1 00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:04,940 [MUSIC PLAYING] 2 00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:11,010 The amygdala is this little organ 3 00:00:11,010 --> 00:00:15,420 in the middle of your head, and it is the nerve center 4 00:00:15,420 --> 00:00:17,640 of all the emotions. 5 00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:19,200 There were neuroscience experiments 6 00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:22,770 that were done where they put people 7 00:00:22,770 --> 00:00:28,500 in fMRIs, functional magnetic resonance imaging equipment, 8 00:00:28,500 --> 00:00:30,420 so they could watch the electrical activity 9 00:00:30,420 --> 00:00:33,160 in people's brains. 10 00:00:33,160 --> 00:00:34,840 Then they induced the negative emotion 11 00:00:34,840 --> 00:00:37,990 by showing a photo to them. 12 00:00:37,990 --> 00:00:41,770 The photo might make them feel sad, angry, lonely, hurt, 13 00:00:41,770 --> 00:00:43,450 upset. 14 00:00:43,450 --> 00:00:45,370 They knew the photo would trigger some sort 15 00:00:45,370 --> 00:00:47,980 of a negative emotion. 16 00:00:47,980 --> 00:00:50,610 They showed the people the photo, 17 00:00:50,610 --> 00:00:54,050 and they simply said, what are you feeling? 18 00:00:54,050 --> 00:00:57,910 They told them to identify it or label it. 19 00:00:57,910 --> 00:01:01,900 And every time that the person self-labeled, 20 00:01:01,900 --> 00:01:04,810 they saw the electrical activity in the negative part 21 00:01:04,810 --> 00:01:08,820 of the amygdala decrease, every time. 22 00:01:08,820 --> 00:01:11,340 Now, when we first started on labels in a hostage 23 00:01:11,340 --> 00:01:14,460 negotiation, we called them emotion labels, 24 00:01:14,460 --> 00:01:17,850 and we used it as a very self-defining skill. 25 00:01:17,850 --> 00:01:20,160 You labeled emotions. 26 00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:24,160 You heard an emotion, put a label on it. 27 00:01:24,160 --> 00:01:27,170 If somebody sounded angry, you said, you sound angry. 28 00:01:27,170 --> 00:01:30,280 And if that negative emotion is there, 29 00:01:30,280 --> 00:01:33,700 that label will reduce that negative emotion. 30 00:01:33,700 --> 00:01:38,290 So in this session, I'm going to teach you about labels. 31 00:01:38,290 --> 00:01:41,510 Labels are just verbal observations. 32 00:01:41,510 --> 00:01:43,610 When I first came out of hostage negotiation 33 00:01:43,610 --> 00:01:45,830 into business negotiation, I actually 34 00:01:45,830 --> 00:01:49,710 thought this was the least important skill on our list. 35 00:01:49,710 --> 00:01:53,280 Having been involved in business negotiation for quite a while 36 00:01:53,280 --> 00:01:56,580 and coaching a lot of people, we found out 37 00:01:56,580 --> 00:02:00,310 that labels might be the most important skill, the most 38 00:02:00,310 --> 00:02:04,120 innocuous skill, and the most MacGyver skill, 39 00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:09,430 the most useful tool with the most different applications 40 00:02:09,430 --> 00:02:15,060 to unwind and solve some of the trickiest problems. 41 00:02:15,060 --> 00:02:18,520 Don't be fooled by their simplicity. 42 00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:21,370 Their simplicity gives them elegance. 43 00:02:21,370 --> 00:02:23,160 You'll enjoy learning labels. 44 00:02:23,158 --> 00:02:27,368 [MUSIC PLAYING] 45 00:02:29,710 --> 00:02:32,050 The steps to labeling. 46 00:02:32,050 --> 00:02:34,270 The first step is you simply being 47 00:02:34,270 --> 00:02:38,390 aware of the emotion or the dynamic from the other side. 48 00:02:38,390 --> 00:02:41,170 Now, this is a lot easier than it sounds because you've 49 00:02:41,170 --> 00:02:42,880 got a great gut instinct. 50 00:02:42,880 --> 00:02:45,400 Becoming aware of what your gut instinct is picking up 51 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:47,620 is the first step. 52 00:02:47,620 --> 00:02:52,000 Then the second step after that is to simply label it. 53 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:55,090 That starts out with it seems like, it sounds like, it 54 00:02:55,090 --> 00:02:58,060 looks like, it feels like. 55 00:02:58,060 --> 00:03:00,520 Those are the first few words of a label, 56 00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:03,170 and then just fill in the blank. 