Scott Tillema is an FBI-trained hostage negotiator and active law enforcement officer. Scott teaches organizations how to use the power of life-saving negotiation principles to enhance their work. He has developed a powerful model for safely resolving crisis situations, which is now being recognized and adapted by the private sector for use in sales, communication, influence, and leadership.

We talk on the show about a systematic way to build connection and influence with people. Scott shares some intense stories about how he builds connections in life and death situations.

You can book Scott for a speaking engagement by visiting his website at: https://www.scotttillema.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

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Welcome.

Welcome.

Welcome to the last 10%.

I am Dallas Burnett.

I am in Rob studios sitting in my 1905 Koch brothers, barber chair,

but more importantly, we have today.

Scott Tillema awesome guest.

We're gonna talk a lot about communication because we have

a communication expert with us.

He's an FBI trained hostage, negotiator co-founder of The Negotiations Collective.

He's a keynote speaker, I mean, and just all around.

Great guy.

So welcome.

Hey Dallas, how are you?

Great to be with you on the last 10% podcast?

Absolutely,

Absolutely.

Thanks for being here . Well I just, I know everybody's after that intro

is just wondering, how did you get into doing what you're doing?

Like what tell us about what you're doing today in terms of hostage negotiations

and how you got to, to where you are.

Yeah, thank you.

I'm an active duty law enforcement officer in the Chicago area.

I've got 20 years of experience in the field.

One of my more interesting assignments that I've had in my career, I

was trained by the FBI in 2007 in crisis and hostage negotiation.

And I worked for one of the largest regional SWAT teams in the country

as a crisis and a hostage negotiator.

And it's a very interesting line of work that kind of brings together law enforce.

Communication persuasion, influence and really, really interesting conversations

with people in really critical moments.

And to answer your question, how I get into this, my educational background

is in behavioral science for undergrad, got a master's in psychology.

So I'm really interested.

In what people do, why they think, what they think and more

importantly, how we can move them in the direction that we want to go.

And doing this work was a lot of fun.

You become a bit of an adrenaline junkie because every time the phone

rings that it's life or death, it's truly, you're having conversations.

Really intense moments.

And I trust that hopefully a lot of your listeners are not leading these types

of conversations, but all of us are having these difficult conversations,

these impactful conversations that really Need some structure and need

some guidance and people avoid them.

And we're afraid of them because we're, we know that there's consequence to

these conversations and particularly you do a lot of work in leadership.

So for your leadership people out there, when you go into these conversations,

do you have a vision of how it's going to go or are we just kind of

swinging at defenses and, and hoping for good things and what I'm doing

now in my work, as co-founder with The Negotiations Collective, we offer.

Training and education for people in leadership roles on how to have these

difficult conversations, how to be persuasive, how to be influential, how

to make more money and, and get more things and make life a little bit easier.

Oh,

that's awesome.

And I think you're so.

On point with that, because I mean, as a leader, as a coach, as, as

someone who's running a business or an organization, it it's, it's almost like

there's, there's this spectrum either.

We're not afraid to have a difficult conversation.

And we go in like a bull in a China shop, and then we just kind of leave

with a lot of collateral damage.

just everywhere.

Or, you know, maybe we are on the other side of the spectrum and we.

Tend to avoid those conversations at all costs.

And then we, we still end up having collateral damage.

That's not as visible as more attention, underlying tension or

manipulation and all these things.

And so I love how you say that.

There's a way, and it's almost like, Hey, we need to have a plan and an approach.

If, if you want to lead a team or lead an organization, I think having an approach

and a plan as it relates to this difficult communication is absolutely necessary.

Absolutely.

Yeah, for sure.

For sure.

You have to have a, a structure.

And I've learned over many years of being engaged in these conversations

that there there's different models, there's different approaches.

The FBI teaches the behavioral change staircase model, and that's

kind of the gold standard and hostage and crisis negotiation.

And it's not a classified thing.

Any of your listeners can put that into Google and look.

And, and talk about that and learn about that.

There's books written about the, the FBI approach.

And I just see it a little bit differently.

It's been around for 30 years.

I think communication has evolved the way we connect with people has evolved.

And I really think that it's important that what you see is all there is I

think that's a, a really important concept to say, I see a stairway and

a lot of people were starting at the bottom and I tell the high performers,

your job is to get to the top, to get to the top stair five stairs up.

And a lot of people rush to the top where they skip stairs and they trying

to get right to the fifth step here.

And when I teach.

Hostage negotiations, conflict resolution, crisis negotiations.

I show a visual of a circle and I say the circle represents

the bond that we are creating.

We're trying to form a connection with somebody.

And I see this over and over again.

