How to negotiate a conversation with a hostage taker - Interview with Laurent Combalbert
How to deal with intense emotions, high-stakes situations with a world-renowned negotiator and author
I’ve known Laurent Combalbert for a couple of decades. He’s an excellent speaker and is the very embodiment of someone who walks the talk. We’ve collaborated in several different events over the years and he’s someone I deeply respect and appreciate. I wanted to have Laurent break down how he plans and holds conversations in the high-stakes situation of a hostage taker. How does he plan them? What sort of team does he use? What are the techniques he uses? What’s the best mindset to have? I interviewed him in French then translated that interview into English. I think you’ll agree, this interview provides a fascinating insight into the mind of brilliant negotiator.
Minter Dial
Laurent Combalbert, what a pleasure to have you on my show. We have known each other for some time, but for the listeners, can you please introduce yourself in a few words?
Laurent Combalbert
Listen, I'm a negotiator with more of a crisis negotiator streak. For my first job, I had the chance to be part of the first negotiation team of the RAID, the police intervention group in France. And then I practiced this trade of negotiator in a whole bunch of situations. But it's true that I’ve always leaned toward the notion of crisis and now I have to manage complex negotiations all over the world.
Minter Dial
And so, sometimes, you have to jump up and leave a little quickly.
Laurent Combalbert
So, I try to do that less and less. I like to work from my crisis unit here at home, but actually I travel quite regularly and meet different cultures to lead somewhat special conversations.
Minter Dial
And, therefore, in addition to being one of the most famous negotiators in France, you are also an author.
Laurent Combalbert
Yes, it's true that I've penned a few books. I've written quite a few technical books, of course, on negotiation, on crisis management, on teamwork. But I just finished my last 2 technical books, and I won't do any more.
Minter Dial
Never say never!
Laurent Combalbert
No but, really, I always keep my promises as you know and, and I will not publish any more technical books after these last 2 that will be released by the end of the year. On the other hand, I have found a passion for detective novels. I write detective novels. I did two for the Calman-Levy Collection Noire and I am preparing a third that will be released in early 2025.
Minter Dial
We'll put it all these in the show notes! Laurent, well done! So, as you know, my interest is essentially in conversation, the notion of conversation, typically those we have in society where, today, it is difficult to have interesting conversations. With strong debate, et cetera. Thus, I wanted to do this interview with you around your work, focusing on when you're in a crisis or negotiating with someone who is a hostage taker. Can you tell us a bit about your experience in that, just to give us some context, your background in relation to that?
Laurent Combalbert
Look, it's true that when I got interested in this role of negotiator, I discovered it because what interested me in this profession of police officer was the intervention side. And so I always wanted to join the RAID for this aspect. I found myself at the end of the 1990s having to choose, either to wait to pass the RAID tests and integrate the intervention office, or to join immediately without passing the tests. I chose to give up on the intervention to join a group of negotiators created by Michel Marie, who was the first RAID negotiator and the first to have the idea that negotiation was a real job, and not just something that happened a bit by chance, as we could see in certain films. For me, this notion of negotiation actually meant using speech and discussion as a weapon, as a way of managing conflicts, as a way of avoiding disasters with people who could be in one of 3 main categories. The first category is the fanatic, the madman who is a person cut off, alone. It’s a man or a woman who will freak out. A man, more often, who is emotionally overwhelmed, who is in personal loss and who has only found, as a solution, to retreat to his home or somewhere alone, without hostages, and to threaten to commit suicide or other violent act, e.g. to blow up the building. Without necessarily laying out any claims in advance. Therefore, this situation, which seems to be the easiest to manage, is ultimately the most complex, because we have no leverage over the conversation. What can we bring him if he doesn't ask for anything? If he doesn't want anything in return?
The second category is the hostage taker -- or takers -- who are holding people, or who are withholding information, who are hijacking computer systems, and who are going to ask for an exchange. This is something that goes give us a central point of discussion, a pivot for the conversation around which we will be able to see if we give in or not , what is possible or not.
And then the last category is what is called collective entrenchments, that is to say these are groups of people who will lock themselves up, entrench themselves. We speak of mutiny, for example, in a prison. But we also have entrenchments of sectarian organizations. We had Waco in the United States. There have been quite a few situations of this type and in each case, indeed, the conversation is different because the motivation of the opposing actor is different and we have to look at how we can position this dialogue, this discussion to find a solution that in the end brings a peaceful resolution.
Minter Dial
This categorization is fascinating. When there is a request, how do we know that it is the right request? Do you tend to check, when there's a demand, as in the case of hostage takers, that it’s a clear demand, or do you typically have to dig deeper to get a better understanding? How do you decode this request?