57 00:03:03,170 --> 00:03:05,520 If your gut instinct is to say, look, 58 00:03:05,523 --> 00:03:07,193 I don't want you to be upset about this, 59 00:03:07,190 --> 00:03:09,620 your gut instinct is picking up that they are upset 60 00:03:09,620 --> 00:03:12,520 or they will be upset. 61 00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:14,690 So take it and make it a label. 62 00:03:14,685 --> 00:03:17,765 It seems like you're upset about this. 63 00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:22,720 What happens in your brain is you say to yourself, 64 00:03:22,720 --> 00:03:24,140 am I upset? 65 00:03:24,140 --> 00:03:26,610 It triggers that contemplation. 66 00:03:26,610 --> 00:03:30,480 And the mere act of triggering that contemplation 67 00:03:30,480 --> 00:03:33,000 deactivates the negative. 68 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:35,970 So my labels are going to do several things simultaneously. 69 00:03:35,973 --> 00:03:37,643 They're going to build the relationship, 70 00:03:37,640 --> 00:03:40,120 and they're going to help me gather information. 71 00:03:40,120 --> 00:03:43,110 And since both of those things are happening, 72 00:03:43,110 --> 00:03:45,870 then my influence with you is going to increase. 73 00:03:45,868 --> 00:03:47,908 And the great thing about this type of influence, 74 00:03:47,910 --> 00:03:50,280 this approach to influence-- 75 00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:55,030 this is what I call trust-based influence. 76 00:03:55,030 --> 00:04:00,100 It's the lowest-maintenance, most durable type of influence 77 00:04:00,100 --> 00:04:01,290 there is. 78 00:04:01,286 --> 00:04:05,256 [MUSIC PLAYING] 79 00:04:07,740 --> 00:04:12,240 A wrong way to label something involves 80 00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:14,920 the phrase "what I'm hearing." 81 00:04:14,917 --> 00:04:16,457 Now, a lot of people have been taught 82 00:04:16,459 --> 00:04:19,929 to say, "well, what I'm hearing is." 83 00:04:19,930 --> 00:04:23,110 By starting out with "what I'm hearing is," 84 00:04:23,110 --> 00:04:26,760 I've dropped the word "I" in inappropriately, 85 00:04:26,760 --> 00:04:28,330 and the message that I'm conveying 86 00:04:28,330 --> 00:04:31,820 is that I'm more interested in my perspective than yours. 87 00:04:31,822 --> 00:04:33,282 It's also important that you resist 88 00:04:33,280 --> 00:04:37,030 the urge to explain a label or to add some follow-up 89 00:04:37,030 --> 00:04:41,140 or to talk in any way, actually, after a good label. 90 00:04:41,140 --> 00:04:43,510 A good label, you've got to let it sink in. 91 00:04:43,510 --> 00:04:45,290 You've got to let it have its effect. 92 00:04:45,290 --> 00:04:48,140 You've got to let it trigger the type of contemplation, 93 00:04:48,140 --> 00:04:50,790 the type of thinking that you want to have triggered 94 00:04:50,790 --> 00:04:51,540 in the other side. 95 00:04:51,540 --> 00:04:55,080 You got to let it fully deactivate the negatives. 96 00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:57,840 So after you've made a great label, you've got to shut up. 97 00:04:57,840 --> 00:04:59,580 You gotta shut the front door. 98 00:04:59,580 --> 00:05:00,750 You got to stop talking. 99 00:05:00,750 --> 00:05:02,790 Even if you get another good label, 100 00:05:02,790 --> 00:05:04,860 let the first one hit hard and sink 101 00:05:04,860 --> 00:05:07,350 in before you follow up with the second label 102 00:05:07,345 --> 00:05:10,035 or before you ask a great question. 103 00:05:10,030 --> 00:05:11,700 Let your label sink in. 104 00:05:11,700 --> 00:05:13,410 Don't explain them. 105 00:05:13,410 --> 00:05:14,860 Don't step on them. 106 00:05:14,860 --> 00:05:18,060 [MUSIC PLAYING] 107 00:05:21,012 --> 00:05:23,882 In a lot of circumstances, it's probably 108 00:05:23,880 --> 00:05:26,250 going to take more than one label of a negative 109 00:05:26,250 --> 00:05:29,560 to completely diffuse or deactivate the negative. 110 00:05:29,560 --> 00:05:31,440 Labels are cumulative. 111 00:05:31,440 --> 00:05:35,610 I will coach you that labeling negatives diffuses, 112 00:05:35,610 --> 00:05:38,100 diminishes them every time. 113 00:05:38,100 --> 00:05:43,110 The important part of that is to remember although I said it 114 00:05:43,113 --> 00:05:44,533 what kind of effect it would have, 115 00:05:44,530 --> 00:05:47,350 I didn't tell you the degree of impact. 