We do training reality based training scenarios with law enforcement officers.

And I'll jump out of a car and I'll be holding a knife to a neck,

screaming at them and, and I let them know, Hey, I'm not afraid of you.

I want to die.

Their focus is only on the behavioral change, which is the very top

stare, which is drop the knife, drop the knife, put the knife down.

I order you to drop the knife.

Oh, okay.

Well, fantastic.

It's not working.

Why not?

And when I change your perspective to say your goal, isn't to try to

change my behavior, which is what everybody in society is doing.

We're trying to sell you and market you.

And we're all trying to get this influence.

I say your goal is to form a bond with this person, your goal.

To connect with this person.

And once we have this mindset shift, now, all of a sudden

we start listening to them.

We start giving some thought, not only to what we say, but how we're saying it.

And once we start focusing on, I wanna connect with you Dallas.

I want to see how you see it.

I wanna learn what your concerns are.

Now.

We become really powerful because I think that our power in negotiations comes from.

Information and options.

And once we start putting these things together, we learn, Hey, we can be

really powerful and really influential.

So I take a very different approach to crisis negotiations, and I found

that this same approach can be used to be effective in customer service.

And in leadership and in sales, because we are trying to get someone else to go where

we want them to go in an ethical manner.

That's not manipulative.

And a lot of people in a lot of different fields are finding success with this.

And I think it's fascinating to say we're all dealing with people.

Hmm.

I'm not negotiating with a major corporation.

I'm negotiating with a person who has emotions and a thought

process and decision making that is somewhat predictable.

Well, I

think.

Amazing.

I'm, I'm very curious to see if you've gotten a lot of pushback, whether it's

in your training or whether it's whether it's on actual on the job, but like that,

that approach is, is definitely unique.

And it's it's definitely not intuitive to a lot of, a lot of

people that you would first start.

I mean, in one sense, it's like common sense, but on the other

side, it's not common behavior.

You know, so, so what, what I've seen in.

Some in situations where we're going in, in a, in a coaching way, and we're

trying to train on coaching, we'll see the pushback and somebody will say, Hey,

listen I can get this person to do what I wanna do just by being transactional.

I'm just gonna tell 'em.

And it's kinda like what your example was.

It's like you're working on that behavior at the end.

It's almost like a tactical approach at the end versus working on the front side

and going and, and going with connection.

Have you had a lot of pushback from people or, or any kind of you.

I don't know, just kind of in, in terms of when you're sharing that with, with

your trainees, you're sharing that

with,

well, my first question is, is what you're doing right now.

Working.

If it's working for you, then keep doing it.

Who might to tell you that in your field?

I am the expert because I'm not, I don't know the technicalities of

most of the work that people do.

So.

If you have a system that's working great do it.

But a lot of folks aren't trained in this type of thing.

And they're, they're challenged to say here's a script that

I have, and it's about me.

It's about my product, why I'm so interesting and why

you should care about me.

And we're seeing a change in our society right now, even

over the last year or two, that.

People are empowered.

The, the companies don't have the control that they used to.

And the command and control leadership approach is no longer

working that people feel the, I, I have the right to work from home.

I, I don't have to do this.

And what we're seeing right now is a really big push on.

An autonomy trigger.

Yes.

We feel that over the last couple years, we have been told what to

do, and this is pressing on our autonomy.

So what used to be, I'm gonna tell you what to do, and then you have

to do this and you have to comply.

No, I don't need to do this.

I don't need to work at this company.

I don't need to wear a mask.

I don't need to have this vaccine.

I don't need to not work in the office.

I do need to work from the office.

I need to send my kids to school.

I don't need to send my kids to school.

And we're, we're getting a lot of pushback because I think people are

frustrated of being told what to do.

And especially in a free society in the us where we traditionally have the

freedoms to do largely whatever we want.

This is becoming tiresome for people.

And now we're getting that pushback to say, I want the

autonomy to do what I want.

So the high pressure sales I'm going.

Tell you what to do, you have to do this?

I don't think is working with people much longer.

So we have to take a different approach.

And I think the idea of building a relationship, building a connection

with them and allowing them the freedom to choose what they want to do next

is very, very different from you have to do this because ultimately I.

Pressure you into doing something and you might agree to do it begrudgingly.

You might agree to do it.

Ultimately, they're going to have to put this into play.

They're actually going to have to do this.

And if somebody's not willingly a partner with you, how likely

are they to want to do this?

Right.

And are you going to get a good product?

Do you have a strong agreement or not?

And your proof is in the pudding.

You're gonna have somebody who tells you.

Yes.

And they're really not gonna go along with it.

They're gonna say yes.

Just to get ready.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think too, I love, I love the direction you're going with

that because we're experiencing.

