chapter 1 the new [Music] rules I was intimidated I'd spent more than two decades in the FBI including 15 years negotiating hostage situations from New York to the Philippines in the Middle East and I was on top of my game at any given time there are 10,000 FBI agents in the bureau but only one lead International kidnapping negotiator that was me but I'd never experienced a hostage situation so tense so personal we've got your son Voss give us $1 million or he dies pause blink mindfully urge the heart rate back to normal sure I'd been in these types of situations before tons of them money for lives but not like this not with my son on the line not $1 million and not against people with fancy degrees and a lifetime of negotiating expertise you see the people across the table my negotiating counterparts were Harvard Law School negotiating professors I'd come up to Harvard to take a short executive negotiating course to see if I could learn something from the business world's approach it was supposed to be quiet and calm a little professional development for an FBI guy trying to widen his Horizons but when Robert nukan the director of the Harvard negotiation research project learned I was on campus he invited me to his office for a coffee just to chat he said I was honored and scared mukin is an impressive guy whom I'd followed for years not only is he a Harvard law professor he's also one of the big shots of the conflict resolution field and the author of bargaining with the devil when to negotiate when to fight to be honest it felt unfair that manukan wanted me a former Kansas City Beat cop to debate negotiation with him but then it got worse just after mukan and I sat down the door opened and another Harvard Professor walked in it was Gabriela bloom a specialist in international negotiations armed conflict and counterterrorism who'd spent eight years as a negotiator for the Israeli National Security Council and the Israel Defense Forces the tough as Nails IDF on Q manukan secretary arrived and put a tape recorder on the table manukan and Bloom smiled at me I'd been tricked we've got your son Voss give us $1 million or he dies nukan said smiling I'm the kidnapper what are you going to do I experienced a flash of panic but that was to be expected it never changes even after two decades negotiating for human lives you still feel fear even in a roleplaying situation I calmed myself down sure I was a street cop turned FBI agent playing against Real heavyweights and I wasn't a genius but I was in this room for a reason over the years I had picked up skills tactics and a whole approach to human interaction action that had not just helped me save lives but as I recognize now looking back had also begun to transform my own life my years of negotiating had infused everything from how I dealt with customer service reps to my parenting style come on get me the money or I cut your son's throat right now nukan said testy I gave him a long slow stare then I smiled how am I supposed to do that mukin paused his expression had a touch of amused pity in it like a dog when the cat it's been chasing turns around and tries to chase it back it was as if we were playing different games with different rules nuken regained his composure and eyed me with arched brows as if to remind me that we were still playing so you're okay with me killing your son Mr Voss I'm sorry Robert how do I know he's even alive I said using an apology and his first name seeding more warmth into the interaction in order to complicate his Gambit to bulldoze me I really am sorry but how can I get you any money right now much less $1 million if I don't even know he's alive it was quite a sight to see such a brilliant man flustered by what must have seemed unsophisticated foolishness on the contrary though my move was anything but foolish I was employing what had become one of the FBI's most potent negotiating tools the open-ended question today after some years evolving these tactics for the private sector in my consultancy the Black Swan group we call this tactic calibrated questions queries that the other side can respond to but that have no fixed answers it buys you time it gives your counterpart the illusion of control they are the one with the answers and power after all and it does all that without giving them any idea of how constrained they are by it nukan predictably started fumbling because the frame of the conversation had shifted from how I'd respond to the threat of my son's murder to how the professor would deal with the logistical issues involved in getting the money how he would solve my problems to every threat and demand he made I continued to ask how I was supposed to pay him and how was I supposed to know that my son was alive after we'd been doing that for 3 minutes Gabriela Bloom interjected don't let him do that to you she said to manukan well you try he said throwing up his hands Bloom dove in she was tougher from her years in the Middle East but she was still doing the bulldozzer angle and all she got were my same questions muken rejoined the session but he got nowhere either his face started to get red with frustration I could tell the irritation was making it hard to think okay okay Bob that's all I said putting him out of his misery he nodded my