October 26, 2023 • 51 mins
Ever wondered how to navigate through difficult conversations without losing your cool? Then tune in to this fascinating chat with Scott Tillema, a seasoned hostage negotiator and renowned professional speaker. Scott takes us on a captivating journey from the pressure-cooker settings of hostage negotiations to the high-stakes world of public speaking. He shares his unique paradigm on approaching conflicts and the importance of creating a safe space for constructive dialogue.
Scott's philosophy of leaning into fear led him to the TEDx stage in 2016 and, possibly, to your earbuds today. He brings a wealth of insights from his years in crisis management, with lessons applicable in both personal and professional settings. You'll hear about a riveting real-world story where his team's negotiation skills saved a woman's life. It's not just about the adrenaline-pumping moments, though. Scott also takes us through the nuances of active listening, the power of open-ended questions, and the art of reflecting back on what's been said - all essential tools in the arsenal of effective communicators.
In the latter part of our engaging discussion, we delve into different conflict approach styles and the significance of recognizing our emotional responses. We navigate the tricky terrain between knowledge and skill, underscoring the need for teaching communication strategies at the university level. Scott's invaluable insights provide actionable strategies to improve communication and navigate conflicts in a productive, respectful manner. So join us for an episode that will redefine how you approach discussions and negotiate your path in life.
RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE:
Connect with Scott:
LinkedIn
Watch his TedTalk
Visit his Website
Company Website
Book Scott is reading -Triggers by Marshall Goldsmith.
Enjoying the Content? Want to support the show?
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Terrikellums
Join the podcast on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/whatwomenwanttoday_podcast/
Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/www2day
Private Facebook Community https://www.facebook.com/groups/www2day
Email www2daypodacast@gmail.com
Website https://www.whatwomenwanttoday.com/
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjk1SBYDlhl-6e0NowlDidA
Join our email list https://terrikellums.activehosted.com/f/3
*any Amazon links listed in the show notes are affiliate links, and we get a small commission which helps us with production costs. This does not affect the price for you or the seller of these items. We appreciate you so much!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to the what Women Want Today
podcast.
If you love the idea of beingpart of a community of women who
are looking to thrive, not justsurvive, you're in the right
place.
Join hosts Terry Cullums andAmanda Keeper each week, as they
bring you topics and guests tohelp you improve your
relationships, your health andyour emotional and spiritual
(00:23):
well-being.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello, my friend Amanda.
So glad to be back with yourecording these episodes back to
get into the swing of things.
It's been fun.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Oh my gosh, I am thrilled.
It feels like it's been foreverand I'm just feeling this
renewed sense of energy andpurpose today, now that we're
back in it.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
You know our guest today, scott Tilliman.
Right, that's how you printTilliman, tilliman, he's
murdered people's last names.
Anyway, I'm so excited to bringthis to our audience.
It was a fantastic interview.
There was so much informationand I feel like it was
information that people couldput into use for both their
personal lives and theirprofessional lives.
(01:09):
You know, the season is allabout our different types of
relationships, so I'm curious toget the feedback from our
listeners on how they're feelingabout what he had to say today.
I wanted to know what your keytakeaway was from today's
interview.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Well, just so you know.
You know I'm a note taker andwhenever we have guests, I write
things down and I have threepages of notes.
Yeah, interview with Scott.
You know he talked aboutconflict in such a different way
that I'm used to.
He really understands that inorder to have a good outcome
(01:45):
when you are in a conflictsituation, that safety is number
one.
You have to feel safe in theconversation.
Your body has to be regulated.
You need to be able to makesure that you are feeling like
the outcome is going to besomething that is full of great
possibility.
He really talked a lot aboutmindset.
One of the things that I lovethat he said is that when people
(02:09):
are really experts at conflict,it's not like I'm good at this.
This is who I am.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I am.
I am an expert at conflictnegotiation and it's not
something I'm acting, it's notsomething that I'm trying on.
This is who I am and I thinkjust that mindset shift of could
I?
Amy Cuddy, a famous sociologist, says can I fake it until I
become it?
Like not fake it to you, makeit, but fake it till you become
(02:37):
it.
And imagine practicing thoseskills over and over and over
and over and over and over againand you don't really feel like
it's who you are and you don'treally feel confident yet.
But you do it so much and as anFBI negotiator, he says you
have to become it, it has to bewho you are to be an expert at
it.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, and I love that we're always so into each other
, because what I wrote down was,excuse me, the disconnection
between knowledge and skill.
So what I took away from thatparticular comment of his was
you know, I've said it manytimes like I don't like conflict
.
I don't like conflict, but Iknow, I've noticed in my own
life that it's gotten so mucheasier because we don't come out
(03:20):
of the gate, we don't come outof the womb with this skill.
It's something that we have to.
We learn about it first, andthen we have to keep practicing
and putting into practice.
And you and Gary, your husbandand Scott had a few minutes to
chat afterwards and he had somany good things to say.
Like that's just interesting.
I wish we would have beenrecording, because not only do
(03:41):
we have to make it safe forpeople, which I think is huge I
think that's a huge one for me.
I'm going to, like you know howI am, I'm going to sit on that
today and I'm going to I'm goingto keep reflecting on you know,
how do we make sure that peopleare safe in these conversations
?
But also it's like it's okay tobe upset, it's okay to have
(04:04):
emotions, it's okay sometimesfor the level of conversation to
start out.
You know, and I'm for theYouTube listeners you can see me
, I'm putting my hands down low,but sometimes they escalate and
that's okay.
And I really loved hearing himsay that because for me, oh,
that's the hard part.
You know, like you start outdifficult enough and then when
(04:25):
it escalates, it starts to feeleven worse, and I liked hearing
him say that today that that wasokay.
It's okay when it opens.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
It was a sweet moment .
My husband was in the roomlistening to the podcast the
whole time and he came over andjumped in after the episode was
over and he was really honestabout what we struggle with,
which is that I can get to thepoint where I kind of lost it,
Like I, you know, I've lost myshit, Like it happens in every
relationship.
I'm not, I'm not afraid toadmit it and I get that
(04:55):
overwhelm and overstimulated,Like I really just I'm
dysregulated, which means thatI'm overwhelmed with emotion.
I can't really think properly.
Nothing effective is going tocome from that conversation.
But Scott answered the questionand my husband said like how
can I, how can I be a betterpartner in when she's in that
moment?
And he basically said let herhave that moment, Let her let
(05:19):
her express all that anger andall that frustration and let her
like reach her peak ofemotional distress and it's okay
.
And we all said they're kind oflike, oh man, that's so
affirming to hear that, yeah,that's so affirming.
And then he referenced the bookthe Body Keeps the Score and
it's so important that our, ouremotions and the energy that we
(05:41):
stuff and stuff and stuff has arelease and that actually we can
be such a sacred space for eachother if we allow each other to
be able to release at thatlevel and then still like each
other afterwards and still giveeach other grace and forgiveness
and understanding All right, myfriends.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well, let's let the listeners listen to this
fantastic interview today, andI'm so excited.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, it's going to be one of those that you want to
listen to multiple times, andI'm so excited.
