From the outside looking in, there doesn’t seem to be a lot in common between negotiating with a criminal to release hostages and coaxing your child to turn in their homework on time.
And yet, in both of these difficult situations there are some common strategies that are overwhelmingly effective; Both require tactical listening, curiosity and patience.
Today’s guest, former hostage negotiator Derek Gaunt, teaches us how to approach high stakes conversations so you can better influence the other person and more effectively (and quickly) resolve conflict when there’s a lot on the line. Specifically, we discuss:
- Why hostage negotiation is the same as any negotiation
- How to remain curious in a triggering conversation
- Ways to practice negotiation without being in one
- The key to influencing to anyone and everyone
- How to deal with irrational people and behavior
Derek Gaunt is a lecturer, author of Ego, Authority, Failure©, and trainer with 29 years of law enforcement experience, 20 of which as a team member, leader and then commander of hostage negotiations teams in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. He is a hostage negotiation and incident command subject matter expert who frequently speaks at hostage negotiations and SWAT conferences across the country.
Connect with Derek:
- On Instagram: @derekmguant
- Via his website: Black Swan LTD
- Check out his book: Ego, Authority, Failure
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TRANSCRIPTION
Brett Bartholomew 0:12
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Welcome to the Art of coaching podcast I’m Brett Bartholomew. And at a young age poor communication nearly cost me my life. Now, I help others navigate the gray area of social interaction, power dynamics and communication so they can become more adaptable leaders regardless of their profession, age or situation. This podcast is for everybody who is fascinated with solving people problems. So if you’re in the no nonsense type who appreciates frank conversations, advice you can put to use immediately and learning how others navigate the messy realities of leadership. You’re in the right place. I’m glad that you’re joining us. Let’s dive in.
Today, I’m excited to bring to you my conversation with Derek Gaunt. Now listen, all of us at Art of Coaching cannot say we specialize in power dynamics, persuasion, communication and human behavior. Only then not go and find some of the world’s best in that space to give their perspective. And that’s exactly what we’ve done with Derek. Derek is a lecturer the author of Ego Authority Failure I’m a trainer with the black swan group that has more than 29 years of law enforcement experience 20 of which were as a team member, leader, and then commander of the hostage negotiation teams in the Washington DC metropolitan area.
He is a hostage negotiation and Incident Command subject matter expert that frequently speaks at hostage negotiations and SWAT conferences around the country. His passion for interpersonal communication began when he was selected as a detective in the Criminal Investigation Section of a municipal police agency. He spent the majority of his law enforcement career in the Criminal Investigation Section as a detective supervisor, and eventually commander of major crimes
In 97, he took his passion for interpersonal communications to the next level, becoming a hostage negotiator. Once he became a supervisor, his passion transition from doing to teaching the concepts to others. As a member of the Black Swan group, he is a negotiation trainer, and personal coach, he has trained throughout the US in the world instructing business organizations on how to apply hostage negotiation practices and principles in their world. And some of the things I enjoyed speaking to him most about are just how he goes about this as a teacher, that the art of facilitation and not just it’s one thing if you have these ideas in your head, it’s one thing if you have these experiences in your head, it’s another thing to teach them to others, there is such an art, such a craft to it.
And it was just an enjoyable experience, because he’s one of those individuals that comes on. And you guys know that type. There can be people that just want to talk about their book. And then there’s others that just want to connect at a deeper level with not only you guys as the audience, but me and just with more people in general. They open the pages of their book, but they also open their heart and their minds that the perspectives of others. And few have done that better than Derek Gaunt. So I hope you enjoy this episode. I hope you learn a tremendous amount from it. Make sure that you download the podcast reflection sheets, you can find them in the show notes. They’re absolutely free. Enjoy this discussion.
Welcome back to another episode of The Art of coaching podcast. I am joined by Derek Gaunt. Mr. Gaunt. Thank you for taking the time today.
Derek Gaunt 7:15
All right, thank you for the invitation. I appreciate being on with you.
Brett Bartholomew 7:18
Listen, this is an honor for me, I have a conservative interest in all things power dynamics, negotiation, but most importantly, just people and teaching and to have the opportunity to be with you, given your background and and the nuances of this is pretty exciting. But I have to ask you a question that might seem broad at first, but I think helps us color the conversation. Given how messy people are just given how messy human interaction and communication Why would you subject yourself to a life of trying to figure out people?
Derek Gaunt 7:54
That’s a great question. So it’s gonna require me to go a little bit into my bio.
Brett Bartholomew 7:59
Please.
Derek Gaunt 8:00
You know, I started my law enforcement career in 88. I became a hostage negotiator in 1997. And I became a negotiator because what I learned in my first few years in law enforcement, I got thrown into a drug unit really early on in my career. And I learned that through an appropriate interview style, you could influence people into giving up information that they are ordinary reluctant to give up either because they were trying to minimize their exposure to the penal system. They were traumatized because they were victims of crimes, or they didn’t want that stigma of being associated with providing information to the police.
And so each one of those buckets, each one of the people in those buckets had a vested interest to not give me information. And I found that if I could say specific things in specific manners, I could elicit specific information to put me on the road into going after bigger fish. And I was intrigued by that. And so when the opportunity to become a hostage negotiator where you’re taking those skills to a completely different level came up, I decided to apply for the team, I got selected to the team. And I never looked back, I became a student of the game. Because I was intrigued by the fact that if you listen closely enough to anyone, they’re going to give you the information that you need to influence them into doing what you need them to do.
And it’s applicable in hostage negotiation. It’s applicable in the sports world. It’s applicable in law enforcement in the military in life, itself. And I was just I just immersed myself in all of it. I became a team commander or a team supervisor in 2001. Team Commander 2004 And that’s the position that I held up until the time And that I left. And so it’s always been in four of my adult life is concerned, it’s always been a part of me. And even after retiring from law enforcement, that’s when my eyes really open to the fact that these skills are applicable in every walk of life. And so together with Chris Voss, we went out and started spreading the gospel.
Brett Bartholomew 10:26
And I appreciate you given that example, especially with your background. And I remember in your book, Ego Authority Failure, you talked about it, and you mentioned it there, you worked as part of a plainclothes street level narcotics unit. But then also Chris Voss talks about in the foreword of your book, how you were able to give a talk with a China Development at the China Development Bank dinner, large organization, one of the largest banks in the world. And the point I’m making here is, like you said, if you listen to anyone, they give you clues that adapt to nearly every situation in life. So you can be socially agile.
But look at those two examples, right, working as playing close, like in street level narcotics, and then being able to adapt your communication and your strategies to speak to high level businessmen in a completely different culture in a completely different code. Do you find that if most people really just listen, and we’ll get into tactical empathy and everything in a little bit more, if they not only listened, but if they had this innate curiosity, they would be able to themselves manage these different situations, codes and cultures more effectively,
Derek Gaunt 11:32
You hit the nail on the head, man, if people would just get out of their own head, and stop worrying about where they want the conversation to go. And understand that going into the conversation, I don’t care how long the relationship has been in existence, five seconds, or five years, there are things that you are going to discover if you just shut your mouth. And listen, it’s the cheapest and most effective concession that you can make one person to another, it doesn’t cost you anything.