No matter what the organization, no matter the business, we're going through

this period of the great resignation.

And I think that it's for a lot of different reasons, but, you know,

working from home and all the COVID that situations that we've had to go through,

just people are in a different place now.

And I think that one of the challenges, I think that a lot of organizations

face is they, they kind of got caught.

Not knowing exactly.

Like, I think everybody took their eye off the ball because it's like,

okay, we gotta figure out how we can work remotely because you know, of

all the, you know, outside stuff that, that that's going on with COVID they,

we moved remote and now it's like, yes, but, but you, you have lost a

relational component of face to face.

So how, if you're not, if you weren't really doing a good job of connecting

with your, you know, team members before.

Man, how, how much worse is it now that you're not even face to face,

that you can't even see 'em in the hall or see 'em in the office or in

the break room or anything like that and build these relational connections.

So I think your message of connection is even more important now that

there that are more people working remotely, because it is more difficult

to connect with someone, you know, through a screen versus in person.

And and, but, and yet we have to be really intentional about.

Of course.

And so people ask me then, then how do we do this?

It's more than, Hey, I want to connect with you.

I wanna bond with you.

I think the first step is realizing that we need to do that.

That leadership is about the whole person.

It's not just about their work.

That if, if people don't feel that connection to you, you can expect them

to leave your company and your agency because why, why are they still there?

And that kind of leads into a discussion.

You know, meaning and purpose.

Why am I here?

And I found that to be a really big thing in crisis negotiation.

You're dealing with somebody at a really low point.

They've lost their meaning.

They've lost their purpose, cuz they're working so hard just to get by.

I just need to pay the bills.

I just need to figure out how I can get my next meal.

I just need to get through this day.

And it's a real struggle and.

One of the things that I try and teach people.

Now, the next generation of negotiators is can we help them find their meaning

and purpose because they've lost that.

And this is what we're seeing in society right now.

People have lost their meaning and purpose, cuz we're working so hard just

to get by gas prices are extraordinary.

My, the retirement fund is collapsing.

How do I get through this day?

I can't find work.

What is their meaning and purpose.

And when we can help people find that now we're really getting into a

powerful position and having a real connection with them because we're

gonna help them see that, help them know their worth, help them know.

Their value.

And we forget that when we're just trying to get by.

That's a piece that we forget.

And over my work in negotiation, I've really identified four important

principles that we need to touch on and focus on when we're trying to

build that connection with people.

And I, I.

Having come up with these four principles.

They're not mine.

Everybody's heard of them, but no, one's put them together like this before.

And I use this in trying to find connection and influence

and the four principles.

It's understanding, timing, delivery, and respect that whether I'm having a

hostage negotiation, a crisis negotiation with someone who's having a bad day.

Or I'm just trying to get to know somebody or trying to push

them in the right direction.

They need to go.

These are the principles that we need to work through, that I can't sell

you on something that you don't want.

So let's begin by understanding who you are and what you need, and then

being thoughtful of the timing that.

I could have the exact right thing to say, but if I say it at the wrong time

or ask the question at the wrong time, it could be disastrous or ineffective.

So think about the timing, the delivery.

Not only do we need to consider what we say, but we need

to consider how we say it.

And for everybody that prepares for their difficult conversations and their

negotiations, they're always coming up with their content or they should be

coming up with their content, but rarely do they give thought to the delivery

of how they actually present that.

And I think that our delivery.

Is what creates feeling in the other person, whether I like you or dislike

you or I'm, I'm feeling uncertain or there's a trust issue there.

A lot of that comes from delivery.

So are we practicing how we say what we say?

And then the last piece of respect people say, you know, this is the

easy one I'm being respectful, but I think that respect is about emotion.

And are we triggering people's emotion by how we're, how we're presenting this?

And, and this respect piece, this kind of dips into fairness, are you being fair?

It dips into autonomy.

It dips into empathy.

Can you see it the way that they see it?

And when we start putting these four pieces together, I just see it as a

circle we're going around and around.

And these four principles when we're touching on each one of these.

Now we're forming a connection.

Now we're forming dialogue.

My goal is to have a real dialogue with you to hear from you to

elicit this information, to inquire further, to suspend judgment.

And this is how we get it done at a really high level.

When I'm trying to get a peaceful resolution in a situation when I

really don't have much to offer.

I'm not coming in offering you money or a helicopter or something that you might see

in the movies, but yet we're still able to get a job done in the majority of the

situations reach this peaceful outcome.

So this is what I use in my work in crisis and hostage negotiations.

This is what I teach when I teach this for companies, I teach it for law enforcement.

I teacher at universities.

This seems to work.

