Hostage Negotiator-Leadership (HNL) — The Framework
“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” — Stephen Covey
Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Ego, Authority, Failure: Using Emotional Intelligence Like a Hostage Negotiator to Succeed as a Leader
In order to appreciate the goal you are now working toward — improving your interpersonal communications to become a better leader — it is important for you to understand the framework of HNL. Based on the philosophies and fundamentals of hostage negotiations, HNL relies heavily on:
- focusing on the process not the objective
- sequencing
- gathering information
- demonstrating Tactical Empathy
- understanding the human nature response
- creating safe and inclusive environments
- tone, delivery and projected sincerity
HNL has many moving parts, so it is critical for you to be cognizant of the various factors that impact your effectiveness in improving your relationships with colleagues and the people who work for you. First and foremost, it…is…hard…work!
Mike Falconer is a sergeant for a small law enforcement agency. Prior to his current assignment, Falconer was a front-line supervisor with another agency where he spent over a decade as a hostage negotiator and homicide detective.
He says HNL takes effort and discipline, which is why most leaders won’t practice it. In addition, they have the propensity for completing tasks that are not true priorities. Interpersonal communications and improving relationships are not a priority for most therefore, why would they pour the necessary effort and discipline into learning and mastering these skills? It takes concerted effort. Nothing that moves the needle like HNLcomes easily.
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No one really likes to engage in difficult conversations. If you were to close your eyes right now and think about a real or imagined difficult conversation, it will likely not be a pleasant thought. You would probably conjure up an image of a snarling, aggressive, crying, hysterical or manipulative counterpart who is going to try to impose their will or otherwise paint you into a corner.
Difficult conversations create stress. Stress constricts thinking and makes us uncomfortable. When we are uncomfortable, we want more than anything to be comfortable again…as quickly as possible. The sooner you solve the problem, the sooner the difficult conversation will be over and the sooner you can get out of the room. This causes leaders to compromise their position, violate rules or deviate from best practices.
As a leader, you are in a difficult conversation or driving for a “yes” in almost every interaction at work. It could be with the people who work for you, your peers or your supervisors, but it is ever present. Using HNL, these conversations will initially have nothing to do with your “yes”, goal, objective or solving the problem. That comes later. Instead, HNL will help you determine the why. What underlying motivations, factors and emotions are driving the behavior of the other person? This requires the use of Tactical Empathy. Once you understand that, at the deepest level, then you are in a position to:
- make your ask
- state your objective
- satisfy the needs of the other person
- resolve the issue
Bottom line? It’s not about you. It’s about them. Knowing the “why” without asking “why”.
Understanding the “why” means understanding the people. People are at the center of all leadership efforts. Leaders cannot lead unless they understand the people they are leading.
To understand, an effective leader must be able to build and maintain relationships. Leaders often possess attitudes, which interfere with building and maintaining relationships. One of them is black and white thinking.
Black and White Thinking
Humans don’t like complexity. We are naturally drawn to ideas that are easy to understand; simple to comprehend. Cognitive overload is a pain in the…head. The less cognitive energy we must expend, the better.
As leaders we think of ourselves as smart. Intellectually, we understand that the world is complex, but we still find ourselves drawn into viewing things as either black or white in an increasingly gray world. Good or evil. Right or wrong. Yes or no.
Cognitive processing begins in a black and white because it takes less work. It’s comfortable. It is how we learn, early in life, to use words and organize thoughts.
Black and white thinking isn’t fundamentally bad. It is a thought process that has both good and bad consequences. One of the bad consequences is it generates a false dichotomy, having us believe it either is or it ain’t.
“There are two sides to every story and then there’s the truth,” a prosecutor once told me.
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This post is part of a blog series where I share excerpts and stories from my book, Ego, Authority, Failure: Using Emotional Intelligence Like a Hostage Negotiator to Succeed as a Leader and expand upon some of the themes within the book. If you’d like to join me in this discussion, you can reach me here via email or connect with me on social: LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. Also, you can find my book on Amazon — here is the link: www.amazon.com/dp/B07NF3HQV7