Please share your thoughts withus and reach out to Scott
Tillema if you want him to cometo your company, because you
would not regret it.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, I agree 100%.
All those links for him will bein the show notes.
We talk about them towards theend of the episode, but they'll
all be in the show notes for ourlisteners today.
All right, here we go, let'sroll.
Hello and welcome to thisweek's episode of what we Want
Today podcast.
I'm your host, Terry Callums.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
And I'm your co-host, Amanda Keeper.
So, oh yeah, go ahead.
You were so fine.
So Terry and I are just jumpingback into a new season, so
forgive us for our little pausethere.
I'm so excited today to welcomeour guest, Scott Tillema.
Scott, we met at a Sparkconference that was put together
from a former high schoolfriend of mine and then not a
(07:00):
former, she's still up front ofmine Cindy Rowe, and we ended up
at a conference together and Imet Scott and I'm like, oh my
gosh, your message is so onpoint with what I believe in and
what I teach at Rock Valley andwhat I do in my business.
And Terry, I called Terry rightaway and I'm like, look, I met
this guy.
We have to have him on thepodcast.
So, Scott, you have such a richand interesting history that
(07:22):
led you to where you are today.
I want to, instead of me likereading some bio that you have,
I just want you to tell us whoare you.
How did you go from hostagenegotiator to where you are
right now?
So if you could give us some ofyour background and just share
that history with us, that wouldbe awesome.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Yeah, perfect.
First things first.
Hello Amanda, hello Terry,thank you for having me on today
.
Great to be with you and youraudience.
Yeah, this has been a very cooljourney that I'm on right now.
So I am a professional keynotespeaker right now.
I love speaking from stage andbringing my message to audiences
truly across the country andaround the world, and it's been
(08:02):
a bit of a pivot for me.
I have just completed this yeara 20 year career in law
enforcement in the Chicago areaand I have moved into
professional speaking and I am apartner with a company that I
founded, the negotiationscollective.
We're an internationalnegotiations and conflict
resolution training firm andwe're bringing messages of
(08:24):
connection, communication,conflict resolution, influence
and negotiation to peopleeverywhere, because I think that
, truly, this is one of the mostimportant skills that we can
have, one of the most neededskills in today's very divided
society that we live in.
So this is a little bit aboutwhat I do professionally.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
I love what you just said.
I love that because we are sodivided and I know we're going
to have a great conversationtoday, but before we jump in I
wanted to tell you I was goingto say I was stalking you a
little bit, but then I thoughtshould I really say that to a
former police enforcementofficer?
No, I saw that you are aPackers fan, though.
(09:04):
Packers.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I am a Wisconsin I like Packers fan yeah.
I'm originally from Wisconsin.
I grew up in Milwaukee, justoutside Milwaukee, went to
school in Madison for five years.
I was on the five yearundergraduate plan, having a
very good time at the Universityof Wisconsin.
So I'm not very well liked inIllinois during football season,
particularly when the Bears areterrible and they haven't won a
(09:26):
game in a year.
So I'm a proud Wisconsin guythrough and through.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Well, amanda and I are both from Illinois and I
don't know.
We've been friends for like 16years.
I still don't know how shefeels about football, but I am a
Packer fan.
I just learned that AaronRodgers is no longer a Packer.
We kind of took a little hiatusfrom football.
My husband was so ticked thateverybody was taking a knee so
he didn't want to watch anymore.
So then I didn't want to watcheither.
But yeah, I just learned AaronRodgers is gone.
(09:52):
Who's the new quarterback?
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Yeah, we have somebody.
His name is Jordan Love.
We drafted him three years ago.
He's been hanging out for awhile and now he's taken over
the team.
We're happy to have a newhopefully franchise quarterback
on board for the next 15 yearsor so and, of course, wish Aaron
Rodgers the best in his newendeavors.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I still miss that part.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Of course, who doesn't?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
This conversation was going so well.
It's a bit turd, no-transcriptso quickly.
So, scott you, you pivoted froma 20 year career in law
enforcement and you started onthe circuit of becoming a
speaker.
So let me ask you first of all,how did you come up with the
idea to pivot?
So a lot of our women listenersare professional women and they
(10:37):
have multiple career tracks andthey like to get creative and
innovative with what they do.
So how did you pivot into thespeaking circuit?
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Yeah, I've got a philosophy of saying yes to
things that scare me, so thiswas not a designed pivot at all.
So we're going to hit therewind button to 2016.
When I received a message onLinkedIn from a gentleman who
says hey, I'm working with aTEDx conference and we want to
(11:09):
bring you on as a speaker, andour idea is we want to have
someone who can teach people howto have a conversation with
people who are different fromthem in a very civilized way.
And the idea was this TEDconference was going to be the
week of the US presidentialelection, so we got 2016, trump
(11:30):
versus Clinton and the discoursewas really negative.
So I think initially their ideawas let's have a lawyer come up
and do this.
And then somebody said, howabout a hostage negotiator?
And then everybody got excitedlike, hey, that would be really
cool.
This is somebody who knows howto communicate in these types of
situations.
But the challenge for me wasthis was seven weeks before the
event, so I didn't apply forthis.
(11:52):
I did an audition for this andI had no background ever being
on a stage as a speaker.
But in my work in crisis andhostage negotiation, by
definition, we're communicatingwith people in very stressful
situations.
So I was like I'm going to becommunicating with people in a
stressful situation.
How bad can this be Right?
So, whereas most speakers startat the rotary or the local
(12:17):
church or wherever and kind ofwork their way up to the Ted or
TEDx stage, I started there andnow I'm kind of working my way
backwards to figure out how thiswhole process of professional
speaking works.
And long story short, the videowas published, it's been seen a
few times and I get invitationsto speak about my work in
(12:38):
negotiation.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
It's still humble.
It's been seen a few times.
So it's been seen a few times.
I saw you on YouTube.
The reality is, scott, asyou've been selling out crowds.
I've seen your LinkedIn, I'vebeen following and you are
getting quite the recognition.
So can you give us some nutsand bolts?
What are you bringing to theworkforce now that transfers
(13:01):
from your work in hostagenegotiations, like when you walk
into a company?
How do you help them?
What are the problems?
You're helping themselves.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Yeah, and it depends what they're looking for,
because the idea of conflictresolution and influence can be
used in so many different ways.
I found some success in theleadership realm, where we're
working with leaders to be greatcommunicators and great
influencers.
So it's not just because oftheir title or their position in
the organizational chart, it'struly because people want to
(13:29):
follow them.
And it's such a frustration forso many of us to say, hey, my
leader is not a leader, he orshe's not very good at what
they're doing.
And a lot of times people getpromoted because they're
technically very good at whatthey do, but they haven't been
giving the training to bepowerful leaders.
So that's a group that I workwith through YPO and some other
organizations working with theHR community right now.
(13:53):
And HR, what a challengingprofession.
They're dealing with emotionalpeople and they're having
difficult conversations.