This is my.

My ingredients to connecting with people.

And once you have a connection, then we've got influence.

Now you can start to have people, listen to you and, and get them going

in the way that you want them to go.

Man.

That is so that's just so amazing.

I love, I love how you framed that up.

I love how you've packaged that.

I like the idea of the circle, because it's almost like

you're saying it's iterative.

It's not like you have understanding first and then timing the delivery and then.

You have respect and then you're done.

It's like that process just keeps ongoing.

And the more that you kind of go around that circle, and the more times that

you can go through that circle, I would imagine the greater, the connection

that you have with that person.

So you, I love how you've, you've packaged that in, in that way.

Tell us about, tell us about a time if you, if you can think of that

you've used this and implemented this in a, in a situation with one

of your negotiations, whenever you hear of hostage negotiations, I mean,

I immediately go to like the movie.

I don't even know when it was, this's called the negotiator.

I think Samuel will Jackson or something's in it now.

I know there's a lot of Hollywood in that movie and whatever, but I'd love

to hear, you know, of a, of, of a story that you that you've experienced, that,

that you were implementing this in.

Yeah.

And I think that we learn best from maybe the ones that didn't work.

I, I think that it's important that we take our, our failures and learn from

that rather than just celebrating the successes and say, well, this has worked

so good because here's what I did.

And I think that just starting on the first, the very first principle

of understanding particularly with leaders, it's not that.

Bad listeners and they don't know how to understand.

I think they're probably quite good at that, but where they trip up here is that

they just don't do it because we're busy.

We have pressing issues.

So let's go to the next, let's go to the next.

So this is the one that we skip and when you skip the

understanding bad things happen.

So to answer your question here I was having a face to face negotiation

with a man who was holding a gun to.

And usually we don't do face to face negotiations because it's a

little bit dangerous, obviously.

Yeah.

But in this particular case, the SWAT team had moved forward and they

were in the basement of this person.

So we are talking face to face, which I think is really powerful

communication because unlike over the phone, when you can just hear

my voice, now we can see each other.

And that's really, really powerful.

but he was suicidal and he was holding a gun to his head.

And this is the intense moments where every word counts the

way you say every word counts.

And I talked to this man for a couple hours and I was, I remember trying to sell

him on the idea of, we should take you to the hospital because I just come in

assuming, you know, the police are there.

Nobody wants to go to jail and they, they just assume that we're gonna

take him away and they're in trouble.

So I tried to ease that by saying, you know, instead of taking you with

us, we can get you to the hospital where we can get you some help.

Assuming again, this is what he wants.

And.

I it's, it's been a while since I've, I've had this conversation.

So I look back and I try to remember, did I inquire with him?

Did I ask him, is this what you want to do before I started selling him

on this is a good idea because Scott thinks this is a good idea, right?

Rather than asking this gentleman, is this something that would be helpful to you?

Is this something that you want?

And I reflect upon this one, because this is probably the most

memorable negotiation I did because.

Ultimately later on that day he shot himself and it's, it's

always troubling to look back and say, I had the opportunity to.

send this in a different direction.

And usually we get a, a peaceful outcome a safe surrender.

So why not in this case?

Why did this one go bad?

And when the consequences are so great, it's really tough not to look back and

and, and really try to dissect that and have that autopsy to say what went wrong?

What, what could I have said?

What didn't I say, what didn't I ask?

And it turns out he didn't wanna go to the hospital.

He was just been released from the hospital.

So here I am trying to sell him on something that he didn't want

because for anybody who's actually been a patient in the hospital, you

realize that's not a friendly place.

That's not a nice place.

It's not a fun place.

I just want to be not there.

And here I am trying to sell him on this thing that wasn't going to work because

of course he didn't want to go back there.

So.

Did I take the time to understand his situation?

Did I take the time to be a good listener?

First?

Did I ask the good questions?

And most people listening in today are not going to have that level of consequence

and their difficult conversations.

Their consequence is just not going to be that significant.

So let's slow things down a little.

And be willing to take the time and be willing to ask the questions

with the people that we're dealing with and explore that a little

bit and be compassionate about it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, and say, you know, I don't know.

I don't understand how quickly do we just wanna say yeah, I understand Dallas.

I understand, but I don't know you, I don't know your situation.

I don't know your history at least not deep enough that I

can be making decisions for you.

So let's really lead with questions and be great listeners and engage in the eight

skills of active listening, which is.

A foundational bedrock of my profession to say, we need to begin.

By understanding begin by listening and learning.

And now when we're face to face or if we're on zoom and this is another

big change in how we communicate.

Not only do we need to be great listeners, but are we understanding what we see?

Are we studying gestures?

