Transcription
[Music] [Applause]
Get out of here, otherwise I will kill the hostage. This was a demand from a hostage taker standing in front of me with a gun in his hand. There was a young woman who was sitting on a couch. He took a gunpoint and told me, "Get out of here, otherwise I will kill her."
I'm a former hostage negotiator, and I had to negotiate in very difficult situations. And you may ask yourself, how I became a member of this negotiation task force. I started my career as a regular police officer, and then I joined the drug enforcement agency. I worked six years undercover, you know, with long hair, black leather jacket, all a gun in my inside pocket. We had to negotiate with drug dealers buying drugs, selling drugs. After studying, I became a member of this negotiation task force. We had to negotiate with hostage takers, bank robbers, and suicide attempts. And I have learned to negotiate under pressure because failure is not an option.
At present, I'm a consultant. We support government, we support political parties, we support big organizations like the United Nations in very difficult negotiations because they need our support. Because we try to translate the knowledge they experience from law enforcement into your world. And I would like to come back to my opening statement. So, how to negotiate under pressure? And coming back to my example, "Get out of here, otherwise I will kill her."
It was set in the night, around midnight. I was at the police station. I picked up the phone. A young woman was screaming into the phone, "My neighbor killed himself in front of my eyes." So I ask her, "Where are you?" She told me, "Call team street number 13 on the fifth floor." I told her, "Okay, we are on the way." My colleague and I, we were driving to this location called de number 13. We parked our car. We entered this building, running up the stairs, because we knew we will find the dead neighbor on the fifth floor. Running up the stairs, arriving on the second floor, I noticed there was a man waiting on the fifth floor with a gun in his hand. He was waiting for us. And then he fired twice in our direction.
I would like to show you what happened at the fifth floor. It happened in the center of Munich, called team street number 13 in this building. So we entered this building, running up the stairs, arriving on the second floor. This guy was shooting at us. So we, we running up, arriving on the fifth floor. And as you can see, the door on the right side was closed. The the door on the left side was slightly open. So we stepped into this apartment. And there was a man standing in front of me, a gun in his hand, taking this young woman at gunpoint, telling us, "Get out of here, otherwise I will kill her."
I have heard you professional negotiators, right? So what to do? What to do? "Get out of here, otherwise I will kill her." There are some options, and I would like to ask you about the options. And you could say yes or no. Okay. So what about taking him at gunpoint? What about increasing the pressure? What about moving in his direction? Is it good? No. What about increasing the pressure verbally? What about a counter threat? "If you don't, we will kill you." No. What about shooting at him? No. It's also, you're right, it's also risky because he had the finger at the trigger. And if I really kill him, he would pull the trigger. If I don't kill him, he will purposely kill the hostage. Why? I kill the hostage, then I would be in a better position from a negotiation perspective. But this is not, this is not what you want.
So, is it a negotiation? Yes, it is a negotiation because it's a conflict. So he told me I should get out. And it's a so-called dependent, dependent situation. So I need the hostage taker. So I need to reach an agreement with the hostage taker. I'm in a very dependent situation because I can't say, if I don't reach agreement with this hostage taker, I will talk to another one. So I mean dependent. Good news, the hostage taker is also dependent because he needs me. So we are in this very critical situation. And I agree, increasing the pressure would be very dangerous. What about leaving the room, closing the door? "We apologize for disturbing you." Is it an option? No. No. So we need to negotiate.
Well, there are some options. We are here in Zurich, in Switzerland. I'm Swiss. We could start with the Swiss approach, offering a compromise. "Don't kill her, just shoot in your knees." Is it an option? No. Is it an option? No. What about an icebreaker? What about, yeah, what about saying something funny, like a joke? You know, like, "You missed before, you will miss again." Is that an option? No.
So, next question: rationality. "Dear hostage taker, please calm down. Think about it. It doesn't make sense." Does it work? So here's the most complicated, critical question in a negotiation. What about telling him, "Dear hostage taker, from a legal perspective, I have to tell you, you you're not allowed to take a hostage." Why are you laughing? It's not allowed. Really? It's not allowed. It's not allowed to take a hostage, and I can prove it because it's by law. So I do have evidence. I could say, "Well, it's not allowed to take a hostage." I could tell the hostage taker, "You're wrong." Is it helpful?
