Research on First Impressions & Tone

In a follow-up to my previous post on how important a negotiator's tone of voice is (Quick Tip: Hostage Negotiator's Tone of Voice), I came across this:

How To Make The Perfect First Impression (According To Science)

The tone and tenor of your voice also plays a significant role in determining what kind of first impression you make on others. A Scottish study found that participants overwhelmingly agreed, based on hearing a subject's voice, on a number of personality judgements, including trustworthiness, aggressiveness, and warmth. 

“[Psychologists] have confirmed that people do make snap judgments when they hear someone’s voice,” Drew Rendall, a psychologist at the University of Lethbridge, told Science Mag. “And the judgments are made on very slim evidence.”

Research studies demonstrate how important first impressions are and it's one of the reasons a main component of PhD explores this with mediators.  

Additionally, I am doing another study with law enforcement hostage negotiators and how they do their introduction (hint: the training manual suggestions are not consistent).

Read the full article at Huffington Post here.

What I Learned About Social Leadership & Listening From a Hostage Negotiator

In her latest diary entry, Eugenie explains what charity leaders can learn from hostage negotiators

As social leaders, we ask a lot of questions. What can I do to help? What do people need? What's my place in the world? But, what I've learned recently is: we should be asking far fewer questions.

As part of the Clore Social Leadership Programme that I'm on, we get training opportunities that we might not otherwise either know about or afford.

I got it into my head that I wanted to do some unusual training with unusual leaders and tracked down former hostage negotiator Dick Mullender. I confess, I was sold on the name alone and arranged a workshop on the art of listening and negotiation.

Dick Mullender

It was some of the best training I've been on. Mullender straight off challenged us on what we think it really means to listen…

Read more from The Guardian [HERE]. 

The Real Bergdahl Error

I came across this article talking about the recent negotiation involving Sgt. Bergdahl and crisis / hostage negotiation in general and I thought everyone would find of interest.

From the article:

Truth was the hostage negotiator’s sidearm. Hostage negotiators did not promise what they could not deliver if there was a chance that the terrorists would capitulate. NYPD Detective Captain, Frank Bolz, arguably the best hostage negotiator of his time, said, success is when everyone -- including the terrorist -- walks out alive. 

Why was truth so important?…

Read the full article by Abraham H. Miller at AmericanThinker.com [HERE]. 

Is It Right To Ever Negotiate With Terrorists? (Via USA Today)

The White House recently negotiated the release of the Sgt. Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier stationed in Afghanistan,  who had been held captive for more than five years.  In reply, five detainees from Guantanamo Bay were release to the Qatari Government.  The Qatari government acted as a mediator/in-between during the negotiations. 

The following article from USA Today by Alan Gomez is worth reading.  Below is a snippet:

"I fear that the administration's decision to negotiate with the Taliban for Sgt. Bergdahl's release could encourage future terrorist kidnappings of Americans," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said Sunday in a statement.

But security experts like Bruce Hoffman, director of Georgetown University's Center for Security Studies, said that however common the refrain "we do not negotiate with terrorists" has become, it is "repeated as mantra more than fact."

"We have long negotiated with terrorists...

Read the full story [HERE]. 

This past April we collaborated with ADRhub.com to co-host Crisis Negotiation Month.  As part of it, we shared numerous articles on negotiating with terrorists.  See the articles [HERE]. 

In This Corner: Crisis Intervention in Communities- Provocative Dissonance and Other Strategies

By Lynne Kinnucan

Linda Colburn was nicknamed the Red Adair of community crisis intervention for her willingness to intervene in on-scene disruptions and for her unique strategies in pushing them through to resolution. In a telephone interview from Hawaii, she walked us through how talk works, whether it’s when she’s called to a breaking crisis or when she’s slogging through a year-long facilitation with multiple angry stakeholders. 

The situations are different, but her emphasis is always the same: helping people make choices about how they engage and how they will handle future conflicts. And then she designs processes that will elevate their skill sets going forward. This transformative emphasis, she says, is critical for people who have to coexist after their disputes have been settled.

Here is Linda on one of her transformative devices: Provocative Dissonance.

Quick Tip: Hostage Negotiator's Tone of Voice

Crisis and hostage negotiator's are involved in situations that are tense, stressful, and anxiety-filled.  In order to try to reduce the overwhelming emotions being experienced by the person they are trying to help, the negotiator's tone of voice is an important tool that can help move the conversation toward a peaceful resolution.

According to Strentz (2012, p.81), after interviewing numerous hostage takers, a theme that emerged was that frequently the hostage takers could not recall the specific things the negotiator said to them that contributed to them turning him or herself in. What they did remember however was the tone of voice of the negotiator- it was one of concern for them as a victim and in need of help.