son would live to see another day fine he said I suppose the FBI might have something to teach us I had done more than just hold my own against two of Harvard's distinguished leaders I had taken on the best of the best and come out on top but was it just a fluke for more than three decades Harvard had been the world epicenter of negotiating theory and practice all I knew about the techniques we used at the FBI was that they worked in the 20 years I spent at the bureau we designed a system that had successfully resolved almost every kidnapping we applied it to but we didn't have grand theories our techniques were the products of experiential learning they were developed by agents in the field negotiating through crisis and sharing stories of what succeeded and what failed it was an iterative process not an intellectual one as we refin the tools we use day after day and it was urgent our tools had to work because if they didn't someone died but why did they work that was the question that Drew me to Heart to that office with minukin and Bloom I lacked confidence outside my narrow world most of all I needed to articulate my knowledge and learn how to combine it with theirs and they clearly had some so I could understand systematize and expand it yes our techniques clearly worked with mercenaries drug dealers terrorists and brutal Killers but I wondered what about with normal humans as I'd soon discover in the storied Halls of Harvard our techniques made great sense in intellectually and they worked everywhere it turned out that our approach to negotiation held the keys to unlock profitable human interactions in every domain and every interaction and every relationship in life this book is how it works the smartest dumb guy in the room to answer my questions a year later in 2006 I talked my way into Harvard Law school's winter negotiation course the best and brightest compete to get into this class and it was filled with brilliant Harvard students getting law and business degrees and Hot Shot students from other top Boston universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tufts the Olympic trials for negotiating and I was the only Outsider the first day of the course all 144 of us piled into a lecture hall for an introduction and then we split into four groups each led by a negotiation instructor after we'd had a chat with our instructor mine was named Sheila Heen and she's a good buddy to this day we were partnered off in pairs and sent into mock negotiations simple one of us was selling a product the other was the buyer and each had clear limits on the price they could take my counterpart was a languid redhead named Andy a pseudonym one of those guys who wear their intellectual superiority like they wear their khakis with relaxed confidence he and I went into an empty classroom overlooking one of those English style squares on Harvard's campus and we each used the tools we had Andy would throw out an offer and give a rationally airtight explanation for why it was a good one an inescapable logic trap and I'd answer with some variation of how am I supposed to do that we did this a bunch of times until we got to a final figure when we left I was happy I thought I'd done pretty well for a dumb guy after we all regrouped in the classroom Sheila went around the students and asked what price each group had agre read on and then wrote the result on the board finally it was my turn Chris how did you do with Andy she asked how much did you get I'll never forget Sheila's expression when I told her what Andy had agreed to pay her whole face first went red as if she couldn't breathe and then out popped a little strangled gasp like a baby Bird's hungry cry finally she started to laugh Andy squirmed you got literally every dime he had she said and in his brief he was supposed to hold a quarter of it back in reserve for future work Andy sank deep in his chair the next day the same thing happened with another partner I mean I absolutely destroyed the guy's budget it didn't make sense a lucky oneoff was one thing but this was a pattern with my old school experiential knowledge I was killing guys who knew every cuttingedge trick you could find in a book the thing was it was the cuttingedge techniques these guys were using that felt dated and old I felt like I was Roger Federer and I had used a time machine to go back to the 1920s to play in a tennis tournament of distinguished gentlemen who wore white pants suits and used wood rackets and had parttime training regimens there I was with my titanium alloy Racket and dedicated personal trainer and computer strategized Serv and volley plays the guys I was playing were just as smart actually more so and we were basically playing the same game with the same rules but I had skills they didn't you're getting famous for your special style Chris Sheila said after I announced my second day's results I smiled like the chesher cat winning was fun Chris why don't you tell everybody your approach Sheila said it seems like all you do to these Harvard Law School students is say no and stare at them and they fall apart is it really that easy I knew what she meant while I wasn't actually saying no the questions I kept asking sounded like it they seemed to insinuate that the other side was being dishonest