving their sense of calm and peace was the most important outcome for him. How could she put her understanding of his needs, desires, and passions to work for her?

At her next visit, the doctor asked what medications she wanted to discuss. Rather than tout the benefits of her product, she talked about him and his practice.

“Doctor,” she said, “the last time I was in we spoke about your patients with this condition. I remember thinking that you seemed very passionate about treating them, and how you worked hard to tailor the specific treatment to each and every patient.” He looked her in the eyes as if he were seeing her for the first time.

“That’s right,” he said. “I really feel like I’m treating an epidemic that other doctors are not picking up on—which means that a lot of patients are not getting treated adequately.” She told him he seemed to have a deep understanding of how to treat these patients, especially because some of them didn’t respond to the usual medications. They talked about specific challenges he had confronted in treating his patients. He gave her examples.

When he was finished, she summarized what he had said, especially the intricacies and problems in treatment.

“You seem to tailor specific treatments and medications for each patient,” she said.

“That’s right,” he responded.

This was the breakthrough she had hoped to reach. The doctor had been skeptical and cold. But when she recognized his passion for his patients—using a summary—the walls came down. He dropped his guard, and she was able to gain his trust. Rather than pitch her product, she let him describe his treatment and procedures. With this, she learned how her medication would fit into his practice. She then paraphrased what he said about the challenges of his practice and reflected them back to him.

Once the doctor signaled his trust and rapport, she could tout the attributes of her product and describe precisely how it would help him reach the outcomes he desired for his patients. He listened intently.

“It might be perfect for treating a patient who has not benefited from the medication I have been prescribing,” he told her. “Let me give yours a try.”

She made the sale.

USING “THAT’S RIGHT” FOR CAREER SUCCESS

One of my Korean students got to “that’s right” in negotiating with his ex-boss for a new job.

Returning to Seoul after getting his MBA, he wanted to work in his company’s consumer electronics division, rather than the semiconductor section, where he had been stationed. He was a human resources specialist. Under the company’s rules, he believed he had to remain in his previous department, unless he could also get approval from his ex-boss. He had gotten two job offers from the consumer products division. He phoned his ex-boss from the United States.

“You should reject this offer and find your spot here with the semiconductor division,” the ex-boss said.

My student hung up depressed. If he wanted to advance in the company, he had to obey his former superior. He rejected the two offers and prepared to return to the semiconductor side.

Then he contacted a friend who was a senior manager in the human resources department to check on the company’s regulations. He found there was no rule that he had to stay within his division, but he did need his ex-boss’s blessing to switch.

He phoned his ex-boss again. This time he asked questions to draw him out.

“Is there any reason you want me to go to the semiconductor headquarters?” he asked.

“It’s the best position for you,” the ex-boss said.

“The best position?” he asked. “It sounds like there’s no regulation that I have to remain with the semiconductor division,” he said. ?“Hmm,” the ex-boss said. “I don’t think there is any.” “Then will you please tell me what made you decide that I remain in the semiconductor headquarters?” he asked.

The ex-boss said he needed someone to help him network at headquarters between the semiconductor and consumer products divisions.

“So it sounds like you could approve my new position no matter which division, as long as I was in headquarters and could help you communicate better with the top managers.”

“That’s right,” he said. “I must admit I need your help in headquarters.”

My student realized he had made a breakthrough. Not only had his ex-boss uttered those sweet words—“that’s right”—but he had revealed his true motive: he needed an ally in headquarters.

“Is there any other help you need?” he asked.

“Let me tell you everything,” the ex-boss responded.

It turns out his former superior would be up for a promotion to vice president in two years. He desperately wanted to move up into this job. He needed someone in headquarters to lobby the company CEO.

“I would help you in any way,” my student said. “But I could help with the networking and also talk you up to the CEO even if I were at headquarters with the consumer products division, right?” “That’s right,” he said. “If you get an offer from the consumer products unit, I will approve it.”

Bingo! By asking questions that got him to “that’s right,” my student had achieved his goal. He also got his boss to reveal two “Black Swans,” the unspoken, underlying breakthrough dynamics of a negotiation (explored in more detail in Chapter 10): ? His boss needed someone to help him network and communicate in headquarters.

? His boss would be up for a promotion and needed someone to talk him up to the CEO.

My student was able to win the job he desired on the consumer electronics division. And he’s been talking up his former boss.

“I was stunned,” he wrote me in an email. “In this culture it is not really possible to know what a superior is thinking.”

I have many opportunities to travel the country and speak to business leaders, either in formal speaking engagements or private counseling sessions. I entertain them with war stories, then I describe some basic negotiating skills. I always impart a few techniques. Getting to “that’s right” is a staple.

After a speech in Los Angeles, one of the attendees, Emily, sent me an email:

Hi Chris, I feel compelled to tell you that I just tried the “That’s right” technique in a price negotiation with a potential new client. And, I got what I wanted. I’m so excited!

Before I probably would have just gone with the “in-the-middle” suggested price (halfway between my initial offer and her initial counter). Instead, I believe I correctly assessed her motivations, presented her with the right statement to get to a “that’s right” (in her mind) . . . and then she proposed the solution I wanted and asked if I would agree to it! So, I did of course.

Thank you!

Emily

And I thought to myself: That’s right.

KEY LESSONS

“Sleeping in the same bed and dreaming different dreams” is an old Chinese expression that describes the intimacy of partnership (whether in marriage or in business) without the communication necessary to sustain it.

Such is the recipe for bad marriages and bad negotiations.

With each party having its own set of objectives, its own goals and motivations, the truth is that the conversational niceties—the socially lubricating “yeses” and “you’re rights” that get thrown out fast and furious early in any interaction—are not in any way a substitute for real understanding between you and your partner.

The power of getting to that understanding, and not to some simple “yes,” is revelatory in the art of negotiation. The moment you’ve convinced someone that you truly understand her dreams and feelings (the whole world that she inhabits), mental and behavioral change becomes possible, and the foundation for a breakthrough has been laid.

Use these lessons to lay that foundation:

? Creating unconditional positive regard opens the door to changing thoughts and behaviors. Humans have an innate urge toward socially constructive behavior. The more a person feels understood, and positively affirmed in that understanding, the more likely that urge for constructive behavior will take hold.

? “That’s right” is better than “yes.” Strive for it. Reaching “that’s right” in a negotiation creates breakthroughs.

? Use a summary to trigger a “that’s right.” The building blocks of a good summary are a label combined with paraphrasing. Identify, rearticulate, and emotionally affirm “the world according to . . .”