Interview with expert workshop facilitator Maria Wichmann about Chris Voss Podcast - what her biggest takeaways were
From Dr. Andrew Huberman podcast with a former FBI agent who served as the lead international hostage negotiator
We frequently share insights and inspiration we get from books, training, and podcasts.
The latest one we talked about was the podcast of Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist and professor at Stanford University interviewing Chris Voss about “How to Succeed at Hard Conversations”. Chris Voss is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent who was the lead negotiator in many high-risk, high-consequence cases.
I have shared my notes and personal views on the tactics and powerful questions I have selected from the podcast as being inspirational in the sessions I facilitate. See below a promised visualization of my takeaways so far.
In this post, I invited Maria to share her takeaways from this podcast and where she applies them.
Who are you and what made you smile today, Maria? 😊
Maria: (laughs) Haha… I remember that I told you I liked this question. I smiled today because I had a tricky conversation yesterday which turned out well. The satisfying bit was that I trusted my gut on how to go about it instead of relying on facts. Trusting my gut more is something I am currently exploring.
I am a freelance facilitator supporting companies to break down silo mentality within the organization. There is great potential for innovation, performance improvement, and stress relief for leaders. Close to my heart is facilitation coaching, where individuals or groups learn to run efficient, effective, fun workshops.
My background is in corporate aerospace engineering where I helped to design jet engines for civil airplanes. People say my structured thinking in combination with the sense of teams is quite valuable.
Why did you choose to listen to this 3-hour-long episode with Chris Voss?
Maria: I once read a book written by another FBI hostage negotiator which was a game changer for my professional and personal communication. That made me curious about the podcast. It must have been around 10 years ago that I found “Just Listen” by Mark Goulston. The title was quite uninspiring to me at the time but I am so glad I gave it a try. I listened to this book about 5 times on my commute to work.
I believe experienced hostage negotiators are great teachers because their techniques are battle-tested and are based on neuroscience. Understanding how people’s brains work helps me stay calm in difficult team settings when I facilitate.
What were your biggest 3 takeaways and where did/will you apply them?
Maria: Firstly, how to react when people vent their frustration. Replying “I understand” is a lie because I have never been exactly in the other person’s situation and don´t know their context or life experiences. Instead, it is better to react with an observation and give the negative emotion a name. Something like “This sounds as if it is driving you crazy because nobody listens to you.” You also explain this in more detail in your previous newsletter as ‘proactive listening’.
Secondly, I had not thought about the difference between anger and frustration. Frustration is being denied a goal in the future. It is forward-thinking. Anger is backward thinking because somebody is upset about something that happened in the past. I am still processing this finding to figure out how this helps me in workshop facilitations.
Thirdly, how to deliver bad news. I applied the learning in a difficult situation with a client yesterday. I pre-warned him with a one-sentence meeting invite that I needed to talk about the mess we both got ourselves into. The issue was sorted within 15 min with clear actions who does what by when. The old style would have been what Chris Voss calls the mudd sandwich. First, your small talk “How are you? How are the kids? …” Then you deliver the bad news - that is what he calls the mudd. In the end, you try to make yourself and the other person feel better by saying a bunch of other nice things where everybody feels awkward.
What did the trick for me was combining the pre-warning about the bad news with
a non-violent communication style about my needs in the work relationship,
empathizing with his dilemma and
asking him what is possible for him right now.
If you wanted to recommend this podcast to someone what would you say?
Maria: Listen to this if you are intrigued by what humans need in stressful situations and if you are searching for ways to leave people better than they were before the conversation with you.
Bottom lines from Maria:
Maria: Communication is everything. You can do lots of harm with it and also a lot of good. I am on a mission to leave people and organizations better than they were before the workshops with me.
Thanks for suggesting this thought-provoking podcast to me, Andra.
Resources:
Maria Wichmann newsletter
Mark Goulston “Just Listen”
Celebrating 100 newsletter posts of Team Flow with You!
On the 2nd of November, TeamFlow celebrates 100 newsletter posts and I want to Thank you for this and invite you to a special session where you can ask me anything about your team or any working relationship and I will explain to you the WHY behind it so that you can help your team / fix it right away.
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Thanks for the chat, Andra. I really appreciate the inspiring exchange with you.