And what the benefit is, for the other side is we all have a huge innate drive, to have someone else understand what our circumstances are to understand what our experiences are, to understand what our environment looks like. And when you as a listener provide that for another person, you are actually changing chemicals in their brain in the moment, they’re getting hits of dopamine, and oxytocin in that moment, they won’t be able to articulate why it’s so great talking to Brett, they just know they feel better after the fact. And that’s because Brett didn’t do most of the talking, or did most of the listening. And we satisfied that need that all of us had.
Brett Bartholomew 12:52
And I think I’m glad you went into that. Because I think that’s been something that and maybe you can attest to this as you’ve evolved to different aspects of your career and your a parent also, if I’m not mistaken, am I correct?
Derek Gaunt 13:02
Correct
Brett Bartholomew 13:02
I think, you know, even just doing this podcast, because you and I have known each other for about five minutes, it’s this fine line between alright, you want to honor Derek, you want to get into his work. But at the same time, you want to have an authentic conversation, you want to make sure that he does a good proportion, amount of the talking. But at the same time, I’ve got to disclose as well, otherwise, that conversation can happen. And this, this leads me to this question.
You know, when we told folks that you were coming on, there was a lot of people that just said, oh, I want to know, the best questions to ask and the best this. And one thing that I kind of pushed back on that I’d love your expert advice on is even if you know the best questions or a formula for great questions, or even if you listen incredibly well, does that get you closer to the finish line if you never disclose and I understand this as context dependent Derek, I understand in a hostage situation, you’re, you’re probably not letting people know a whole lot about you and and your family. But in an interaction like this, don’t you have to self disclose and not just ask questions and listen, if you want to move the goal line forward or? Or is that
Derek Gaunt 14:10
Here’s the thing self disclosure is a part of Explain. And if you are explaining you’re not learning by virtue of the fact that you are explaining you are flipping the dynamic within the conversation, putting yourself in a position of superiority because if I have to explain something to you, Brett, by definition, you don’t know it. And by definition, I’m superior to you in that moment. And so this idea of self disclosure is an important part of the conversation, but sequentially, you have to be mindful of where you’re doing it.
And I don’t want to disclose what my position is what my ultimate goal objective is, and ultimately make my ask Intel I’ve gotten permission from the other side and I do not get permission from the other side verbally. I’m going to get permission from the other side based on their behavior. And so I am going to, at the beginning of the conversation defer and subordinate myself to the other side, it doesn’t matter whether I’m dealing with a drugged out hostage taker threatening to kill his two year old, or I’m talking to my 16 year old as to why she hasn’t completed her college applications yet.
It’s the same type of structuring of the conversation, demonstrating for the other side first, that we understand their view of the world. Because if I don’t understand your worldview, I don’t understand you. If I don’t understand you, there’s no meaningful dialogue is going to take place because in that moment, my lack of understanding presents me in the conversation as a psychological threat. And anytime you are a psychological threat and a conversation, you are actually making your counterpart dumber.
Because if you are a threat, by extension, you are making them defensive. If they are defensive, that means that that amygdala is fired up. And what’s supposed to be going on in the prefrontal cortex is impeded, it’s being obscured. And so I have to remove myself as a threatened there’s a variety of ways you mentioned tactical empathy earlier, there’s a variety of ways that that we can do that. So going back to your original point, self disclosure, shouldn’t be dismissed. It just depends on where you’re using it in the conversation, the first 75 80% of that conversation shouldn’t be about you at all. It’d be about the other person. And I want to let you know when it’s time to transition to Brett talk.
Brett Bartholomew 16:40
And I appreciate you clarifying that, because I have to imagine for so many people, it is hard to remove their ego from that, which is again, why your book is appropriately named. Because they you know, they don’t want to seem dumb, or they don’t want to seem aloof, or they don’t want to seem like they’re not, it’s hard for people just not to be in charge, is it not? We have this, we have this innate drive for security and predictability and inherently, those things to your point, unless you’re listening unless you’re incredibly observant, they’re not going to come you’re not afforded that much in life anyway.
But especially if you’re not observing and listening. So did you find that that was hard at any point of your law enforcement career, to just be able to step back, whether it was you learning from superiors, you learn just being able to step back and saying, I don’t care how you know, that I have to almost give ground to gain ground cede power to gain power? Did you ever struggle with these aspects in your career? Or do they always come naturally to you to just kind of be inquisitive and sit back and listen,
Derek Gaunt 17:44
I always had the drive to be inquisitive, because I realized that you know, that I didn’t know I don’t know, everything. And you know, was told to me one time, if you believe that you are the smartest guy in the room, you are in the wrong room, you need to get out of that room. And so I’ve always had that inquisitive nature. And I’ve never really been overly concerned about other people’s perception of me, because at the end of the day, I do things the right way for the right reasons, and that will hold up to anybody’s screw.
Brett Bartholomew 18:28
One of the greatest predictors of professional success is our ability to connect with and influence others. The research makes this clear that regardless of whether there’s a job you want to land, a promotion you want to get or a relationship you want to improve. The key is enhanced communication. And we all know that people skills cannot be outsourced, they cannot be reduced to a rubric. And they cannot just be learned by reading a book. It is impossible to improve in these areas if you don’t get feedback. And this is exactly why we created our Apprenticeship workshop.
The name is inspired by the fact that every professional knows that progress is a lifelong journey. You’re never a master. But the content is for anyone who wants to be better at understanding power dynamics, persuasion, negotiation, and a deeper understanding of those you work with and are trying to influence. Everything in life comes down to how you deal with people, and the art of coaching may as well be thought of as the Art of Leading people. So let me tell you what these days are like.
Over the course of two days at our apprenticeship workshop, you get access to different perspectives from professionals in different fields. You get a ton of repetitions via the use of tactical role playing video breakdowns and forms and tools that you can use and apply immediately in every aspect of leadership in life. You’re also going to get access to the latest research in negotiation, human behavior and leadership. These are all tied to my doctorate. Now we’ve served executives in companies such as Microsoft, Wells Fargo, first responders, HR representatives, we’ve had a member of the FBI come I’m before and plenty of law enforcement. And we’ve worked with coaches across every level of sport.
We’ve also hosted in nearly every setting imaginable. My point is, is that all ages, experience levels and professions are welcome. As long as you’re focused on growth, improved relationships, and enhanced results, that’s all that matters to us. So make sure to go to artofcoaching.com/events. I’m going to say that again, artofcoaching.com/events. Now to learn more, and check out our upcoming events in Los Angeles, Lake Tahoe, Sydney, Australia, we are constantly adding to the list, we do keep these very intimate, right, these are not large conference room, let’s get 100 people, we want a very intimate so they can be maximally interactive.
So take advantage of earlybird discount Sign up now. Again, it’s artofcoaching.com/events. And you can even use code podcast10. That’s the number 10 all one word, podcast10 for an additional 10% off, never tried to be the smartest person in the room, instead, become the most adaptable person in the room. become an apprentice of the Art of Coaching today.