So I tell them I'm going toteach you the same principles
that I've learned in these lifeor death conversations so you
can apply them and use them inyour very difficult conversation
with someone who might beemotional, who might be in a
(14:13):
difficult, dark time in theirlife, getting some bad news,
getting fired, maybe gettingdemoted, not getting the
promotion, and that really fallsto HR.
We work with project managerswho are working with teams of
people and maybe not so muchnegotiating on the outside.
But how do we bring all thesepeople together to have a
successful project on time onbudget?
(14:34):
And it's really interesting tosee where the requests are to
say, hey, we want to bring thisto us, and sometimes it's
keynotes for an event, sometimesit's corporate training for a
half day, full day or more thanthat, and it's just exciting to
connect with them and give whatI know in my experience and say
(14:54):
I'll, might this help you?
And then really engage them inthat conversation to get very
specific on takeaways that theycan use and put into practice
right away.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
How often do you think culture gets in the way?
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Often it's tough to change culture, isn't it yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
it is, and it's.
My experience has been thatsometimes a one level of
leadership will get the cultureshift and yet it doesn't trickle
down or maybe it doesn'ttrickle up.
So when you're talking abouthaving some of these crucial
conversations, I imagine thatsome of it is teaching, maybe
lower level to bring difficulttopics to the upper level.
(15:33):
Who may be out of touch ofwhat's going on with the company
, what's going on in the actualtrenches?
Here's what's coming to my minda situation where a leader
wants everyone to just kind oflike, go along with the, with
the ride, right, they just wantyou to drink the Kool-Aid or
whatever, and below that you'retrying to shift and change.
(15:55):
So you know your, your leaders,asking you a question you're
not drinking the Kool-Aid andall of a sudden you've got some
conflict right.
Those are crucial conversations.
Those are really difficultconversations.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
For sure, and that's scary for people to try to lead
up.
When I challenge people that weneed to lead up and challenge
our leaders to be humble, andI'll share stories of my
negotiations that maybe didn'tturn out very well and I'll ask
them what is the goal here?
Is your goal to be right?
Is your goal not to bechallenged, not to be
(16:29):
embarrassed, or is your goal toget the correct outcome for your
organization and the people youserve?
And I think that's whatnegotiations about.
It's about reaching an outcome,the acceptable outcome, the
optimal outcome for everybodyinvolved, and that begins with
working to understand.
So when we're teachingnegotiation, I want to be very,
(16:51):
very clear.
Your power comes frominformation and options, and
you're going to get neither ifyou're up there talking the
whole time.
So we teach people how to begreat listeners, how to ask
powerful questions, how toconnect with others, because
once you got that bond, thenyou've got a little bit of
safety.
You've got that influence thatyou can extract some of that
information to help you makebetter decisions.
(17:13):
So it's not about being asmooth talker at the table, and
while that's part of it, it'sreally much more about being a
listener.
So we'll challenge.
Hey, come into these meetingsand ask questions and be a
listener.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Right and Scott, everything you said was so on
point to what I believe as well.
And you use the word safety.
It's really about creatingsafety so that people can have
the regulation in their nervoussystem You've heard me talk
about this so they can thinkabout better outcomes and have
information and options.
So my question to you are whatare the barriers to great
(17:47):
outcomes?
Speaker 4 (17:50):
I think egos are always one of them.
If it has to be my idea or I'mnot playing and you'll see that
on teams that if it's not me ormy thing, I'm not going to go
along with that, so that can bea barrier.
People who don't managethemselves very well can be big
barriers, and this this can showup in a variety of different
(18:12):
ways.
So maybe we'll just take aminute and reflect on this one.
How are we managing ourselvesto make sure that we are not a
barrier?
Because when things don't gowell, it's easy to look outside
and say this person's not doingthat, this situation should be
different.
But we rarely reflect onourselves to say how can I show
(18:32):
up differently?
And managing ourselves could besimply just understanding our
triggers.
What upsets me, what can bedone or said that's going to
throw me off?
Am I impatient?
Am I not taking in theinformation?
Do I see it incorrectly?
Do I see it improperly?
Maybe it has my vision of thischanged over time?
Are we willing to admit thatI'm growing, I'm maturing, I'm
(18:55):
developing and how I see this?
So how about we start?
With ourselves as a barrier?
I am the barrier to preventingthis, to getting to the outcome
that we want.
And maybe, if we come in withthat mindset, think of how
differently we come in to sayI'm just going to keep working
on myself, rather than pointingthe finger at things I can't
control.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, self-awareness is huge, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
So you, when I was listening to you talk, I was
just fascinated.
How fascinated.
Excuse me, how you translatedthis.
Can you give us a personalstory from your experience, one
of your experiences in Hastisnegotiation, where you were just
really proud of the outcome andyou didn't know if it was going
to go south, but you were ableto get the outcome that you
(19:42):
wanted.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
Yeah, there's a lot of these that are happy endings
and a lot of times they'reresolved even before the SWAT
team gets there.
But if you're calling for theSWAT team, things have escalated
pretty substantially andthere's nothing that's done
without a team.
So if anybody's out therethinking this is Denzel
Washington on his cell phonestrutting up and down New York
(20:06):
City looking good, it doesn'twork like that.
You know, it's always a teamand everybody's always
contributing to a good outcome.
And one of the ones that standout in my mind was a woman who
had been stalked by a man formany years, or maybe a year, and
they had a romanticrelationship.
(20:26):
It had gone south and he wasn'tgetting the message and she was
so afraid she actually movedout of her home after he had
been arrested because she wasconcerned he was going to come
back and harm her.
And this is a woman.
Who's listening to that gift offear a really great book by
that same title out there.
And a few days later he foundher, showed up with a gun and
(20:54):
started threatening her and theother two women that were at
this home, and then from therethings escalated pretty quickly.
As they call police.
This woman was grabbed by thisman who's now holding a gun, and
when the first police officergot there, this man with a gun
shot the police officer right inthe neck and the cheek.
So this violence escalatedsignificantly and she was in
(21:17):
serious danger of being harmedor killed.
And the negotiation team wentto work and they worked for
hours and I was there on thescene watching, participating in
this negotiation, and everybodywas contributing in their own
way, and our lead negotiator onthis one, joan, was terrific,
(21:39):
but not for her work this womanwouldn't be alive today, because
, statistically, when the FBIteaches this type of situation,
it's shown to be not good thatthis is a victim to be and
showing how prone this man wasalready to violence and how
(22:01):
little regard he had for life.
It was incredible that thiswoman survived this incident
physically unharmed, and all thecredit in the world to these
negotiators who really givetheir I mean, this is their life
work.
It's not just something thatthey do, and when you're having
conversations that have thislevel of consequence, you have
(22:25):
to be really, really good atwhat you do.
So I try to put that inperspective for the audiences
that we're working with to saywhat difficult conversation are
you afraid of.
They're going to tell somebody,hey, they didn't get the job,
they're not getting promoted, ora performance review, it's not
going very well.