Laurent Combalbert
The first request, in negotiation, is what is called a position. It’s a position because it is what is first put on the table and it is what will serve as the starting point of the exchange in the negotiation. So that's the first question we ask ourselves. What is the real interest behind this position? When someone makes a request, whatever it is, chances are that this first request is not the real one for a rather simple reason. In any situation of negotiation and conflict that is under high tension, such as a hostage-taking or a more traditional negotiation, we are in a logic of competition. It is estimated that about 90% of negotiations in the very broad sense of the term, revolve around competition. That is to say a person who wants to win what the other will lose. That's what a madman who demands something wants to win, or a hostage-taker who demands something, he wants to gain satisfaction behind his demand. But in 90% of cases on average, the position that is made is not the real interest, it hides the real intent. So, our job at this point is to try to see what's behind it. And since we're not in the head of the person in front of us, we're going to make assumptions. The first part of the job is to analyze the motivation of the opposing party. It is a work of setting out hypotheses. Behind his position could be different types of interest. And depending on which one it is, we will look at those which are the easiest for us, on our side, to satisfy. Already, can we satisfy it, are the demands ethical, are they moral and can they be the subject of discussion, of an exchange? And then can I necessarily give what is requested? If a madman asks to speak to the President of France, obviously this position hides an interest that is difficult to satisfy. If that's really what he wants, I can’t do it, and so I'm going to have to make him accept that his request can't be met. If, on the contrary, it is a very exaggerated request which aims to obtain the satisfaction of a different interest on another subject or with a lesser amount, well, indeed, then I can wonder about being able or not to satisfy this interest. But each time, it's a work of hypothesis because in this type of conversation, we are never in the other's head. In fact, to imagine that we are in the other's head is dangerous because it would lead us to interpretations that would make us attribute a single truth to a single request, whereas behind a single request and a single position, there are dozens of possibilities of truth, dozens of hypotheses.
Minter Dial
And so, there is a lot of preparatory work, but not necessarily the time to do it?
Laurent Combalbert
So, time is not a constraint. If I dare say, you know that when you head into a crisis situation, you're going to be under time pressure. So, time is no longer a constraint because it's part of the game, it's part of what is commonly accepted as being the constraint. We have operating methods that allow us to go quickly in the preparation of the negotiation. There are key questions about what is the interest behind the position, what is our mandate that to be able to eventually satisfy this interest, what is the common objective? These are pretty simple questions. We try not to fall into overly complicated schemes that lead us to intellectualize a lot of things. We are not negotiation theorists; we are practitioners and therefore we operate with the facts. Theoreticians play with words and we play with facts.
Minter Dial
And when you put yourself in a situation, I imagine that you are not alone? You work with others in this kind of hypothesis formulation.
Laurent Combalbert
Yes, we work as a team, obviously for many reasons. The first reason is that the more of us there are around the table trying to understand the opposing interest, the more hypotheses we have. If I were to go solo on a subject, I will inevitably have perception biases, truncated visions of reality, not voluntarily, moreover, but often involuntarily because based on my experience, based on the unconscious memory of what I have already lived. I risk having fewer hypotheses, less open to the likelihood that the other person has a mode of functioning that’s different from mine. So, we are a team for that. We have diverse, multicultural teams. In principle, with different genres, with different experiences precisely to have a broader vision.
Minter Dial
What's funny is that we often use this word diversity in business, we say that it's better to have diversity, but we also know that diversity is not easy. These teams provide other points of view, other attitudes, and bring in other cultures?
Laurent Combalbert
Yeah, but once again it's about accepting this difficulty as being a factor in creating added value. We must prepare for the negotiations in an open manner with precisely these different visions, and therefore potentially conflicting with our own vision. When a team member comes up with an idea that you haven't thought of and which is a good idea, you have to accept that this idea is on the list and that you didn't come up with the idea yourself. So yes, accepting to have people around you who are better than you, who have better ideas than yours, is a real factor of efficiency; but it's difficult. Because your ego has to accept it. Then you also have to make these diverse teams collaborate. At some point, the members will have to align themselves with a common mode of operation.
Minter Dial
When you say the word “négo” (in French, short for négotiation), I always hear the word ego inside.
Laurent Combalbert
Yeah, it's true that ego is important, and it's often said that a good negotiator has no ego. It doesn't mean that a good negotiator has no perception of himself, but when you enter the negotiation phase, you have to put your ego aside because the ego is an excellent tool, but it must be controlled. When the ego is too present, the negotiator is much less effective. The ego is a bad negotiator.
Minter Dial
Inevitably, a hostage taker has an excessive ego or not?
Laurent Combalbert
Sometimes we can have to deal with narcissists, people who have the feeling of being superior to others, which is rather an advantage because this feeling of superiority can allow us to seek information, can ensure that this person is overconfident and that he delivers information to us that will allow us to understand what his real motivation is. But we often have people who are in crisis, in an existential crisis, in a personal crisis, in a financial crisis, or in an emotional crisis. And this crisis represents a rupture. We are faced with people who are in a moment of rupture in their own lives and what interests us is to understand not why this rupture was created because we are not psychologists, we are not psychiatrists, we are not here for that; but to understand how we can help them to perceive that the way they have chosen to deal with this crisis -- namely entrenching oneself or taking hostages -- is not the most effective way to find a solution. So, our job is not to convince them. Our conversations are not designed to convince. Our conversations lead to change. And that's why it's difficult today in the world around us -- in which everyone chooses their truth -- to have conversations that aim to induce change and not conversations whose sole ambition is to convince the other. Today, in society, we seek to convince others that our ideas are the right ones, that our vision is the right one, that our ideology is the best, whereas we should first make sure that the other agrees to change his perception, just like us, so we are ready to develop ours.
Minter Dial
It's interesting your vision, your perspective on it, Laurent, because you say that everyone has their truth today. That is to say that everyone expresses themselves and therefore that implies, in my opinion with my filter, a lack of community?
