Transcript

Nolan Martin : Hey everyone, Nolan here. We're gonna continue our conversation with Gary Noesner here on the NEGOTIATEx podcast. If you haven't already listened to Part A of this series, be sure to do that first. Let's jump into the episode. Now, the FBI I'm sure is just like the military, where we start to learn from our mistakes over the years. And so, as we look at the… when you left the FBI's crisis negotiation unit, or if you still have insights into it today, what are some of the key components to the FBI negotiations model and approach to crisis negotiations?

The FBI’s Crisis Negotiation Model [1:45]

Gary Noesner : I mean the first and foremost, and it's the very first words that come out of my mouth when I would teach a negotiation course is self-control.As the negotiator, the person on the phone,there's a whole team supporting you, but as the person on the team, on the phone and the team itself, we have to be able to demonstrate self-control. And we spoke with this just a little while ago. We can't let our own anger or frustrations enter into the dialogue, that that absolutely serves no purpose whatsoever for us. So self-control is big.Slow things down, always think, what can we do that deescalates, lowers the temperature, makes the confrontation, you know, the guy may be a complete jerk, but if he's in his house and he's holding his ex-wife and we are all around him with lights, flashing and tactical uniforms and personnel moving around and helicopters flying overhead, his fear is not paranoia.

I mean, he really has some legitimate concerns about what our objectives are. So, to the extent we don't compromise safety and don't allow the situation to spread beyond where it's confined. Now, what things can we do to lower the escalation, to lower the temperature, to bring us to a point where we can speak more clearly and demonstrate that, Hey, we don't wanna see 'em hurt. We're here to help 'em, we're decent people. And, and so that's part of the philosophy. The other thing, I created in the FBI in the mid-nineties, a thing called behavioral change stairway model, which is widely used. Now, I originally envisioned it as a, as a ladder and my friend, colleague and partner, Steve Romano suggested quite brilliantly that we put it illustrated in a stairway. Well, with the original model said behavioral change is what, what the goal was.

I've since changed to cooperation. I'm not interested in changing this person's life. I'm not trying to make them a better person. I'm trying to get their cooperation right now. So that's my goal. So how do I get to that goal? The step down from that, which you would walk up from is called influence. I've gotta be able to have some influence over him. How do we get influence? Well, the step below that is by establishing some level of rapport. And I have case studies, the first chapter, my book talks about that a little bit. How do we get that rapport? We get that by demonstrating empathy. You know, we're not saying, “yeah, I guess I'd kill my wife too”. No, you know, you're saying, “I understand how you're frustrated by the problems you're having in your marriage.” I'm not saying he's right for doing what he's doing, or he should take further violent action.

I'm just saying, I hear you and I understand.And I'm not just saying, “I hear you”; I'm demonstrating by paraphrasing it back. So to get to that empathy, the bottom step, where we start is our active listening skills.Paraphrasing, open ended questions, minimal encouragers, emotion labels, all the things that we borrowed from the mental health community, counseling community that help us create that relationship. Now, if the negotiator is well trained in this and is sincere and genuine in its projection, you know, it's a highly successful model and I never meant it to be absolute steps. And I've had cops say to me, well, you know, “I passed over that rapport thing. I went right to influence.” I said, “no, no, this is just a [laughs]. I'm not saying you gotta, this is not, shoots and ladders. You know, I mean, this is a,

Aram Donigian : Not a checklist.

GN : Not a checklist. It's a chart. It's a model to demonstrate that what we do as a process us, and it can take a little time. Sometimes it's very quick. And other times it, it could take days or weeks or months, but that's the flow. That's the way it works. So I hope that answers your question, that's the FBI's philosophy. And I would say it's, it's pretty much been adopted by every police department in the country. And every country is in the Western world, certainly that has gotten their training. You know, the FBI runs a two week national crisis negotiation course, which is Scotland. Yard has quite a good course. The Australians do Canadians. Everybody has courses, but I think ours is sort of the premier course, a lot of role playing, a lot of behavioral science, a lot of assessment processes and you know, the dos and don'ts, but we get international officers in every single class, as well as domestic police officers.

And these are typically experienced people. So not only do they learn our methodology, but they can make contributions to the class by telling us about a tough situation they dealt with in Norway or Greece or wherever they come from. You know, you've gotta be, um, a lifelong student into the game as a negotiator. You, you've gotta constantly look at, look and learn. If you get to a point where you think I know it all, there's nothing left for me. You know, maybe it's time to hang up your telephone and go to the Florida Keys.

