Originally Published October 2007
The negotiator has been on the phone with a barricaded person in crisis for the past several hours but does not seem to be making a great deal of progress in getting him to come out. The Chief is getting impatient, the negotiator is getting tired and the team leader is trying to decide if they should change negotiators to get things moving. The person in crisis isn’t talking that much or giving the team much information with which to work. In reality, the negotiator has been doing most of the talking.
The replay of the communication between the two of them is telling. While the negotiator tells the subject that “it can’t really be that bad” and “we really want to help” while trying to encourage them to “open the door and come on out”, what the person in crisis may really be hearing is “just tell me what the problem is so that I can fix it and we can move along”.
Just the facts Ma’am, just the facts.
As the camera pans left to the nodding head of his partner Officer Bill Gannon, we are faced with the realization that Joe Friday spoke these words so often in the long-running television show Dragnet, that law enforcement officers have simply accepted this as their mantra. Like Friday and Gannon, modern police officers don’t have time for the drama and the real life events that occur daily, building up to the crises in our lives that we as negotiators are often called on to deal with.
One of the most difficult mindsets that trainers must overcome when teaching basic negotiation skills is getting experienced law enforcement officers to put aside this “just the facts” mentality to become effective negotiators. Most basic courses spend the first two days teaching at least one form of the accepted basic listening skills techniques (Active Listening, Reflective Listening, etc.) and then generally incorporating various forms of reinforcement of those skills, along with introduction to various other aspects of crisis negotiations, throughout the balance of the course.
Even with this introduction and reinforcement of the listening concepts, many officers fail to grasp these two basic principles that allow effective negotiators to gather facts, to listen efficiently and, when appropriate, use this information to engage the person more effectively.
Very few law enforcement agencies have the luxury of maintaining full-time Tactical or Negotiation teams. As a result, we are tasked with the responsibility of performing our primary jobs of Patrol Officer or Detective and then migrating to that role of Crisis Negotiator as the situation demands. In our role of traditional law enforcement officer, we are tasked with investigating criminal activity, gathering evidence, generating reports and doing so in an expeditious manner as dispatch pushes us to clear this scene because another high priority call is holding in our district. When we are asked to change hats and act in the role of Crisis Negotiator, we must to be able to set aside this pattern of expediency and revert to the listening skills that we have learned are effective in mediating and resolving these critical situations.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle.
One of the techniques identified to improve proficiency in firearms is through the concept of “muscle memory”. Through the multiple repetition of drawing our weapons in the same manner, pointing and aiming the same way every time, as well as consistent trigger and breath control we develop a systematic approach to ensure that during a high-stress encounter such as an officer involved shooting, we respond consistently and without hesitation.
Good negotiators use this same concept to develop a habit of incorporating active and reflective listening skills into their daily interactions with others. Similarly, practicing active and reflective listening skills in daily routines helps negotiators to seamlessly shift from daily duties in crisis negotiation roles without interruption.
In addition, using experienced negotiators as role players in various law enforcement and negotiation training scenarios provides the negotiators an avenue to reinforce their skills proficiency through application of their listening skills as well as immediate and post scenario feedback. When they recognize the limitations or proficiencies in the communication, or more importantly, the listening skills of others, it reinforces their own skill levels.
As negotiators we are constantly evaluating the messages that we are sending to the people with which we are engaged. Of all the messages we are sending, we should ensure that we send this one message loud and clear, “Joe Friday has retired. Talk to us, we really are listening”.