Laurent Combalbert
To have a good negotiation, there must be a common objective, but that’s also true in order to have a good conversation. If everyone converses with the objective to explain their point of view without wanting to build something with the other, we are in a debate mode. We are in an exposition of ideas. But for me, these are not conversations that create added value. At some point, we should seek to do something positive with our conversation and not just inform the other. We need to rely on what he says to bounce back and perhaps modify our position. By allowing to modify our perspectives, we ultimately arrive at a final and bigger result. But for that, each must be able to take steps towards the other. However, we are in a world, I find, which is more and more polarized, where everyone locks themselves into increasingly opposing convictions. Maybe people express themselves merely so that they may exist rather than actually searching for solutions (to the conflict).
Minter Dial
An existential crisis? I put this notion of conversation under the banner of: 1+1=3. The idea is to have 2 people who want to build something together. This 3rd dimension is beyond. This is the meta product of the conversation.
Laurent Combalbert
That's quite right.
Minter Dial
Earlier, you talked about ethics. Is this request ethical? Ethics, for me, are essentially personal. That is to say that my ethics might be different from yours. And when you're in a team, evaluating the request, how do you establish the ethics of that question? I have to think it's not as clear as that.
Laurent Combalbert
Ethics is in relation to the morality of the situation. Ethics are relative to the issue. If you are negotiating to buy a house, to buy a car or to negotiate a television set at a local retailer, what is at stake does not justify you breaking your general ethics. You're not going to lie in this type of situation. It would be ridiculous to compromise your personal values for an issue like a television or a car. When you save lives or when you face a hostage taker, the question arises because how far are you willing to go to recover the hostage? I'll take the example of kidnappings.
Obviously, when we are in a hostage situation, it is managed by an intervention squad. These are negotiations that are difficult, but much less so than those in the business world. They are dangerous but not very difficult. Because you have a balance of power, you have the intervention group, you have the police, you have an encirclement, observers. If on the other hand you are dealing with a kidnapping, it's different. A kidnapping often happens in a country far away. Generally, you have no balance of power. The kidnapper is preventing you from calling the police. If he sees the police, he kills the hostage. You don't know where he is, you don't know what number to call him back on. It is he who had the initiative to contact you and, therefore, in these cases, the ethical question arises: do you have to pay or not? Is paying money to a criminal ethical? Of course, it's not ethical, because if you pay a criminal, obviously, in the end, you will allow him to buy weapons, to equip himself and to organize his criminal modus operandi even better. But is it worth doing to save the hostage? Yeah, personally I think so. If it's to save someone, we can do it, so I'm going to compromise my own personal ethics to preserve a higher interest, namely saving a person.
Minter Dial
While knowing that when he does that, you send the message that we are ready to pay.
Laurent Combalbert
Yes, absolutely. You keep the kidnapping business going.
Minter Dial
It's complicated, isn't it?
Laurent Combalbert
Yeah, it's complicated. It's complicated, but you have to accept to ask yourself the question, and how far are you ready to go?
Minter Dial
In the case of a regular conversation, I often think about the value of having knowledge, facts, context, history. How much and how useful is knowledge in such a negotiation?
Laurent Combalbert
I think it takes knowledge. Already self-knowledge. Know what you are willing to accept and to what extent you are willing to do it, for yourself. You have to have self-confidence, which is also based on knowledge. You have to have knowledge of the other, of their culture of origin, of their culture of belonging. And then there is the knowledge that you must put at the service of your conversation. So yes, it's important to get to know yourself well and to know each other well and to know the environment well in order to have an influence on all that.
Minter Dial
And knowledge in general, for example: the hostage taker says something that is nonsense compared to the truth. I take an example. He says, “I will go to the capital of France, you know, Marseille. Ah!”
Laurent Combalbert
Yeah, you can have people who don't know what they're doing and that's the whole problem because there's an effect called the Dunning -Kruger effect which says that the less competent people are, the more they feel they are competent. So, you can face someone who announces an inanity, something completely crazy, stupid, inefficient. The question to ask is, is he ready to accept that what he said is false? Can I make him understand that what he is telling me is really wrong and make him reconsider his position? If he wants to tell me that Marseille is indeed the capital of France and that it is becoming a point of tension in relation to the issue we are discussing, is that worth telling him, yes or no? I sometimes lead conversations with people who blurt out ridiculous statements on scientific or technical subjects. But my challenge is not to make them change their minds. My challenge is to listen to them and if I don't intend to make them evolve on their knowledge, frankly, I’ll let it slide. I let them believe what they believe. I don't have the time. I don't have the desire or the motivation to make them change. If, on the other hand, my children tell me something wrong on a technical subject, there obviously my role as a father is to explain to them that what they are saying is technically or scientifically false and to explain to them that they have to change their position to have an objective view of what they are saying.
Minter Dial
And in any case, the way you approach this subject must be taken into account.
Laurent Combalbert
Yeah, substance and form are also important, of course. Firstly, because we cannot not communicate. When you enter into conversation with someone, you cannot not communicate. As soon as you refuse to speak to him, you communicate something. So, you have to be able to master the channels of communication. The words we use. The verbal, the meaning of words, and the symbolism of words. We use the para verbal, so it's the tone of the voice, the style of conversation, the intonations, the speed of speech, the silences. And then there’s the non-verbal, which is everything that is visible: the look, the attitude, the micro-movements, the distance. All these elements carry meaning. So in a conversation, it's not just the words that are spoken. There is the way of pronouncing them, there is the position that we take to pronounce them and that, too, is something that will modify the impact that we have on the other.
