The Push


Now that you know exactly what you want, what’s negotiable and what’s not, and what the alternative is, it’s time to draw up a plan. You want to know how you’re going to push.

While your exact style is going to differ depending on your personality, there’s a general shape that every negotiation follows: establish rapport, get information, work on the deal. At this point, you want to think how and where you’re going to do this.

In a hostage situation, the negotiator will start by trying to put the subject at ease and build up a rapport. More than likely the rest of the team is still gathering intelligence, and the negotiator is helping this phase along, taking stock of the subject’s personality.

The negotiator’s first goal is to lay the groundwork for the rest of the negotiation. He’ll listen actively—a concept we’ll touch on down the road—and solicit information that will be helpful in shaping the rest of the negotiations.

At this stage he may avoid mentioning hostages, deadlines, anything that doesn’t contribute to the building up of the rapport. (And as a matter of fact, he never calls them hostages; instead he may ask how many people are inside, emphasizing that these are human beings, not things or bargaining chips.) He won’t go into the specifics of his position—won’t say what’s negotiable and non-negotiable. The focus should be on the hostage taker and establishing rapport.

For this to work, the negotiator has to be—or at a minimum appear to be—nonjudgmental. He doesn’t approve of what the subject has done, but he is respectful of the other person and is interested in his or her emotions. In a hostage situation, the subject may ventilate a bit, and the negotiator listens. To use the pop psychology lingo, the negotiator may validate the emotions so he can move onto more logical problem solving as the session continues.

I can’t tell you how important it is to let the subject ventilate during a hostage situation. It gives the negotiator all sorts of important information. A subject venting talks not only about the problem, but often what we can do to resolve it. We listen, we learn, we respond.

Same thing in an everyday negotiation. Granted, the person on the other side of the table probably won’t be ranting about what’s important. But he or she will tell you what they want—and if they don’t, encourage them to do so.

On a five-man negotiating team, the backup/coach negotiator monitors this process, helping the primary negotiator stay away from trigger words that may provoke a bad emotional reaction, while at the same time picking up on key things the subject says that reveal information about his state of mind and his demands. On a one-man team, of course, this has to be done by the negotiator himself, and that’s why having an outline of the direction of the negotiation before talks begin can be very useful.




Negotiate and Win. Proven Strategies from the NYPD's Top Hostage Negotiator
Negotiate and Win: Proven Strategies from the NYPDs Top Hostage Negotiator
ISBN: 0071737774
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 180

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