AD : Hey listen, Gary, you're talking about training. And I think sometimes we hear from people, you can't train this stuff. You can't train active listening and, and empathy and rapport building. You obviously have been doing it. Sowhat do you say to folks who say, “you either have that stuff or you don't”, how do you say “No I can. I can train people to be more effective in these key skills.”

Training Empathy Into A Negotiator [6:45]

GN : I think it is trainable, but not for everyone. I mean, it's a bell curve.At the bottom fourth or something like that,there are people whose personality is such that they're just- this is not their thing. They're just not equipped through experience, training, edge, socialization, whatever, to really be particularly effective at this. Then on the top end, a fourth- and these are just raw guess numbers- there are people that are so natural at this. I remember we had a young FBI agent go through the course many, many years ago, and he's doing role playing the first week. And I listened to him. No training, I was just starting his training and I walk up to him and I said, “you're the best negotiate ever, ever heard in my life. I pale in comparison to you”. He was that good naturally, but that's a few of few and far between.

So that up and down part of the bell that 50% or more people can up their game can learn and, and evolve and improve.Probably in that category myself, you know, or was., I think you have to go into that. There's a lot of training courses that people conduct for police around the country and they provide certification. People always ask, well, the FBI, I wanna go to the certified courses, say we don't certify anybody do anything. We provide you training. I cannot say that Nolan is now gonna be a wonderful negotiator. I've given him my training. I've given him role playing and curriculum and da da, da da, guidance, but I can't guarantee performance. So I don't certify anybody. And I don't think that's necessarily the way to go, but I do think, and I've heard it through feedback for many, many years. Most of the people that come through the negotiation course find it's not only changed their lives, but it's changed their careers. They become better interviewers, better interrogators get along better with their subordinates, with their bosses. And to some extent, even at home. I joke it doesn't work at home, but it does have a bit of applicability. It's just as Mrs. Noesner will go “nananana, don't start that here.”

GN : But48 years I must be doing something right.

AD : There you go.

NM : So Gary, wanna follow up there, thanks for sharing about that, but kind of wanna follow up here.As leaders, you know, this podcast’s all about leaders and really how to utilize this thing. So there's gonna be a gap between one of your subordinate it's that gets training in general and the real world application. So as we look at, you know, as you had just discussed with your agents, going through the training, and then actually utilizing this in the real world, how do you bridge that gap? What are some things that you can do to help them essentially take the skills that they just learned and continue to refine them so that they could be more successful?

AD : And let me add Gary, before you, sorry, before you answer that Gary, these are, I mean, in real life, you're dealing with very disagreeable unlikable sort of people, which is a little different than it may be in training. So adding to kind of Nolan's question, you know, how do you get 'em to do that with these less than savory folks?

GN : Well, we do incorporate that in our training. We stimulate that and we probably err in making people worse than they typically are in real situations. But it goes back to what I said earlier, self-control. You have to, you have to constantly remind the student or that person that you're trying to help improve their skills. We used to say, “don't get even get your way”. I mean, be smart. What's our goal here? There's a great case: A kid took over a high school in Rapid City, South Dakota, many years ago. And the negotiator out there with the police department, we were assisting, I was assisting on the phone and he, perpetrator it's a small town, was grossly insulting the negotiator's wife. I mean, saying some really nasty things. And he just let it be water off a Duck's back. He just didn't let it in.

And after a while, of course, if you make that kind of assault and you don't get a response, you drop it. It's not being effective. You know, it's like a kid that cries for candy. If you give him candy, then they know how to get candy. So, you know, you just have to work through those things, but if you take your job seriously, you wanna mentor the people on your team. So if you think that you have an employee that's not really functioning at their best level, I mean, rather than thinking about just purely criticizing them or removing them or transferring them on, I think you need to sit down with them and hopefully you have the skills to present to them that I'd like to see you succeed. I think you can be much better at this than, than I've been seeing. And here's the ways I think we can help you get there and the kind of exposures and the opportunities and the training you should do to get there.

And I think people appreciate that. And, you know, I had a few people that I hired through the years in the crisis negotiation unit, that weren't my best picks. And they didn't work out to the extent I would've liked, but I always felt good about that. I, I worked very hard at trying to bring them to where they needed to be before. Well, in fact, I never fired anybody but they always sort of deselect themselves. They kind of get the picture that, well, you know, this is really not my thing and they put in for another job and off they go. But I do think you have to, I think the older you get mentoring becomes terribly important and you really have to devote a lot of time and energy to it.Praise your, your folks and recognize them for the work that they've done.