Hey, just a quick reminder, everything that we do at Art Of Coaching is a leadership development based it does not matter what profession you’re in, our focus is on people skills, helping people bridge the gap between the messy realities of leadership. So whether you’re struggling with entrepreneurial issues, personal issues, professional issues, anything that eats away at you, because of the stresses of life today in the workplace reach out to us. We have everything from private mentoring, to group mentoring, to live events to online courses. And these are geared towards every profession.
My background may have been in Strength and Conditioning for 15 years. But my work now my PhD and everything we do is centered around communication, and enhancing our ability to connect with and influence others, we have served people across 36 different professions. And just like those in the military world, or medical world that have crossed over, that is what we have done, we are trying to bring the best and brightest together to help navigate those messy realities of leadership.
Because let’s face it, leadership is a full contact sport, there are so many times that you’re going to feel like you’re not doing it right. There are so many times that you just need somebody to play devil’s advocate or give you a fresh perspective, then me and anybody on my team, we’re never going to come off like we know it all or anything like that. We just want to be an advocate at your fingertips, somebody that can help you think about different perspectives. And that’s why it’s the art of coaching. Because coaches guide coaches, lead coaches aren’t scared to talk to you about their mistakes and their strategies. But most importantly, coaches a great one, at least, is going to help you get out of your own way. So make sure to go to artofcoaching.com today and check out all we have to offer we cannot wait to work with you.
Derek Gaunt 23:02
And I’ve never really been overly concerned about other people’s perception of me because at the end of the day, I do things the right way for the right reasons. And that will hold up to anybody’s doesn’t mean it’s not going to cause me some pain because a lot of people don’t see the world like that. And those people who don’t see the world like that will try to cause you pain. But it was something that was always in there. But getting into the world of hostage and crisis negotiation. The seed was planted, I just watered it. I tilled the soil, and I grew the tree. And so is it hard? Yeah. Is it conscious efforts on your part? Absolutely.
I mean, I was in conversations with some of the worst people on the planet. And I had to step back away from that, to really understand that my job was to even though this guy is threatening heinous things with these people and inside of this crisis site, I have got to find out what is motivating the behavior. The behavior itself is incidental. That’s where a lot of us get tripped up. We get we get so wrapped around the axle because he did this or she said that, when that’s only part of the story, the other part of the story is what caused them to do that.
What caused her to say that, and this goes back to that earlier point that you made about curiosity, if people would just assume they have something to learn. The conversations would go so much easier. And here’s what I mean by that. Number one, you’re going to be fulfilling that need that I spoke of earlier about people wanting to have other people understand how they feel. But number two, you can’t be triggered and curious. At the same time,
Brett Bartholomew 25:00
That’s a great point. That’s a great point. I want to allow you to elaborate on that a little bit, because I have something that jumps into that. But I think that is that was something that when I was reading your book I really highlighted, because just real quick, I think we have a world that forgets about context, like you said, they jump into labeling behaviors, they jump into and this is all fundamental attribution error, right? When it comes to ourselves, we’ll explain it through a situation Oh, I’m speeding because I’m late to for an appointment or it’s an emergency.
Derek Gaunt 25:32
Exactly.
Brett Bartholomew 25:32
Other people Oh, they’re crazy. You know, and and when we don’t see the world through a contextual view, it becomes really messy. And I almost feel like our society is getting worse at that. Because just people, the information comes at us so quickly. Now, we haven’t learned how to discern was there more you want to elaborate on that? Before I get to.
Derek Gaunt 25:54
The only thing that I wanted to emphasize is you are going to get triggered in difficult conversations. There’s no way around that. But the beauty of it is, you have control, you’ve got a choice to make, you can either remain triggered, or you can be curious. And as I mentioned, your brain, you can’t do both at the same time. So you can make a choice of what you’re going to do. Am I going to be agitated Brett? Or am I going to dig a little deeper to try to figure out what motivated him to say what he said, That set me off.
And usually in, there’s always, in every hostile conversation, and I define a hostile conversation is anytime I want or I need is in your head or in my head, it’s going to be a hostile conversation on some level, that doesn’t mean that we’re gonna be fist fighting each other coming over the desk. But there are going to be negative emotions and dynamics associated with that conversation. And staying curious about what those drivers are is where we need to be in every one of those hostile conversations, there’s a presenting dynamic or motion. And then there’s a latent, dynamic or emotion,
Identifying the presidenting is pretty easy. Most of us can do that, in our sleep, identifying the latent dynamic or motion, that’s where it becomes a little bit more difficult. That’s where you have to really start to rely on your subconscious because your subconscious is going to be picking up data and information that your ears are not. It’s just It’s the weirdest thing. But generally speaking in the Biology of Belief, Dr. Bruce Lipton wrote that your conscious brain processes 40 bits of information per second, your subconscious brain, ie your gut, your intuition processes, 20 million bits of information per second.
Think about that 20 million, that’s you knowing something without knowing how you know it. And so if we would just stay curious and then take a step back and rely on our gut. Because that intuition that subconscious, that gut feeling that we all get, has kept us alive for 1000s of years, it is never going to betray you. If you rely on it, it’ll tell you exactly where you need to go in the conversation to flush out the lake dynamics or emotions.
Brett Bartholomew 28:22
Yeah, no question. And one thing I was really, I’m glad that you brought this up, because the subconscious conscious of this also feeds into this idea and this myth. I think that a lot of times and I’ve seen this in coaching, I have to imagine you’ve seen it, unbelievable amount of times in your career, but there are a lot of folks that think logic alone will change somebody’s mind. And when you think of the subconscious, right, we can also think of just the limbic system and how you know, that processes, emotions and all the complexity with that, and how people think that’s so separate from the prefrontal cortex, the seat of consciousness, when really they’re constantly whispering back and forth to one another.
Where do you stand? And this is intentionally broad, if you want me to get more specific, I’m happy to. But where do you stand on this idea, this myth that, you know, logic is going to change people’s mind if we just give them the facts. If we give them knowledge data, or just present something in a logical argument, man, we’re gonna use it for success.
Derek Gaunt 29:20
It’s a great question. You know, Daniel Kahneman said that human beings are not rational or logical. We’re just not. We are emotional beings. He said that feelings are a part of the thinking process. So you can’t separate the two he divides the brain up into system one and system two. And that system one thing is it’s fast. It’s that animal brain is reactionary, and the system two is the logical brain. You can’t affect someone’s system two brain unless you first address their system, one brain. It’s like the analogy I like To us, it’s like trying to make an omelet, but you don’t want to break the egg. You can’t, you can’t do it.
And so that’s the one inherent problem with logic. The other is logic, believe it or not as subjective. What’s logical to you, is not necessarily going to be logical to me. And if you have your logic, I have my logic and they don’t line up and guess what somebody’s logic is faulty. Yeah. And so this idea that we are, if you just inject logic into a conversation, the emotions will come down is just a fallacy. And that’s where most people fall flat on their face, because they’re saying to themselves, alright, they’re acting irrational. They need to be supplied with some lab logic. If I would just explain to them, this is why I’m doing this. They wouldn’t be so emotional about it. And that’s just not the case.