116 00:05:47,350 --> 00:05:50,740 I didn't tell you how much it would deactivate or diffuse 117 00:05:50,740 --> 00:05:51,670 the negative. 118 00:05:51,670 --> 00:05:53,710 Sometimes it's a little. 119 00:05:53,710 --> 00:05:55,820 Sometimes it's a lot. 120 00:05:55,820 --> 00:06:00,520 So you may label a negative emotion, and the other side, 121 00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:03,430 you perceive that they don't react. 122 00:06:03,430 --> 00:06:08,380 If you label a negative and you get this response, 123 00:06:08,380 --> 00:06:11,770 it's not that the label didn't work. 124 00:06:11,770 --> 00:06:14,890 It's actually that you're on the right track. 125 00:06:14,890 --> 00:06:17,850 You just need more. 126 00:06:17,850 --> 00:06:20,670 So a lack of response to a negative label 127 00:06:20,670 --> 00:06:24,690 is a good sign that you're on the right track. 128 00:06:24,690 --> 00:06:26,310 Just keep going. 129 00:06:26,310 --> 00:06:27,150 Label it some more. 130 00:06:27,150 --> 00:06:29,950 You might even say as a follow-up, 131 00:06:29,950 --> 00:06:33,280 it sounds like I haven't gone far enough. 132 00:06:33,276 --> 00:06:37,586 It sounds like there's more there than meets the eye. 133 00:06:37,581 --> 00:06:41,121 It sounds like there's some feelings 134 00:06:41,120 --> 00:06:44,760 you have about this that I haven't quite touched yet. 135 00:06:44,760 --> 00:06:49,110 Those would all be appropriate observations 136 00:06:49,110 --> 00:06:51,810 to a response of [STARING BLANKLY] 137 00:06:51,810 --> 00:06:53,660 to your label. 138 00:06:53,660 --> 00:06:55,080 It's just adding it up. 139 00:06:55,077 --> 00:06:58,817 [MUSIC PLAYING] 140 00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:04,450 What I've hoped I've established with you 141 00:07:04,450 --> 00:07:07,900 is that labeling a negative deactivates a negative. 142 00:07:07,903 --> 00:07:09,823 Now I want to talk with you about what happens 143 00:07:09,820 --> 00:07:12,070 when you label a positive. 144 00:07:12,070 --> 00:07:14,350 It's the opposite. 145 00:07:14,350 --> 00:07:17,590 Labeling a positive reinforces it. 146 00:07:17,590 --> 00:07:20,350 You may be in conversation with a customer service 147 00:07:20,350 --> 00:07:27,380 person for an airline, and they're short-tempered. 148 00:07:27,380 --> 00:07:29,730 They've been beaten up all day. 149 00:07:29,733 --> 00:07:31,403 And you didn't call to congratulate them 150 00:07:31,400 --> 00:07:33,810 on having-- doing a good job anyway. 151 00:07:33,810 --> 00:07:36,080 You don't call customer service to congratulate them 152 00:07:36,080 --> 00:07:38,540 on what a great job the airline's doing. 153 00:07:38,535 --> 00:07:39,165 They know that. 154 00:07:39,160 --> 00:07:41,240 They know you're mad in advance. 155 00:07:41,240 --> 00:07:43,440 Now, here's the crazy part. 156 00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:48,120 Their impatience, their empathy, their perspective on this 157 00:07:48,120 --> 00:07:52,060 is that if you're lucky to be talking to them at all, 158 00:07:52,060 --> 00:07:55,500 they're actually being generous with their time. 159 00:07:55,500 --> 00:07:57,660 That's their bizarro worldview. 160 00:07:57,660 --> 00:07:59,170 Again, empathy is not the truth. 161 00:07:59,165 --> 00:08:00,045 It's not the reality. 162 00:08:00,040 --> 00:08:02,650 It's the other side's point of view. 163 00:08:02,650 --> 00:08:05,980 So a great positive to reinforce here 164 00:08:05,980 --> 00:08:09,380 is to say to them, I appreciate you 165 00:08:09,380 --> 00:08:12,200 being generous with your time. 166 00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:15,950 It feels like you're being really generous with me 167 00:08:15,950 --> 00:08:18,230 right now. 168 00:08:18,230 --> 00:08:23,060 I've, in fact, used that with airline customer service 169 00:08:23,060 --> 00:08:27,170 personnel who talked to me as if I was lucky to have them 170 00:08:27,170 --> 00:08:32,040 on the phone at all, put me on hold for a long period of time. 171 00:08:32,039 --> 00:08:35,189 When the woman came back on a phone, I said, look, 172 00:08:35,190 --> 00:08:39,330 it really feels like you're being generous with your time. 173 00:08:39,330 --> 00:08:42,270 And her tone changed instantly. 