311: Communication Secrets from FBI Kidnapping Negotiator Chris Voss
How to Be Awesome at Your Job
How to be Awesome at Your Job
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2018
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chris Voss shares how FBI hostage negotiation approaches enable more effective, persuasive communication, in any field.
You’ll Learn:
1) The FBI 8 negotiation skills you can use at work
2) Why yes is the last thing you want to hear
3) The two words that immediately transform a negotiation
About Chris
Chris Voss is CEO of the Black Swan Group and author of the national best-seller “Never Split The Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It,” which was named one of the seven best books on negotiation. A 24-year veteran of the FBI, Chris retired as the lead international kidnapping negotiator. Drawing on his experience in high-stakes negotiations, his company specializes in solving business communication problems using hostage negotiation solutions. Their negotiation methodology focuses on discovering the “Black Swans,” small pieces of information that have a huge effect on an outcome. Chris and his team have helped companies secure and close better deals, save money, and solve internal communication problems.
Items Mentioned in this Show:
- Chris’s company: Black Swan Group
- Chris’s Book: Never Split the Difference
- Book: The Obstacle is The Way by Ryan Holiday
- Book: The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
- Book: Start with No by Jim Camp
- Research: Marshmallow Challenge
- Newsletter: The Edge
- Prior episode: 016: Going for No with Andrea Waltz
View transcript, show notes, and links at http://AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep311.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the How to Be Awesome at Your Job Podcast, the show where brilliant professionals share how to sharpen the universal skills required to flourish at work. |
| 0:10.0 | Enjoy more career fun, wins, meaning, and money. |
| 0:14.0 | With your host, Pete McKitis. |
| 0:16.3 | Hello and thanks so much for joining us here |
| 0:21.0 | for episode 311 with Chris Voss. |
| 0:23.2 | I think you'll really enjoy this one because there's an element of drama, of excitement, |
| 0:27.5 | of sort of action movie goodness, because Chris Voss is drawn from his experience |
| 0:32.0 | as the former lead international kidnapping |
| 0:35.0 | negotiator at the FBI and he's distilled a lot of their wisdom and his own insights along |
| 0:40.3 | the way into negotiation, persuasion, communication, |
| 0:43.2 | building rapport, so many good powerful skills you could apply in many |
| 0:46.8 | many circumstances. |
| 0:47.8 | So you'll learn one, the FBI eight negotiation skills you can use at work. |
| 0:52.6 | Two, why yes is the last thing you want to hear. |
| 0:55.9 | And three, the two words that immediately transform a negotiation. |
| 1:00.1 | So if you'd like to check out the show notes or the transcript or the links to items that we've referenced here. |
| 1:04.0 | It's on over at awesome at your job.com slash eep 3-1. |
| 1:08.0 | And speaking of awesome at your job dot com and great episodes, |
| 1:11.0 | I'd love it if you could kindly take the survey to let us know what are the best |
| 1:14.6 | episodes and the not so best episodes in your view so we can optimize the 300 episodes that |
| 1:21.4 | appear in the feed going forward. |
| 1:23.8 | So that is available at awesome at your job. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from How to be Awesome at Your Job, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of How to be Awesome at Your Job and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