Emotions override everything. This is why people take hostages. You know, the bank robber that gets interrupted, in the middle of the bank robbery, turns around and snatches the entire bank hostage, and then we call inside the bank and what’s the first words out of his mouth? Go away! Yeah, well, logically speaking, the fastest way to get police to leave you alone is not to snatch hostage. If you snatch hostages, we’re probably going to stay around for a little bit. Logically speaking, it makes no sense.
Why can he not see that in the moment, because his emotions are high, which means his rational thinking is low. And I can’t begin to affect his rational thinking until I deal with the emotional aspect. As he sees. It may not make sense, it may not line up with reality, but it certainly is important to him. And I’ve got to address that before I can return him to the NFL. And that’s not the National Football League. That’s a normal functioning level.
Brett Bartholomew 32:02
Well, and this is what I appreciate, Derek is you bring up the work of Daniel Kahneman, you cite a ton of research in your book. And then there’s your own, you know, anecdotal and applied research out of all your years, and people read this stuff, they hear about it, they I think we talked more about just the economics of decision making and everything ever before. But so very few train it. You know, I was reading about your background and how you were trained. And I’d love to learn more about this just let me frame the question training, the read technique of interrogation.
Yet, in my previous career, in coaching, their coaches are almost never trained on any aspect of just communication in general, the broad term, right, whether that’s just powerful, like questions, listening, negotiation, I mean, then a lot of our workshops now, which is tied to my doctorate, we utilize improv applied improv role playing, because people, you know, they might, to your point, they have this information in the back of their head, but we find that until you put them in that situation, that theory of mind is never really codified.
This idea that oh, misunderstanding, is the baseline and oh, I even though I know this stuff, I’m ashamed and how I acted in that, in that role playing exercise. Well, yeah, you got to get in there. I have to ask how invaluable Oh, and even just how immersive was your training? Because I’ve never gone through the read technique. That’s obviously not my area of expertise. But whether it was that or other forms of communication based training, however you want to define that in your context? And was there a roleplay involved? What were the most valuable aspects of these kinds of training for you, and in helping codify some of those things?
Derek Gaunt 33:45
Knowledge without application is worthless, right? I can read to you all day long, I can stand in front of a PowerPoint slide and say, Do this, don’t do that. Do this. Don’t do that. I’ll give you some of the neuroscience behind it. But that’s that point is theory. And without actual practical application, it does not, the neural pathway does not develop as fast as it otherwise would.
And so I was a big proponent, not so much. When I got trained. When I got trained, it was still kind of archaic, but I saw where we were missing the boat on training. And so I made sure that my negotiators coming through my basic and advanced schools are going to be immersed. In practical application, I’m going to give them some history. I’m going to give them some theory and then boom, here’s the skill, let’s put it to work and it’s nothing It doesn’t have to be more anything more sexy than putting two chairs back to back at the front of the room. And giving one guy a prompt he had the other guy just exercise the skills that we discussed the previous day, and that is the beginning of their repetitions.
It takes between depending on who you talk to between 64 and 67 repetitions just to develop a new habit not to be perfect at it, just to make it a new habit, perfection comes 10,000 hours later. But our proficiency not perfection becomes to comes 10,000 hours later, but 64 to 67 reps. And so I’m in a school, that’s a 40 hour week long school, I have a finite amount of hours in the day to get those repetitions in. So to your point, yeah, immersion in roleplay provides practical application and it begins to connect those synapses that are necessary to make this muscle memory because in essence, that’s where you want to be.
You don’t want to be thinking about the structure of a label in a heated conversation, you want it to just roll off your tongue. And that’s only going to happen with constant repetition of the skills. If you were to come to me now. Or bring your team to me now and say, teach my team, the Black Swan method. One of the first things we’re gonna do probably the second day is going to be sending you out into the world, low stakes practice conversations that mean nothing to you. I want you to go into Starbucks, ask that barista, how are you today? And when they respond? You label that response based on the data that they give you. And you watch how you change their world in that moment. Because I’m going off on a tangent here,
Brett Bartholomew 36:30
No this is great, you’re fine.
Derek Gaunt 36:31
So the barista at Starbucks gets asked 100 times a day, how are you 99? People who asked that question, do not care?
Brett Bartholomew 36:43
No question.
Derek Gaunt 36:45
And so when you come in as person number 100. And they give you the response to the how you’re doing and you probe a little further with a label sounds like you’ve had a rough day to day. How I mean, how long did it take me to say that less than two seconds? And to them, it’s going to mean the world because somebody is now taking an interest in me. And here’s the thing. interested persons become interesting persons?
Brett Bartholomew 37:17
Yeah, I mean, that’s the old Dale Carnegie concept. Right? You can’t be interesting without being interested. And this is, I’m really grateful that you went off on that tangent because I want you to poke holes in this dependency, poke holes in this depending how you feel about it, you use the term low stakes practice. And one of the reasons I was most fascinated to talk to you. Yes, of course, your background, your proficiency and all this, but also just what comes across in terms of your immense interest in the craft of teaching, and passing along information.
And so, given this, we find that when we first started doing our workshops, there was a certain population, we had to sell on the value of roleplay. And I looked at this as Oh, my God, like you don’t often get to rehearse or refine for some of life’s biggest moments. Why would you have to sell somebody on the value of roleplay. But even but even aside from that, because we’ll often do situations where they reverse perspectives as well, right? They’ll do that situation is them. And then that situation is the other person and we’ll give them attitudinal constraints and things to swap. But in terms of low stakes practice, what we also utilize is improv.
You know, just adapted theater games. And of course, we siphon out the ones that are really goofy, but the point is to get them using divergent thinking and an improv, you very much have to listen to people as well. Do you see any value in those same concepts of improv given how much you have to listen and how much you have to just think divergently and be creative and resourceful? In whether it’s negotiation or teaching or anything like that? Or is there a boundary there that in your training, you’re just like, yeah, now we see value in the role playing side of things, but not necessarily improv or anything like how unique what you get with those kinds of things.
Derek Gaunt 39:01
I liked the idea of improv. And I liked the idea of improv because of its unpredictability because there’s nothing that runs as close to actual human behavior than improv because human beings are unpredictable. You know, you said it, you understand that things are contextually based, and situational. And that is so true. You know, people often ask me, How long am I going to have to do this skill? How long am I gonna have to do this skill? How long will I have to? And I’m like, I don’t know. That’s the equivalent of me handing you an axe and standing next to a tree and you asked me how many swings of the axe is going to take to bring this tree down?
I don’t know. It depends on your strength. It depends on the girth of the tree. And so I liked the idea of improv that we’ve never used it but the same thing holds true for actual roleplay and I try to put people in roleplay situations that have nothing to do with their interest industry specifically, because that puts them in a position of discomfort. And now their amygdala is fired up. And now they’re worried about this threat coming from across the table. And it really tests their mettle if they can function under that pressure, because that’s the pressure that they’re going to feel in real life.
Now, people often tell me, Well, you were a hostage negotiator. I don’t have the same pressures that you had as a hostage negotiator, because lives were not on the line. And I say this is true. Lives in your world are not on the line. livelihoods are the same dynamics and emotions that were in play, in my conversations are the same dynamics or emotions that are in play, when you’re dealing with negotiations internally and externally, within your organization.
