How to Listen Like a Hostage Negotiator
Hostage negotiations are often literally a matter of life and death, so professionals trained to handle them really know how to listen. While it’s unlikely you’ll ever need to convince someone to come out with their hands up, there are times when we need to push ourselves to be the best listeners, which is a huge part of a hostage negotiator’s job.
Journalist Masada Siegel interviewed Glenn Cohen, who served as the IDF hostage negotiator. As stated in her story for the Wall Street Journal, there are five steps to hostage negotiations . It is active listening, empathy, mutual understanding and influence that leads to the biggest thing: behavioral change (i.e., successful surrender). Cohen says the biggest mistake anyone makes is skipping the first four and trying to get the invader to act differently before listening to him.
“In an unstable situation, when someone’s life is at stake, there can be no shortcuts. You must hear how the hostage taker is charged emotionally and physically.
“He has a purpose, so you have to listen to him and understand what he wants to achieve,” said Mr. Cohen. “As a negotiator, you are looking for a win-win situation, and the hostage-taker needs a chance to blow off steam as their adrenaline is pumping and they are in the moment. If they do not relieve their demands, they will not have the ability to hear and consider behavior change. ”
So what does active listening entail from a negotiator’s point of view?
Defer logic
If you think of someone with whom you regularly argue and laugh at how illogical they are, stop; you’re illogical too. Most of us are upset. Someone taking people hostage may actually be a sane, albeit extreme, person. Couldn’t. But their cognitive abilities are definitely impaired by the situation, and the same thing happens to everyone in an argument.
In an interview, former FBI international hostage negotiator Chris Voss told Eric Barker that it is a huge mistake to try to demand logic from someone when they are upset:
This is an attempt to be completely dispassionate and rational, and this is a fiction about negotiation. Humans are incapable of being rational no matter what … So, instead of pretending that emotion does not exist during negotiations, hostage negotiators have actually developed an approach that takes emotions fully into account and uses them to influence situations. which is reality. negotiations are underway
Explaining to someone why they are wrong and that your point of view is correct based on logic is not listening, and it is almost never helpful.
Recognize emotions
People get more upset when they feel they are not being heard or misunderstood. According to Jeff Thompson, who was once a crisis negotiation researcher at Columbia University Law School and now at New York University, it helps to acknowledge someone’s feelings , whether or not you feel justified:
It is important to understand the speaker’s emotions. Revealing a person’s emotions confirms what they are feeling, rather than downplaying it. During negotiations, people can act with their emotions rather than from a more cognitive point of view. By identifying and acknowledging your emotions, it helps restore balance.
It is important to label without judgment . Barker gives a good example in an article for The Ladders, taken from Crisis Negotiation, Fourth Edition: Managing Critical Incidents and Hostage Situations in Law Enforcement and Correctional Services :
A good use of the emotional label would be, “You are in great pain to be dumped. It doesn’t seem fair. ” because he recognizes feelings without judging them.
A bad way to label emotions is to acknowledge what someone is feeling and then tell them why they shouldn’t feel that way, or tell them how to avoid those feelings. You don’t necessarily agree with anyone; you are just trying to understand their point of view.
Point out that you are listening and repeat
When someone speaks, they want to see that you are listening. Even nodding or saying simple phrases like yes and good will tell you what you are doing. It also encourages them to keep talking, which gives you a better understanding of the situation. Open-ended questions will further encourage them by relieving tension.
You can also clarify and simplify their position by repeating it. Thompson says this is called “reflection” or “reflection” and it may even be just a few words at the end of a sentence:
When the person has finished speaking, mirroring and mirroring is a much shorter option than paraphrasing because it involves repeating the person’s last words. If the person concludes by saying, “… and it really pissed me off,” you say, “It really pissed you off.”
Another trick is to paraphrase in your own words what you think the other person said – again, without judgment! It is the listener’s job to simply understand where someone else came from. What you decide to do with this information is a completely different step in the conversation.
Updated January 14 to reflect Jeff Thompson is no longer associated with Columbia University.