part0014

On June 17, 1981, at around 11:30 a.m., William Griffin stepped out of the second-floor bedroom in his parents’ Rochester home, took the stairs down to their living room, and stopped at the bottom of the stairs. Without warning, Griffin fired his shotgun thrice, killing his mother and a handyman who was hanging wallpaper. His stepfather was critically wounded.

Griffin left the house and shot a workman and two bystanders as he jogged his way to the Security Trust. As soon as he entered the bank, he ordered the customers to leave and took nine bank employees hostage.

The law enforcers were engaged in a three-and-a-half-hour standoff with Griffin, in which two responding police officers were wounded, along with six people who just happened to be walking near the bank. Griffin had shot off more than a hundred shots. Police had to use a garbage truck as a shield to rescue one police officer.

At 2:30 p.m., Griffin herded the hostages into a small office and instructed the bank manager to call the police. The message, which was received by police officer Jim O’Brien, challenged the law enforcers to a shootout with Griffin at 3 p.m. and a threat that if the law enforcers do not engage him in a shootout, all hostages will be killed and their bodies thrown out. Then the line went dead.

At exactly 3 p.m., Griffin instructed one of his hostages, Margaret Moore, to walk to the bank’s glass doors. As she did, Moore pleaded for her life because she had a young son. But Griffin did not care. Griffin shot off two blasts from his shotgun, which violently threw her through the glass doors, almost cutting her body in half.

The law enforcers were stunned. Griffin was not a typical hostage-taker.

Griffin walked over and pressed his body against the glass of a full-length bank window. He was in full view of a sniper stationed across the street. Griffin knew that a sniper was there.

The sniper pulled the trigger. Griffin was dead.

In March 2003, Dwight Watson, a North Carolina tobacco grower, hooked up his jeep to a tractor with banners and an inverted U.S. flag draped over it. He proceeded to Washington, D.C. to protest government policies that he thought would put tobacco farmers out of business.

On reaching the state, he pulled his tractor into a pond between the Washington Monument and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He threatened to blow up the place with the chemical bombs he claimed he had.

Police immediately blocked off an eight-block area, effectively putting the capital on lockdown.

Through a phone call, Watson told the Washington Post that God instructed him to stage his protest and there was no way he would leave. He was there to show how the policy was killing tobacco farmers.

Chris was deployed to guide a team of FBI agents and U.S. Park Police to talk Watson out of killing himself and other people. The team engaged Watson in a conversation while Chris tried to get a feel of who Watson is.

The team discovered that Watson had been finding it difficult to make a living on his 1,200 acre-tobacco farm, which had been with his family for five generations. A drought had hit the farm, and his crop quota had been cut by half – he could no longer afford the farm.

Watson told them that he was a veteran and that he would be willing to surrender but not right away. As a military police officer in the 1970s, he knew that when trapped behind enemy lines, he could withdraw with honor if reinforcements did not arrive within three days.

The team was giving Watson a way out, but he would not budge from the military rule. Meanwhile, the capital was under siege, and with Watson's frequent outbursts, the danger of him being killed or him blowing up the place was still there.

On the second day, Winnie Miller, an FBI agent, has been listening intently to Watson and caught on his subtle references. She informed Chris that Watson is a devout Christian and that the day after is the Dawn of the Third Day – the day Jesus Christ left his tomb and ascended to Heaven. Perhaps that might convince him to come out.

In their next conversation with Watson, they mentioned that the next morning was the Dawn of the Third Day. Watson kept silent for a long while until he finally said he is coming out. He did.

Never in America’s history had a hostage-taker killed a hostage at the deadline. Hostage-takers wanted respect, money, and a helicopter. That was the truth – a known known.

However, in any situation, there are hidden and unexpected information, the unknown unknowns or Black Swans, which can alter the negotiation dynamics. Those who can identify and use these Black Swans succeed at shifting the negotiation to work in their favor.

The Black Swan theory opines that things we never thought about or that were thought to be impossible can happen. Black Swans are events or knowledge that cannot be predicted.

There are different kinds of information in negotiation.

These are things we know – our counterpart’s name, our experiences from previous negotiations, their offer.

These are things that we are sure exist, but we do not know who, what, where, why, how, or when it will happen. For example, we know that the other side can change their negotiator, but we do not know if they will do that.

These are the Black Swans. We do not know about them at all, like our counterpart wanting the deal to fail because he is joining a competitor.

FBI Agent Clint Van Zandt was there during the standoff with Griffin. Their known knowns guided him and the rest of the FBI; they missed the Black Swans in the situation despite the clues that pointed to something.

What clues were missed out in the Griffin case?

First: O'Brien kept calling the bank, but each time the hostage who answered would immediately hang up. Hostage-takers always talked because they always had demands. But Griffin did not want to speak.

Second: Midway through the standoff, a police officer informed the law enforcement in the Griffin case that there were a double homicide and a critically wounded person a few blocks away. The law enforcers did not look at the possibility of a connection between the two incidents. Had they gotten more information, they would have known that Griffin had shot at several people without any demands.