Or I need to talk to a supplierand say, hey, we need to up our
prices.
Okay, tell me what's the worstthat's going to happen here.
(22:47):
And you kind of give them thisperspective and give them that
confidence of I can do this.
And it's actually very kind tohave these difficult
conversations, because whathappens if we don't?
What are we doing for thatperson if we don't, if we're
afraid to do that?
So that's just one of manyexamples of the amazing work
that these train negotiators doin really, really tough
(23:07):
situations.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, I'm listening to you and I'm thinking.
You know, I've been in adifficult situation where I felt
like I had to put people atease and I felt myself getting
calmer to be able to put them atease.
Tell me what's going on in yourbody when you're in that very
tense, stressful situation likehow are you feeling?
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Well, first of all, we got to make sure that it's
not a tense, stressful situation, that this is just what I do.
This is a part of who I am andthis is.
It's like tying your shoes.
This is just something that wedo.
So for a regular person, itwould be a lifetime event to be
part of something like this, butin the work of law enforcement,
particularly on a SWAT team,this is pretty standard business
(23:54):
.
We're getting there.
There's potential for violencewhere there has been violence
and we need to get into theseconversations.
But, that being said, it's notquite that easy.
I mean, I remember my firstnegotiation and it was intense
and I was struggling to rememberthe things I was supposed to
say and the tactics I wassupposed to use and all the
(24:14):
things we have been taught, justsimply because I haven't
operated under that much stressbefore.
It's different when you'repracticing in the classroom with
friends and colleagues versus,hey, this is for real and
there's an outcome tied to this.
So you just get comfortable inthe training and practice that
this is how it is, this is whatit looks like, here's the sounds
(24:34):
and the effects going on aroundyou.
So you're going to prepare likeyou're doing the real thing and
then getting good at yourbreath work to make sure I am
managing myself that when I amdelivering the message, that it
sounds good, that the deliveryis probably just as powerful as
the message itself.
So when I am speaking it's goingto be smooth and calm, because
(24:58):
I want them to feel my comfort.
I want them to feel that hey,I've got this.
And I think that we draw ourstrength from others when it's a
tough situation and we'relooking at this person and
they're like I've been herebefore, I'm going to get you
through it.
And sometimes for me that meansjust slowing down a little bit.
I get excited and I want totalk and give you everything I
(25:18):
have, and that just meansintentionally slowing my pace
down and maybe speaking a littlebit more softly.
It has a little bit greatereffect, the words have a little
bit more impact and I really amtrying to get this person to
mirror what I'm doing, becauseif they're a little bit slower
and a little bit more calm, it'sless likely they're going to
(25:38):
make an emotional decision and,whether it be in any negotiation
or conflict situation, wesometimes make emotional
decisions that are not the bestfor us or for the outcome.
So we just want to make surethat people can be very
thoughtful about this whenthey're going about their work.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
And so that translates very well into the
workplace, when you're the onethat's initiating the crucial
conversation practicing yourbreath, work, thinking about
what you want to say ahead oftime and maybe even practicing
it before you head into thatconversation.
Is that what I hear you saying?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
We're sure and I'll challenge my audiences all the
time Number one should always bepreparing for this.
Don't wing it If it's aconversation that's going to
have a consequence tied to it.
But most people will developwhat they're going to say.
They'll have their talkingpoints and consider here's what
I'm saying.
But rarely do people everconsider how they are saying,
(26:33):
how they are delivering themessage.
And you can get an executivecoach and work with you for $500
an hour, or you can recordyourself on your iPhone and play
it back how do I sound?
How is the delivery?
But also, how do I look?
How are the nonverbals?
If there is a difference betweenwhat we see and what we hear, I
think we're going to default towhat we see.
So are we being mindful of ourfacial expressions, our hand
(26:56):
gestures, our posture, our bodylanguage?
Because people are taking inthis information even before you
start talking.
So there's so much, so manylittle adjustments that can be
made that have such a tremendousimpact on how we are received.
So I'll ask them how is yourperson effect?
How do people receive you?
And this is this is soimportant.
(27:17):
So are you practicing this?
And just a couple reps watchingyourself on video, you're going
to say, oh, this is terriblebecause we're our own biggest
critic, right, and what do youthink on that?
Aren't we critical of ourselves, you're sure?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Scott, as you're talking, I'm just absolutely
fascinated in the parallelsbetween what you do and also
what I talk about with myclients in marriage counseling.
And I'm not sure if I told youabout this, but there's a book
called Hold Me Tight from SueJohnson and it is definitely
parallel to everything that youteach and it would add more
depth and breadth.
So I'm going to give you thatresource.
It's amazing, but what you'retalking about is something that
(27:53):
Sue Johnson talks about in herbook.
When you're in a conflict withyour spouse or your significant
other, it's like everything isslow and soft.
And when you are going 100 milesa minute and you're arguing
with each other and you'retalking super, super fast, like
it's so easy for our brains toshut down and go into that fight
or flight mode and we're likethe reptilians again.
(28:13):
And when you talked about body,that's something that I've
really had to work with with myhusband, because I come from a
trauma background with a dad whowas a Vietnam veteran and there
was a lot of violence in myhouse and I've tried to explain
to him that even your body, yoursize, is an intimidating thing
to me.
And when we argue, I'm lookingat every micro moment and my
(28:35):
body is remembering that from mychildhood.
And so, as you're giving thatexample, the reality is is
people that we work with andeverybody we encounter.
They have those histories andthose pasts that we have no
knowledge of, and to have thatawareness that we are really our
job is to manage ourselves andto soothe other people in those
really hard conversations is sovital.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
And being.
Once you can manage yourself,then you have the capacity to
think beyond yourself and thenwe can be much more thoughtful
of the other and explore theirpain and explore their
perspective.
And for the people who areamateurs at this, they're so
busy trying to manage themselves, they're thinking about what to
say next.
Maybe they're listening to thatperson, maybe they're not.
(29:20):
They don't have awareness oftheir delivery.
And when they're at this level,how can you in any way be able
to connect with that person andtruly be thoughtful and present
and explore some probably deeply, pretty privately held thoughts
and emotions and go deep withthem when you're not able to
(29:40):
manage yourself?
So there's so many people thathave pain.
I think that this is a hugedriver of behavior and so many
people are not mindful of thatand particularly in a time where
we've all gone through stress,anxiety, lost, trauma, grief and
the last couple of years, we'renot aware of that because
(30:03):
nobody's really sharing that ontheir social media.
I'll let you see the picture ofme out on the beach, the
picture of me smiling with myfriends or with my family, but
we don't share these moments andsometimes, when we don't see it
, we don't believe that it'sthere.
So I think those who aremindful that everybody's going
through something can have alittle bit more grace, a little
bit more patience, and that's animportant mindset to go into
(30:27):
society with.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Yeah, I've always hated conflict.
I'm a little bit in the sameboat with Amanda a lot of
childhood trauma and so conflictto me kind of equals potential
for loss.