and unfair and that was enough to make them falter and negotiate with themselves answering my calibrated questions demanded deep emotional strengths and tactical psychological insights that the toolbox they'd been given did not contain I Shrugged I'm just asking questions I said it's a passive aggressive approach I just ask the same three or four open-ended questions over and over and over and over they get worn out answering and give me everything I want Andy jumped in his seat as if he'd been stung by a bee damn he said that's what happened I had no idea by the time I'd finished my winter course at Harvard I'd actually become friends with some of my fellow students even with Andy if my time at Harvard showed me anything it was that we at the FBI had a lot to teach the world about negotiating in my short stay I realized that without a deep understanding of human psychology without the acceptance that we are all crazy irrational impulsive emotionally driven animals all the raw intelligence and mathematical logic in the world is little help in the fraught shifting interplay of two people negotiating yes perhaps we are the only animal that haggles a monkey does not exchange a portion of his banana for another's nuts but no matter how we dress up our negotiations in mathematical theories we are always an animal always acting and reacting first and foremost from our deeply held but mostly invisible and inate fears needs perceptions and desires that's not how these folks at Harvard learned it though their theories and techniques all had to do with intellectual power logic authoritative acronyms like batna and Zopa rational Notions of value and a moral concept of what was fair and what was not and built on top of this false edifice of rationality was of course process they had a script to follow a predetermined sequence of actions offers and counter offers designed in a specific order to bring about a particular outcome it was as if they were dealing with a robot that if you did a b c and d in a certain fixed order you would get X but in the real world negotiation is far too unpredictable and complex for that you may have to do a then d and then maybe Q if I could dominate the country's brightest students with just one of the many emotionally attuned negotiating techniques I had developed and used against terrorists and kidnappers why not apply them to business what was the difference between bank robbers who took hostages and CEOs who used Hardball tactics to drive down the price of a billion dooll acquisition after all kidnappers are just businessmen trying to get the best price old school negotiation hostage taking and therefore hostage negotiating has existed since the dawn of recorded time the Old Testament spins plenty of tales of Israelites and their enemies taking each other's citizens hostage as Spoils of War the Romans for their part used to force the princes of vassal states to send their sons to Rome for their education to ensure the continued loyalty of the princes but until the Nixon Administration hostage negotiating as a process process was limited to sending in troops and trying to shoot the hostages free in law enforcement our approach was pretty much to talk until we figured out how to take them out with a gun Brute Force then a series of Hostage disasters forced us to change in 1971 39 hostages were killed when the police tried to resolve the Attica prison riots in Upstate New York with guns then at the 1972 Olympics in Munich 11 Israeli athletes and coach Coes were killed by their Palestinian captors after a botched rescue attempt by the German police but the greatest inspiration for institutional change in American law enforcement came on an airport tarmac in Jacksonville Florida on October 4th 1971 the United States was experiencing an epidemic of Airline hijackings at the time there were five in one 3-day period in 1970 it was in that charged atmosphere that an unhinged man named George gif Jr hijacked a chartered plane out of Nashville Tennessee planning to head to the Bahamas by the time the incident was over gify had murdered two hostages his estranged wife and the pilot and killed himself to boot but this time the blame didn't fall on the hijacker instead it fell squarely on the FBI two hostages had managed to convince gify to let them go on the tarmac in Jacksonville where they'd stopped to refuel but the agents had gotten impatient and shot out the engine and that had pushed gify to the nuclear option in fact the blame placed on the FBI was so strong that when the Pilot's Wife and gif's daughter filed a wrongful death suit alleging FBI negligence the courts agreed in the landmark Downs V United States decision of 1975 the US court of appeals wrote that there was a better suited alternative to protecting the hostages well-being and said that the FBI had turned what had been a successful waiting game during which two persons safely left the plane into a shooting match that left three persons dead the court concluded that a reasonable attempt at negotiations must be made prior to a tactical intervention the Downs hijacking case came to aomizuan and techniques for hostage negotiations soon after the gify tragedy the New York City Police Department NYPD became the first police force in the country to