WEBVTT

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[PHONE DIALING]

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MAN: Hello.

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CHRIS: Hi, is this is Billy?

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MAN: Joe?

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CHRIS: This is Chris.

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My name is Chris.

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Joe's gone now, and I'm going
to be talking to you now.

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MAN: Listen, we'll
turn ourselves

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in if you do what we tell you.

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NEWSCASTER: The scene
unfolding yesterday

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was like one from a movie.

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A woman taken hostage
in the middle of the day

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by a criminal
claiming to be armed.

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In situations like this,
hostage negotiators

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are charged with making
split second decisions that

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could mean life or death.

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JOURNALIST: Negotiators are
working around the clock

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to help secure her release.

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BROADCASTER: A
tense hostage crisis

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that is now entering
its fourth night.

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REPORTER: The deadline for
her execution has passed.

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NEWSPERSON: With us now to help
break down the investigation,

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retired FBI Special Agent
hostage negotiator Christopher

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Voss.

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ANNOUNCER: He is former FBI
lead international kidnapping

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negotiator.

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WOMAN: He is very much
informed on these matters.

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Chris, I wanted to
go to you with things

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I heard in that press
conference just moments ago.

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CHRISTOPHER VOSS: Everything
in life is negotiation.

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Life is a negotiation.

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The human nature rules
that apply to all people,

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it doesn't matter if you're
a terrorist or a businessman.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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You're in negotiations
all day long.

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If you want somebody
to say yes to anything,

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you're in a negotiation.

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If somebody is trying to get
you to say yes to something,

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you're in a negotiation.

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If you say, I want
or you think I need,

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you're in a negotiation.

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You're probably in three
to seven negotiations

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every single day.

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The stereotype of
negotiation is that it's

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about being the biggest
jerk in the room,

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that it's who's the loudest,
who's the most aggressive,

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who takes the most at the
other person's expense.

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The stereotype is that I
win means you got to lose,

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and I beat you.

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That is not the case.

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Great negotiation is
about great collaboration.

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It's about several people
faced with different aspects

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of the same problem.

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The adversary is not the
person across the table.

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The adversary is the situation.

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The person across the
table is a counterpart

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that's struggling with some
aspect of the same problem

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that you are.

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You work with them and
solve that problem together,

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and you're both better off.

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In my class, I'm going to
give you all of the strategies

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and tactics that I developed
as one of the top hostage

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negotiators in the world.

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You're going to learn
everything from bargaining

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to reading body
language and speech

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patterns to the neuroscience
that can literally

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bend people's reality.

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Most importantly,
you're going to learn

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how to achieve your goals
through collaboration

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and the use of
tactical empathy that

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creates trust-based influence.

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I'm Chris Voss, and
this is my MasterClass.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Empathy is becoming completely
aware of the other side's

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perspective, their
point of view,

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their take on things, how they
see it, and what they feel.

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It's not agreement in any way.

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It's not compassion.

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It's not sympathy.

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Let's tactically take what
we know to be the case

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and apply it in
our interactions.

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You know, the human nature
rules that apply to all people,

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it doesn't matter if you're
a terrorist or a businessman.

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And if you can really get
at what's driving someone,

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you can change their
outlook, and you can

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change their decision making.

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You have to understand
what their rules are.

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I have to understand
what your rules are,

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and I have to respect those.

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I don't necessarily have
to adopt those rules,

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but I've got to understand
and respect what they are.

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 The clock is ticking in
Iraq for kidnapped American

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journalist Jill Carroll.

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This morning, new
video of Carroll

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was aired on Al
Jazeera television.

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It showed Carroll
surrounded by armed men.

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Her captors threatened
to kill her tomorrow

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if their demands are not met.

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CHRISTOPHER VOSS: The
Jill Carroll case really

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helped me understand
the psychology of what's

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at stake in a negotiation.

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What are they really
bargaining for?

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What are they really after?

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Who are they really
trying to talk to?