And body language and facial expressions.

There is so much information to be gathered here.

And this has really changed in the last couple years, because

three years ago, I would never be doing zoom calls with people.

I would be doing phone calls with people.

So we have the ability to take in this information.

are we doing this?

Are we paying attention to that?

Are we studying this?

And maybe we're missing really obvious information there.

And I would even go as far as to say that if we are faced with a competing

difference between what I see and what I hear, I'm gonna fall back on what I see,

because if I can see it, I can believe.

Yeah.

So yes, we have to be great listeners, but there's a whole bunch of other skills that

now we need to be taking in and studying.

And this is an important piece and a, and a change in

communication that we need to be.

We need to be good at this.

We need to be really good at this.

And that helps us understand the person, understand the situation.

There's

just so much.

That I just found fascinating.

Number one.

I, I appreciate you being honest and, and open about an experience

that you look back on and you go now, how could I have done that better?

I was actually, you know, was talking to a Navy Seal and,

and he makes all his employees.

When they present their resume, he makes 'em present a reverse resume I

think he calls it a reverse resume.

And it's like, you go back through and all those highlights that you have

on your resume, you have to put it in reverse and put all the failures that

were in between all those, you know, on those highlights, because he wants to

see how they respond to those failures.

I think that's such a good, I think that's such a good lesson and, and I,

I appreciate you Le you know, leading the story with that, because I think.

I think it's just, it also is, man.

It's so intense.

I could not imagine the level of intensity standing there with the

SWAT team in place, guns drawn.

You've got another guy with a gun and you're, you're the guy that's

supposed to be calm, cool, and collected in that whole situation.

and, and then you've gotta stay cool enough to be thinking ahead and, and

working this model that you've laid out.

Tell me this, this is just a, this is kind of a little bit off topic,

but I mean, your, your level of the environment that you operated

in has such high level of stress.

How do you, how do you manage that?

Like, how do you, how do you deal with that?

Cuz that seems like it would be really intense.

a lot of this is, is practice.

And just like anything else you can't be expected to perform if

you're not practice practicing.

And a lot of these, when, when I do training for negotiators, a lot of

these folks say, you know, we don't have the opportunity to train and practice.

And for me, that's the scary part to say, How can you be expected to have

a life or death conversation if you're not getting these reps in, and there's

different ways to do this, and there's different ways to, to practice this.

And I say, most simply, if nothing else, the next time you get a spam call, one

of these people that's selling you, your car warranty, or your grandchild

was kidnapped in another country.

Use this as an opportunity to practice the eight skills of

active listen, you can go online.

Google eight skills of active listening.

First of all, let's know what this is.

And then let's practice this.

Let's get good at asking open ended questions concepts

like reflecting or mirroring.

Let's try this.

This is not something that I use in my everyday conversation.

But at a high level, I'll start engaging in these skills.

Are we good at paraphrasing and summarizing what's being said, are we good

at emotion labeling to say, Hey, I, you sound a little bit frustrated right now.

And we're connecting with the emotion behind what they're saying.

All right.

Really cool.

Are we good at silence?

These effective pauses?

And a lot of people aren't, we'll put a pause in the conversation and

now people are like, ah, I gotta jump in and fill this gap right here.

Are we comfortable having a moment of silence or really kind of letting

that silence hang and allowing that person to take that in or

giving them room to keep talking?

So when we do this.

All the time and we just practice this.

And I was lucky.

I was on a very professional team where we did a lot of training, not only as a

SWAT team, more broadly, but just as a negotiations team, that this is just kind

of another conversation that we have.

And for somebody that doesn't.

Immerse themself in this.

This would be such a big moment that, oh my gosh, you know, what do I do?

And truly, I will say that I remember my first time that I was on the

phone as the primary negotiator.

It is overwhelming it's I, I really had that moment of man.

I can't remember any of this because this is a big, stressful situation,

but by practicing, it becomes common.

And I would say, I want you to be so good at this, that these aren't skills.

But this is who you are that I can take these principles.

And this is who I am, that these skills of listening, that I'm not going

through a checklist of saying, these are skills that I'm working through.

This is just who I am.

And you wanna be that good, but also we don't do this individually.

And this is the, the bit of the cheat side of it that you don't see in Hollywood.

In Hollywood, you have the negotiator, you got Denzel Washington on

the phone, doing amazing things.

Awesome.

Yeah, but we're working as a team.

Rarely do you have one negotiator getting the job done in these situations?

And I don't think that it should be any different in corporate negotiations

that let's set the ego aside.

Let's leave that at the door.

If you're the decision maker, you shouldn't be the negotiator.

I need that to be removed from you.

And this is where we find problems.

