Expert explains how he uses FBI negotiator skills in business deals

December 2, 2023

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Former hostage negotiator Chris Voss talks about negotiation skills on Day 3 of the F3: Future of Freight Festival in Chattanooga, Tennessee. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — When it comes to a negotiation, Chris Voss said he never focuses on goals but instead on the process of getting the best outcome possible.

“Never be so sure of what you want that you wouldn’t take something better. The more focused you are on a prize, the more likely it is you’re going to miss a better opportunity,” said Voss, a former FBI lead hostage negotiator and authority on high-stakes negotiation, at FreightWaves’ F3: Future of Freight Festival. “That’s why I’m much more process-focused than I am goal-focused. Goals are limiting. Goals give you tunnel vision. Goals put blinders on you.”

Voss was joined on stage Thursday by FreightWaves CEO and founder Craig Fuller, who hosted the keynote discussion, titled, “Success in business (particularly in freight) is dependent upon negotiation.”

Voss is the CEO and founder of The Black Swan Group, as well as the author of “Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It” and “The Full Fee Agent: How to Stack the Odds in Your Favor as a Real Estate Professional.”

Voss said an example of how focusing too much on a single goal could limit negotiations was a bank robbery situation with hostages in Brooklyn where he almost missed a crucial opportunity.

“My goal is to get the bad guy to release hostages,” Voss said. “But one of my negotiators on my team, who had been listening to my conversation with the [robber], hands me a note that says, ‘Ask him if he wants to come out.’”

Voss said he asked the robber if he wanted to come out, to which he instantly replied, “I don’t know how to do it.”

“His answer was a great big giant ‘Yes, get me away from here. I want out of here now,’” Voss said. “I was so focused on getting hostages out, a member of my team heard something else in the conversation that I had completely missed. That taught me early on, the more focused you are on what you want, the more likely it is you’re going to miss a better deal.”

Voss said they eventually found a way to get the robber to surrender and release the hostages.

“There’s always a better deal: always, always, always,” Voss said. “You don’t know what it is, and it might just be in how we pay for something, how we implement something.”

Voss said negotiators have to be honest, which applies to deals people try to make in business.

“Hostage negotiation is just about establishing a working relationship as quickly as possible, that somebody will do what they say, and then not resent having done it,” Voss said. “Everybody wants to feel good about the deal that they made instead of resenting it.”

Fuller asked Voss how to deal with a situation in which someone is emotionally charged up. Get the person to come “into a place where they can have a logical or reasonable sort of conversation?” Fuller asked.

“You have to show empathy. Just making sure people feel heard, 75% of the friction in the deal is going to immediately go away,” Voss said. “Everybody that I coach, we get deals faster than anybody else does, because we make people feel heard, and they’re less annoyed, and then consequently, everything that follows goes much more quickly.”

Voss said a good way to start any negotiation is by listening to someone’s tone of voice.

“I’m actually going to start off by noting your tone of voice: Do you sound like you’re in a good mood? Do you sound like you have a lot on your mind? Tell them, ‘Sounds like your boss is probably annoying you,’” Voss said. “If I’m willing to listen and hear what you have to say, even if I miss the exact meaning of your tone, you’re gonna appreciate the fact that I was trying.”

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