So when I think about enteringa difficult conversation with
someone in my personal life orpersonal relationship, I always
(30:48):
think, well, what if it makes itworse?
And I'm going to talk on yourwebsite today.
It says to avoid conflict is tofail.
Tell me what you mean by that.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
We see conflict as an opportunity to find amazing
results.
That conflict is always goingto exist because there are
different people competing withdifferent interests, and I want
my team to be focused on what'sright for me and your team to be
focused on what's right for you.
But what are we going to loseby having a conversation to say
here's what I'm looking for?
(31:21):
And a negotiation is not aboutmaking you believe what I
believe.
A negotiation is about reachingan agreement, and usually that
means that you have somethingthat I want or that I need or
that I could value.
So we should have a richdiscovery and exploration to say
what do you have that combined,we can do better things and
(31:44):
bigger things.
It's a collaborative piece here.
So in the broader aspect ofnegotiation, why not explore how
we can grow together and how wecan use our strengths to get
more?
But in a true conflictsituation, it's not going to
resolve itself that.
(32:05):
We have five different styles ofconflict approach, and one of
them is the avoider.
Well, how you can close youreyes and hope it goes away.
But if somebody is approachingyou in your personal life and
they say I have this emotion orthis thing that hasn't been met
and we avoid it and we avoid it.
Okay, maybe they haven'tbrought it up again or lately,
(32:28):
but I'll assure you that desirethat hasn't been reached is not
going to go away.
It's not going to fix itself.
There's a reason.
They came to you with thisrequest or with this feeling, so
let's discuss it.
Maybe it means that we can't dothat, but I also really
challenged the students of myclasses to add the words right
(32:49):
now to a lot of what they say.
That no sometimes means not now, or hey, you're in a very
difficult relationship, a verydifficult position.
Finances are tough and I wantto honor what you're saying.
I'm not going to sugarcoat thatand be like, oh, things are
going to get better.
Hey, I can see this is a verydark period for you right now,
(33:10):
because I'm honoring whereyou're at and not devaluing it
by telling you it's going to beokay.
But, putting that perspective in, say we still need to turn the
page because we don't know whattomorrow brings.
Everything you say might becorrect.
The facts are what the past hasshown you.
But that doesn't mean that wegive up.
That doesn't mean that we'renot going to make an effort for
(33:32):
what could be and I think thevery best negotiators are
possible lists.
They believe what is possible.
I might not know how to getfrom where we are to where we
want to go, but I believe thatwe can do that and with that
mindset we can do this and we'regoing to continue to explore.
With the different people andresources that we have, I
(33:52):
believe that we can make thefuture possible.
I know where we want to go.
We're just going to figure outhow do we get there.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
We'll give one example for us.
I know there's confidentialitythings that you have to be
respectful of but can you givean example of something you're
really proud of, where you wentinto a company or helped when
they seemed to be at animpossible impasse, but you
helped make it possible?
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Yeah, we get feedback from companies and individuals
that we work with.
I do individual coaching andjust two days ago I was working
with an executive on leadershipand communication and influence
and it was only our fourthsession together and he's
telling me about theconversations that he has the
courage and the confidence tohave, that he's been meaning to
have and he goes.
(34:38):
I feel the bond deepening withmy team that I'm serving, even
though I'm delivering the badnews, and we teach them put that
fish on the table, be willingto say here is the issue, and
now let's work through that,rather than all the pleasantries
and oh, by the way, let's fixthis one thing and then the
conversation is over.
So, from individuals hearingthat I am feeling closer to my
(35:01):
team and we're going to getbetter results from this, I love
that.
So that's personal successes.
And just within the last week wehad a, an organization that we
worked with, come back and toldus about how they've acquired
two big contracts for them thatthey didn't think that they were
going to get, and it turns outthat it was a 90 times return on
(35:24):
their investment for being inour one day class around
conflict and negotiation.
And they say we're using thesetactics to help us get what we
want.
So we're seeing that people aregetting more financially,
they're getting better in theirrelationships and it's cool that
I'll have people just randomlyreach out to me hey, I watched
your Ted talk and I'm using someof these principles that you
(35:44):
talk about and we're findingsuccess in all these different
places, whether it be in theirchurch and their company and
their organization, and it'scool to see I never even
considered using this approachor these techniques in your
space, but I love to hear thesepositive outcomes that you're
trying it and you're gettinggood results.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
What an amazing journey you've had, just from
somebody reaching out to you onLinkedIn saying hey, like what
do you think about giving a TEDx?
Speaker 4 (36:13):
And that's what it was.
That's what it was, that yousay yes to these things and it
kind of goes back to thatjourney.
I'm gonna say yes becausethat's where I want to be,
because I don't know much aboutTed talks, but it looks like
people up there are prettycredible and established and you
know they told us if you have agood talk will publish it and
(36:34):
some of these talks could belife-changing for you and how
your journey looks, as I cool.
Well, I don't know what I'mgonna say for those 18 minutes
that I have on that red dot orhow that Approach is going to be
, but I took some time and putit together.
I said we're gonna figure outhow to make it work and we did.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
So I'm just it in.
Sorry, terry, I'm alwaysinterested in learning about
what's on your mind now.
So you have topics.
You clearly are a researcher.
I can tell that you Arefascinated by human behavior and
you read and you study.
I can tell that what are youreading right now and what kind
of topics are you fascinated inand diving into now?
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Yeah, we.
So my education is behavioralscience and a couple other
things in my undergrad.
My master's degree is inpsychology, so you're right on
with those pieces studied at theHarvard program on negotiation.
I do some work at IMD businessschool, so I'm around some of
these folks who do this type ofthing.
I just picked up the booktriggers, which is over here
(37:36):
somewhere, goldsmith just verynew so I can't tell you much
about it.
But it's talking about humanbehavior and how we're making,
how we're adjusting behavior andhow it's not just in the moment
but how it could be over thelong term.
So I'm excited to dig into that.
I I'm the book recommendationsfor anybody who wants to get
(37:59):
into Negotiation.
I mean there's just so many Iwouldn't know where to start.
But If you're into influence,influence the psychology
persuasion by Robert Sheldini isvery good.
Getting past no, william Uri isvery good in negotiations.
One of my favorite Hostage atthe table by George Cole Reiser,
(38:20):
who's had probably the mostsignificant impact on my
thinking around negotiation andbonding.
Really he's an amazing man'svery lucky to have studied under
him and that's his book hostageat the table.
So I mean we've got so manythat we can get into beyond a
reason using emotions as younegotiate, because we're all
emotional people.
(38:40):
We pretend that we're not, butwe are, and in that one, dan
Shapiro talks about five coreconcerns that we should be in
tune with when we'recommunicating with others.
So so many, so many good books,so so many great thinkers out
there.
I'm lucky to have learned fromso many people and trying to
synthesize that in my own uniqueway an approach to negotiations
(39:02):
and conflict.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
You know I was listening to something yesterday
and that you know it was justtalking about, like the
progression of you know how weget into relationships with
people and, and you know,somewhere around the age of like
15 or 16, we suddenly thinkthat we're ready to be in a
romantic relationship.