Minter Dial
And how much of this can be learned or mastered? Because in fact I have the impression that there are certain things that we do instinctively or without wanting to. For instance, I might blink my eyes, or stutter or move a limb without even noticing that I moved.
Laurent Combalbert
So, we can control a certain number of points. For example, you were talking about knowledge earlier, when you know the culture of a person or a group you are addressing, you will adapt your vocabulary to their culture, to the way they handle it all. By informing yourself beforehand, it allows you to master the words you will use. You can control your emotions so that they do not have an impact on your prosody, on the tone of your voice, on your conversation. And then there are also plenty of things you don't control, especially your emotional expression. When you have an emotion, you will find it difficult to control the emotional leaks and therefore the opposing party will notice it. The person with whom you are talking will realize that you are surprised, or afraid, or that you are angry. And it is not unpleasant to let this emotion show because letting them show is sending a message to the other. What is producing an emotion in you? And it is important that the other person knows it, that they are informed by it.
Minter Dial
This brings me to the question: how to establish a relationship with someone where you are necessarily, let's say, in a situation of conflict, insofar as the other is doing something that is unpleasant.
Laurent Combalbert
Yeah, but the conflict is not necessarily negative. Conflict is something that serves to create something. You were talking earlier about 1+1=3. That was exactly it. Conflict is how you manage to find a solution with the opposing party in an expressed disagreement. Because conflict is nothing but expressed disagreement. You can view that negatively. He does not agree with me, and if he tries to impose his point of view, there, obviously, it will strain the relationship. But you can also see it in a positive way. He doesn't agree with me, so he can nourish my ideas, so that we manage to do something superior to the two of us. It's a question of personal appetite, but it's also a question of willingness to decide at some point: I may want to accept the disagreement of the other to build with him. It's called assertiveness. Assertiveness is being able to defend your point of view, while accepting that the other has a different point of view and that he expresses it.
Minter Dial
So, it makes me think that, back at the very beginning of our chat, you said that there is a notion of competition. There can indeed be a competition, but in your philosophy and your way, you try to move from this state of competition to something co-constructive?
Laurent Combalbert
Yes. The logic of competition is natural. I would even say that it is reptilian. We know that when resources are limited, we will compete to gain access to them before others. What makes it possible to move from a logic of competition to a logic of cooperation is identifying the common objective. Do you have a goal set for yourself at the end of the conversation? What do we want to do together? What is the goal to be achieved that we will be able to develop together to ensure that our conversation is not just an exchange of information, of data, but that it serves to build; that it serves to move forward. So yes, what I call the CSO in negotiation: The Common Shared Objective, the CSO, is the key to cooperative negotiation. There is cooperation if everyone accepts that we have a common objective and agrees to put themselves at the service of the other. But it comes down to acceptance. So, your conversation starts first by getting the other to accept that we have a common goal. And for that, he must be able to accept it. (1) He must wish to accept it. (2) And that he is able to do so. If there is no shared common goal, there is no negotiation. It's a balance of power and submission. It's manipulation, but it's not a real negotiation.
Minter Dial
In a negotiation process, then if you don't reach the CSO, do you take other measures?
Laurent Combalbert
If you don't reach the CSO, what solutions are left to you? Run away? Are you stopping the conversation? You deal with someone who is against your point of view, and you don't want to continue, do you leave? When faced with a hostage taker, that's not an option. I can't say “Well, listen, he doesn't agree, so I'll be leaving. See you soon!" That doesn’t work. The other solution you can use is manipulation. You're going to manipulate him, using deceitful ways of maneuvering. You're going to lie, you're going to trick him. You're going to trade his perception of reality to induce change in a very tactical way before he notices that he has been deceived. Hop. May it lead to what you want to achieve, that is to say the release of your hostage, for example. You can then work on the balance of power, that is to say that you decide to stop discussing. You break down the door and the assault column comes in and physically takes on the hostage taker. So, it's true that these are modes of resolution that are not the ones we're typically looking to use when we negotiate, but which are possible alternatives. In particular, the use of intervention. It's a way of resolving the conflict that doesn't create value for the 2 parties. It creates frustration for the hostage taker when the door is broken down, but this option remains in line with the situation. If the challenge is to save the hostage and the negotiation has not succeeded, in this case, and we move on to the solution of the balance of power and intervention.
Minter Dial
And I imagine that, in the process of trying to establish this shared objective, you can also say: "Well listen, sir, if we can't agree, the options afterwards are not good.”
Laurent Combalbert
So yes, he must be ready. He must accept that negotiation is an alternative to intervention. But sometimes he is not aware of the risk he is running. Or sometimes he is so sure of himself that he considers that he is not at risk if the intervention is triggered. So, in this situation, it is once again a reckoning. Can he understand the risk or not? If he doesn't accept it, that means you have no leverage over him. It's because you can't impose a negotiated mode of operation on it. So yes, there too, again you can talk to someone if he has the means to do so. He must technically have the means to understand what you are telling him, the intensity of what you are offering, the intensity of the risk.
