Wednesday, April 22, 2015

8 Ways Having a Toddler Is Like a Hostage Negotiation With a Highly Unstable Person


8 Ways Having a Toddler Is Like a Hostage Negotiation With a Highly Unstable Person
1. The list of demands aren’t always clear, but when they are announced, they are often impossibly specific.
When you ask them what they want, they get so absorbed in the question that their tiny toddler brains seemingly overheat and they stammer and stutter as they try to get the words out. Saliva runs down their chin, and a circuitous, long-winded statement finally spills out like floodwater that’s been building up behind the earthworks: I wan…I want…I want to go to a movie like the Foe-zen, but I wanna bring my Lego puppy. We could have a pizza. On a Tuesday, on a rocket ship. When you tell them that their request isn’t possible, they lose it. With toddlers, every request is a potential Kobayshi Maru.

2. They protest even when you give them exactly what they want.
Read more from Yahoo! [HERE]. 

Monday, April 20, 2015

Five Strange Workplace Conversation Tips From a Hostage Negotiator


The single obstacle standing between you and a promotion, raise, or new job could be your voice, according to a paper published this month in Organization Management Journal. The study, written by a business school professor and a voice specialist, drew lessons from an in-depth interview with Christophe Caupenne, a former counterterrorist and hostage negotiator with Research, Assistance, Intervention, and Deterrence (RAID), France’s equivalent of a SWAT unit. As it turns out, persuading a maniac not to kill someone requires the same skills as talking to your boss. You never would have guessed, I bet.
Here are some of the strategies Caupenne recommends for people who want to be better at getting things out of other people at work.

1. Train your breathing on a candle.

Read more from Bloomberg Business [HERE]. 

Friday, April 17, 2015

Former FBI Lead Negotiator Chris Voss named Senior Fellow at George Washington University Center for Cyber & Homeland Security

LOS ANGELESApril 6, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The George Washington University Center for Cyber & Homeland Security (CCHS) announced yesterday that Former FBI International Lead Hostage Negotiator Chris Voss has been named a Senior Fellow as part of their Counterterrorism and Intelligence Task Force. Chris worked for the FBI for 24 years, and now runs The Black Swan Group, a strategic business advisory firm that solves business negotiation problems with hostage negotiation strategies. 
The Senior Fellows were selected earlier this month following an open, competitive process and will serve in the position for a two-year term starting on April 1, 2015. As a distinguished group of policy experts and practitioners in the areas of cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and homeland security, drawn from the private sector, government, academia, and the non-profit sector, Chris Voss is honored to join CCHS's non-resident senior fellows.
"I am honored to become a Senior Fellow with the CCHS as they remain on the cutting-edge of counter terrorism thinking and leadership."
Chris brings extensive knowledge from the real world of hostage negotiation and applies them, successfully, to the business and academic worlds. Voss is a Harvard graduate, USC Marshall School of Business Adjunct Professor, Georgetown UniversityMcDonough School of Business Professor, Speaker, and Author.
As a recognized international negotiations expert, Chris is frequently interviewed by major media on headline news such as the recent Germanwings crash, Ferguson riots, Boston Bombings, Somali Pirates and hostage negotiations in IraqAfghanistanNigeriaPanamaColombiaGaza, and Haiti.
About
Former FBI Lead Negotiator Chris Voss specializes hostage and business negotiations. Based in Los Angeles, Voss now runs The Black Swan Group, is working on a book (working title, "Killer Deals", April 2016), and teaches business leaders how to get better negotiation results with rave reviews and results. Chris' extensive media resume commenting on hostage negotiation stories includes repeat appearances on CNN, Fox News, Larry King Live, Discovery Channel, ABC News, Washington Business Tonight, Anderson Cooper, and Crime Timehttp://www.blackswanltd.com/about-black-swan/

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Hostage Negotiator Trains Patrol Officers To Dial It Back


After a tour abroad teaching cops how to ease tense stand-offs, a respected former top city cop has returned to offer New Haven officers the same de-escalation training—a first-in-the-state effort launched amid police-citizen controversies nationwide.

...The police department tapped one of its own, former Lt. Ray Hassett, to teach the course. Hassett retired from the department in 2012, after 25 years as an officer. Hassett served as district manager for the Dwight neighborhood as well as the department’s SWAT chief.

Read more from the NewHavenIndependent.org [HERE]. 

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

2015 21st Annual Calgary Police Service Crisis Negotiation Conference


We are pleased to announce that our 2015 Calgary Negotiation Seminar will be available for early registration on Wednesday April 15, 2015 at:

This 21st Annual Calgary Negotiation Seminar is located in Calgary, Alberta Canada and will present several case studies as well as learning blocks. Details will be available on the website as presenters are confirmed. I have attached this year’s poster to this email for more details.

Mark your calendars for September 22 – 24, 2015 and ensure that you register early as spots are limited.

Former FBI hostage negotiation trainer explains how to get people to do what you want

Mark Goulston, a former FBI hostage negotiation
trainer, role playing.
Mark Goulston spent two years role-playing for a living.
He’d pretend to be a suicidal policeman, holding a gun to his neck, threatening to take his own life.
His job was to challenge his audience — a room full of FBI agents and police officers — to talk him out of it.
“In the end, I always pulled the trigger and then from the point of view of that role play, I would tell them what they could have asked and could have said that would have caused me to give up and surrender,” explains Goulston, a psychiatrist and former FBI hostage negotiation trainer.
Read more from BusinessInsider.com.au [HERE]. 

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Special Crisis Hostage Negotiation Webinar With Thomas Strentz

 The Association for Conflict Resolution’s Second Annual Crisis Negotiation Month
Hostage/Crisis Negotiations
Lessons Learned from the Bad, the Mad and the Sad
Tuesday, April 14th
6-7pm est. (5-6pm central, 3-4pm pst.) 
***FREE But Spots Are Limited***
Sign up [HERE]
In this Webinar, Dr.Thomas Strentz, psychologist and author with many years of experience with the FBI and as a counterterrorism consultant, will offer case histories on how to quickly identify the three main types of personality disorders with whom negotiators are likely to come into contact; understand their perceptions them and of reality; recognize their primary defense mechanisms, and how to negotiate with them.
Sponsored by the Association for Conflict Resolution and ADRhub.com, this informative and entertaining webinar is designed for crisis and hostage negotiators, but all conflict resolution practitioners including mediators, conflict coaches, students, and ombuds will find the skills applicable to the work they do.

About the Presenter:
A former FBI negotiator who designed, directed and developed the FBI negotiations program from 1975-1987, Dr. Strentz  has also committed his expertise to  the  resolution of numerous terrorist situations world-wide.
 He  has provided consultation and training in unconventional, security, and counter terrorism  operations to various US military, US federal, state and local law  enforcement and friendly foreign military/LE special operations units. He utilizes his expertise for organizations and individuals who work and travel in high-risk areas, such as domestic and international air lines, law enforcement, government agencies and the military.
While with the FBI, he also helped create the FBI Hostage Rescue Team selection program and was a pioneer in psychological profiling of criminal and terrorist offenders. He developed
 and refined aircraft hijacker and terrorist profiles currently used internationally.

Dr. Strentz is the author of two books,  The Psychological Aspects of Crisis Negotiation and