174 00:08:42,270 --> 00:08:45,630 And she actually talked to me for a few more moments, 175 00:08:45,630 --> 00:08:48,510 put me on hold, and went back and fixed the problem 176 00:08:48,510 --> 00:08:52,050 with no charge, which was exactly what I was after. 177 00:08:52,050 --> 00:08:55,660 I wanted more generosity from her. 178 00:08:55,660 --> 00:08:58,580 And so since it was there, I knew it was buried, 179 00:08:58,580 --> 00:09:02,700 underlying the emotions that were on the surface. 180 00:09:02,700 --> 00:09:05,450 I just used a positive label to reinforce it and build it 181 00:09:05,450 --> 00:09:06,490 back up. 182 00:09:06,488 --> 00:09:12,838 [MUSIC PLAYING] 183 00:09:12,840 --> 00:09:18,570 Mirrors are a great way to dial yourself in on labels. 184 00:09:18,570 --> 00:09:22,080 I can remember in my early days of teaching hostage 185 00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:25,710 negotiation, we were teaching some of the FBI agents 186 00:09:25,710 --> 00:09:28,910 that were on the Hostage Rescue Team, the Super SWATers. 187 00:09:28,910 --> 00:09:32,760 And there was one of the guys on the HRT 188 00:09:32,760 --> 00:09:36,220 in particular that I saw him-- 189 00:09:36,220 --> 00:09:38,100 in a negotiation scenario, he would 190 00:09:38,100 --> 00:09:41,820 mirror and mirror and mirror and then come up 191 00:09:41,820 --> 00:09:43,080 with a great label. 192 00:09:43,080 --> 00:09:46,880 So the combination of mirrors leading into labels 193 00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:49,710 will really help you if you're having trouble 194 00:09:49,710 --> 00:09:53,820 getting a grasp on exactly what the dynamic or the emotion 195 00:09:53,820 --> 00:09:55,910 that the other side is feeling. 196 00:09:55,910 --> 00:09:59,580 Your mirrors will do a great job in teasing that out. 197 00:09:59,580 --> 00:10:04,740 And a flip side is after a great label, 198 00:10:04,735 --> 00:10:06,615 they may have given you a lot of information, 199 00:10:06,610 --> 00:10:10,650 and there may be a part of that that you want to expand on. 200 00:10:10,650 --> 00:10:13,780 So whatever their response is to the label, 201 00:10:13,780 --> 00:10:16,750 you can mirror one or two or three 202 00:10:16,750 --> 00:10:21,040 words out of that response and get a lot more information 203 00:10:21,040 --> 00:10:22,300 afterwards. 204 00:10:22,300 --> 00:10:24,340 So here's how that might play out 205 00:10:24,340 --> 00:10:27,500 if you were going to mirror following a label. 206 00:10:27,500 --> 00:10:30,700 I might say to you, it sounds like this deal 207 00:10:30,700 --> 00:10:33,200 is making you upset. 208 00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:35,750 And you'll say, well, it's not making me upset. 209 00:10:35,750 --> 00:10:38,360 What it really is is we got some real implementation problems 210 00:10:38,360 --> 00:10:40,820 here on the other side because we've had trouble 211 00:10:40,820 --> 00:10:42,680 with this in the past. 212 00:10:42,680 --> 00:10:46,090 I'll simply say, trouble in the past? 213 00:10:46,088 --> 00:10:47,628 And you'll say, yeah, well, you know, 214 00:10:47,630 --> 00:10:49,290 it happened to us with another company. 215 00:10:49,293 --> 00:10:51,713 It was actually the vendor we had before you guys came in, 216 00:10:51,710 --> 00:10:52,890 and they gave us a lot of problems. 217 00:10:52,890 --> 00:10:54,140 But we're really worried that you guys 218 00:10:54,140 --> 00:10:55,180 are doing the same thing. 219 00:10:55,182 --> 00:10:56,752 We realize that you're different, 220 00:10:56,750 --> 00:10:58,620 but, you know, we're not sure yet, 221 00:10:58,620 --> 00:11:01,540 because we're still early in the relationship. 222 00:11:01,540 --> 00:11:05,180 And then I might say, early in the relationship? 223 00:11:05,178 --> 00:11:06,718 But any one of those selected mirrors 224 00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:08,790 is going to tease a lot of information 225 00:11:08,790 --> 00:11:12,310 out about exactly what I'm after. 226 00:11:12,310 --> 00:11:13,960 And it also helps you think it out 227 00:11:13,960 --> 00:11:17,170 loud sort that if there are contradictions 228 00:11:17,170 --> 00:11:20,500 in your thinking, you're much more likely to see them 229 00:11:20,500 --> 00:11:24,700 once you've articulated them than when they're banging 230 00:11:24,700 --> 00:11:26,970 around inside your head.