We have people with ego that.

I need to be the one conducting this negotiation, having this

conversation, you really need to remove that and put a team in place.

When we do this, we have a primary negotiator.

That's the person on the phone.

We have a secondary negotiator.

That's a coach.

That person is solely focused on the primary negotiator,

giving real time feedback.

And listening into the conversation.

We have guys doing intelligence work, finding out about your background,

checking your social media.

What can I learn about you to help us have a productive conversation?

We have technical guys who are working on the equipment.

We have a team leader who's making decisions and liaisoning with

other members of this SWAT team.

I got a wa officer who.

I'm surrounded by whiteboards and, and they're putting notes up on the board.

Here's information about this here's information about the offender,

about weapons, about demands and they're jotting down like a

legal record of what's going on.

So I'm surrounded by support.

It's not just me having this conversation and why can't we do that?

Same thing in the corporate world have true teams working

toward negotiating great success.

And being willing to humble ourselves to say that if we wanna be great at

this, it's going take more than just me.

I really want to have a team of specialists who are focused

on getting successful results.

Oh,

there is so much there.

First of all, I want to go back to something you said early on, and that

is if you are listening to the last 10% right now, I think we just had.

This amazing nugget of value drop that I, I think could be

one of the most actionable items that we've ever had on the show.

I've never heard.

Anyone be able to take a spam call and turn it into something useful until now.

I mean, if you didn't hear anything else today, the fact that you could take a

spam call and use it to practice how you're going to implement the eight

skills of active listening is amazing.

I love that.

It is so awesome.

I mean, really you've taken something that is.

An absolute nuisance to me, and now you've given it actual meaning and purpose.

So next time I get a spam call.

I'm gonna actually try it out.

I'm gonna do it.

I'm totally gonna do that.

The next spam call.

So all the spammers look out.

You're you're you're you're gonna run into the eight skills of

active listing on the next call.

I also love how.

Yeah, and, and those guys are good too.

So you have to be good because they're gonna sniff you out if you're faking it.

So I want you to be really good to keep them on

the line.

That's awesome.

That's a challenge.

Okay.

So if you are listening to the show, please, please try it out.

We'd love to, we'd love to hear how that goes.

And so if you try it.

Connect with me on LinkedIn or, or go through, think, move, thrive,

and let us know how it works out.

Cause I'd love to hear your story.

I will absolutely try this out.

This is gonna be something that it's just, now it's a challenge.

It's a fun.

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it.

And so I think another thing that you were, you were,

you were mentioning is yeah.

How hard it is to separate the emotions that we have tied up in, in a decision.

Many times you know, from something that we're negotiating, especially when it gets

into that goes there's there's emotions that can arise in the negotiation.

If you're the one making the decision that could, you know, really block the

clarity that you need to, to have a, have a great negotiation, you know, and, and

also kind of, you know, really hamper that circle, you know, that the four

principles that you were talking about, the, the, the understanding, the timing,

and even the respect, if you, if you get.

In the decision and you're like, oh, so I love how you pointed that out.

I think that, especially for anybody that's running teams, running projects,

business leaders, organizational leaders, that's, that's awesome advice.

And I love also how you are.

So Quick to to give all the credit to this supporting team of

negotiators and that you're not the one running this thing alone and

how you guys are working together.

It's a, it's like a, a well old machine, how you've got these whiteboards going on.

And man, that it actually does sound like the movies.

That's incredible.

I love, I love the description of that.

And it's important to know your role there.

And we, there is no hero here.

The.

Outcome is what we want.

We want a great outcome.

And I remember going through reports, there was a hostage situation where

a man took his ex-girlfriend hostage and my partner was on the phone.

And after this, you know, all, all the police.

Everything we do is a matter of record.

And I scribbled a note to her and it was, I knew it was my handwriting.

It was bad handwriting.

And I was using the whiteboard marker that I used, and it was a, a paper.

And, and I just wrote on there, you sound great.

And this was collected and, and scanned into record.

And I, I just.

What, what little piece this is that I contributed to this to say, how important

is that when you're under the gun and you get a little bit of feedback that

says, Hey, you're, you're doing well.

You're going in the right direction.

I'm not saying, Hey, gimme the phone.

I'm gonna take over just those little words to say, Hey, you sound great.

Can make a real difference to somebody who's working really hard under

pressure to give them that validation and is really, really interesting.

Oprah winf.

Talks about how she's got.

Thousands of guests on her show, 35,000 guests, or however many

people have been on her show.

Then she goes, the one consistent thing that people want is validation

that they finish the interview and then they ask, how was it?

How did I do?

Was that okay?

Every, from the most famous, powerful people in the world to a unknown, nobody

always ask, how did I do so remember.