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Jill Carroll is a journalist
working in Iraq shortly

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after the end of, quote, the
end of the Second Iraq War.

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So she's on her way to
interview an official,

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and she's kidnapped.

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And she was taken by what
appeared to be Al-Qaeda.

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And Al-Qaeda, at the
time, was in the business

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of kidnapping people,
putting videotapes of them

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on the internet,
threatening their lives,

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and then shortly thereafter
cutting off their heads.

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So this happens.

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She disappears.

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And shortly thereafter,
they put a video of her.

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They have three people
standing around her, three men.

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They're masked.

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Two of them are holding rifles.

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One of them is holding
what appears to be a book.

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She's seated on a
floor in front of them,

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and her hair is uncovered.

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So they had orchestrated
a video of her

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that made her look
like she'd been judged

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by an appropriate
authority and therefore

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was acceptable to execute
her for her crimes

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for her sentence.

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What is the commodity at stake?

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What are they really
negotiating for?

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They're trying to
show themselves

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as a legitimate authority that
can pass sentence on people

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and execute them like any
other legitimate authority.

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That's what that
video was about.

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So we needed to approach
it from that level.

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And what were their
rules that they violated?

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You know, I can
live by your rules.

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Can you?

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Well, let's see if we can
turn your rules against you.

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So what we noted
in the video was

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that they had complete
control of her,

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and they videotaped her with
her hair uncovered, which

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was a violation of their rules.

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So we began to, through third
parties, point out to them

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to various media outlets that
they were breaking their rules,

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that they disrespected her,
and then we did a videotape

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with her father.

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 I want to speak directly to
the man holding my daughter

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Jill.

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Her life as a reporter will
better serve your purpose

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than her death.

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 We coached her father.

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He had the option to
take our coaching or not.

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And we said, what we
need to do is we need

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to tell the indisputable truth.

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We need you to go on camera.

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We need you to not engage
in any predictable dialogue.

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They've already said
in advance that you're

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going to go in the
media, and you're

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going to say she's innocent.

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Leave her alone.

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These are trigger words
that they have predicted

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that you will say in advance.

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And as soon as you say that
your daughter was innocent,

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regardless of whether
or not it's true,

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you feed into their
justification for killing her.

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He went on the media and
said, my daughter Jill

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is not your enemy.

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She was reporting on what
was happening in Iraq

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and, if released, would
go back to reporting

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on what is happening in Iraq.

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Things that are
indisputably true.

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We know from their culture
that they believe that honor

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flows from the father.

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We didn't know it at the
time, but we found out

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after she was released
that the terrorists saw

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her father in the
media and said to her,

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your father is an honorable man.

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Now, not knowing at the time,
but at that point in time,

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we'd won the negotiation.

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It was over.

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She was safe.

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When they say to her, your
father's an honorable man,

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they now can't hurt her because
honor flows from the father.

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And their view of her
has completely changed.

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And lo and behold, the very
next video we saw of her,

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she was by herself on camera.

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There were no executioners
standing around her,

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and her hair was covered.

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And about 88 days
I believe or so

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after the day that
she was taken,

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she appeared on the
streets of Baghdad

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very close to a location
that she'd originally

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been grabbed because they
didn't know what to do with her.

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They'd lost a negotiation.

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They sensed that they had.

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They didn't know who to blame.

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It had taken place in the media.

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It had taken place in the
arena that they chose.

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And we understood
what was going on,

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and ultimately, they
just let her go.

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We didn't have the term
emotional intelligence

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back then, but it was
emotional intelligence.

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And it was the
tactical application

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of emotional intelligence.

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And so I knew that
that was the key

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to unraveling these situations.

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Emotional intelligence, what
I call tactical empathy,

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is the bedrock of my
negotiation approach

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and comes from years of
dealing with hostage crises.

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Most of the tools
you're about to learn

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are rooted in the idea of
demonstrating understanding

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of the other side's position
and in so doing building rapport

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and ultimately gaining trust.

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