Brett Bartholomew 40:51
Yeah, and this is something I like on page 120 of your book, at least on the Kindle version, you talk about self deception. And there’s just this little piece here that you were talking about a gentleman with David Rees, and he had this quote, you know, once they got to a higher level, if they’ve gotten away with it, they think they’ll never get caught. Now this was in the context of management and people being sycophant, sometimes and just context. But I guess the reason I asked you all these questions, it always it seems, self deception goes away when people do role playing or get into the real world because they have to deal with it.
Like, now the truth is in their face, you know, if they don’t respond the way that I remember a coach, I got really emotional and and started rebuking against improv and role playing, because he goes, I wouldn’t respond this way in real life. And we tried to make your point, Derek, well, you did here, there’s unpredictability here. There’s so many degrees of freedom. Is it really just that you didn’t like the way that you responded in that moment? Because it made you feel like there is this lack of expertise? You know, I think, I wonder when people go through your training, even though they seek you out for a specific reason? Do some people still fight it? Do they still do it?
Derek Gaunt 42:05
Without question. Oh, my gosh, here’s the thing is, The Black Swan method is so counterintuitive. It flies in the face of everything that they’ve ever been taught in their lives. And we’re asking them to step out with us and learn this new language. Well, learning anything new is going to make people uncomfortable, especially if they conceptually can’t get their heads around what we’re trying to accomplish. And so there’s pushback constantly. So corporate training, for example, C suite says, I read this book never split the difference, greatest thing in the world, we need to get these guys in for negotiation, training, learning and development, you guys make it happen, learning people reach out to us, we set it up.
And they’ve done nothing to prep the ground for us. So we got all of these seasoned salespeople coming in with years of experience of doing way things the way they’re doing, the way they’ve been doing them, and rather successfully. And here are these group of cops that are gonna try to tell me how to do my job better. And in corporate trainings that are set up like that a full third of the room is going to be resistant to us. Some of them overtly, most of them are not rude about it, they’re covert about it. And so it takes work, we know that going in, that we’re going to have to do some work with these folks. It doesn’t really affect us the way many people think that it does. And so our job is to, it’s no different than working with a hostage negotiator.
The hostage right in that environment is the knowledge or the content that I’m trying to share. And the person on the other side who’s resistant in having me share that content is the hostage taker. So I’m going to deal with him or her just like they were a hostage, take, understand where they’re coming from, demonstrate that understanding of where they’re coming from, and what the lay of the land looks like, from their perspective. And by the end of the day, we’ve gotten that 30% down to less than five, who were still pushing back against us.
Brett Bartholomew 44:28
Yeah, I’m glad you met one. And I don’t mean this how it sounds, but I’m glad you deal with that to Derek because that was a situation to you just think about, you get you get called in for an in service, or you get called in to do something. And inevitably, there’s people out there that think, like you said, Are you coming to tell me how to do my job because you don’t know my context? I don’t care how Decker it’s almost then like your background even works against you. Because you’re perceived as this guru, if they haven’t just primed the situation for you, you know, or people have that and again, this goes into I thought this whole chapter is wonderful 119 It’s just the insecurity of it.
These folks are so worried about am I going to be revealed in some way? I remember somebody said to him, what keeps me from going and learning more about communication at your workshops is that might insinuate to my boss that I don’t know enough about. And I just thought that that was really odd. I’m thinking if you’re in a management role, if you’re in a hostage negotiation role, if you’re in a role that deals with people, which what job isn’t, at some level, right, what job doesn’t deal with people, and you go to learn how to deal with more people effectively, why would that convey insecurity? You know,
Derek Gaunt 45:35
And again, that’s them getting in their own way. Because, you know, and here’s what we got to focus on is, that statement doesn’t line up with the reality of the environment. And whenever somebody statement or behavior doesn’t line up with the reality of the environment, it’s coming from an emotional place. The sooner you identify and articulate that for them, the faster you get that stuck lid off of the jar, because listen to that statement. If I go to your communications training, my boss is going to think that I need COMMUNICATIONS TRAINING that I’m not well rounded. Does that and you’re left scratching your head. And whenever you’re left scratching your head, go back to what we said 20 minutes ago, curiosity, curiosity, curiosity, what he’s saying doesn’t line up with reality. And when that occurs, it’s because there is an emotional block that needs to be dealt with.
Brett Bartholomew 46:34
Yeah, yeah. Shifting gears for a moment on on page 78. And I bring this up just because my wife and I work together, run our own business. So this is an area that I’ve had to grow tremendously. You had said, and I’m just going to quote here briefly, the worst thing you can do is bring intelligent capable people onto your teams, and then treat them like you can’t trust them to make decisions, or execute without you hovering over them, select them, train them, then get out of their way. You speak to this specifically with the context of two colleagues, Andy and Jill in your book.
You know, I wonder, you know, I’ve dealt with this sometimes where I certainly never mean to be come off, like I’m hovering or a micromanager. I never had a mentor, like a true everybody’s got situational mentors, right, we all learn from somebody. But sometimes I find myself being too heavy handed, because I’m almost trying to help too much. Where do you draw that line? And also, do you still deal with this in your career? I know you do a fair bit of consulting, you’re educating. But even as an educator now, do you ever catch yourself thinking, okay, Derek, you’ve made your point, pull back, let the folks that are coming to your training and your workshops, kind of figure it out for themselves? You know, do you still deal with any of those weaknesses?
Derek Gaunt 47:52
I do. It’s a natural inclination, when you’re driven to make other people’s lives better by way of education. There are times when you can overstep your bounds and otherwise contaminate the lesson that they’re trying to learn, for example, and in some of our live events, we have an exercise that we do, where we break the people out into groups of three and they they’re practicing their communication skills. And I’ll they’ll walk around the room and overhear conversations. And I have to catch myself often if it’s not caught by someone else, of injecting myself into the conversation to help the person get unstuck. And the reality is, when you’re stuck, that’s where you’re going to learn the best.
If you paint them in their corner and force them to mentally work through the problem is a lot better than me jumping in and solving the problem for them. That’s a constant battle that I am fighting. Now. The point before that there are places where micromanagement is appropriate. What do I mean by that? Because you wrote about it in the book and that it was the worst thing since Satan himself. Well, micromanagement of people that have demonstrated a history of failing to complete what you’ve asked them to complete, is probably appropriate.
Now, the problem with that is that many leaders, many bosses, many managers think that that’s all of the time. And so they feel the need to get down into the weeds as they say, with their direct reports, instead of allowing them to do their work, unimpeded. They you know, they’re helicopter bosses and they fly over everything and do this and do that, and eventually you’re going to create an error resentment. So micromanagement isn’t 100% evil, you know, the situation drives your strategy. So if I’ve got a problem employee and they’re on thin ice, and one more step, and they’re probably going to be out the door, then they’re probably going to see me more than the person who’s doing what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it in the manner that it’s supposed to be done.
