The Three Jobs in Negotiating

The ideal hostage negotiation team consists of five people: the commander, the primary negotiator, the backup or coach negotiator, the scribe, and the floater. Each has his or her own role to play during negotiations. The primary negotiator negotiates. The backup/coach offers suggestions and moves in when the first negotiator needs a break. The scribe keeps track of what’s going on. The commander makes the decisions. The floater runs errands. (We call him a floater because “gofer” doesn’t sound glamorous enough, though that’s what he is—hey, somebody’s got to run for the pizza.)

Each person on the team corresponds to a different task common to all negotiations. Each task is different, requiring a different set of skills and even a different “head” or mind-set. Most of us can do without pizza, and even large departments must sometimes forgo the luxury of having a backup negotiator nearby, but the other three jobs represent critical functions in any successful negotiation. Even if one person is handling all three roles, he or she must be aware that these critical jobs are all different:

• Negotiate

• Keep track of what is going on

• Decide

All of these jobs are equally important. All come into play during every negotiation—even the one you’ll have tonight with your spouse over what television show to watch. Even if you’re a one-man negotiating team—especially if you’re a one-man negotiating team—it pays to remember that concluding a successful negotiation requires three different activities.

Which brings us to a key truth about negotiations:

Roles must be clearly defined and considered before negotiating.

Which usually translates as:

The negotiator is NOT the decision maker.
The decision maker is NOT the negotiator.
Out of my kitchen, you crazy fool.

If you have a civics class bent, you can think of it as a separation of powers. It’s critical in hostage negotiation, and it’ll work for you every day as well.

A lot of people understand that the roles of the scribe, say, and the negotiator are different. But they get hung up on the separation between the negotiator and the commander. They figure if they’re in charge, they should be the one running their mouth. It can be a real ego thing, worse than me and my superhero hang-up.

Separation is critical to ensure objectivity in decision making. And it can also be a useful tactic. Separating the final decision maker—call him (or her) “the boss”—from the negotiator gives the negotiator one more tool to work with. You can use it to build rapport with the other side: You and I are working on this problem together, then we’ll deal with the boss. You can use the commander as the bad guy:

“Gee, you know, if it were up to me, I’d wheel that getaway car right up to the door for you, fill the tank with gasoline and stuff the trunk with hundred dollar bills, but the boss, he won’t go for it. . . .”

Or to give a more familiar example:

“I really want to pay through the nose for that car, but the wife . . .”

But the separation of roles isn’t just a tactical thing. It keeps the negotiator from making a bad decision, or a bad deal.

There is a tendency during some negotiations—even with bad guys—to get into a situation where you want to please the other side. You actually start liking the person. That can make you lose sight of your goals in the negotiations. Having to refer to someone else counteracts this.