Minter Dial
So, a subject that you know that I like, is empathy, and particularly empathy in negotiation. I know that you have written a lot about it. Empathy is also a tool used by sociopaths precisely to manipulate, just as you explained. How much and how do you use empathy in this kind of situation?
Laurent Combalbert
What is difficult with empathy is that this emotional bond that we have with the other, it must be mastered when you enter into a discussion with a hostage taker. That is to say, you must have a chosen attitude of empathy. You must demonstrate empathy, a chosen empathy. Therefore, you must master your emotional commitment. However, we are talking about situations where the stakes are high. Often, it's lives that are at stake and you can have an emotional commitment which can make you switch into an emotional state. In front of someone who is angry, you can feel his anger. And if this emotional spiral takes place, obviously, it's difficult because you're going to have anger on both sides. So, we try to avoid this emotional sharing by staying away from emotions. That does not mean that we avoid them. On the contrary, we accept and use them, but we will use them in a technical way. We will use methods, in particular, what is called active listening, with techniques such as the verbalization of emotions. Like reformulation, paraphrase, which will make it possible to show the other that we have created this relational link with him, but without falling into the trap of emotional commitment which makes us lose our objectivity. So, it implies when you organize this emotional attitude, that you control your emotions. Thus, you lose a little authenticity. And I believe that the fate of the conversation also sometimes rests on the spontaneity of the exchanges and the authenticity of the discussions. And when you choose to have an empathic attitude, you restrict your authenticity a little to control your emotional engagement and ensure that it does not impact your effectiveness. So yes, empathy is a superb tool, but you have to be able to control it. You have to be able to master this link.
Minter Dial
In terms of how to create or establish a relationship with the other, often in business, in any case, in a personal relationship, we often speak of the mirroring effect. That is to say that if the other has his arms crossed, well you cross your arms as well to show that you are in the same type of posture. How relevant is that in negotiation situations for you?
Laurent Combalbert
For me, a lot of situations are done at a distance, so there is no non-verbal communication. I don't see the person. I can use their tone of voice and prosody, but I don't see that person. With mirroring techniques -- which are also called synchronization techniques -- we will synchronize our movements with those of the other. It's true that it can work, but it's manipulation. That is to say that you will voluntarily adopt an attitude that will be consistent with the other’s to create this unconscious link and lead him to more easily modify his perception or behavior. So yes, these are techniques that work. I used them when I was a young negotiator, when I was just starting out, because these techniques were quite easy to implement. Today, I give free rein to my natural behavior. I'm not too focused on these questions. I don't look at them in detail because, well, I don't want it to disturb the flow. If I overthink the position I'm going to take, I forget to listen to understand. Now, when you listen to someone, it's not to convince him. It's to understand him. Once we have understood his mode of operation, in particular his stake in his position, we can explore the ways to induce change in him. It is true that all these techniques are very interesting. It’s interesting to know them. We can use them, but I use them less and less or in small portions. Or unconsciously, perhaps to enter into this relational link, this link of influence with the other.
Minter Dial
This resonates. In any case, it raises the idea about which we were talking earlier, about the combination of form and content. Form is something that needs to be worked. You also talked about self-knowledge and I was wondering about the young Laurent who did the mirroring versus the Laurent of today. How much has this advanced self-knowledge changed the way you carry yourself in negotiation?
Laurent Combalbert
I would say that the first step is a bit like what we talked about with empathy. It’s about knowing your own emotions. Emotional mastery is based on accepting to have emotions and understanding their involvement in a conversation. All the emotions we experience are legitimate. We talk about Darwinian emotions. The 6 basic emotions, they are always legitimate. It means that, whatever the situation that triggers them, you must accept the reaction. If there is a frustration of your values, a frustration of your expectations, you are going to be angry. If there is a particular danger or a particularly important issue, you will show fear. So, all these emotions are interesting because they are part of the game. To refuse them would be to create a rebound effect. The rebound effect is that the more you want to refuse your emotions, the more they will reappear, and the more difficult it will be for you to control them. Initial acceptance will allow us to prevent legitimate primary emotions from degrading and turning into negative emotions. For instance, the anger that came from aggressiveness or the fear that came from anxiety. So, this self-knowledge on what I call the emotional posture, it allows through training, through debriefing, to develop a way of managing your emotions. The 2nd posture on which we work in self-knowledge is the relational posture. This is how, by mastering my emotions, I can create a relationship with another. The relationship is a bond, a bond that you will build with another to achieve something. And so, there again, it relies on the ability to listen, the ability to understand, the ability to remain objective, to know these perceptual biases, to know the way you see the world. It was Alfred Korzybski who said, the map is not the territory. We have to accept that we live in a representation of reality, not reality itself. When you accept that map, your own map, you can more easily perceive your understanding of the world. There is also a posture of trust. Do you have enough self-confidence in the relationship, to be sure of what you stand up for, through assertiveness? But don't be perceived as arrogant by the person with whom you’re interacting.