We have no idea who we are atthat point, but you know, what
it made me think was we shouldbe teaching communication skills
(39:28):
a lot earlier in life.
And as I was listening to youtalk, I was thinking, if there
were, if you had, a magic wand,what kind of, what kind of
things would you think we shouldteach much earlier in life?
Like when it comes to this typeof Topic, like conflict
resolution, and and I even sawthat you talked about gaining
(39:50):
influence through connectionsLike we feel like we're living
in in such a world where, youknow, we're all on our cell
phones and this is how we'recommunicating these days.
And how often have you sent atext or something and someone
took it the wrong way or so?
Like Could we just like rewindthings a little bit and say
let's start talking about thesethings a lot earlier?
And Also, I want to hear whatthe eight skills of active
(40:14):
listening are.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Sure, so we'll start with that one.
Eight skills of activelistening.
There's an acronym and it'smore pies, mora, e, p, I, e, s,
and any good negotiator Shouldbe able to tell you that and be
able to rip these off, and I'msometimes disappointed that
they're not.
I feel like we need to dobetter in this space.
But the eight of first areminimal encouragers, just saying
(40:37):
yeah, mm-hmm, okay, let themknow that you're still alive,
because on the other end of thephone and traditionally we do
our negotiations by telephone,so it's mm-hmm, yeah, okay.
But now that we're changing howwe've communicated in the last
couple years, minimalencouragers.
We should be doing this onvideo, you know, and it's almost
a bit exaggerated to let themknow hey, I'm still here with
you.
(40:57):
The O is for open-endedquestions, which I think is the
most important of the activelistening skills, and I found
that in doing scenario basedtraining with people under
pressure will default toclose-ended questions, the yes
or no, and there's nothingagainst that.
But we want to create adialogue.
Your goal is to create aconnection and that begins with
(41:17):
Creating a dialogue.
And how do you do that?
By asking good questions.
The R is for reflecting ormirroring, which is simply
repeating back the last threewords that somebody said.
You can do it like a Question.
With that upward inflection oran affirmation, with that
downward Authority piece, we gotM or R E.
Emotional labeling is the firstE and that's where I'll show
(41:43):
you the emotion wheel andanybody can Google emotion wheel
right now and you're gonna have150 emotions on a nice colorful
circle and we're good atidentifying those primary
emotions happy, sad, anger.
But when we get out we get alittle bit more specific and a
good emotion label sounds likeyou sound, a sense, you seem,
(42:04):
and then fill in that emotion.
And I don't like to do this tooearly in the conversation
because we protect our emotions,we're a little bit protective,
but once we get into it you givea nice emotion label at the
right time.
This person's gonna realize notonly do you understand the
content of what they're saying,but now you get the emotion
behind it to it, now you'redeepening that connection.
(42:25):
The P is for paraphrasing, whichI think is really critical,
particularly in cross-culturalnegotiations or if there's a
language barrier.
My, my company, is up in Canadaas our headquarters in Calgary,
and a very Canadian word iskeen.
Are you keen?
And you know, go walk aroundChicago and you say, get a lot
(42:46):
of people looking at you likewhat, what, what are you saying?
What are you asking?
So, even speaking the samelanguage in different dialects
of different regions, do I fullyunderstand what you're saying?
And let's not have an unforcedair here, because we must
understand each other.
I message is the I and this is Ifeel blank when you blank
(43:06):
because blank.
So I feel worried when you keepshooting that gun because it's
unsafe.
Or I feel concerned when youkeep yelling at me because we're
not able to have a realconversation.
And this is just a polite wayof saying hey, knock it off,
stop that behavior.
And I'm just gonna see if theyactually stop that behavior.
And it tests that connection tosee if they really Can give you
(43:27):
that reciprocity of I careabout you as well.
We're at the E and more pies.
And this is An effective pause,because a pause or silence can
be really powerful.
It can allow the person you'respeaking with an opportunity to
keep talking or it can reallybring some attention to what
(43:48):
you're about to say.
And I think politicians havefigured this out and they're
really good at mastering thatpause as they lead into
something powerful and the S issummaries.
We're gonna gather everythingthat has been said, with all the
content, with all the emotionbehind what's been said, and we
kind of put it together so theperson knows hey, I'm right
there with you.
So I think most goodnegotiators can tell you the
(44:11):
eight skills of active listeningand Most people who have read
some books on active listeningcan tell you that.
And then it's a whole differentstory of putting that into
practice, because there is a bigdisconnect between knowledge
and skill.
So I like working with peopleto build that skill rather than
saying I can rip off the eightskills of active listening but I
can't actually put that in apractice.
(44:33):
Beep-beep and we have to hitthe rewind button.
There was a first part to thatquestion and I've forgotten what
that was.
So if you had some before, thatrefreshed my mind and we'll try
to hit on that.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
It was sort of a thought that you know, we go, we
get into the part of life wherewe think we're ready to be in a
relationship, but we've neverreally been taught how to listen
, how to communicate, becausecommunicating is more than just
talking, it's more than justtrying to get your point across
right, it's also listening and,as you've pointed out,
connection as well.
(45:05):
That's probably like what.
Do you think?
The three pieces ofcommunication right there, or is
there something I'm missing?
Speaker 4 (45:11):
Yeah, and you had also mentioned like with our
children, and we could teach atuniversity level, because in my
last few years in my role, I wasa training coordinator, so I
was responsible for bringing innew talent into these careers
and law enforcement, and I knowwe're not alone out there when
we're looking and we're tryingto teach them the technical
(45:32):
skills of how to do the job, butyet we're stuck on these
communication pieces and thebasic levels and I know that
there are other jobs out therethat people are going to be not
saying the very same thing.
We want to teach you to do whatwe do, but we need to start
with all right.
How do we interact?
How do we professionally manageourselves?
How do we communicate?
But one of the Harvardprofessors, dr Joshua Weiss, has
(45:54):
a series of kids books on theconflict resolution and
negotiation.
I have them and I've sharedthat with my children, who are
13, 10 and 7.
And I teach them that, hey, youget what you negotiate for.
You don't have to wait forsomebody to give you something
and you don't need to just saythank you when somebody does.
(46:14):
You can ask for more.
And I teach them rule numberone is if you don't ask for it,
you don't get it.
And some people think, well,it's in polite if I ask, or I
don't want to bother thewaitress that, hey, my order is
not right or this is, we'll justkind of go.
No, it's okay to say this, it'sokay to stand up for yourself
and let's be good atcommunicating.
And we almost encourage a bitof conflict to allow them to
(46:38):
have these conversations andwork through it.
We don't need to be theSuperman to step in and come and
immediate that for them.
We're going to allow them towork through it and then ask
them, hey, what worked well foryou, what didn't?
And really allow them topractice these skills as young
people.
So I think you come out withthis great emotional
intelligence that is going toallow you to separate yourself
(47:00):
from everybody else in the worldAbsolutely.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
I'm not going to agree more.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
Not agree more.