Top 10 FBI Behavioral Unit Techniques for Building Rapport With Anyone

Robin Dreeke

(From Time.com) Robin Dreeke is head of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program.

In his book It’s Not All About “Me”: The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick ... he simply and clearly spells out methods for connecting with people.

1) Establish artificial time constraints

Nobody wants to feel trapped in an awkward conversation with a stranger...

Yes, I am sure you want to read more just click [HERE] and read the rest from Time.com 

You can also read more on rapport building from a few of my articles:

CPR: Charisma, Professionalism & Rapport

5 Tips On Measuring Crisis & Hostage Negotiation Progress

Tips On Building Rapport

Cops Add Texting To Crisis Negotiation Arsenal

Police negotiator Andres Wells was doing all he could to keep a suspect from killing himself after a robbery and chase. But the man kept cutting phone calls short and pointing his handgun to his head.

About 10 minutes after the last hangup, Wells' cellphone chimed. It was a text from the suspect.

"Please call Amie," the message said, followed by the number of the man's girlfriend.

Wells was surprised. In three years as a negotiator with the Kalamazoo, Michigan, police, he'd always relied on taking cues from a person's tone of voice, the emotions. He'd never thought about negotiating via text.

Read more from the AP/PoliceOne.com [HERE]. 

NYPD ESU Officers Negotiate With A Suicidal Man Atop The Manhattan Bridge

Photo: Gregory P. Mango

(NYPost.com) A man dressed only in bright red cargo shorts and work boots attempted to scale the Manhattan Bridge Wednesday in an effort to commit suicide after getting into a fight with his father, authorities said.
...Five members of the NYPD’s Emergency Services Unit soon arrived and climbed the span to meet the man.
...“I told him, ‘those things really don’t matter,’” the cop recalled saying…

Read the full article [HERE].

In This Corner: Negotiating With Cults

By Lynne Kinnucan

NEGOTIATING WITH CULTS

When what works ….. doesn’t

The conflagration that ended the siege between law enforcement agencies and the Branch Davidian sect in Waco ignited a sudden firestorm of debate throughout the nation. Too big to be fully comprehended and its discrete elements too many to be fully explored, the tragedy remains where it stood more than 20 years ago – a standoff finished, but never resolved.

Experts acknowledged that it was easy to second-guess the failed strategies, BUT they could not provide others that might have worked. Yet In the hundreds of analyses written since then, a core problem emerged: “Given the techniques and strategies traditionally used at the time –the Behavioral Staircase, searching for common ground, reframing, etc. - could there have been any other outcome? Is negotiating with violent sects a world unto itself?’ This began to further refine itself as “How do you find common ground in negotiating a moral conflict with a religious cult?”

From Reading the Body Language of Animals To Crisis Negotiator

DOVER — Heather Cote of the Strafford County Sheriff’s Office may be only 5-feet, 4-inches tall, but that doesn’t stop her from detaining men twice her size.

The pint-sized civil deputy grew up with horses and is used to reading the body language of large animals…

Read more from Fosters.com [HERE].

U.S. to Send Team to Nigeria to Help Find Kidnapped Girls

The U.S. is preparing to deploy a team of military, law enforcement and hostage negotiators to Nigeria, officials said Tuesday, to help with the ongoing effort to recovermore than 250 kidnapped schoolgirls whose plight has captured global attention.

More from Time.com [HERE]. 

Talking life or death: Crisis negotiator explains process

(Via Wink News)

Lt. Joe King is the only trained crisis negotiator with the Punta Gorda Police Department. He was called out to convince that man, who was holding a…

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I found this quote worth sharing too:

"It's important to gather intelligence about the person -- as much as you can get," King said.  "Background, family, military -- anything you can find to make a connection. 

- See more at at WinkNews [HERE].

Book Review: Hostage & Crisis Negotiations

(From The Black Swan Group)- As a negotiations practitioner for over 17 years, I fashion myself a “student of the game”, meaning I maintain an insatiable appetite of all things related to negotiations. I try to learn as much as I can from others’ experiences and research so as I can continue to improve. Therefore, it stands to reason that I waited with great anticipation for the arrival of Thomas Strentz’s latest book, Hostage/Crisis Negotiations; Lessons Learned from the Bad, the Mad and the Sad, (Springfield, Illinois: Grand Rapids: Charles C. Thomas, 2013. 181 pages), hereafter referred to as the BMS.

...Strentz wrote BMS because he, like me, is a firm believer in case studies. We both are incredulous at the lack of knowledge many negotiators have regarding significant cases in the history of our discipline. Strentz recognizes that all of us, regardless of our level of experience or skill (the New, the Old and the Mediocre) learn from studying the success and failures of others. Whether the incident occurred last week or forty years ago, there are always lessons to be learned from case studies.

Read the full review from The Black Swan Group [HERE].