Brett Bartholomew 50:27
Ya no, I’m glad that you address it from that devil’s advocate, you picked up on where I was gonna go with that, because you’re right, there are just people that and this falls into these kinds of one size fits all leadership axioms that we tend to see, right is all that be, it’s almost like this holacracy just is open environment, let people do this. It’s like, no, there still needs to be some directives here.
You know out of curiosity, but a nerd talk when you do your training, and I understand it, it comes in many different forms. So feel free to elaborate on whichever one you’re most comfortable with. You know, do you use an evaluation of sorts, especially given the fact that communication and success in anything that deals with the human experience, there is a perceptual gap, right between what somebody views as effective communication in a certain context, and then somebody else, I think, for example, just because I don’t want to be vague.
We’re teaching a workshop in the UK. And one of the categories that we score on is assertiveness, so we were watching a role playing scenario back. And a woman that did I mean, just incredibly from a categorical perspective, from tonality fluency, what we call orchestration, allowing that conversation to flow, even listening, she was great. And then we asked her to score self on assertiveness. And she said, Well, I’d give myself a three. And the gentleman from Spain raised his hand and said, No, no, I gave you a one.
And it started this conversation which we want, right? We want this, we want people to see this perceptual gap. He said, In my culture, what a three would have looked like in this situation is this and he got up and demonstrated it, and it didn’t create a disagreement. It created really constructive conversation about these cultural differences and perceptual gaps in that context.
And I was just wondering, you know, do you use an evaluation of sorts, or What does that look like, if I come and get trained by you so that I have this mix of objective and subjective feedback on how the heck I did in these situations,
Derek Gaunt 52:25
the feedback is going to be immediate, there’s no mechanism or, or tool that we use to evaluate the performance. It’s immediate in the moment, we’re going to each table, and we’re talking to them about what we heard, what we thought that they can improve on, and what they completely knocked out of the park. And we found a lot of success with that, you know, this is the beauty of the Black Swan method in that we try to keep things as simple and easily applicable as possible.
These skills were perfected, by cops, for cops, and what do cops want more than anything else, I want something easy to recall. And something that’s effective, whether and it doesn’t matter where I’m talking about, it could be something that you put on your duty belt, or other pieces of equipment or you have or any kind of training something easy to recall and effective. And so we don’t we don’t get down into a lot of convoluted type of explanation. And we don’t get into a lot of convoluted demonstration. We try to keep it as simple as possible because you know when the pressures on and you got skin in the game?
Yeah, I don’t need to have to, I don’t want to have to be trying to remember Okay, based on his discs score, I should be talking to him and based on his What is it an anagram? Intagram and based on that score, I should probably use more of these words as opposed to that that’s that’s too much extraneous stuff that’s going on in your head in an already stressful situation. So we try to keep it as you know, this is gonna sound harsh, but we try to keep it as dumb as possible. Now,
Brett Bartholomew 54:29
it makes a lot of sense because to your point, especially with the lack of training most people have and communication in general regardless of vocation, that pattern recognition and just in graining that as part of their you know, for lack of a better term. Neural software is really hard. It’s one thing if people did this and they were taught it in school at a base level, some of these concepts write the difference between traits and behaviors, emotion and then, but when it’s not part of something that we can recall fluently and then we don’t train it. You’re right, it’s too much to ask them to Oh, he’s in Enneagram, nine, therefore I should do this.
And they’re not thinking like that that’s not reflexive at that point.
Derek Gaunt 55:06
Exactly.
Brett Bartholomew 55:07
What one thing I also wanted to ask you, and I appreciate you being so open about all this. And, you know, I sometimes struggle with, well, you know what, I’m not gonna do this self disclosure thing, because like you said, then it makes it about you. So I’m just going to ask you, your career is saturated with examples of high stress, high stakes negotiation, when you teach, your central nervous system really has to be firing, what do you do Derek to downregulate, you know, and I understand you’re probably not teaching every single week and this and that, but even at, regardless of what point your career you want to look at, when you’re done, or in between days of teaching, how to you down, regulate, and make sure that you, you know, just continue to maintain the endurance to practice these principles, you know, and you know what I mean?
Derek Gaunt 55:57
That’s a frickin Great question. Because a lot and a lot of people don’t, don’t appreciate the importance of that, right. So going back to my old job, the deregulation started the night of the event. So whenever the event was over, we’re going to hot wash it for at least 30 minutes, immediately after, after that, I’m not going to have a lot of, I’m not going to have my people are not going to have a lot of bandwidth to sit there and pull apart the entire event. So we’re going to hot wash it for about 35 30 to 45 minutes. And then we’re going to come back in a couple of days. And then we’re going to have the big debrief, we’ll have the big debrief with everybody who was involved from the patrol officer on the outer perimeter to the entry team who actually put the guy down, everybody’s going to get their chance to speak. And then we’re going to go off into our respective tribes.
So I’ll take my team negotiators, and we’ll go off into one room, and the operators will go off into another room, and the command staff will go into another room. And then that’s where we check in and see how everybody’s doing, especially if it went sideways, especially if we lost somebody because people process people process death, whether justified or not differently. So that’s where we do the check in to make sure everybody is on point, if we uncover an issue with anybody. And then we bring in CSM and other mental health counselors to help further deal with those issues. So now I don’t do that work anymore. But it’s still just as stressful.
So we’re hot washing. That’s a we have a live event, a live one day event where we’re going from eight to five. And there’s three or four instructors in the room. And it’s a long day. And so we hot wash it at the end of the night. And then sometimes subsequent to that within the next couple of weeks, we’ll jump on a zoom call. And seriously speaking, we’ll say I remember you said this, you did this, what were you thinking? And we’ll put up a list, similar to what we did in hostage negotiation. And we’ll put up a whiteboard that says the one whiteboard says right? One of whiteboard says wrong. And we’ll make a list.
Here’s all the stuff that we did, right? All right, great. Here’s all the stuff that we did wrong. Everybody pay attention to all of the stuff on this wrong side, because we’re going to go out again, we’re going to execute again. And we’re going to make mistakes again, whatever mistake we make, should not be on this board. Yeah, it should be something brand new. And so that coupled with you know, I can’t impress upon people enough, a confidant, a comrade in arms, that you can just use as a sounding board.
And that person has to be capable of what keeping their mouth shut. Yes. And just to listen to the good, the bad. And the ugly. Not only is that good post training event, post hostage taking, it’s also good before you go into the room, the more you dump, before you get into the room, the less like you that stuff is going to rear its ugly head. During the conversation, the less likely your inner voice will betray your outer voice. And so that’s what deregulation bringing people back down debriefing. Venting, that’s, you know, it’s all a matter of doing it a hot wash immediately after and then something more substantive. A few days after that.
Brett Bartholomew 59:43
Yeah, I love that. You give that example too, especially just the importance of venting and having somebody that can keep their mouth shut that you can trust because I think that’s another thing. People think that leaders are people in your kind of situation with your background, that they almost, you know, don’t have those moments when they need to vent they don’t have these moments where Somebody could classify it as not having your composure, you know.
And that’s wrong. Like, you know, we all have so many sides to ourselves, and we cannot be on all the time. You know, and you make that point. So well throughout your book of not only do we have to consider the context of situations, but just the fact that damn near everybody, and you go, whether it’s criminal, crazy or Crusader, they’re all operating under a state of stress. And that stress, it’s relative, but it is still stress. And if you don’t learn how to just get it out of your system, you’re not going to think clearly and do your job at the highest level. Am I hearing you correctly?
