Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator, in his book, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if your life depended on it, talks about the following negotiation techniques developed at the FBI.
However, the following comes from this Stanford page: https://gdt.stanford.edu/what-can-the-fbi-teach-us-about-behavior-design/
The FBI Hostage Negotiation Team developed a five-step Behavior Change Stairway Model to assist in negotiation with sometimes violent felons. But these same techniques can be used in any number of more peaceful situations.
- Active Listening
- Empathy
- Rapport
- Influence
- Behavioral Change
- Ask open-ended questions
- Effective pauses (remain silent at the right times)
- Minimal encouragers (brief statements like yes and okay that let them know you are listening)
- Mirroring (repeat the last word or two they say)
- Paraphrasing (repeat what they said in your own words)
- Emotional labeling (give their feelings a name)
The model came out of this paper, which contains some deeper insights.
Behavior Continuum:
Core Active Listening Skills
- Mirroring
- The “gist”
- Last couple of words
- Paraphrasing – put meaning into your words
- Emotional labeling
- Identify the feeling
- “You sound…”
- “You seem…”
- “I hear…”
- Summarizing.
- Restating the content of the emotions of the person’s story
- Combining the information obtained during paraphrasing and emotion
SUPPLEMENTAL ACTIVE LISTENING SKILLS
- Effective Pauses
- Silence
- Used immediately or after saying something meaningful
- Minimal encouragers
- Indicate your presence and attention to subject
- “uh-huh…yes…right…ok”
- “I” Messages
- “When you say…I feel…”
- Open-Ended Questions
- “What…?”
- “When…?”
- “Tell me more…”
- “I’d like to hear more…”