People want that validation and give that to 'em so we can give that on our own

team, to our own negotiators and leaders.

Hey, you're doing great.

And that's little bit of confidence that they might need to get over the hill.

And maybe it's the person that we're talking to.

Hey, you know what?

I.

It, it took a lot of courage to just set that gun down.

What you're saying, what you're doing now is really brave and give them that little

bit of validation that they might need to move them in the direction because we make

decisions based on emotion all the time.

And I think that that's why the decision makers, we can't get them

sucked into a negative emotion.

We can.

Come and present them.

Here's what we have.

We need your decision on this.

And the last thing I want is for them to be involved in a heated conversation

where they're gonna get triggered by something that was said, something

that wasn't said, and now they're making a poor decision for the team.

Because it's driven by emotion.

We know people make decisions based on emotion.

So let's use that rather than this old idea of let's separate

the person from the problem.

We're not gonna be able to do that.

We are invested in this.

And I think sometimes that's why if you can have a, a negotiator separate

from that decision making process, that can be really powerful for

you to say the decision maker here.

We're, we're trying to be clear and all the emotions and that

messiness of those conversations, we can kind of set that aside.

But let's not forget that sometimes we, you and I, whoever

is having this conversation, we know that this can be messy.

We know that there's tough emotions involved and just be

ready for that and understand that.

And sometimes we just take a breath.

And reset ourselves when we start getting taken down that hole to know,

all right, I'm becoming emotional.

This is normal.

Everybody does this.

And now let me try to reset.

So I'm not hijacked in my brain with these negative emotions that are there

because it is just we've evolved this way.

This is what helps us stay alive.

This fight or flight response that's helped us stay alive, but no one exists.

So when we're reading that social media comment, that really makes us angry.

No big deal.

I got this, this is a normal reaction and I'm back in control of myself.

And I think that if nothing else a lot of times people ask me, how can I.

Deal with this other person, when we're called in to consult on a situation,

how can I control this other side?

He's really being a jerk or impossible or irrational.

I say, listen, this might be scary to hear, but you might not be able to

control the other side, but you know who you can't control as yourself.

So let's begin by working on you and not worrying about the other side.

And when people now have this other mindset shift of, I am in control

of me, and this is kind of the extent of what I can truly control.

Now, we start looking in the mirror and focusing inward and

saying, what do I need to improve?

What skills do I need to get better?

Where am I gonna be triggered?

And then we become really powerful because now I'm just focused on.

I can get better.

I can get stronger.

The idea, the phrase that I can't no longer exist, it's now I choose not to.

And that's a really, really scary thing to hear now instead

of say, well, I can't do that.

You, I choose not to do that.

Try that on.

How does that feel for you?

Hmm.

I am now empowered to make decisions that impact my life.

And now you're just, you're becoming a really much more powerful,

complete in control person.

Oh, I'd

love that.

Oh, I love that.

There's so much there.

So, you know, we are a big fan of recognizing team members and we talk

about that and I, and it would, it just resonated with me when you pass the note

over on record during a negotiation, just to say, man, you sound great because.

It's like, I love the word validation, validating and validation, because it's

like taking, it's like a, it's a, it's almost a form of recognition and it

has all these things rolled up into it.

Like you're understanding, cuz you're saying, look, I understand you're

building connection with your team member.

When you validate them, because you're saying, look, I understand how difficult

what you're doing is I got, I got respect for you and you're doing a great job.

And that validation, especially from somebody else in the

arena is so impactful.

And I mean, I'm sure that not only your teammate appreciated that.

But I'm sure that that is another way that you guys work together and that

makes your team just run so much more smooth because they can just take that

in and be like, I know he is got my back.

I know he is watching over my shoulder and I know that if I'm starting to

slip, if he's gonna, if he's gonna catch me doing something right.

Then I can listen to him when he catches me doing something wrong or

something I can do better, you know?

And so I just think when you're putting things in the bank, people

don't realize that when you talk about connection, we're, we're adding to

that bank balance so that if we need to take a draw and we need to say,

Hey, we need to have this conversation.

There's something else we need to talk about.

And that's more of a corrective action or more of improvement or

something that they're missing some gap in their awareness that you have.

You have enough built up in the bank of relational capital

where you can say, I, I do that.

And one of the ways I think you did, you just, just home run with

that was talk about validation.

We're gonna meet them where they are.

And we're gonna tell 'em thanks.

We're gonna tell 'em you did a great job and and we're not telling we're not, we're

not, I think people misunderstand that.

You're what you said was you were not, you were not validating

something that was inaccurate.

Some people's like, well, I'm not gonna walk around.

