EP34 · Tools · first published 2020-08-29
Hostage negotiation and pressure | Helena Åhman | Negotiator 34
Helena Åhman explains how the methods of hostage negotiators transfer to the executive team and to difficult conversations at work. The conversation covers the difference between George Kohlrieser's and Chris Voss's schools and what they share — situational awareness — probing values and identity before reaching for solutions, the alpha–beta–gamma roles inside a negotiating team and the amateur mistake of not using them, regulating your own state under pressure through breathing, and building an emotional bond in spite of friction.
Hostage negotiation and pressure | Helena Åhman | Negotiator 34
Summary: Helena Åhman explains how the methods of hostage negotiators transfer to the executive team and to difficult conversations at work. The conversation covers the difference between George Kohlrieser’s and Chris Voss’s schools and what they share — situational awareness — probing values and identity before reaching for solutions, the alpha–beta–gamma roles inside a negotiating team and the amateur mistake of not using them, regulating your own state under pressure through breathing, and building an emotional bond in spite of friction.
Key Themes
- Kohlrieser, Voss and the hostage negotiation tradition: Discussed from 00:00 onward.
- The route into negotiation via leadership development at Nokia: Discussed from 02:30 onward.
- The yes and no schools and what they have in common: Discussed from 05:00 onward.
- Why no technique works every time: Discussed from 07:30 onward.
- Probing values and identity: Discussed from 10:00 onward.
- Don’t reach for the solution first — widen the conversation: Discussed from 12:30 onward.
- What is actually learned from professional negotiators: Discussed from 15:00 onward.
- Alpha, beta and gamma: roles inside a negotiating team: Discussed from 17:30 onward.
- Defensive reactions and directness delivered through empathy: Discussed from 20:00 onward.
- The agenda as an instrument of influence: Discussed from 22:30 onward.
- Regulating your own state under pressure: Discussed from 25:00 onward.
- Breathing as the first sign of stress: Discussed from 27:30 onward.
- A break, a glass of water and lessons from improv: Discussed from 30:00 onward.
- Exposing yourself to pressure and releasing it deliberately: Discussed from 32:30 onward.
- Building an emotional bond in spite of friction: Discussed from 35:00 onward.
- The illusion of competence and Dunning–Kruger: Discussed from 37:30 onward.
- Books, the channel and viewer questions: Discussed from 40:00 onward.
- Mediators, therapy and borrowed methods: Discussed from 42:30 onward.
- Dialogue: getting on the same side: Discussed from 45:00 onward.
- The Alexander technique and synchronising breath: Discussed from 47:30 onward.
- Cognitive and perceptual errors — why teams help: Discussed from 50:00 onward.
- Closing: Discussed from 52:30 onward.