Get the Truth: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Persuade Anyone to Tell All (22 page)

Getting that positive result is rarely easy, but it can be aided tremendously by something as simple as asking, in a calm, measured tone, the question, “How do you think we can resolve this?” It’s an incredibly powerful approach, because it’s no longer an us-and-them scenario.
We
are now looking at how to resolve these issues together, side by side. It is far more effective than slamming a fist on the table, and angrily making a demand.

Taking a proposal that has been made by those on the other side, thanking them for it, and then patiently and calmly building on it can also be highly effective. Working with a proposal that comes from the other side as a foundation upon which to build a resolution is often the most expedient way to attain the result you were aiming for in the first place.

I was once engaged in negotiating the settlement of an “equitable distribution” case, a type of case that involves fairly dividing a couple’s assets in a divorce proceeding. This case was especially complex, because it arose out of a grim domestic violence situation. In essence, we were utilizing a personal injury claim stemming from a very serious assault, in lieu of a traditional equitable distribution or spousal support case. In an equitable distribution case, my client could, at best, obtain fifty percent of the combined assets of her and her husband. In a personal injury case, the amount she could receive was whatever a jury would award her. It was a gamble, but in light of the facts of the case, it was one well worth taking.

In these cases I would often meet with opposing counsel and his client, and have my client available on the telephone for input and instructions as needed. Such is the nature of domestic violence that putting a victim in the same room as the abuser often creates a coercive environment for the victim, and the other side prevails the vast majority of the time.

This was a case in which the husband—we’ll call him “Andrew”—had not only controlled and mentally abused his wife, but had also physically assaulted her in the presence of their young child. Andrew was a wealthy professional, and my client, whom we’ll call “Dorothy,” was a stay-at-home mother who was planning (with Andrew’s “permission”) to return to college.

A proposal came from Andrew and his lawyer that he would transfer title to their house, and she would take over the mortgage. That was it. It was an offer that Dorothy would have wanted to reject out of hand. It was woefully inadequate, and did not address Dorothy’s needs for affordable housing, support for herself while she got back into the workforce, support for her child, or an assurance that she and her child would be safe. It didn’t even touch upon compensating her for the knife wounds and other injuries she had sustained from his attack.

Every fiber of my being wanted to tell this “man” what I thought of him, reject the offer, walk away, and go to trial. However, there was an opportunity. I needed to transition from where we were to a place where we could create an agreement.

Rather than reject the proposal, I reminded Andrew of the commitment he had made at the outset of the negotiation to work together to find a resolution in this case that would be fair to all involved, and would also demonstrate the love that he professed for his wife and his child.

Now, I had no sense of the degree of love he had for his child, but I certainly knew that the feeling he had for his wife had nothing to do with love. Regardless, he had made a commitment to work together with her, and to demonstrate what he claimed was his love. Together, “we” took his initial proposal and built on it. I guided that effort on Dorothy’s behalf, calmly, without emotion, and by staying on message. As we began to construct each new iteration of the proposal, I would engage in a monologue that was very similar to the monologues we employ in an elicitation situation. I reminded Andrew of his commitment to work for a just, equitable resolution, and to act in accordance with his professed love of his wife and child. I reminded him that no marriage is perfect, that tempers fray, that emotions run high, and that sometimes things happen that we later regret. And I pointed out that sometimes we are presented with the gift of being able to rectify the wrongs, and make things right. The fact that I feel tremendous contempt for anyone who engages in domestic violence, which is inexcusable under any circumstances, had to be set aside.

By the end of the negotiation, Andrew had agreed to pay off the mortgage, and he signed the house over to Dorothy; thereafter, the house would go to their child. He agreed to a seven-figure lump-sum payment, and to a multiyear restraining order, with criminal and civil penalties built in for violations. The restraining order, which outlined the steps he had to take to make Dorothy feel safe, was far broader than any that a court would have granted after a trial.

The beauty of all of this was that it was Andrew’s doing. He did it willingly, and each step along the way was taken in accordance with his initial commitment. William Ury describes this approach by referring to the instruction of Sun Tzu: “Build your opponent a golden bridge to retreat across.” He can claim victory, and take credit for the outcome.

There is a popular view that hard-as-nails, confrontational negotiators, like hard-as-nails, confrontational interrogators, get the best results with their arm-waving, table-banging, bellicose, in-your-face style. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Those tactics may work occasionally, but in the long term, people who negotiate or interact with these “hard” types are likely to become more entrenched, less willing to compromise, and more prone to responding in kind. Beyond that, people who are confronted with that behavior in a negotiation setting often spread the word about what they see as the person’s obnoxious nature. Having hardball methods exposed to the public can be damaging in any number of ways.

Several years ago, an attorney I knew was going through a very rough time in his personal life. He was suffering from a bad bout of depression, and as a result he had failed to take some required steps in various legal proceedings on behalf of some of his clients.

Many attorneys understood this and, within the bounds of the ethics rules that require zealous representation of their clients, they found a way to work with the attorney and his clients to minimize the potential impact. Some attorneys, however, were of the take-no-prisoners variety, and decided to take advantage of the situation by seeking a default judgment—a judgment that is entered by the court when the other side in a case does not respond to the pleadings.

The court date arrived for the hearing by the judge of these motions for default, and the attorneys who were seeking them were lined up in court, salivating at the prospect of the favorable judgments they would receive.

When the first case was called, the judge looked at the lawyer seeking the default and said the following: “In all my years in practice, I have always believed that lawyers representing their clients should do what is right, what is just, and what is moral. That includes ensuring that the profession itself is not brought into disrepute through the use of ‘win at any cost’ tactics. A fellow member of the bar has found himself fallen on tough times. It is our duty to ensure that justice continues to be done, and be seen to be done. I will not be granting any default judgments today, and will remember those who come up here, to counsel’s table, asking for one.”