And then, there is also an ability to have a conviction. To defend one's point of view is to accept not to give in easily to avoid the difficulty or anguish of the conflict. In all these subjects of introspection, of debriefing your own situations, this is what you can store in your personal library, in your reservoir of self-knowledge. How each of these postures is expressed. When you are in conversation with someone, it’s about knowing how you manage to make them evolve. Knowing that we have never finished learning. We never finish developing our approaches, our methods. The conversation, in the broad sense, is made of emotions, relationships, links, a position, which is all very unstable material. So, we have to accept that we are in perpetual evolution and that there is no truth. There is your truth, your vision, your perception that you will evolve over time and when you accept it, indeed, you free up your capacity for conversation a little more easily. You make it less directive and you make it more open to others. You know, negotiation is an act of otherness. When you decide to negotiate, you decide to agree to understand the other in order to find a solution with him.
Minter Dial
Do you consider it an act of humility?
Laurent Combalbert
It takes an act of humility for each to accept the other. It was Aristotle who said that it takes a lot of intelligence to accept a point of view that is different from yours. You need humility to accept the position of the other. But you don't want too much humility. You also need the ability to convince. Because if you systematically consider that the other is right in relation to what you express out of excess of humility, the other will end up imposing his positions on you without accepting yours. So, it's a good balance. It takes humility, but not too much. It takes ego but not too much.
Minter Dial
And what about your fundamental beliefs, for example, about humanity? Do they play a role in your job?
Laurent Combalbert
I think that in this job, if you don't like other people, it's difficult. So, you can't improvise this as the negotiator if you don't have this fiber first. You have to love the other. It's not loving him absolutely, it's considering that the other also has a position, a conviction and accepting that he can enter into this exchange. So, I think that this initial humanism makes the job a lot easier. And after, with your convictions, you make them evolve. My beliefs are changing a lot. As I manage situations, I've been negotiating for 25 years now, but my beliefs about people have changed a lot, some for the better, some for the worse. But yes, it is evolving. This chemistry evolves quite rapidly.
Minter Dial
Obviously, we are presently talking calmly via audio [in this interview] from a distance. There is a context and often when we have a conversation in real life, it is important to consider the context in which this interview or conversation is taking place. To what extent do you take the context into account in your negotiations? Is it mandatory to take into account the context in which the conversation takes place? That is to say, for example, you and I are talking with a microphone in front of us, via a computer. And so, we're not as distracted, unless there's a notification rushing by or kids behind us and so on. But to keep focus, to have the right conversation, in what ways do you try to organize the context of that conversation?
Laurent Combalbert
If you have the opportunity to organize the ideal context as we did this morning, in a calm context, even at a distance, to avoid having disturbances and stay focused, that’s great. If you can choose this context, of course, you will bring your contextual factors into play so that it is favorable to the conversation. Faced with a negotiation in a case of hostage taking or with some lunatic, it's complicated because the conversation takes place where the event happens. You can be in a hotel, a restaurant, a public place, an airport; and so, you will also have to use the constraints of the context and adapt to that. It could be noise for example. In the movies, we often see the hostage negotiator pull out a megaphone and speak into it in the street. That's obviously something you never do, unless it's not possible to do otherwise because everyone hears the conversation. You are not sure of the quality of the reception of the message by the person in front of you. There is no discretion in the exchanges. You have a megaphone, but the person in front doesn't. So, there, you're going to try to change some things to be privacy-friendly, to favor trust-building. And also, you want the environment to be favorable to the quality of the understanding of what is being said. If your messages aren’t understood by the person because there is noise, because there are parasites, because the communication is not very good, indeed you will lose a lot of time. You risk misunderstanding. If you have the idea that the person opposite has understood what you are telling him, when in fact, he has understood quite the opposite and we create a quid pro quo that can sometimes be fun, but it can sometimes be quite devastating.
Minter Dial
You talked about films, about people with megaphones. Besides your books, do you have films or books to recommend that expose the profession of the negotiator well? That are good examples of well-done negotiations where we can learn from them?
Laurent Combalbert
Yes, you have films that tell of hostage-taking negotiations. You have The Negotiator, which is a fairly famous film with Kevin Spacey, who plays the role of a negotiator facing another negotiator who becomes a hostage taker. It's very American, so that means it's a little Manichean, the good versus the bad. On one side, you have the negotiator alone, who is the star with his team rowing behind. That's not really how it works in a negotiation, but it's an interesting film because it shows a negotiation under tension. There is another American film that I really like on this subject, Inside Man, where you have a negotiation with a man, played by Denzel Washington, where he gets into contact with a hostage taker in a bank robbery. And it's interesting because I really like the psychological relationship that forms between the two men, where the robber has already anticipated everything that's going to happen, where the conversation is carried out in a very calm way, in a tense situation. So, this is a film that is quite interesting. And if not, you have Proof of Life. It's a movie starring Russell Crowe, which is about negotiating the release of Thomas Hargrove, who was kidnapped in Colombia. You have a negotiator who contacts the FARC to get this hostage released. It's a true story. So even though it's fictionalized in the film, it's a story that's based on a true story. And then you have a TV show called Ransom that tells my story, that's based on my team's story, and that's going to explain the experience of a professional negotiator... I just demanded that, in the series, the hero, who is played by Luke Roberts, is Franco-American. It's an American series that tells the story of a team of negotiators who will manage ransomware, hostage-taking, disappearances. This is also interesting because there are some psychological dynamics that we managed to graft into the scenarios.
Minter Dial
That's awesome, I'll put all those links in the show notes! So, you talked about the FARC and Franco-Americans. How much does negotiation vary across cultures?
