Many of us are familiar with the ever-popular crime shows like NCIS, Blue Bloods, or Criminal Minds – there are plenty to choose from! – but have you ever wondered how real-life people may deal with similar situations, specifically those extra challenging moments? It’s clear that everyone on these teams has a role to fill, and while each team member may have their own strengths, problems are solved, valuable time is saved, and outcomes are achieved when everyone combines their unique skills and abilities and learns how to communicate and connect well.
I met with Scott Tillema, a trained FBI hostage negotiator of twenty years on an episode of the Even Better Podcast, where he shared four hostage negotiation tactics that can be helpful when communicating and connecting with others, especially in difficult moments. He’s now a keynote speaker who encourages negotiation as a way to build influence and get what you want. We serve people who go to work and who want to form bonds, who want to make connections, and who want to have influence on the people around them. Scott shares four ways in which these tactics can help us build those connections and build influence and they’re helpful to anyone, in any field. It doesn’t matter your role – we all need this!
Many of the conversations Scott and his colleagues were having on a day-to-day basis were not easy. Since they were constantly engaging in tough conversations, his first powerful tip is to make sure you manage yourself first. He says if we can’t manage ourselves, how can we possibly manage others, or influence others? Many of us are familiar with the feeling of stress or threat to our personality or identity, in which we feel the need to react to. But in moments like this, Scott insists that it’s best to say, “The only person I can control is me”, so instead, I’m going to clear my mind, regain focus, and get control over myself.
We teach a lot about emotional intelligence here at Your Clear Next Step, and the first two steps look at self-awareness and self-management. In a high-stress moment, I have to practice self-awareness by asking myself “who am I?”, “what’s going on?”, “what’s making me tick?” From there, we move into self-management of how I control myself and manage myself, before I can be affective in any of the influence situations, I need to be in. The thing is, in a high-stakes situation, all of this has to happen in the moment, right here, right now. I wonder how many moments we lose control over, because we forget that the application of that “How do I show up at work?” also means “How do I show up in this particular moment?” Scott says this is a strategy piece and because there are consequences for what we do, he says it’s important to know what your goal is and make sure everything we do is in line with achieving that goal.
Scott’s second powerful piece of advice is to be a great listener. When he first started as a new negotiator, Scott had to take an FBI class about active listening, one which he was disappointed to learn involved some listening exercises. He was convinced he didn’t need to be taught how to listen, and you might be thinking the same thing. But how often are we actually taught how to listen are provided with the tactics and tools of how to do so? To listen not only to the words being said, but the emotions behind them. Scott insists that half of our problems go away when we listen to others, when we recognize that the situation doesn’t need to be about me, but about how I can make it more about them. He tells us that if you want to be influential with people, start making it about other people.
You may have heard this before, but it’s not what you say, and instead how you say it. Sometimes we go into situations or conversations thinking, “I’m good at what I do”, or “I’ve done this a million times before, I don’t need to prepare.” But if we want to master our delivery and continuously make our conversations and our presentations better, we have to master how we say things, especially in challenging situations or moments of crisis. The people who are really good at what they do, all start by preparing their talking points. But from there, Scott recommends that we practice our delivery and then ask someone else for feedback. When we’re under a little bit of pressure, he says we can find out what our person effect is, or how other people experience us.
In the moments of crisis Scott often worked in, he always went in with a team. If he was the one doing the negotiation, there was someone else on the phone across from him, coaching him by listening to the conversation and helping to manage both him and his delivery. This all happens in real time, so it’s essential to work together to make sure the delivery is as perfect as it can be. Every word and moment matters in Scott's line of work, so there’s no detail to not get exactly right.
Here are some areas where we can all work to master our delivery:
Keep a steady pace: Many of us have listened to a speaker drone on before, so remember to keep the energy up, but balance it so you don’t speed up and raise other people’s anxieties.
Maintain attention: It’s essential to keep the attention of whoever it is you’re speaking to, but when we get really heated, we can force pressure into our words which often scares people away.
Look for cues from the other person/people: When we look and listen for cues from the other side, we notice the kinds of things being said or done that are raising their anxiety. Consider things like rate, rhythm, volume, and tone.
All of this mastering is never going to be as easy as we think it’s going to be. But Scott says that when you see people who are great at what they do, it’s because they put in the time to get there. He insists that we can be as good technically as we want to be, but without the ability to connect with and communicate to other people, we’re only going to be judged by the level of our communication. If the message is critical, if the audience is important, if our influence matters, we can’t afford not to develop and practice these skills.
Many of us understand respect, especially as good people and as professionals, but Scott proposes that it’s more than being respectful, and that respect is about emotion. Scott cites Harvard researchers and Chicago Booth School researchers when he says that 90% of our decisions are based on emotion. While logic and reason are certainly preferred by some of us, a large amount of people are influenced and driven by emotion. Scott has come to the conclusion that we don’t use logic or reasoning to determine when we feel disrespected, which also means we know when we feel respected.
So, he wonders if we’re connecting emotionally with people. Do we understand what drives people’s emotions? If we want to influence others, he says we have to connect with emotion. If we want others to take action, we have to figure out how to create more anticipation than anxiety. There are a lot of anxieties and pains that come with change, but Scott says if we’re going to take on the uncomfort of moving into the unknown when we go toward getting what we want, taking a risk has a major reward on the other side.
With a dedication to thinking about these four principles, Scott encourages all of us to take steps toward putting them into practice. Here are the steps he leaves us with:
When we think about moving forward, these steps help us to take the next clear step – to say, “how can I be even better?” We have to remember that it’s not about us – it's about everyone else. If we can put our egos aside, get out of our own way, and take a risk, we can move toward doing what is uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable, and watch as it becomes a part of who we are.
Getting out of our own way can be a challenge, but it’s certainly not impossible! In truth, when we learn to manage ourselves, listen well, master how we say things, and respect those around us, we display the selflessness of authentic human connection! Authentic human connection is even one of the core tenets of the Change Makers Certification Program, and if you’re interested in more information, check out our resource page!