Just tell people they're doing good just to tell people just cuz

that yeah, that's exactly right.

Cuz you're gonna know you're being a fake.

What you did was you noticed you were in the moment and noticed that

person, that they were doing a good job and then you had the initiative

to go and validate that behavior.

And I think that we missed that so many times if we wanna live in the last

10%, if we want our teams to perform in the last 10%, that is a key component.

Is absolutely validating people for the work that they do not.

And here's the amazing thing that you did it wasn't you got to the end, you

guys went out on a debrief and you were like, Hey, I noticed you did a great job.

You did it in the moment, like while it was happening, you slid the note over.

That's why it got put on record is cuz you literally did it during the negotiation.

And man, I, I just think that's awesome.

It's much more powerful if we validate in the moment than if we wait two

weeks and say, Hey yeah, I remember remember back in two weeks ago.

Yeah.

I really appreciate that.

You did a good job.

No, no.

Just catch it right there in the moment.

And the other thing is I thought when you talked about self-awareness

that piece where people actually.

Understand and can start to be aware of their own emotions.

It was like, you know, if you can be self aware of your

reaction, you want to do that.

So you know how to control your response.

And that you can be in control of your response.

And I just, I love that.

I choose not.

I choose not to.

I mean, that's just so you're right.

That is so powerful because it puts you in the driver's seat.

It's not, it's not a victim, you're not a victim, you know, you're making, you're a

decision maker and you're choosing not to.

And I just think, man, that's so good.

Those are great.

That's just great stuff, man.

That's so great stuff.

And, and one other piece here, you talk about putting

these deposits in the bank with people.

They are going to see that you actually care about them.

It's not that we're.

Only making these deposits that, Hey, this person cares about me

and cares about my situation.

And that's when we can really see things start to change as well.

And sometimes I talk with people who are negotiating or are leaders and say,

well, what if we don't care about them?

My response is simple.

You better care about them that if you're a leader and you're

having these conversations, why don't you care about these people?

If you're negotiating with somebody.

And life or death situations.

Why wouldn't you care about them?

And if you don't care about them, maybe this, maybe you're not the right

person to have this conversation, or maybe you're not the right person

right now to have this conversation.

So I think that's another powerful piece in connection that you really do have

to care about the person, because that's going to also lead you to really good

results.

Ah, I love that.

And I think that's so true.

I mean, if you're, if you're leading people.

and, and you can have just, you know, conversations without seeking

to understand without validation.

And you feel fine with that.

I think what you said is, look, man, you need to take a gut check and say,

Hey, am I, am I in the right spot?

Am I in the right seat on the bus?

Is this position?

Am I go because ultimately you're not gonna be successful or you

team is not gonna perform at the level that they need to perform at.

So I think that's awesome advice.

Well, well, Scott, thank you.

Tell us a little bit about tell us a little bit about your organization

and tell us a little bit about how people can get in touch with

you if they wanna book you for it.

Cuz you do you do keynote speaking all over the world.

I mean, I was just talking to, you got off a plane.

In fact, you, you know, the last time we were talking, you had just

got out of, I was inviting you back to Charlotte and you had an

experience in the Charlotte airport.

So it was not a good one you actually posted about on LinkedIn.

So tell us how we can get in touch and a little bit about

your Charlotte airport escapades.

Yeah.

Well, first of all I'd love to visit Charlotte again in a positive

note, I was flying back from a negotiations conference and everything.

Everything went badly.

I spent the night sleeping on the floor at the airport because not only could we get

the airplane, but we couldn't get an Uber, nobody could get a hotel room, all of us.

So we, we were all stuck in that airport together.

It was quite the night and I think that's becoming more common.

But I want to come back and have a positive experience in Charlotte.

So let's make that happen sometime soon.

I would invite the listeners to check out the negotiations collective

website, but we are talking about connection and personal connection.

So how about this?

If you're on LinkedIn, if.

And you should be on LinkedIn.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.

I, I would love to hear from you say, Hey, I was listening to the last 10% podcast.

Let's connect.

Love to have a conversation with you.

We can have a phone call or a zoom.

I'm really interested in meeting people in this.

Industry, and, and that are interested in leadership and doing great things

because we learn from each other.

I love the opportunity to hear from all of you.

So let's just connect on LinkedIn and have a really personal conversation.

That's awesome.

That's very good.

Well, thank you, Scott again.

And thank you for sharing all your wisdom and insights.

This has been a fantastic conversation.

Great show.

Maybe we'll have you back.

And maybe, maybe we can get you into Charlotte on a better

on a better note real soon.

So thanks again, Scott.

And for being with us on the last 10%,

keep up the good work Dallas.

We appreciate you.

Keep it up.