put together a dedicated team of Specialists to design a process and handle crisis negotiations the FBI and others followed a new era of negotiation had begun Hart V's mind in the early 1980s Cambridge Massachusetts was the hot spot in the negotiating world as Scholars from different disciplines began interacting and exploring exciting New Concepts the big Leap Forward came in 1979 when the Harvard negotiation project was founded with a mandate to improve the theory teaching and practice of negotiation so that people could more effectively handle everything from peace treaties to business mergers two years later Roger fiser and William Yuri co-founders of the project came out with getting to yes to a groundbreaking Treatise on negotiation that totally changed the way practitioners thought about the field fiser and U's approach was basically to systematize problem solving so that negotiating parties could reach a mutually beneficial deal the getting to yes in the title their core assumption was that the emotional brain that animalistic unreliable and irrational Beast could be overcome through a more rational joint problem-solving mindset their system was easy to follow and seductive with four basic tenants one separate the person the emotion from the problem two don't get wrapped up in the other side's position what they're asking for but instead focus on their interests why they're asking for it so that you can find what they really want three work cooperatively to generate win-win options and four establish mutually agreed upon standards for evaluating those possible solutions it was a brilliant rational and profound synthesis of the most advanced Game Theory and legal thinking of the day for years after that book came out everybody including the FBI and the NYPD focused focused on a problemsolving approach to bargaining interactions it just seemed so modern and smart halfway across the United States a pair of professors at the University of Chicago was looking at everything from economics to negotiation from a far different angle they were the economist Amos tersi and the psychologist Daniel Conan together the two launched the field of Behavioral economics and Conan won a Nobel Prize by showing that man is a very irrational Beast feeling that discovered is a form of thinking as you've seen when Business Schools like Harvard's began teaching negotiation in the 1980s the process was presented as a straightforward economic analysis it was a period when the world's top academic economists declared that we were all rational actors and so it went in negotiation classes assuming the other side was acting rationally and selfishly in trying to maximize its position the goal was to figure out how to respond in various scenarios to maximize one's own value this mentality baffled Conan who from years in Psychology knew that in his words it is self-evident that people are neither fully rational nor completely selfish and that their tastes are anything but stable through Decades of research with tersi Conan proved that humans all suffer from cognitive bias that is unconscious and irrational brain processes that literally distort the way we see the world Conan and verski discovered more than 150 of them there's the framing effect which demonstrates that people respond differently to the same Choice depending on how it is framed people place greater value on moving from 90% to 100% high probability to certainty then from 45% to 55% even though they're both 10 percentage points prospect theory explains why we take unwarranted risks in the face of un certain losses and the most famous is loss aversion which shows how people are statistically more likely to act to avert a loss than to achieve an equal gain conoman later codified his research in the 2011 bestseller thinking fast and slow man he wrote has two systems of thought system one our animal mind is fast instinctive and emotional system two is slow deliberative and logical and system one is far more influential in fact it guides and steers our rational thoughts system 1's incho beliefs feelings and impressions are the main sources of the explicit beliefs and deliberate choices of system 2 they're the spring that feeds the river we react emotionally system one to a suggestion or question then that system one reaction informs and in effect creates the system 2 answer now think about that under this model if you know how to affect your counterpart system one thinking his inarticulate Feelings by how you frame and deliver your questions and statements then you can guide his system to rationality and therefore modify his responses that's what happened to Andy at Harvard by asking how am I supposed to do that I influenced his system one emotional mind into accepting that his offer wasn't good enough his system to then rationalized the situation so that it made sense to give me a better offer if you believed Conan conducting negot iations based on system 2 Concepts without the tools to read understand and manipulate the system one emotional underpinning was like trying to make an omelet without first knowing how to crack an egg the FBI gets emotional as the new hostage negotiating team at the FBI grew and gained more experience in problem solving skills during the 1980s and 990s it became