Chris Voss on Unlocking Open Ended Question Superpowers

the real application of an open-ended question is get people to think it's not to get an answer now it's an okay mechanism to get an answer you know like what's the biggest challenge you face if the person has enough gas in their mental tank they can answer that question you got to catch them in the morning while they're on their first cup of coffee there's there's whole bunch of neuroscience reasons why you cannot get good answer to that question probably after 11 o'clock in the morning for sure after one o'clock in the afternoon circadian rhythm decision fatigue whole bunch of things on the other hand you can ask that question at any time if you want them to stop and think daniel kahneman would call that slow thinking in-depth critical thinking the classic that question stopped me in my tracks you know that's physical manifestation of the power of great open-ended question stop them dead in their and you and if you choose those you want it to start with either the word what or the word how and stay away from any other open-ended question one of the open-ended questions that love that you say is how am supposed to do that yeah and you use that as an fbi hostage negotiator and you use that in the black swan group training and what is the power behind that is it it puts them back in their seat right where they have to help you make that decision yeah you know you and you're absolutely right on how it's one of the critical things in the blacks one method and as said before stop union tracks question stop them dead in their tracks and how am supposed to do that hits on lot of levels you know we refer to it on our team as forced empathy stop them in their tracks force them to take look at you again the issue is not the answer now nine times out of ten their answer is going to be something that you love and the good news bad news about this technique like it's only one thing that we teach in our company but it is so powerful and in and of itself it can make such massive difference in people's lives that sometimes that's the only thing that they learn because they're like bang you're in different world as soon as you learn that you got the other side cut their price in half you get the other side you know just massively changing their position based on the strength of that one single black swan method and then and then but and then the one time out of ten it's so effective that you're used to hitting grant not just home runs but grand slam loan runs the one time you know you miss people just like how don't know what to do you know got that from somebody the other day she said used how am supposed to do that and it didn't work now that that tells me so much number one she was so flummoxed by it not working she was used to it working ridiculously like magic spell like she'd been to hogwarts and been taught the patronus charm you know and and so said well no it's not that it didn't work it's that you're so used to getting different result you misinterpreted the data that you got back at one time in ten by the way nine out of ten successes is higher than anything else that anybody else is using but the one-time intent the person's going to come back with that's your problem if you want the deal you do it which is to immediately put it right back on you and she called she said well was failure well no it's not failure what it just told you is you're dealing with someone who's not collaborative now that made you smarter wondering going from wondering if they weren't collaborative to knowing at least on this point it also tells you as negotiator your job so that you don't leave money on the table is to find the limits and with that application of the black swan method you just found the limit without driving the other side from the table because under all other circumstances when you push somebody to the limit the gauges when they start to melt down you know when long time ago wrote read herb cohen's book you can negotiate anything you know if you're into reading the literature of negotiation everybody that know read this book it's probably their first negotiation book herb told people push them till they're genuinely angry genuinely angry because that's when you know they're at their limit there's always toxic residue from genuine anger and remember doing that remember thinking like well cool you know i'm going to continue to pound this guy until he's angry until they pound the table and they go because that would hurt me that would cost me would lose money and you know herb's instruction was like awesome you just found the limit you did your job where we are here is limit without inducing that sort of anger which is radioactive toxic waste which is not what you need for long-term successful relationships so that you know that's the other thing the misinterpretation of the data how do you not leave money on the table you push the other side until they say because if you want the deal you're going to do it and you're like awesome just did my job