As if by magic, nearly every one of the hardball lawyers slipped out the back door of the courtroom, abandoning for that day their take-no-prisoners tactics. Who says there is no justice found in courtrooms?

MONOLOGUES AND LEVERAGING THE POWER OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE

In presenting a monologue, the aim is to help make the person feel good about himself, and to feel that he isn’t being judged. That effort is bolstered by gaining an understanding of c
ognitive dissonance
—the mental discomfort felt by a person who holds two conflicting ideas or beliefs simultaneously.

George Orwell, in his classic
1984
, referred to the concept of simultaneously holding two conflicting beliefs as “doublethink.” In Orwell’s dystopia, doublethink created no discomfort, because people were oblivious to the conflict. In the real world, we’re very much aware of it, and we tend to deal with the discomfort it causes by changing our thought processes. In a sense, we alter our perception of reality to explain away the conflict.

A popular illustration of cognitive dissonance, taught in business negotiation courses the world over, is given to us in Aesop’s fable, “The Fox and the Grapes.” In that story, a fox desperately wanted a deliciously tempting bunch of grapes that were hanging from a vine, just beyond his reach. Try as he might, the fox couldn’t figure out a way to reach them.

When the fox realized there was no way he would be able to get to the grapes, he had to reconcile the conflict that presented itself: He was a smart fox whose cunning ways had always gotten him what he wanted, yet he was outwitted by the mere location of the delicious grapes. So, rather than conclude that he was not as cunning as he thought he was, he decided that he didn’t really want the grapes after all. He dealt with the dissonance by telling himself that the grapes were likely bitter, or sour—hence the phrase “sour grapes.”

Anyone who commits a crime, misrepresents the facts, or tells a lie may put himself in a situation that forces him to deal with cognitive dissonance. Generally, the person is well aware that doing those things is wrong, and therefore bad. Yet he likely doesn’t think of himself as a wrongdoer, or a bad person, so he’s forced to reconcile these conflicting beliefs. In an interrogation situation, the monologue serves as a means of aiding that reconciliation in a way that’s conducive to a confession, because it relieves the person of the mental discomfort that’s caused by the dissonance.

The monologue is meant to prevent the person from focusing on the ramifications of the wrongdoing by keeping him in short-term thinking mode. We help him alleviate the pain he’s feeling by giving him a remedy: a convincing argument, strengthened by rationalization, minimization, and socialization, that resolves the conflict. The resolution allows him to acknowledge the bad act, without having to accept the premise that he’s a bad person.

Let’s look at how this might work in a negotiation situation.

I once had a client who hired a contractor to construct a new office building. The project was “cost plus,” meaning my client agreed to pay the cost of the construction plus a fee for the contractor, rather than agreeing on a set amount up front. After the job was completed, the cost that the contractor billed was far higher than what my client had anticipated. As a result, a lawsuit was filed. At a mediation hearing convened to try to settle the suit, this is the way we approached the matter:

“Look, I know that in every business it’s so easy to get swamped with work, and sometimes things just fall through the cracks or are missed, and sometimes we can miscount or miscalculate, or those who we employ as subcontractors can do the same thing. That’s just the nature of being very good at what you do, because it makes you so busy that things can and do get muddled up. I think that may have happened here, because the figure you gave my client is vastly different from the figure that he had come up with when he priced this out. I wonder if it might be possible for us to take a step back, take a look at all of the bills from suppliers and subcontractors, and then look at the calculations again.”

That approach led to a settlement that my client was pleased with. Chances are, if we had gone into the mediation and given the contractor the impression that we were calling him a liar or a cheat, we would have gotten nowhere. Rationalizing, minimizing, and identifying potential justifications all help to lower defenses that might otherwise make getting the truth next to impossible.

RESISTANCE AND THE CONCEPT OF “COMMITMENT/CONSISTENCY”

When the Chinese took American prisoners during the Korean War, they knew that they would face strong resistance in their efforts to get the Americans to provide information, or to willingly serve as conduits of propaganda. However, they were able to achieve many of their aims by means of a simple tool of influence that’s extremely powerful in overcoming resistance. It’s what the social psychologist Robert Cialdini refers to in his book
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
as
commitment/consistency
.

Rather than employ torture or other crude methods that were, at best, limited in their effectiveness, the Chinese, Cialdini points out, simply persuaded the Americans to make small concessions, in writing. Over time, the psychological impact of the concessions increased, and the prisoners’ statements grew to be more and more reflective of sentiments that could be considered as pro-Chinese and anti-Western. The Chinese intelligence officers had tapped into a strong psychological driver: the desire people have to act consistently with their public statements and with the image of how they are perceived.

Recent political scandals, along with historical revisionism on the part of political figures, have left many to wonder why some people will, often illogically, leap to the defense of those whose actions more sensibly warrant challenge, correction, or, heaven forbid, education. The answer is simple: the human desire, often unconscious, to appear to be consistent.

Many will recall that when former Alaska governor Sarah Palin visited Boston in 2011, she mangled the history of Paul Revere’s ride. In her version of events, Revere wasn’t warning the colonists of the approach of the British, but was warning the British that they’d better not take away the colonists’ arms. In making a statement in support of Second Amendment rights, Governor Palin had dramatically altered a piece of American history that even schoolchildren know well. Despite the obviousness of the gaffe, she and many of her supporters later went to great lengths to defend what she had said, at one point contending that it was when he was detained by a British patrol that Revere had warned them against taking away the colonists’ arms. She would later revise her explanation and fall back to insisting that there were some British in the area whom Revere was warning when he was making several rides and “ringing those bells.” Throughout it all, many of her supporters stood by her version of events. The reason? Commitment/consistency.