Yeah, but we just echoed eachother.
I could not agree more.
So, as we wrap up today, howcan people find you?
Because you're going to, I knowyou have a lot of listeners
that will be very excited tohear more about your background.
And then we have an audience aswell.
Where can they find you if theywant to hire you for a keynote
or come into the company and doa training?
(47:26):
Where can?
What's the best way?
Speaker 4 (47:28):
Yeah, I love doing those things and thank you for
asking my websitescottillamoncom my first name,
last name easy to find there.
Our company website isnegotiationscollectivecom, so
you can learn about me and mywork either one of those places.
But I am a regular person justlike everybody else out there
that's listening in right now.
So if you're on LinkedIn, shootme a LinkedIn request, put a
(47:51):
little personal message withthat and I manage my own account
on LinkedIn and be happy toconnect with you there and say
hello back and explore how canwe bring value to each other,
because I know that everybodyout there has great things that
they're doing and always lookingfor a great opportunity to
collaborate with others.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
You are.
Finally, I'm glad you said thatyou are doing some interesting
collaborations.
Do you want to tell us a littlebit about the one with your
friend that I met out in Utah?
Speaker 4 (48:23):
Yeah, so one of the people that is in a speakers
group that I'm part of engagingspeakers.
His name is Tom and we'relooking at developing a two day
class how to live like a highprofile operator and this is
going to bring in.
He's got some background doingsome celebrity bodyguarding, so
he's got some access and storiesto some pretty notable people
(48:46):
that we've all heard of.
One of his colleagues right nowis a former CIA and he runs a
spy week and a spy weekend outin Vegas.
So looking at maybe bringing inaspects of this.
Another gentleman, navy Seal, apsychologist from the Chicago
area maybe bringing her in andwhere she's got extensive
(49:08):
experience in the forensic world.
So bringing all these peopletogether to put on a two day
class how to live like a highprofile operator.
So a whole bunch of prettyunique and high level skill sets
that we're going to be able toshare with others to say we're
going to up your game very, veryquickly and then continue to be
(49:30):
a resource for them following.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
So the point is you're doing so many creative
and innovative things andthere's lots of opportunities to
collaborate, and I love thatabout what you're saying.
This has been a fascinatinginterview.
I know that our listeners aregoing to get so much value out
of this.
I'm so thankful that you saidyes right away, and one thing
that I want the listeners toknow is when Scott says, reach
out and he'll get back to you.
Really well, he's like a verycommunicative type of person and
(49:55):
he will follow through.
So it's been such a pleasure.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for being onthe podcast.
Speaker 4 (50:02):
Thank you Terry, thank you Amanda 100% Until next
time, everyone.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
Have a great day.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
I mean, I don't know if this ever happens to you, but
I sometimes will learnsomething really cool on a
podcast, on a YouTube video,audio book, whatever.
I think I'm going to rememberit and then I forget.
Does that ever happen to you?
Speaker 3 (50:26):
Yeah, I call it brain after 40 all the time.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
That's what we'll officially call it.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
When we come up with something, do you want to
introduce it?
Sure, it's from an app calledQuick Jim Quick, and it's an
acronym called FAST.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Yeah, in the F it stands for Facebook.
So we're inviting youofficially right now to come
over and join us on Facebook.
Get involved with the community, share your favorite episodes
with your friends on Facebook.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Yeah, the A is go ahead and take an action, so you
can't remember anything if youdon't act.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
And S is for subscribe.
Make sure you're subscribed toour YouTube channel.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
And then T is teach.
Teach what you've learned tosomebody else.
Share the love.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
All right, we hope that works for you.
Thank you for joining us.
We'll see you next week.
Bye.
You're listening to the what Women Want Today
podcast.
If you love the idea of beingpart of a community of women who
are looking to thrive, not justsurvive, you're in the right
place.
Join hosts Terry Cullums andAmanda Keeper each week, as they
bring you topics and guests tohelp you improve your
relationships, your health andyour emotional and spiritual
(00:23):
well-being.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Hello, my friend Amanda.
So glad to be back with yourecording these episodes back to
get into the swing of things.
It's been fun.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Oh my gosh, I am thrilled.
It feels like it's been foreverand I'm just feeling this
renewed sense of energy andpurpose today, now that we're
back in it.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
You know our guest today, scott Tilliman.
Right, that's how you printTilliman, tilliman, he's
murdered people's last names.
Anyway, I'm so excited to bringthis to our audience.
It was a fantastic interview.
There was so much informationand I feel like it was
information that people couldput into use for both their
personal lives and theirprofessional lives.
(01:09):
You know, the season is allabout our different types of
relationships, so I'm curious toget the feedback from our
listeners on how they're feelingabout what he had to say today.
I wanted to know what your keytakeaway was from today's
interview.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
Well, just so you know.
You know I'm a note taker andwhenever we have guests, I write
things down and I have threepages of notes.
Yeah, interview with Scott.
You know he talked aboutconflict in such a different way
that I'm used to.
He really understands that inorder to have a good outcome
(01:45):
when you are in a conflictsituation, that safety is number
one.
You have to feel safe in theconversation.
Your body has to be regulated.
You need to be able to makesure that you are feeling like
the outcome is going to besomething that is full of great
possibility.
He really talked a lot aboutmindset.
One of the things that I lovethat he said is that when people
(02:09):
are really experts at conflict,it's not like I'm good at this.
This is who I am.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
I am.
I am an expert at conflictnegotiation and it's not
something I'm acting, it's notsomething that I'm trying on.
This is who I am and I thinkjust that mindset shift of could
I?
Amy Cuddy, a famous sociologist, says can I fake it until I
become it?
Like not fake it to you, makeit, but fake it till you become
(02:37):
it.
And imagine practicing thoseskills over and over and over
and over and over and over againand you don't really feel like
it's who you are and you don'treally feel confident yet.
But you do it so much and as anFBI negotiator, he says you
have to become it, it has to bewho you are to be an expert at
it.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, and I love that we're always so into each other
, because what I wrote down was,excuse me, the disconnection
between knowledge and skill.
So what I took away from thatparticular comment of his was
you know, I've said it manytimes like I don't like conflict
.
I don't like conflict, but Iknow, I've noticed in my own
life that it's gotten so mucheasier because we don't come out
(03:20):
of the gate, we don't come outof the womb with this skill.
It's something that we have to.
We learn about it first, andthen we have to keep practicing
and putting into practice.
And you and Gary, your husbandand Scott had a few minutes to
chat afterwards and he had somany good things to say.
Like that's just interesting.
I wish we would have beenrecording, because not only do
(03:41):
we have to make it safe forpeople, which I think is huge I
think that's a huge one for me.
I'm going to, like you know howI am, I'm going to sit on that
today and I'm going to I'm goingto keep reflecting on you know,
how do we make sure that peopleare safe in these conversations
?
But also it's like it's okay tobe upset, it's okay to have
(04:04):
emotions, it's okay sometimesfor the level of conversation to
start out.