And, you know, we always had this thing in the FBI- some departments differently- where we would never identify the negotiator, you know, there's a successful six kids, Sur you know, released guy surrenders and, you know, Nolan did this and he did a great job negotiating. We just say the negotiation team, we don't bring attention on one negotiator because we share the credit and we share the blame if there's any of that to go around. And I think that helps create a positive team atmosphere that nobody's trying to upstage anyone else. And the other thing I did that may have some relevancy, you know, Waco, we worked12-hour shifts and it's hard in an intense situation for the off going shift to go back to their hotel rooms and get a decent night's sleep because they're scared. We've been working on this deal all day long.

We're gonna go home for an hour. And all of a sudden that's, these guys are gonna get the deal and they're gonna get the credit for it. So I implemented a plan where I said, “Listen, go back to your hotels. We have your phone numbers. If anything of significance develops, like they decide they're gonna surrender. We're gonna call you up and have you coming in so we can share this success together. And we're gonna let you know about that.” And that allows them to go home and get the rest they need. And conversely, they make that same promise to the next shift. So it's things like that I think you have to do to keep the working as a cohesive team.

AD : You know, can you talk a little bit more about team? I think most folks who listen to us probably think of negotiation as kind of an individual sport. I prep on my own. I negotiate on my own. Maybe I get some guidance. If I'm doing an in corporate setting, I get some guidance ahead of time. Maybe review it. FBI does a lot in the team framework, what are those roles on the FBI's negotiation team? Why is that so important to what you do?

The Importance Of Teamwork In A Crisis Negotiation [13:49]

GN : The number of roles obviously varies depending on the complexity of the situation. I mean an incident like Waco, you might have 12 negotiators per shift. maybe a more routine situation. You can have two or three people, but we never negotiate alone. Always have what we call a coach. And we like some people call it the secondary. We like the word coach because it implies what that person's active role is passing notes, giving a thumbs up, pat on the shoulder, being supportive to the primary negotiator and being ready to step in. If we find there's a need for a change, but we have people keeping a log. We, we have people keeping situation boards. We have somebody in charge of recording the negotiations for evidence and for playback, we'll usually have a behavioral profile or sign to the team to give us some outside objective assessment of not only the individual we're dealing with, but how we're engaging with them.

And then I always had a rule between calls;we sit down as a team before anybody goes to bathroom and goes get dinner, whatever, we sit down and say, okay, what did everybody hear? What do you think is this line working? Should we stick with this? Do we need to make a change? You know, and you have to do that in a fairly organized way and you can't spend forever doing that, but you have to be ready with what your neck steps gonna be. Because in some of these cases, the guy will initiate the next call and you don't know when it's coming in and you can't say, “Holy crap, the guy's calling in. And we haven't even talked about the last call yet.”So we've gotta really look at what we've done and provide inputs. And I, and I'll give you an example, sorry, I keep saying Waco, but keeps coming up because I'm involved in another project on that.

But there was a brand new FBI negotiator who was only there because he was from, I think the Dallas FBI office. So he drove up to be part of the team. And I hardly remembered this guy from the training, but we're sitting around having one of these after call assessment sessions. And he comes up with an idea and the idea was essentially of the children that had been released, why don't we videotape that and send it back in to show the mothers number one, that the kids are still here waiting for you. And number two, that they're being well treated. And as soon as I heard it, you know, I jokingly said, “I was just gonna say that”. And of course, everybody laughed and knew I was being self-deprecating[laughs], but it showed me, and I've always remembered that; here's this person with no actual operational exposure in the past yet you've created an atmosphere where he felt comfortable enough with these grizzled, very senior negotiators in the FBI to offer a thought and opinion that ended up being quite a crucial one. I won't go into the long story, but it was a very important point and all from this young negotiator.And to me, that's the essence of teamwork.

AD : That's a great example. I love the example and I, and I also have to just comment. I love the quest. What did everyone hear? Cuz inevitably we all heard something different.What a great question has to team members.

GN : And that's why we record the negotiations too, because sometimes we'll, if it's a two-hour conversation that becomes problematic, but we've talked to 'em for 15 minutes. We said, let's play the tape again. Let's listen to this more carefully, more thoughtfully. And oftentimes somebody will pick up on something, “did you hear him say that?” No, I didn't. I didn't pick up on that the first time.What we're trying to do is leverage our collective experience, knowledge assessment capabilities against this one particular person that we're dealing with on the phone. You know, so we're trying to maximize our advantage in that regard and you know, it's the right way to go.

NM : So, Gary I know your son was a Navy Seal. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend some time in special operations community. So we all know the hasty aspect towards, you know, something that arises. I know that that is something as a crisis negotiator that you dealt with pretty much your whole career. So as Aram and I love to talk about the essence, the important of preparation, how did you prepare when something just kicks off? And you're definitely limited on the amount of information you have and, and everything to, to essentially put together the game plan to move forward.

