Thursday, June 20, 2019

Tactical Empathy

“Imagine yourself in your counterpart’s situation. The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas (you may well find them crazy). But by acknowledging the other person’s situation, you immediately convey that you are listening."
Chris Voss from his book "Never Split the Difference; Negotiating as if your life depended on it"

I am trying to learn different ways to express myself so that I feel that I am, if not understood, at least heard. And I've discovered another of those paradoxes in life.... that I need to make the other person feel heard before they can hear me. Ha! Listen before we talk, what a novel thing... imagine!

I am part way through listening to this book and I am recommending it to everyone! 
The skills in this book can be applied to negotiating with everyone from our children, our parents, partners, sales people, bosses to ourselves lol.
(It is on Audible as audio book and also in print, I'm reading both ways)

Check out Chris Voss's TED talk: FBI hostage negotiator/comedian

Chris Voss is the CEO & Founder of the Black Swan Group Ltd

Author of Never Split The Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It.

He has used his many years of experience in international crisis and high-stakes negotiations to develop a unique program and team that applies these globally proven techniques to the business world.
Prior to 2008, Chris was the lead international kidnapping negotiator for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the FBI’s hostage negotiation representative for the National Security Council’s Hostage Working Group. During his government career, he also represented the U.S. Government at two (2) international conferences sponsored by the G-8 as an expert in kidnapping. Prior to becoming the FBI lead international kidnapping negotiator, Christopher served as the lead Crisis Negotiator for the New York City Division of the FBI. Christopher was a member of the New York City Joint Terrorist Task Force for 14 years.  He was the case agent on such cases as TERRSTOP (the Blind Sheikh Case – Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman), the TWA Flight 800 catastrophe and negotiated the surrender of the first hostage taker to give up in the Chase Manhattan bank robbery hostage taking.
During Chris’s 24 year tenure in the Bureau, he was trained in the art of negotiation by not only the FBI but Scotland Yard and Harvard Law School. He is also a recipient of the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Law Enforcement and the FBI Agents Association Award for Distinguished and Exemplary Service.
Chris has taught business negotiation in the MBA program as an adjunct professor at University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business and at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.  He has taught business negotiation at Harvard University, guest lectured at The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, The IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland and The Goethe School of Business in Frankfurt, Germany. Since 2009 Christopher has also worked with Insite Security as their Managing Director of the Kidnapping Resolution Practice.

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