Let's talk about you. Let's talk about your, let's say, private life, about your relationships. Have you ever told your partner at home that he or she is wrong? In your first marriage, what was his or her response? "Thank you, darling. Now I can see the light." Right? So, very important. So the most important element in a very difficult negotiation, it's not about right or wrong because you cannot negotiate right or wrong. So I cannot, I cannot convince a negotiation partner. I cannot convince a hostage taker. It's not possible because he believes he is right. And if I tell him, "You're wrong, you're not allowed to do it," uh, he would never say, "Thank you, now I can see the light." Then he will go against me.
So the biggest problem, the biggest issue in a negotiation is that you sometimes believe that you are right, and then you try so hard to convince your negotiation partner they have to understand that they are wrong, which obviously doesn't work. So in a negotiation, in a difficult negotiation under pressure, you should never, never, never use an argument because if you come up with an argument, you will receive a counter argument, and then it's about right or wrong, and then you will definitely never reach an agreement because emotions kick in, you know, the flight type, the fight type, and and freeze.
The question is always, what's going on with you under pressure? So if you're a flight type, what do you do under pressure? You try to avoid the conflict. What you do? You try to get out of the situation, for example, by offering a compromise, by postponing a decision, or in very often in business, by escalating to your boss, which is definitely wrong. If you're a fight type, what do you do? You try so hard to convince them that they are wrong. So you talk a lot, you talk too much because you want to convince them, which doesn't work.
So in a, in a tough negotiation, you should not talk. You should not come up with arguments. You should not try to convince your negotiation partner. You need just one magic word. If you know the magic word, then you can lead every difficult negotiation. The magic word is "difficult." If you say "difficult," then you send a clear signal: I don't step forward, I don't step back, I stay here, I'm not afraid, I want to negotiate. You say "difficult," you count to three, and then you say, "Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for this possibility." You talk about common interests, and then you come up with new demands.
"Get out of here, otherwise I will kill her." What's our answer? "Difficult." One, two, three. "Thank you for this opportunity. We are in the same situation. We have the same target." And then we start to negotiate.
The biggest problem is that emotions are taking over, and then you end up in this so-called deadlock situation. In a deadlock situation, like in our hostage taking, we talked to him. So I came up with new demands. So I asked him, "What happened before? Did you kill someone? Did you hurt someone?" I asked the young woman on the couch, "Did you call us?" She said, "No." I was a little bit like, wrong floor, yeah. So I was standing there talking to them. And and he was in a very difficult situation because he was, yeah, he was committed already to his position.
So as a hostage taker, as a police negotiator, very often you need to negotiate with someone who is in a deadlock situation, and you need to make sure that you need to offer a way out of this deadlock. So as a police negotiator, very often I had to negotiate with someone who's about to commit suicide. You know, they're standing there at the high building, showing the world, "I'm ready to jump, I'm ready to die." And then I talk to them, and then you see they're not prepared to die. However, a lot of of people are waiting downstairs, everyone with a smartphone, taking pictures, videos. If it takes too long, they start to scream, "Jump!" And then you talk to them, and then you see they don't want to die, and they don't want to come inside because they will lose their face.
What we did at the police department, we offered a firefighter uniform. We told them, "If you come inside, if you come with us downstairs, we will dress you up looking like a firefighter. You can go downstairs looking like a firefighter. You can go through the crowd looking like a firefighter." So you can get out of this deadlock situation, saving your face. So what you need to do at the end of a negotiation, you need to make sure that your negotiation partner, that they can save their face.
So in summary, if you under pressure, if you don't know what to do, don't start to fight, don't step forward, don't avoid the conflict, don't step back. Stay there. Stay there and say "difficult." You say "difficult," you count to three, you say "Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity," and then you talk about common interest, and then you come up with the new demand. Come up with demands, not with arguments, because arguments are about right or wrong. Demands are about negotiations. At the end, you need the firefighter uniform.
As you know, there are so many negotiations going on. We are based in in Geneva. It's it's really crazy right now. And this is why I would like to ask you to learn how to negotiate under pressure because it's so important. We need you more than ever. Thank you so much.