Derek Gaunt 1:00:34
Without question, I’ll give you an example. One of the jobs that I had right before I left law enforcement altogether is I was internal affairs. And with the exception of the head of the agency, even though he has, you know, chief deputies under him and captains and lieutenants with the exception of the chief executive for that particular organization, I had the most authority, because I was the police for the police. And one of my final cases was a guy. His body was riddled, young kid, his body was riddled with cancer.
And, you know, he had, he was applying to go to another agency, if he had never applied to go and run another agency, you would have never gotten diagnosed. Because he went to do a physical for this other other agency, they did some X rays, and they were like, holy crap, just stop going on the side of you send them to a specialist and the kids dying. And so we had to pull him out of regular duty, and now he’s an admin
And the kid nobody was keeping up with him. And so he was coming and going as he pleased, he was collecting a full paycheck without working full days of work. So we find out about it. And of course, he’s got to come talk to me. And it was the worst feeling in the world. Because I’m interrogating this kid. Who knows how long he has left. And, you know, and I get him to confess just, you know, what was tantamount to stealing 1000s of dollars from the agency.
And I knew what was going to happen, he’s probably gonna lose his job, he’s going to lose his job, he’s going to lose his health care. And I remember how cruddy I felt after the fact. And if it wasn’t for the fact that I have a beautiful woman waiting for me at home that’s capable of just shutting her mouth and listening. You know, I probably would have internalized that and it would have manifested itself in some other fashion.
Brett Bartholomew 1:02:49
Yeah, no, I appreciate given that anecdote. You know, one thing though, that I let you slide with, is we talked about downregulation. And stress yet you’re a Cowboys fan. You know, like that’s not helping your situation.
Derek Gaunt 1:03:00
Look, bro, let me tell you something. Hope is not a strategy, but I never give up hope. And I’ve been hoping for the same thing since 1995. And one of these years, I’m going to be right every year in July. I tell everyone, we’re this is our year, we’re going to the Super Bowl. And I’ve been wrong since 1995. The law of averages are with me at some point, I’m going to be right.
Brett Bartholomew 1:03:22
Hey, you’re talking to a Nebraska Cornhuskers fan born and raised in Nebraska, I get it. You know what I mean? I understand that dynamic that draw to the dynasty of yesteryear is just too hard, you know? Alright, I got one more serious question for you. And then just a couple of softball fun ones at the end. You know, this is a situation Derek where I really wish we had three hours because everything you can teach us about everything from tactical empathy, active listening skills, but I just want to tell you, I appreciate you just talking about your experience. As an educator, it’s nice sometimes to just break the mold and say, Hey, can I guess just talked about different aspects of their craft and their life? So I gotta tell you, this has been a lot of fun.
Well, one thing I’m going off script with, because you just it perked my ears, you know, and this is something that you’re obviously invested in helping people build one of the most important skills they can have in life negotiation, communication, listening, all these pieces, that instructional design is really tough. And we’ve talked about the value of different methods and what have you, but you mentioned a you have a one day and it’s eight to five, you have three facilitator, I was gonna say when you design some of those experiences, what is that like?
What is the DNA of that design, like within the black swan group? You know, how you really kind of think about creating that day to maximize their learning experiences knowing that we have these constraints of one to two days with folks given the realities of people’s jobs. I’d love to know just how you think about that as an educator.
Derek Gaunt 1:04:45
Yeah, so small Trump’s in very invariably after a one day event. They when five o’clock rolls around, they feel like they’ve been drinking from a firehose. Yeah, we are completely be wiped out. And for me, that’s a good feeling. Because I know that I haven’t put them to sleep, you know, they don’t know, they’re completely wiped out until 5 15. And we’re breaking everything down. And that’s when it’s like that adrenaline dump, it’s gone. And now they realize how much work they’ve done. So we try to break it up into small chunks, limited, we limit the didactic stuff. And we into your earlier point, we get them into doing black swan pushups as early in the morning as we possibly can.
Because here’s the advantage that we have is that the people that come to our live events, they already know who we are, and what we do. So there’s always they’re all there’s already a baseline. And so we initially start out with a little bit of slow walking to see what they actually know. And then we pick up speed and we’re starting to walk a little faster, then we start to jog a little bit. And then after lunch, we’re sprinting.
And now they can actually see how much they actually don’t know. It’s always eye opening for them. But it’s an old crawl, walk, run as small chunks will limit the didactic instruction, and make them start doing black swan pushups as early in the day as we possibly can. We want to get them up and moving around the room as early as possible.
Brett Bartholomew 1:06:23
Yeah, I like the phrasing of that, too. And is that the main format of your facilitated outputs one day? Or do you have like a one day three day to day? Like, is.
Derek Gaunt 1:06:31
We have a one day event, we have a two day event, we’re talking about putting together a larger conference type of activity with different breakouts. But that’s still in the planning. But right now, our bread and butter is the one in two day events. And we try to do graphically hit every corner of the US at least once a year, with either the one day or the two day event, then there are some soldiers out there that will run a one day event and then a two day event right behind it. And they’ll sign up for both and it’s just, I’m like, wow, I I appreciate the enthusiasm. But I don’t know if I could do it for three days.
Brett Bartholomew 1:07:10
Ya know what you’ve inspired me, you know, our main output is a two day event. And we’ve thought about doing a one day for a long time. But you know, it can be so overwhelming to try to figure out you just prioritize and what does this look like? What does that look like? And you know, just it’s tough to find that sweet spot, you know.
Derek Gaunt 1:07:29
And here’s the thing, your sweet spot is always going to change because you’re always you sound like you’re like me, and you’re not going to rest on your laurels. And so you’re always evolving, always trying to make your product better. And so the sweet spot for you is going on is going to change. But that’s good thing because it keeps your brain working to better your product to better your service to better your content. And as long as you’re still forward thinking like that, those are all great problems to have.
Brett Bartholomew 1:07:57
Yeah, yeah, no question. All right, you ready for three fun ones, and then you get the final word.
Derek Gaunt 1:08:02
Yeah man
Brett Bartholomew 1:08:02
And, guys, by the way, if you have, make sure you go to our show notes, it’s going to be linked all over everything. Make sure that you support Derek and his book, Ego Authority Failure, you’re using emotional intelligence, like a hostage negotiator to succeed as a leader. You people give their time and their effort and so much great content, support him support him support him. Alright.
First ones major soft toss. If I did my research correctly, I think I found a nugget in there that you’re a big classical music fan. Like so. You enjoy classical music? I gotta be careful with my words. Is that true? Just tell me yes or no. And then I’ll follow up with a main question.
Derek Gaunt 1:08:37
Yes.
Brett Bartholomew 1:08:38
Okay. Talk to me about where that came from. Where did you have a background in music talk to me about the love for classical music?