clear that our system was lacking a crucial ingredient at the time we were deep into getting to yes and as a negotiator consultant and teacher with Decades of experience I still agree with many of the powerful bargaining strategies in the book when it was published it provided groundbreaking ideas on Cooperative problem solving and originated absolutely necessary Concepts like entering negotiations with a batna the best alternative to a negotiated agreement it was genius but after the fatally disastrous sieges of Randy Weaver's Ruby Ridge Farm in Idaho in 1992 and David kish's Branch dividian compound in wo Texas in 1993 there was no denying that most hostage negotiations were anything but rational problem-solving situations I mean have you ever tried to devise a mutually beneficial win-win solution with a guy who thinks he's the Messiah it was becoming glaringly obvious that getting to yes didn't work with kidnappers no matter how many agents read the book with highlighters in hand it failed to improve how we as hostage negotiators approached deal making there was clearly a breakdown between the book's brilliant Theory and everyday law enforcement experience why was it that everyone had read this best-selling Business book and endorsed it as one of the greatest negotiation texts ever written and yet so few could actually follow it successfully were we morons after Ruby Ridge and Waco a lot of people were asking that question you us Deputy attorney general Philip B Heyman to be specific wanted to know why our hostage negotiation techniques were so bad in October 1993 he issued a report titled lessons of Waco proposed changes in federal law enforcement for which summarized an expert panel's diagnosis of federal law enforcement's inability to handle complex hostage situations as a result in 1994 FBI director Louie free announced the formation of the critical incident Response Group group crg a blended division that would combine the crises negotiation crises management Behavioral Sciences and hostage rescue teams and reinvent crisis negotiation the only issue was what techniques were we going to use around this time two of the most decorated negotiators in FBI history my colleague Fred Lanley and my former boss Gary nner were leading a hostage negotiation class in Oakland California when they asked their group of 35 experienced law Enforcement Officers a simple question how many had dealt with a classic bargaining situation where problem solving was the best technique not one hand went up then they asked the complimentary question how many students had negotiated an incident in a dynamic intense uncertain environment where the hostage taker was in emotional crisis and had no clear demands every hand went up it was clear if emotionally driven incidents not naal bargaining interactions constituted the bulk of what most police negotiators had to deal with then our negotiating skills had to laser focus on the animal emotional and irrational from that moment onward our emphasis would have to be not on training in quid proquo bargaining and problem solving but on education in the psychological skills needed in Crisis Intervention situations emotions and emotional intelligence would have to be Central to effective negotiation not things to be overcome what were needed were simple psychological tactics and strategies that worked in the field to calm people down establish Rapport gain trust elicit the verbalization of needs and persuade the other guy of our empathy we needed something easy to teach easy to learn and easy to execute these were cops and agents after all and they weren't interested in becoming academics or therapists what they wanted was to change the behavior of the hostage taker whoever they were and whatever they wanted to shift the emotional environment of the crisis just enough so that we could secure the safety of everyone involved in the early years the FBI experimented with both new and old therapeutic techniques developed by the counseling profession these counseling skills were aimed at developing positive relationships with people by demonstrating an understanding of what they're going through and how they feel about it it all starts with the universal applicable premise that people want to be understood and accepted listening is the cheapest yet most effective concession we can make to get there by listening intensely a negotiator demonstrates empathy and shows a sincere desire to better understand what the other side is experiencing psychotherapy research shows that when individuals feel listened to they tend to listen to themselves more carefully and to openly evaluate and clarify their own thoughts and feelings in addition they tend to become less defensive and oppositional and more willing to listen to other points of view which gets them to the calm and logical place where they can be good getting to yes problem solvers the whole concept which you'll learn as the centerpiece of this book is called tactical empathy this is listening as a martial art balancing the subtle behaviors of emotional intelligence and the assertive skills of influence to gain access to the mind of another person contrary to popular opinion listening is not a passive activity it is the most active thing you can do once we started