Third: When the hostage-taker sent a hostage to read a note to the police over the phone, no demand was made. It was a long, unfocused rambling about Griffin’s life. The message was not read in its totality. The law enforcement missed the line "...after the police take my life..."

Because the Black Swans were not discovered, Van Zandt and his team never knew what he wanted until it was too late: Griffin wanted to die, but he wanted the police to do it for him.

Every negotiation case is new. It is alright to let our known knowns guide us, but we must also keep our eyes open to what we do not know. Do not rely solely on experience and treat every negotiation as a fresh start. Give value to every information that comes up and try to piece them together with what you already have.

Black Swans multiply your leverage, which is your ability to inflict loss and withhold gain. Leverage is emotional, and it can be manufactured whether it exists or not. Your counterpart has leverage against you, but what counts is what leverage they think you have against them.

Leverage is influenced by several factors, such as time, need, and competition. In selling your car on a deadline, for instance, you have less leverage if you need to do it than if you simply want to.

Leverage is not the same as power. If a head of state who has power is stranded in a desert island and needs water, the owner of the only store selling water in that island has the leverage.

In negotiation, the party who feels they have more to lose has less leverage, which decreases further when that party fears that loss. A good negotiator must persuade the other party that they have something to lose if the deal falls through.

There are three kinds of leverage.

It refers to your ability to provide or withhold what the other party wants. It is the kind of leverage that will get you a better deal. You can ask for a higher price to give what he wants or get a better deal with someone else.

When Watson let on that he wanted attention, he gave Chris's team positive leverage.

It is your ability to inflict pain on your counterpart based on threats. Loss aversion comes into play when negative leverage is applied.

Chris's team knew that Watson wanted to live, and they used that alongside the positive leverage. They emphasized that he had been heard and he had to live if he wanted his message to survive.

Effective negotiators seek information to discover what is important to their counterpart. One way of doing that is to speak to a third party who knows your counterpart and add it on to what you know based on your interactions with your counterpart.

Avoid making threats because the negative consequences might hurt you and worse, lead to a failed negotiation. Allow the other party to keep their autonomy; otherwise, they will become irrational and might shut off the negotiation.

Label your negative leverage to soften the effect.

It refers to the use of your counterpart’s norms and standards to progress to your position. It means showing inconsistencies between their beliefs and their actions. Listen to the language your counterpart speaks and use it to talk to them.

Watson lived by the veterans' rules, which gave Chris normative leverage. But it was Watson's religion that turned out to be the more powerful normative leverage.

In tense negotiations, your ability to listen drives your success. You must be able to understand the other party to persuade them and develop options that resonate with them. Part of that understanding is knowing their religion, which gives a more in-depth view of the other party's life.

Religion is significant leverage because it has authority over your counterpart. It is what they accept to be just.

People are more trusting of other people they are similar or familiar with. When you create in another person a sense of belonging, it is easier to build rapport and influence that person.

Discover your counterpart’s aspirations, unattained goals and express your belief in their ability to achieve them. Share their passion if you can.

When faced with the unknown, we ignore it or label it as “crazy.” But we need to understand “crazy” if we want to be attuned to other people’s vulnerabilities and influence them in the process. It is a way of discovering the game-changing Black Swans.

Harvard Business School Professors Deepak Malhotra and Max H. Bazerman cite the following reasons why negotiators wrongly refer to their counterparts as crazy.

The negotiator is operating based on either incomplete or bad information. In such a situation, find out what they do not know and supply the correct information.

Your counterpart might not be in a position to do some things but will not reveal it, making them act irrationally. They may not have the authority to close the deal, might be constrained by a legal issue, or were under instructions not to carry out a specific action.

Remember Griffin? His interest was not in money, but in being killed by a cop. Had the FBI known about it, they might have prevented the tragedy.

People may reject offers because of their hidden interests. They are not being irrational but are merely fulfilling their needs and wants that you have not understood.

Strive to have face-to-face interaction with your counterpart. Do not be content with online communication, which gives them too much time and avoid revealing information. Even video conferences are not enough because you will not get a good reading of their body language.

Observe people during their unguarded moments – just before a meeting starts, as everyone is leaving when it ends, during breaks, or any interruption. Watch how people’s smokescreens fall off and observe how other people react.

Conflict has always been perceived to be negative because of its consequences. We avoid arguments and settle for a compromise because we do not want the situation to escalate into a conflict.

When we go to a negotiation table, we do not fear our counterpart. It is the expected conflict. Conflict is part of every negotiation, but if we treat other people with respect, understand their needs and empathize with them, conflict can become constructive.

In negotiation, what we do not will hurt us, so we need to discover the Black Swans. Probe and listen.

Try this out with a friend or a co-worker. Choose someone you are comfortable with, but do not know much about.

Discover their aspirations, interests, fears, passion, vulnerabilities, without letting on your intention. What did you find out? Do these information match your expectation of them?