Preparation Through Information Gathering And Technology [17:55]

GN : You start off by collecting information. I mean literally the day of the fire at Waco, I was not out there at the time I was back at FBI headquarters, but my boss says there's a prison riot in Ohio. And that's where you're going tomorrow. So, you know, from the fire to the fire pan, no pun intended. And while I'm out there ready, I'm gathering what information they've provided me. And I'm beginning to assess what the problems and issues might be and what alter. So I begin to think about it. You know, if it's a domestic police officer, you can start this process by saying, okay, where am I going? Am I going to a bank, probably a robber. Am I going to an industrial park, probably a workplace violenceincident? Am I going to a school? Am I going to a tenant to build probably a domestic situation? You know, am I going to a hospital, might be a mental patient. You know, you begin to think about different possibilities. It doesn't mean you're not gonna be flexible enough to make alterations in your strategy. But I think that assessment process kicks off right away. And you add to it or detract from it as more information comes in, but mean, it's just always the way I've operated. And I, I think it's not a bad way to go.

NM : Oh, that's great. Thank you for sharing that.

AD : You know, Gary technology has changed so much in the last 30 years. How is that impacting these types of negotiations and the ability of agents to engage with communicate or even- I guess the ability that everyone has a phone and now there's onlookers and spectators that are posting images and stuff. Thoughts about the impact of technology they're both challenges or opportunities?

GN : Well, there no question there's challenges. And, and fortunately for me, you know, I've been retired almost 19 years. We didn't have those challenges to the extent they do now. We were able to, let's say a guy's inan office building or a bank holding hostages. We in the past could very quickly capture the phones and prevent the media from calling in, or prevent him from calling out and saying goodbye to his mom or whatever it is that we wouldn't want to happen. Now with cell phones, we've got to, you know, we can shut down a cell so nobody can call, but decisions have to be made. And sometimes it's easier for the FBI technologically to deal with that than it is for a small police department that doesn't have those liaisons with the various communications companies. But no, I think it's tough. And then there have been negotiations over the internet, you know, and you got the ransomware stuff. I mean I don't claim to have particular expertise in any of that, but these are new challenges. And I think it's only gonna increase and law enforcement, the military's certainly gonna have to adapt to these and find the most effective ways to counter 'em.

AD : All right. So everything up to this point, Gary has been, those have been the soft all pitches. This is now we're gonna pick up the speed. You're a career negotiator. And, you know, I guess my question is, do you, do you have an example you could share of a failure, something you learned from personally and what were couple of the key lessons learned from, from that failure? Tough question.

GN : Not really. I'm often asked the toughest and easiest one and they're pretty easy for me because they're, I hate to keep referring back to it, but Waco obviously is the most traumatic and difficult situation for a whole range of reasons. You combine a, a narcissistic manipulative character in, in David Karesh, extremely difficult to deal with.The television show, I was involved in that, but I was also a bit disappointed and I think they portrayed him a little as a nicer guy than he was in real life.He is very challenging to deal with. So the way that evolved, I left halfway through, we had gotten all 35 people out when I was sent back. They decided to take a more combative, more confrontational approach and nobody else came back, came out for this whole second hand.

Now I take no satisfaction in that, but it sort of validated that what we were doing as negotiators was the right strategy and not the more aggressive one, and then the FBI made significant changes after Waco, relative to that. So Waco is the biggest disappointment.There's people say, well, it was never gonna end any differently. And, no one else was coming out, you know, and that makes you feel good about the disaster that, well, you know, we might have made some mistakes, but it didn't really matter.I don't believe that.My job is to get everybody out alive that I can, I'm quite certain in my mind, we could have gotten quite a few more people out if some of the things we were, progressing on had not been thwarted by overly aggressive tactical moves.

So that's the worst case for me. The best happened three years later when we had a hundred, excuse me, an 85-day siege in Montana with an anti-government group called, the Freemen. And now we had a new director of the FBI Louis Free, and Louis Free basically says, “Gary, tell us the strategy. How are we gonna do this?” And now we had, at the highest levels of the FBI, a very knowledgeable engaged leader who was very concerned. He said, we're in no rush for this stand. I want us to do it the right way. And we did it the right way. Took 85 days. No shots fired. Everybody came out, no PR disaster, no reputational damage to the organization that I love so much. So all these good things accrued from that. Yeah, it costs a lot of money, but what does the lawsuit cost or multiple lawsuits like we had in Waco?Again, the reputational damage can never, can never be fully repaired.