developing our new techniques the negotiating World split into two currents negotiation as learned at the country's top school continued down the established Road of rational problem solving while ironically we meet heads at the FBI began to train our agents in an unproven system based on psychology counseling and Crisis Intervention while the ivy league taught math and economics we became experts in empathy and our way worked life is negotiation while you might be curious how FBI negotiators get some of the world's toughest bad guys to give up their hostages you could be excused for wondering what hostage negotiation has to do with your life happily very few people are ever forced to deal with islamist terrorists who've kidnapped their loved ones but allow me to let you in on a secret life is negotiation the majority of the interactions we have at work and at home are negotiations that boil down to the expression of a simple animalistic urge I want I want you to free the hostages is a very relevant one to this book of course but so is I want you to accept that $1 million contract I want to pay $20,000 for that car I want you to give me a 10% raise and I want you to go to sleep at 9:00 p.m. negotiation serves two distinct vital life functions information gathering and behavior influencing and includes almost any interaction where each party wants something from the other side your career your finances your reputation your love life even the fate of your kids at some point all of these hinge on your ability to negotiate negotiation as you'll learn it here is nothing more than communication with results getting what you want out of life is all about getting what you want from and with other people conflict between two parties is inevitable in all relationships so it's useful crucial even to know how to engage in that conflict to get what you want without inflicting damage in this book I draw on my more than two decade career in the Federal Bureau of Investigation to distill the principles and practices I deployed in the field into an exciting new approach designed to help you disarm redirect and dismantle your counterpart in virt virtually any negotiation and to do so in a relationship affirming way yes you'll learn how we negotiated the safe release of countless hostages but you'll also learn how to use a deep understanding of human psychology to negotiate a lower car price a bigger raise and a child's bedtime this book will teach you to reclaim control of the conversations that inform your life and career the first step to achieving a Mastery of daily negotiation is to get over aversion to negotiating you don't need to like it you just need to understand that's how the world Works negotiating does not mean brow beating or grinding someone down it simply means playing the emotional game that human society is set up for in this world you get what you ask for you just have to ask correctly so claim your prerogative to ask for what you think is right what this book is really about then is getting you to accept negotiation and in doing so learn how to get what you want in a psychologically aware way you'll learn to use your emotions instincts and insights in any encounter to connect better with others influence them and achieve more effective negotiation is applied people smarts a psychological Edge in every domain of Life how to size someone up how to influence their sizing up of you and how to use that knowledge to get what you want but beware this is not another popsy book it's a deep and thoughtful and and most of all practical take on leading psychological theory that distills lessons from a 24-year career in the FBI and 10 years teaching and Consulting in the best business schools and corporations in the world and it works for one simple reason it was designed in and for the real world it was not born in a classroom or a training Hall but built from years of experience that improved it until it reached near Perfection remember a hostage negotiator plays a unique role he has to win can he say to a bank robber okay you've taken four hostages let's split the difference give me two and we'll call it a day no a successful hostage negotiator has to get everything he asks for without giving anything back of substance and do so in a way that leaves the adversaries feeling as if they have a great relationship his work is emotional intelligence on steroids those are the tools you'll learn here like a contractor build a house this book is constructed from the ground up first comes the big slabs of foundation then the necessary loadbearing walls the elegant but impermeable roof and the lovely interior decorations each chapter expands on the previous one first you'll learn the refined techniques of this approach to active listening and then you'll move on to specific tools turns of phrase the ins and outs of the Final Act haggling and finally how to discover the Rarity that can help you achieve true negotiating greatness the Black Swan in Chapter 2 you'll learn how to avoid the assumptions that blind neoy negotiators and replace them with active listening techniques like mirroring silences and the late night FM DJ voice you'll discover how to slow things down and make your counterpart feel safe enough to reveal themselves to discern