Laurent Combalbert
You have cultural factors that are important, especially around the time factor. Some cultures are amenable to time pressure, others are much less so. You have cultures that appeal to intrinsic trust where we naturally give trust. And other cultures that will seek explicit and clearly stated trust. So yes, of course, these are factors that come into play. The best solution that I have found is to have local negotiators in the countries in which I work. Since they know intimately the culture of the country in which the negotiation is happening, this allows me to have an objective view of the cultural elements and to be able to use their familiarity with the culture in the discussions.
Minter Dial
So, let's imagine that you are in the middle of a negotiation and things are heating up, that is to say that the other person is getting angry. How do you try to de-escalate this kind of situation?
Laurent Combalbert
The best way to manage an emotion is to verbalize it. When you are faced with someone whose emotions are starting to boil over, if their emotion is legitimate and most of the time it is, you have to accept it. This does not mean you understand why he is experiencing this emotion, it’s just that you accept he fell into this emotional commitment. Accepting it legitimizes it. That is, recognizing through verbalization that this person has the right to be angry. You know, I can't understand how you feel, but I understand that you're angry at what's going on. This verbalization will allow two things. First, you put a word on the emotion of the other. Maybe he didn't realize he was angry. If you don't have the words to express your emotions, you can't manage them, so here you are going to help him put a word on his emotion. And secondly, by legitimizing the emotion, you prevent it from deteriorating. You don't need to exacerbate the emotion, to push further his buttons. If, in principle, the person understands that you accepted his emotion was legitimate, then it is part of the negotiator's toolbox. To verbalize the emotion is to make it neutral in the relationship, to make it legitimate for the other and ensure that it does not deteriorate. If it doesn't work, then what’s at stake in the situation when an emotion takes over? If there is a security issue, if you risk a bad turn of events, it is better to stop the discussion. If it's a matter of saving the hostage, whatever happens, in that case, you're going to lead the negotiation by accepting the risk that it could get out of hand. But it's true that the best way to prevent an emotion from deteriorating is to verbalize it, to make the other person aware of and accept it. To show him that we have accepted him and to help him accept it by labeling it.
Minter Dial
Before, you mentioned the existence of the 6 primary emotions. But there are plenty of nuances in emotions and in certain literature, I read that it is often difficult to know which emotion we have. That is to say to distinguish between confused or unclear, or angry versus frustrated? Finally, what words to use, which express the emotion appropriately? Is that part, in what you said earlier, of active listening, a way of identifying and agreeing on the emotion.
Laurent Combalbert
I believe that aligning everyone with regard to what’s acceptable or unacceptable behavior gives you the means to reach the end of the conversation. Consider that in an emotional expression, there are things that we can accept: the tone of voice that rises, certain words that will come out. And then others that we cannot accept. Aggressive words, for example, those that are not conducive to pursuing the discussion. So yes, I think we can align our discussion through rules. We can even mention them at the beginning of the exchange, give defined rules in advance, what I call ethical rules, for example about respecting the word of the other, the notion of not cutting off the other, not using fraudulent maneuvers such as threats, ultimatums, recourse to the balance of power. All this can contribute to holding an effective conversation. So, we could very well imagine at the beginning of the conversation, when the stakes are high, to set rules in terms of timing, in terms of content, in terms of the exchange. As we have in set debates, for example, where speaking times are set and monitored for both sides. I think, too often, we forget the rules of conversation. The content is important, but the form is also very important. We could set up these rules at the beginning of the discussion. This would be interesting by the way in society! There must certainly exist a manual of the rules of effective conversation, to see how we could rely on certain concepts of relationship, bringing in empathy, bonds, common objectives to craft conversations, and create added value through the exchange.
Minter Dial
While knowing that, as you said earlier, we often deal with people who have their own personal, individual ideas and the boundaries of one may not correspond to the boundaries of the other? What I consider to be offensive, you might say believe is completely normal. Or vice versa. And so, it's also hard sometimes to agree. In contemporary literature around conversations, people talk about putting boundaries on yourself, not on the others. This is what I accept. That is to say that, if you speak in such a tone, I consider my boundary over-stepped. So, I know that at that moment, I refuse to continue because you have crossed the border. But it is I who has created my own borders, which is the only element I can properly control. It's something you're wishing to put in place?
Laurent Combalbert
Yes, it's also at times knowing how far you're willing not to go; but again, it's all about the stakes. The limits you set for yourself depend on the context of the negotiation, i.e. the means you have and what’s at stake. When I have to save a life, I can accept being insulted or having someone speak to me in a tone that I would not accept if I were negotiating the purchase of a TV. So, it's also very much linked to the context. It's the issue and the interest that you will defend in the negotiation that will determine your threshold of acceptability. You can accept more easily when the stakes are high versus what you’ll accept when the stakes are low. So, it's your job to know our own limits, but also to know how far we are ready to push them to preserve the issue that is at the heart of the discussion.
Minter Dial
Taking aside from the hostage taker situation, today it seems that there are a lot of people who put themselves in all these states because they’re going through some kind of existential crisis, where they feel the need to defend a conviction, as if their conviction sustains their existence.