Derek Gaunt 1:08:44
Well, I mean, background in music, what I played the drums in junior high school. That’s as far as my background music is concerned. So I’m not a very exciting story. As when I left high school, and I was wandering the land trying to figure out what I was going to do. I was working for a retail establishment in the District of Columbia. And I was working in the basement with the inventory. And I found that I was able to do my job a lot better and a lot more effectively. And a lot, at least mentally, the day seem to go by faster.
If I put a little Baroque music or some rock on and off on some JSP or any of the other, Chopin, any of the other greats. Vivaldi was a favorite of mine. And so I put that on and I would just completely zone out and to this day, that’s the music that I still use to focus on putting together content for the Black Swan group.
Brett Bartholomew 1:09:45
I love that. I appreciate that. Next one, just given your background. I know you’re somebody that understands that life happens in the gray area, right life happens when you leave your house. And you can’t you can’t as we’ve talked about judge people just buy trades or behaviors, you’ve got to look at the context. So this one who’s one of the most misunderstood villains of all time. Misunderstood villains of all time, somebody that you’re like, I’m gonna give you a devil’s advocate day. I don’t think this person is really the bad guy not in the way people make them out to me.
Derek Gaunt 1:10:16
Ah, real world are you talking Marvel Universe talking?
Brett Bartholomew 1:10:21
Okay, so We’ll, since you went there, yeah, I’m gonna invite that Marvel DC, let’s have some fun with it. You want to go real world and throw it in there really like, I mean, it’s that time of year in October, we can talk about you know, wherever you’re gonna go.
Derek Gaunt 1:10:35
Alright, so I’ll give you one real world. Malcolm X,
Brett Bartholomew 1:10:40
Oh, get into it.
Derek Gaunt 1:10:44
The guy was vilified for being a enemy of the state. And for so many years, he even in my upbringing in my education. I was always, I was always influenced to believe that Malcolm X was the enemy was the bad guy. And Dr. King was was the good guy.
Brett Bartholomew 1:11:12
I appreciate the contrast. Say it again, I said, I like that you’re bringing in the contrast, especially within Yeah, keep going. This is great.
Derek Gaunt 1:11:21
And so when you actually look into the history and background, see most people use a Malcolm X. And they immediately look at this image of this man standing in the living room of his house with an M four rifle looking out the window, and the caption by any means necessary at the bottom. And that photograph was taken of him after threats had been levied at his family, by people who purported to be his friends, you know, months and years earlier.
And so you talk about context, yeah, they’ve got this picture of this man standing in his house with a rifle to protect his family. And the way the image was portrayed was that he’s looking out of his window to take on law enforcement as they’re coming to the house, when the reality is, this is a man trying to protect his family, from death threats. And then the other part of that is the metamorphosis that in his thinking that occurred over his lifetime, that which ultimately led to his death.
You don’t hear about that. Nobody, talks about that. They just talk about him and from his gangster lifestyle to becoming a muslim. And then that’s all that people have been spoon fed about him so that would be real world. In many people’s eyes, he was a villain. But again, no one took the time to understand what his worldview was.
Brett Bartholomew 1:13:01
Yeah, no, I appreciate that example. Especially because, you know, I remember reading a book not too long ago called The first rate madness, where they dove into some of the psychiatric records of Martin Luther King in the back and he didn’t have a squeaky clean background. Nobody does. So nobody does, right, whether it’s infidelity, whether it’s mental health issues, and, and folks like Abraham Lincoln, whether it’s you know, Winston Churchill and his black dog, and I mean, that’s the thing that people just forget, right? Like, nobody’s squeaky clean, nor should they be because that doesn’t make an effective leader.
Derek Gaunt 1:13:29
Exactly.
Brett Bartholomew 1:13:29
You know, so I really appreciate that. Alright, this last one is a selfish question. And I’m not apologizing for now. Right? I find and I and you got to answer this I don’t care. I’m doing some self disclosure here. No matter how much I learned about psychology or power dynamics or negotiation, even from folks like you hit damn near never works on family. It damn near never works on family. Now, I’m being a little extreme there for comedic effect, right. There’s always it works on some family. I’m not gonna say that it works on my wife.
But everybody’s got a brother or an uncle or a cousin or somebody. I want to know who in your family that when you whether it’s you go back for Thanksgiving, or you go to prison or whatever it is, where it ain’t working. You know, they’re, they’re just gonna be like, Alright, come on with it with your tricks and you’re listening and whatever, but I’m not impressed by it. You’re not getting through. Is there anybody in your family that you’re just like, man, no matter what, I know, best best practices, whatever. I’m not getting by this person in the family.
Derek Gaunt 1:14:29
It’s not because of them. It’s because of me. And that is my two my two adult daughters who are 26 and 28. Now, wait, what years is it? 20 They’re 26 and 28. Now that doesn’t work on them because of me not because of that. Why doesn’t it work on them because of me because there is a strong emotional attachment that you just can’t circumnavigate? That’s why it’s hard to work with family members, the ones especially the ones that are closest to you, for you to say that it worked with your wife, I’m surprised to hear you say that. Because it’s harder, the people that know you the best and have emotional ties to you. It’s harder for you to execute appropriately
Now the other ones that you described, where we’re okay Mr. Communication, man, I’m not buying into that stuff, I’m not gonna fall into it. Again, when you run into that situation, ask yourself, Where’s that coming from? What I said earlier, holds true even in this situation, understand what’s motivating behavior, not the behavior itself. Those people who are pushing back against you, as far as opening up to your attempts of communicating with them are telling you what I’ve been exposed before. And I got burned.
I’ve been manipulated by other people using quote, tricks with me, and I’m not gonna let it happen again. That’s what they’re telling you. They’re telling you in that moment, Brett, I don’t trust you. You’re my cousin, you’re my brother, you’re my whatever. I don’t in this moment. I don’t trust you. And so your focus should be not Why is he being a jerk and not playing along with the game? Your focus should be what can I do to repair this trust?
Brett Bartholomew 1:16:21
And it’s interesting, too, because there’s sometimes in those situations, I find they don’t trust me or you or somebody else, because they really also don’t trust themselves. There are some people that I know in our audience have been like, this is why this has been tough. I find out that I was projecting my own stuff. I didn’t trust myself. And I layer that I just it goes, wonderful complexity of people done that.
Derek Gaunt 1:16:42
It does. It does. It’s it the human nature is so interesting, but I believe you, I would leave you with this. If you wrap your head around the human nature response, which dictates that negative emotions, negative dynamics, drive decision making and drive behavior, you get your head around that concept that you’re going to put yourself at a distinct advantage over most of the population, because most of the population won’t take the time to understand the power of negative emotions and negative dynamics and the need to diffuse them.
Brett Bartholomew 1:17:21
No question. I appreciate that last bit of value there. Mr. Gaunt, thank you again for your time and everybody listen, once again, all you have to do is go to Amazon search ego authority failure, no other books coming up. That’s the book you get Derek Gaunt. It’s in the show notes. Please, please always support our guests and thank you, sir, so much for your time, and just for having fun and opening up and and being so engaging. I really appreciate you wear it. Let’s do it again. Absolutely. All right, everyone. For Brett Bartholomew Derek Gaunt. This is the Art of Coaching podcast. We’ll talk to you soon.
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