between wants aspirations and needs the bare minimum for a deal and to laser focus on what the other party has to say chapter 3 will delve into tactical empathy you'll learn how to recognize your counterpart's perspective and then gain trust and understanding through labeling that is by repeating that perspective back to them you'll also learn how to diffuse negative Dynamics by bringing them into the open finally I'll explain how to disarm your counterpart's complaints about you by speaking them aloud in an accusation audit next in chapter 4 I'll examine ways to make your counter part feel understood and positively affirmed in a negotiation in order to create an atmosphere of unconditional positive regard here you'll learn why you should strive for that's right instead of yes at every stage of a negotiation and how to identify rearticulate and emotionally affirm your counterpart's worldview with summaries and paraphrasing chapter 5 teaches the flip side of getting to yes you'll learn why it's vitally important to get to no because no starts the negot negotiation you'll also discover how to step out of your ego and negotiate in your counterparts world the only way to achieve an agreement the other side will Implement finally you'll see how to engage your counterpart by acknowledging their right to choose and you'll learn an email technique that ensures that you'll never be ignored again in chapter 6 you'll discover the art of bending reality that is I'll explain a variety of tools for framing a negotiation in such a way that your counterpart will unconsciously accept the limits you place on the discussion you'll learn how to navigate deadlines to create urgency employ the idea of fairness to nudge your counterpart and anchor their emotions so that not accepting your offer feels like a loss after this chapter 7 is dedicated to that incredibly powerful tool I used at Harvard calibrated questions the queries that begin with how or what by eliminating yes and no answer ERS they force your counterpart to apply their mental energy to solving your problems in chapter 8 I demonstrate how to employ these calibrated questions to guard against failures in the implementation phase yes as I always say is nothing without how you'll also discover the importance of non-verbal communication how to use how questions to gently say no how to get your counterparts to bid against themselves and how to influence the deal Killers when they're not at the table at a certain point point every negotiation gets down to the Brass tax that is to Old School haggling chapter 9 offers a step-by-step process for Effective bargaining from how to prepare to how to dodge an aggressive counterpart and how to go on the offensive you'll learn the acrian system the most effective process the FBI has for setting and making offers finally chapter 10 explains how to find and use those most rare of negotiation animals the Black Swan in every negotiation there are between three and five pieces of information that were they to be uncovered would change everything the concept is an absolute GameChanger so much so I've named my company the Black Swan group in this chapter you'll learn how to recognize the markers that show the black swans hidden nest as well as simple tools for employing black swans to gain leverage over your counterpart and Achieve truly amazing deals each chapter will start with a fastp B story of a hostage negotiation which will then be dissected with an eye to explaining what worked and what didn't after I explain the theory and the tools you'll read real life case studies from me and others who've used these tools to Prevail while negotiating a salary purchasing a car or working out nettlesome problems at home when you finish this book I will have succeeded if you've applied these crucial techniques to improve your career and life I'm sure you will just remember to successfully negotiate it is critical to prepare which is why in the appendix you'll find an invaluable tool I use with all my students and clients called the negotiation one sheet a concise primer of nearly all our tactics and strategies for you to think through and customize for whatever kind of deal you're looking to close most important to me is that you understand how urgent essential and even beautiful negotiation can be when we we Embrace negotiating's transformative possibilities we learn how to get what we want and how to move others to a better place negotiation is the heart of collaboration it is what makes conflict potentially meaningful and productive for all parties it can change your life as it has changed mine I've always thought of myself as just a regular guy hardworking and willing to learn yes but not particularly talented and I've always felt that life holds amazing possibilities in my much younger days I just didn't know how to unlock those possibilities but with the skills I've learned I found myself doing extraordinary things and watching the people I've taught achieve truly life-changing results when I use what I've learned over the last 30 years I know I actually have the power to change the course of where my life is going and to help others do that as well 30 years ago while I felt like that could be done I didn't know how now I do here's how [Music] [Music]