The Magic Trick To Get People To Spill and Say YES

It was 1998 and FBI negotiator Chris was standing in a hallway on 27th floor of a high rise New York building.

His task? To diffuse a situation.

There were three heavily armed fugitives holed up inside an apartment. And they had killed gang members in the previous week.

You would expect these situations to go this way — The FBI people will shoot the door down, say “Hands up” and catch the bad guys.

But in reality, the opposite happens.

Their task is to not start a fight. But to persuade the fugitive to surrender on their own.

And for this, they need to negotiate.

Chris and his team had been here for last 6 hours. Talking through the closed apartment door.

And what’s worse, the fugitives had been in radio silence.

He was using a voice he calls his late night FM DJ voice. Soft, calm, composed. Like he knows the situation and has control.

He didn’t use a commanding voice on them. Instead he imagined himself in their place and said..

“It looks like you don’t want to come out”

“It seems like you worry that if you open the door, we’ll come in with guns blazing. It looks like you don’t want to get back to jail.”

Him and his team kept using the same script.

After 7 hours, when they were almost defeated, the apartment door opened and the fugitives walked out on their own.

Chris asked them the question we all want to ask right now — “Why did they come out after seven hours of radio silence? Why did they finally gave in?”

They answered — “We didn’t want to get caught or shot. But you calmed us down.”

This is the power of tactical empathy.

But before we throw in big words, let’s understand what happened

• Chris concluded what the fugitives might be feeling
• Chris voiced those feelings and fear behind them

Now let’s come to some concepts.

Empathy in itself is recongnizing the perspective of the opposite party. Understanding their feelings.

But Tactical Empathy is understanding the feelings and mindset of the other but also hearing what is behind those feelings.

And when you hear where they are coming from..you can use them in heavy situations.

Now whenever we are in a soup or a distress,

which could not knowing what to order or not having an answer when your boss comes and interrogates you..

the first pain we have is uncertainity.

What’s gonna happen now?

How bad is it?

We’re humans. We want to know what happens ahead. That’s how our primitive brain was developed.

Know what’s happening.

Fear what you don’t know. Protect yourself.

So when uncertainity comes in the mix, we step back.

We don’t know what to order because we’re uncertain if it is worth the price and if we’ll be happy on the purchase.

But what if the waiter comes and says..

“I can sense that you don’t want to order because you feel it’s too pricey for a pasta. But our aglio olio has oregano herbs picked from our garden, and fresh vegetables. Hence, it’s on the pricey end.”

Wouldn’t you feel a massive relief?

Infact, you might have felt underconfident in the bougie restaurant after seeing the price but the situation is a lot easier now.

Why?

Because he called your fear out.

He also explained it.

But even without the explanation, calling out works. Labeling the emotion works.

That’s what Chris did too, when he said..

“It seems like you worry that if you open the door, we’ll come in with guns blazing. It looks like you don’t want to get back to jail.”

He understood the emotion from his tactical empathy and then said it out. Got it out of the way.

A brain imaging study showed that when a group of people were shown heinous pictures, their brain showed ‘fear’ activity signals.

But when they were asked the label the emotion, that activity went down.

Because the brain got busy into rational thinking.

Labeling the emotion disrupted its raw intensity.

That’s all Chris did to diffuse the situation

• Understand where the other party was coming from.
• Break the uncertainity by labeling the emotion.

Now let’s come to another story.

Helen worked as a fund rasier for Girl Scouts. Her job was simple — getting rich woman to write cheques for raising funds.

Most of the time, she was successful. But one day she got a lady who wouldn’t budge.

She went through her usual routine — showing pictures, success stories and action plan for the girl scout.

But the lady kept shooking her head.

Sensing this, Helen said — “I’m sensing some hesitation with these projects.”

Boom. She labeled the feeling. Got it out of the way.

As if she had been uncorked, the lady excalimed — “I want my gift to directly support programming for Girl scouts and not anything else”

She then went on to tell why Girl scouts meant so much to her.

Helen just listened.

In the end, she dropped another label –

“It seems you are really passionate about this gift and want to find the right project reflecting the life changing experiences Girl Scouts gave you”

And with that, this lady who wouldn’t budge signed a check without even picking up a specific project. She said as she got up “You understand me. I trust you.”

What happened here?

• Helen labeled the first feeling.
• That led to the client to open up.
• Helen listened.
• She labeled again and showcased what she understood

And that’s it.

Tactical empathy might be a lil difficult to catch so what works is LISTENING.

Active listening.

Usually, we listen to respond.

While someone is talking we talk to ourselves, formulating our response in the head.

And contrary to what you think,our brain is quite simple. It can only process seven pieces of information at one moment.

So, how do you listen?

• You shut your brain
• Close your eyes
• Listen to what they are saying
• And play their situation and them in your head

This will not only help you actively listen but also sharpen your empathy.

But what do you do with all this information?

You ain’t a FBI.

But..

You might do sales for your job.

You might be a lawyer.

You might have friends.

And this technique will help you swerve risky situations or save a client.

Before I give examples for each, let’s quickly summarize the technique.

• LISTEN. Close your brain and listen.
• Tactical empathy. Understand where they are coming from.
• Label their feeling. Get the uncertainity out of the way.
• If possible, find a solution to the fear. Not the problem.

Let’s say you want to close a client.

You stated your price but are welcomed with a pause.

Your client is not speaking anything.

So what do you do?

You call it out. “I can sense there is some hesiation. Were you expecting something else?”

Your client says they were expecting less bla bla.

You say “I understand where you are coming from. Coaches get a bad rep because they charge so much but here is the price breakdown. And we can let go of 1–2 deliverables if that’s what you need”

You called the uncertainity first.

Then you listened.

Then you gave the solution but not in your perspective — as in why are YOU charging much.

But in your client’s perspective — as to why HE thinks this is much?

The same technique is employed by defense lawyers.

They call out all the gruesome details in their own opening statement to the jury.

“The prosecution will come and tell you the murder happened. Yes it did. Stacy was brutally murdered with 10 bullet shots on Thursday night and it is unfortunate and heartbreaking. She had her whole life ahead of it. The prosecution will try to blame it on my client. You might feel with the theories he present that my client is guilty. But your job here is not to judge theories. It’s to know what happened that night. And it’s to give justice to Stacy.”

Call it out that they might sway the other way.

And then sway them your way.

Similarly when your friend is going through something upsetting, you listen and you label their feeling.

Even if you are half-listening but manage to label the feeling, they will feel understood.

Infact, it might lead them to unravel things more and conclude themselves.

Its almost magical when we find answers while we are talking about our own problems.

So let them unravel.

This is easier said than done. God knows I interrupt a lot because I try to solve problems. And hence I am writing this to get it in me today! :p

TO SUMMARIZE,

To negotiate, persuade or just give comfort..

Listen. Empathize. Label. Call it out. Solve, if possible.

Hope this helps!