Successful Strategies For Cross Cultural Negotiations | Chris Voss — Transcript

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1. 0:02[Music]
2. 0:04good morning everyone and welcome to
3. 0:05Urban update I'm Byron Barnett does
4. 0:08identity play a role in negotiations how
5. 0:11do perceptions and realities regarding
6. 0:13race gender religion culture and age
7. 0:16influence negotiation processes and
8. 0:18outcomes how do we overcome judgment
9. 0:21bias and decision-making for situations
10. 0:23of extreme pressure and high stakes
11. 0:25these are some of the issues that were
12. 0:27discussed at the 2010 negotiation and
13. 0:29Leadership conference presented by the
14. 0:31Harvard Extension Service and Leadership
15. 0:33Society in association with the Harvard
16. 0:36negotiators at the Harvard Law School
17. 0:38and the Harvard Extension Student
18. 0:39Association joining me this morning to
19. 0:41take a deeper look at this fascinating
20. 0:43event is Chris Voss he is the FBI's
21. 0:46former lead International kidnapping
22. 0:49negotiator i' just like to to start out
23. 0:51uh this morning um the subject of I
24. 0:53guess negotiations and bias race culture
25. 0:56so forth is not something that uh I
26. 0:58think everybody thinks about
27. 0:59automatically but but um maybe Chris
28. 1:01maybe I can start with you why is this a
29. 1:02big deal uh the the whole idea of
30. 1:04identity the role that identity race
31. 1:07culture religion gender Etc plays in
32. 1:09negotiations and why is that important
33. 1:11sure thanks Byron well when when people
34. 1:13first meet each other they automatically
35. 1:16look for common ground with the other
36. 1:17side and in hopes that they can relay
37. 1:19and that the other person can see who
38. 1:21they are and what their what their
39. 1:22issues their problems or fears are and
40. 1:25when we come from very different
41. 1:26backgrounds and people don't see
42. 1:28commonalities in New initially on the
43. 1:30other side then they become concerned
44. 1:32that the other side's never going to be
45. 1:33able to understand them now the easiest
46. 1:36way to get around that to start with is
47. 1:38is the best common ground is high ground
48. 1:40when we look for what we're really after
49. 1:42as human beings you want to uh you want
50. 1:45to live in a decent place you want to be
51. 1:47able to feed your family you want a
52. 1:48future for your children people tend to
53. 1:50share that and when you when you start
54. 1:52from that point from a higher ground
55. 1:54then it makes it easier to overcome some
56. 1:55of the other things that that cause fear
57. 1:57reactions in people chis V I guess
58. 2:00you've again you've been the uh
59. 2:02negotiator for the FBI uh now you you
60. 2:05taken your skills to the the business
61. 2:06level I guess U negotiating for um as a
62. 2:10person from the United States must be a
63. 2:11completely different experience than uh
64. 2:14than M Minister Bartlett from Jamaica
65. 2:15talk to me about uh I guess what you see
66. 2:19and how you uh how you manage your way
67. 2:22through the smaller Global World when
68. 2:25you try to negotiate with so many
69. 2:26different peoples around the world well
70. 2:28it's it's a matter of whether or not you
71. 2:30respond or or whether or not you react
72. 2:32um I don't like to react I'm not
73. 2:34interested particularly in what the
74. 2:36perceptions of me on the other side are
75. 2:38I'm more interested in respecting the
76. 2:40other side and that puts really puts me
77. 2:42in the first position when I show
78. 2:44respect for you when I show that I
79. 2:45demonstrate where you're coming from and
80. 2:47then I can understand where you're
81. 2:49coming from and what you want that has a
82. 2:51tendency to completely change the
83. 2:53dynamic because the other side is
84. 2:55expecting me to be adversarial they're
85. 2:57going to have their guard up they're
86. 2:58going to be looking for predicted
87. 3:00American responses for me and as soon as
88. 3:02I stop acting like an American and I
89. 3:05start acting like a human being that
90. 3:07respects you that changes the game
91. 3:09completely and then becomes much more of
92. 3:11a discussion than an adversarial
93. 3:13negotiation how do you know of any any
94. 3:15examples where um uh high stakes
95. 3:19negotiations worldwide on the national
96. 3:21scale were were impacted by by cultural
97. 3:24differences uh racial differences people
98. 3:27get into a reactive mode so whether or
99. 3:28not you're talking about how the
100. 3:30Americans view the way Israel is
101. 3:32reacting over the Israel Palestinian
102. 3:34issue or how any given country is
103. 3:36failing to react and that immediately
104. 3:38brings it into play