So I would say as bookends Waco representing the worst case, because it violated so many things we had believed and taught for years. I always told people, Waco was not so much that we didn't know what to do. It was a departure from doing what we knew what to do by decision makers. So Waco being the worst and then the best would be that Montana situation and the testimony that was Montana. Nobody knows about it, fell off the radar screen, you know, no fires, no, no drama, right? No major criticism, the outfit, but that's fine. That's what we're supposed to do.

AD : Well, thanks for, thanks for that. Yeah. Too often to the success is get lost, right?

GN : Yeah. And that's fine.

NM : Hey, Gary, as we start to wrap this thing up, are there really any other key considerations for our listeners on how they can approve their negotiation skills and abilities?

Key Takeaways [24:12]

GN : Yeah. I think we need to remember that listening is the cheapest concession.Us three men, you know, we're married and our wives come to us with a problem:our initial instinct is to solve that problem. Well, you tell your boss this, or you tell her so and so, and in reality, our wives, aren't looking for our guidance on what action to take. Theyjust want us to listen and understand, and appreciate how the situation they're discussing affected them and how it made 'em feel. And I think we have to really focus on that. I try now, you know, when my kids were growing up, I think I was a decent dad, but I was gone a lot. My kids would say I was a good dad, but I know I could have been better, but I have seven grandkids now.

And I, of course I have more time now. So when I'm around my seven grandkids, I really try to drop everything I'm doing and listen to them. And it's just amazing how powerful that is for relationship building. You know, when you really devote the time on meaningless unimportant discussion, they're not looking for guidance. They're looking for your time. That's all they want. It’s a cheap thing we can do. You know, Steven Coy, the business guru says first seek to understand, and then to be understood, which is a great line. So before we can begin to share with someone our views and our thoughts and concerns, let's take the time to listen to what they have to say. I mean, in our very heated political discourse in this country, these days, we don't do enough of that. We shout at each other and we don't listen and acknowledge a different point of view. And that's unfortunate, but I think we'd all be better off if we did.

NM : Absolutely agreed. Hey Gary, I just wanna say first, thank you so much for joining us on today's podcast. You know, this is a podcast as all about elevating your influence through purposeful negotiations. And I think a ton of things that you share today that, I mean, this is definitely one of those episodes that we're gonna have to listen two, three times to still pull out everything that you're able to pack in here. So, you know, I sincerely thank you. And I kind of wanna turn it over to Aram here to kind of discuss some of these key takeaways that, that you’re able to bring up in, in these series of podcasts.

GN : Let me say something real quick. You remember the old boy scout code, trustworthy, loyal, helpful friend, courteous kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. I remember that from being a boy scout, but, you know, as a negotiator, as a business leader, as a boss- be sincere, be genuine, be interested, be truthful show and empathy and understanding. And it's, it's such a powerful tool that it really is quite surprising that more people don't understand it's it's power and its application. You know, we're all anxious to say what we wanna say when we should really try to subvert that a little bit and say, let, let me understand this person first and see what their point of view is before I get to I'll get my turn to share my views on this. And I'll leave you the one word that I found in the last 10 years that I focus on. That's the primary skill of a successful negotiator, and you may laugh, but it's the word likability, just be a likable person. What makes somebody likable? We could have different definitions, but you know, it's that person that, you know, socially or at work that you just like this person, they're a decent human being. They listen to you. They're engaging, they're thoughtful, they're considerate. I mean, if we were all likable, the world would be a better place.

AD : I sure would. Well, Gary, I, I just wanna add my thanks. That was a great way to summarize. And I wanna congratulate you on 48 years of marriage, seven grandchildren.As you look at legacy, that's, that's a tremendous legacy along with what you are continuing to do in the negotiation field and for leaders around the globe. So thank you for that. Thanks for joining with us. It's a Nolan's kind of question, you know, so, or a point so many great takeaways. Here's my three. We need to be more nimble and creative thinkers organizations need to have clear goals and communicate what they're trying to accomplish. That's gonna enhance negotiations and we all should become lifelong students of the game. We're never to learn some new things. And I, I can certainly say I've learned some more today and it's good to reconnect up a little more than a decade. Let's not let it be another decade, Gary, until, until I see you again,

GN : Happy to help you guys any time. And I think that's a pretty good summary that you came up with there. So enjoyed being on the program with you too. Thanks.

NM : Gary,thank you. So, if you haven't already be sure to pick up your copy of Stalling For Time by Gary Noesner, just an awesome book. Audio book is also very good. Aram knows I'm a huge audio book nerd, and that's how I consume most of my books. So audio book is also highly recommended. If you haven't already please rate, review and subscribe to the podcast, it helps us grow greatly. Appreciate it. Let's see you in the next episode.