Chapter 8: The Two Ds: Demands And Deadlines

To the skilled negotiator, demands and deadlines are like diamonds: your best friends.

Most people tend to get paranoid about two things in negotiations: demands and deadlines. Hostage negotiators are trained never to use those two words. We avoid talking about deadlines—ours or theirs—and we don’t make demands. We have points that are non-negotiable, of course; we’re never going to give the bad guy a gun, for instance. But we don’t present them as demands. We don’t need to make the people we’re dealing with any more squirrelly than they already are.

On the other hand, we welcome both demands and deadlines. They are valuable tools as we work toward a resolution in the negotiating crisis. If the other side gives you a list of demands—they won’t use that word, of course—and a deadline, jump for joy.