This is something that we call a conversation map. If you imagine, you've seen people create flowcharts in the past, right? Like, you do this, and it goes to this, it goes to that, and then you have a yes-no situation.
If they say yes, it goes this direction. If they say no, it goes this direction. You've seen flowcharts. For sure. A conversation map is a tool that we use in Intelligence Collection that is essentially a flowchart for a conversation.
Interesting. So I ask you the question, hey, how's your day going? Good. There's really only two options, right? There's some sort of positive response.
It's good. I'm happy, right? Or there's some sort of negative response. Oh, it sucks. It's horrible.
When you actually build a conversation map, you can also, like, scope out the fact, oh, probably a 70% chance you're going to say it's good, even if it's not good. Because culturally, we say it's good. 20% chance you're going to say it's bad.
Well, there's still 10% not accounted for. So then we also have to build out the neutral response. What if you get a neutral response?
What if you get a response like, I'm not sure yet? Or I'll find out later. That's an unexpected response that still has some probability of occurring.
Well, if you only plan, first of all, if you don't plan for the conversation at all, after you ask the first question, you're done. Yeah. How's your day?
It's good. Okay. I don't know what to say next.
So a conversation map. gives you the opportunity to know exactly what you're going to say next in all three situations. So if you say, oh, my day is good, then my next step in the conversation map is going to be like, what makes it good? If you say your day sucks, my next step in the conversation map is going to be like, oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
What makes it bad? If your answer is something neutral, maybe my next step in the conversation map is to say, oh, what would make it a better day? Now I am two, I'm now two questions ahead of your responses. If I can build myself three, four, five questions ahead.
which is surprisingly easy when you actually think about it. When you literally draw it on a piece of paper, here's my first question, draw it in a circle. Here are the two or three most likely responses. Here are the two or three most likely responses from each of those, et cetera, et cetera.
You can get about five questions deep. The reason you do that is so that when you actually meet the person and you start the conversation map, you only need 30% of your mental capacity to keep up with the conversation. The other 70% is going into what we call personal assessment, which is the most likely response.
which is creating the baseline about that person's behavior in that moment in time. So then by the time you get through question four and five, and you've got five responses worth of input, now you start making up new questions. Now you start engaging in what we would call a deliberate dialogue, an exchange of information. And through that process, now you have more information about the other person because you've got all of their data that they've shared, plus all of your assessment data that you've picked up through their tone and their physical movements and their body language.
Let's say that we're talking to somebody. that we met at a fundraising event and we went to that fundraising event specifically so we could network with business leaders and community leaders okay all right so so you already know going into that room What time of day it is. It's probably nighttime. You know that they're going to have hors d'oeuvres and a meal. You know you're going to be, everyone's going to be there for probably two and a half to three hours because it's a fundraiser.
There's going to be speakers on stage. There's going to be music. There's going to be tables.
There's going to be all this stuff. Everybody's dressed in suits, ties, or something that they think looks like relatively formal wear, fashionable formal wear. So that's the scenario. Okay. Let's build the first five questions.
All right. The first question is very likely going to be either hello or something about an introduction, because that's why everybody's there. So your first question might actually be, hi, my name's Andy, or hi, my name's Adam, right? Hi, my name's Andy. I am with Everyday Spy.
You know, what are you doing here? You have no idea who the person is, right? But you do know that in this room, you're going to have to talk to people and people are there to talk to people.
So you know that you can get away with a conversation starter that something as simple as, my name's Andy, what's your name? So one response is they're going to say their name. What's another response? Did you say, who are you?
Yeah, so my name's Andy. I'm with Everyday Spy. I'm the host of the party. Like a different, like a category of way of explaining themselves.
So this is why a conversation map is so powerful, right? We all assume that they're going to answer our question. Some people won't.
Some people might say something like, oh, I'm nobody. I'm just here with my wife. Aha, okay.
I'm nobody. I'm a driver. I'm not anybody important, man. I'm just the waiter.
Oh, I'm part of the sound team. You might get a response. like that. So you have to have a planned response for that.
Right? So you've got the peer response, essentially. Oh, I'm Brett. I'm a YouTuber.
Oh, cool. Now we're past the first question. Then you've got the person that's like, oh, you don't want to talk to me, man.
I'm nobody. I'm just Joe's driver. You have to have a plan for that kind of response too. And then you also have to have the response for somebody who's being like unexpected, snarky, somebody who's being funny.
I don't know how many comedians you know, but a lot of times they will turn a situation around. on their head just to freak you out, right? So they'll be like, none of your business. What's your name?
You've got to have at least those three responses planned for. Otherwise, you're going to get wigged out. But you're choosing these based on the social situation, since that's a networking event.
And the probability. That would be, okay, huh. So it's most probable in a networking event that people are going to be cooperative. That's interesting. It's also possible at a networking event that you'll talk to somebody who's part of the event staff or part of the secondary staff.
It's also possible that you'll talk to somebody who's trying to be countercultural because that is their tool for networking. So you have to, and there's five or seven or 12 other circumstances that might happen too, but let's be ready for those three. I don't think you have to be ready for the person who's like, who doesn't speak English.
Because that person might be there too. I don't think you have to be ready for the person who's got a stomach ache, but that person might be there too, right? Those are all lower probabilities.
It's not worth planning for that outcome. But now we're only one question deep into this, right? Who are you? Now we find out their name.
So now what's your next question? So if you find out that somebody's... If you plan for a positive peer response, hi, my name's Andy or my name's Brett or my name's John or my name's Jake or Adam or whatever else.
Hi, that's my name. Okay, what's our next question for that person? But also, what's our next question for the person who says I'm nobody?
And what's our next question for the person who says, aren't you being nosy? Who are you? What's our next response in each of those three cases?
And you're just mapping it out based off of the complete environment you're going into. So let's go through the exercise. Let's just do it.
Just do two or three questions. But now you're seeing it's not an easy process. So if it's your name, you can say, how are you doing? Okay.
Second one could be, do you like the job or what do you specifically do? Get interested in them. And then the third one could be. I don't know.
You'd probably have to be quick. I don't even know. That wouldn't be hard. I want to be ready for that.
Now you're understanding why it is that intelligence officers spend so much time planning before they ever put themselves in an operation. Right. Because here's what's interesting. All three of those potential outcomes from the first question. I'm Andy.
Who are you? All three outcomes could be people of interest. Gotcha.
Right. What if it's the driver of like we're in Phoenix right now? What if it's the driver of the governor of Phoenix?
Now you are one step removed from the governor of Phoenix. What if it's the driver to the CEO of Boeing Aerospace? Now you're one. step removed from the ceo of boeing aerospace like these are these are important people they may not think they're important they might think they're just a waiter or a driver or a gardener or whatever else their access and they you have no other way of getting to the boeing ceo in your network than that person right now.
So you've got to be prepared to maximize that opportunity with that person. We have a saying at CIS, we say everybody is worth a cup of coffee. Everybody's worth a cup of coffee.
It's one of the big reasons why whenever I get an invitation to be on a podcast, I don't just say no, because everybody's worth a cup of coffee. You never know what that person might say, do or be connected to in some way that can benefit or help or assist you now or in the future. So you've got to give everybody a shot. You've got to give everybody equal treatment.
You can't just go someplace thinking, I am only here to talk to the super hot blonde chicks. That's it. They have to be, you know, between 25 and 28 years old, and they have to be like platinum blonde with long hair past their shoulders, and they have to be dressed to impress. For all you know, it's the brunette who's at that party, who's funny and giggly and whatever else, whose best friend outside of that party is exactly what you're talking about.