Laurent Combalbert
Yeah, you have people who are built on an idea, on an ideology which can be social or political, etc. But everything, for them, is built on an ideology. And so, in relation to that, if this ideology is called into question, of course you put them into difficulty, you put them in danger. Because, if you challenge their ideology, they feel like they are completely non-existent compared to what they imagined. So yes, questioning someone's fundamentals, their beliefs, is dangerous. It's dangerous because if for this person, his identity was built on the ideology, he will defend himself tooth and nail. And there, precisely, the person will be ready to use means of conversation which aren’t customary in a normal conversation. And in the discussion, they will go sometimes go to extreme measures to defend their position. This is the whole problem with the polarization of exchanges today. It’s that when someone locks himself in a truth, whether it is true or false, he will construct his whole identity in relation to it. And questioning this truth is so destabilizing for him that it is unacceptable and therefore even goes against the real truth or scientific reality, for example. Some of these people are ready assert themselves, even use violence to defend their point of view, because it comes down to questioning their own identity.
Minter Dial
I have the impression that this is something that must be taken into account when we enter into a conversation “in real life” (IRL) situations. I say IRL to distinguish from what you and I have talking about (i.e. hostage taking conversations), but understanding these ideological situations and their existential nature, allows us to have perspective with regard to holding decent conversations!
Laurent Combalbert
Yeah, we can keep this idea in mind, but we must accept today that you can choose your truth, you can find on the Internet the justifications for absolutely everything and anything. So, you choose the truth that suits you, instead of modifying your behavior in relation to an absolute truth. You choose the truth that saves you from changing your beliefs and your behavior to change your mind, where actually you have to make an effort. And making that effort, a lot of people today refuse it because it would amount to questioning a certain number of operations, so we've lost this taste for the effort to question ourselves.
Minter Dial
Awesome! So I just want to end on a slightly more complicated topic. In the case of failure. You must have had failures in your career as a negotiator that didn't come to the desired outcome? The hostage taker that did what he threatened to do when you didn’t want it to happen? What failures have you had and what lessons have you learned from them?
Laurent Combalbert
Luckily, I never failed with my hostage takers. They never acted out. I’ll knock on wood, even if I don't believe that trick! But I had other failures on more traditional negotiations, or that didn't go all the way. Failure, obviously we don't appreciate failure. But it's a formidable learning tool. It's true that I don't like to screw up, but when I screw up, I take advantage of it. You shouldn't spoil a failure, you have to manage to learn lessons, to debrief it, to try to understand what happened behind it. My first negotiating boss, Michel Marie, told me: “prepare to lose a hostage.” I never prepared, but I always accepted that it was possible. So today I am not preparing for failure. I don't have a plan B. I rarely have a plan B. I adapt my plan according to the situation, but I accept that it is possible. I accept that it could happen one day. So, when it happens, I debrief it. I try to learn the lessons, but I never prepare for them.
Minter Dial
Because not accepting that would be dogmatic intransigence.
Laurent Combalbert
Of course, if I accept, if I told myself that I would never accept failure, that means that I will never be wrong. It would be an excess of confidence that would be formidable. But preparing for it, I find that it could make me lose the strength of conviction. Having a plan B could lead me to be less relevant on plan A. So today I prefer to accept that it might be possible, but I'm not preparing myself and we'll see.
Minter Dial
Laurent, what a beautiful big way to conclude then.
Laurent Combalbert
What, have we been talking for an hour already?
Minter Dial
And yes. It was really very powerful, very instructive for me. Personally, I thank you very much and I would like the people who have listened to us to know how to know a little more about you, possibly go to your site because I know that you have a great place to go and learn more about trading and team building. Give us links or places to visit more of what you do, what you write, et cetera.
Laurent Combalbert
The easiest way to listen is to go to www.thetrustedagency.com. This is where you will find the what we do within our agency. There’s also the activity of our NGO which accompanies certain organizations in their complex negotiations; we do it pro bono when the NGO manages the situation. The association “Gives Confidence” helps children to build their self-confidence. So, on the thetrustedagency.com site, you will have most of the elements that explain what I do and our future projects. 2024 should be a great year full of innovations so there will be plenty of information about it.
About Laurent Combalbert
Laurent Combalbert is a world-renowned Professional Negotiator and Crisis Management Expert. He manages high stake negotiations such as hostage-takings, kidnappings and extortions with a matter of life and death. Internationally known as one of the best Professional Negotiators in the world, Laurent has been trained at the National Academy of the FBI and is qualified at the highest level: CPN3 (Certified Professional Negotiator level 3).
Laurent is also:
- Teacher at the prestigious HEC Paris
- International Motivational Speaker ( giving more than 120 conferences every year)
- Author of numerous books on Trust, Collective Agility; Negotiations and Crisis Management
- Trainer of Complex Negotiations to C-level Executives
As such, Laurent is regularly asked to share his expertise on crisis situations to radio and television channels worldwide (CNN, BFM TV, France 5, Europe 1, RMC, China Radio International, etc.). For years, Laurent has been a Hostage Negotiator at the French Special Response Team RAID. RAID is recognised as one of the best unites in the world, specialises in anti-terrorist activities hostage taking, kidnappings, mutinies, hijacking and more. Laurent has also created the "Expatriates & Travellers Security Department" for CIVIPOL, an advisory company of the French Ministry of Interior. In 2013, Laurent founded ADN Group -Agency of Dedicated Negotiators -, with his associate Marwan Mery. Their impressive lives have inspired the CBS-series Ransom. In 2020, he founded Campus de Sylvanie, a training center for the development of trust and confidence within organisations.