You know, and I'm for theYouTube listeners you can see me
, I'm putting my hands down low,but sometimes they escalate and
that's okay.
And I really loved hearing himsay that because for me, oh,
that's the hard part.
You know, like you start outdifficult enough and then when
(04:25):
it escalates, it starts to feeleven worse, and I liked hearing
him say that today that that wasokay.
It's okay when it opens.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
It was a sweet moment .
My husband was in the roomlistening to the podcast the
whole time and he came over andjumped in after the episode was
over and he was really honestabout what we struggle with,
which is that I can get to thepoint where I kind of lost it,
Like I, you know, I've lost myshit, Like it happens in every
relationship.
I'm not, I'm not afraid toadmit it and I get that
(04:55):
overwhelm and overstimulated,Like I really just I'm
dysregulated, which means thatI'm overwhelmed with emotion.
I can't really think properly.
Nothing effective is going tocome from that conversation.
But Scott answered the questionand my husband said like how
can I, how can I be a betterpartner in when she's in that
moment?
And he basically said let herhave that moment, Let her let
(05:19):
her express all that anger andall that frustration and let her
like reach her peak ofemotional distress and it's okay
.
And we all said they're kind oflike, oh man, that's so
affirming to hear that, yeah,that's so affirming.
And then he referenced the bookthe Body Keeps the Score and
it's so important that our, ouremotions and the energy that we
(05:41):
stuff and stuff and stuff has arelease and that actually we can
be such a sacred space for eachother if we allow each other to
be able to release at thatlevel and then still like each
other afterwards and still giveeach other grace and forgiveness
and understanding All right, myfriends.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well, let's let the listeners listen to this
fantastic interview today, andI'm so excited.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, it's going to be one of those that you want to
listen to multiple times, andI'm so excited.
Please share your thoughts withus and reach out to Scott
Tillema if you want him to cometo your company, because you
would not regret it.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, I agree 100%.
All those links for him will bein the show notes.
We talk about them towards theend of the episode, but they'll
all be in the show notes for ourlisteners today.
All right, here we go, let'sroll.
Hello and welcome to thisweek's episode of what we Want
Today podcast.
I'm your host, Terry Callums.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
And I'm your co-host, Amanda Keeper.
So, oh yeah, go ahead.
You were so fine.
So Terry and I are just jumpingback into a new season, so
forgive us for our little pausethere.
I'm so excited today to welcomeour guest, Scott Tillema.
Scott, we met at a Sparkconference that was put together
from a former high schoolfriend of mine and then not a
(07:00):
former, she's still up front ofmine Cindy Rowe, and we ended up
at a conference together and Imet Scott and I'm like, oh my
gosh, your message is so onpoint with what I believe in and
what I teach at Rock Valley andwhat I do in my business.
And Terry, I called Terry rightaway and I'm like, look, I met
this guy.
We have to have him on thepodcast.
So, Scott, you have such a richand interesting history that
(07:22):
led you to where you are today.
I want to, instead of me likereading some bio that you have,
I just want you to tell us whoare you.
How did you go from hostagenegotiator to where you are
right now?
So if you could give us some ofyour background and just share
that history with us, that wouldbe awesome.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
Yeah, perfect.
First things first.
Hello Amanda, hello Terry,thank you for having me on today
.
Great to be with you and youraudience.
Yeah, this has been a very cooljourney that I'm on right now.
So I am a professional keynotespeaker right now.
I love speaking from stage andbringing my message to audiences
truly across the country andaround the world, and it's been
(08:02):
a bit of a pivot for me.
I have just completed this yeara 20 year career in law
enforcement in the Chicago areaand I have moved into
professional speaking and I am apartner with a company that I
founded, the negotiationscollective.
We're an internationalnegotiations and conflict
resolution training firm andwe're bringing messages of
(08:24):
connection, communication,conflict resolution, influence
and negotiation to peopleeverywhere, because I think that
, truly, this is one of the mostimportant skills that we can
have, one of the most neededskills in today's very divided
society that we live in.
So this is a little bit aboutwhat I do professionally.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
I love what you just said.
I love that because we are sodivided and I know we're going
to have a great conversationtoday, but before we jump in I
wanted to tell you I was goingto say I was stalking you a
little bit, but then I thoughtshould I really say that to a
former police enforcementofficer?
No, I saw that you are aPackers fan, though.
(09:04):
Packers.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I am a Wisconsin I like Packers fan yeah.
I'm originally from Wisconsin.
I grew up in Milwaukee, justoutside Milwaukee, went to
school in Madison for five years.
I was on the five yearundergraduate plan, having a
very good time at the Universityof Wisconsin.
So I'm not very well liked inIllinois during football season,
particularly when the Bears areterrible and they haven't won a
(09:26):
game in a year.
So I'm a proud Wisconsin guythrough and through.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Well, amanda and I are both from Illinois and I
don't know.
We've been friends for like 16years.
I still don't know how shefeels about football, but I am a
Packer fan.
I just learned that AaronRodgers is no longer a Packer.
We kind of took a little hiatusfrom football.
My husband was so ticked thateverybody was taking a knee so
he didn't want to watch anymore.
So then I didn't want to watcheither.
But yeah, I just learned AaronRodgers is gone.
(09:52):
Who's the new quarterback?
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Yeah, we have somebody.
His name is Jordan Love.
We drafted him three years ago.
He's been hanging out for awhile and now he's taken over
the team.
We're happy to have a newhopefully franchise quarterback
on board for the next 15 yearsor so and, of course, wish Aaron
Rodgers the best in his newendeavors.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I still miss that part.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
Of course, who doesn't?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
This conversation was going so well.
It's a bit turd, no-transcriptso quickly.
So, scott you, you pivoted froma 20 year career in law
enforcement and you started onthe circuit of becoming a
speaker.
So let me ask you first of all,how did you come up with the
idea to pivot?
So a lot of our women listenersare professional women and they
(10:37):
have multiple career tracks andthey like to get creative and
innovative with what they do.
So how did you pivot into thespeaking circuit?
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Yeah, I've got a philosophy of saying yes to
things that scare me, so thiswas not a designed pivot at all.
So we're going to hit therewind button to 2016.
When I received a message onLinkedIn from a gentleman who
says hey, I'm working with aTEDx conference and we want to
(11:09):
bring you on as a speaker, andour idea is we want to have
someone who can teach people howto have a conversation with
people who are different fromthem in a very civilized way.
And the idea was this TEDconference was going to be the
week of the US presidentialelection, so we got 2016, trump
(11:30):
versus Clinton and the discoursewas really negative.
So I think initially their ideawas let's have a lawyer come up
and do this.
And then somebody said, howabout a hostage negotiator?
And then everybody got excitedlike, hey, that would be really
cool.
This is somebody who knows howto communicate in these types of
situations.
But the challenge for me wasthis was seven weeks before the
event, so I didn't apply forthis.
(11:52):
I did an audition for this andI had no background ever being
on a stage as a speaker.
But in my work in crisis andhostage negotiation, by
definition, we're communicatingwith people in very stressful
situations.
So I was like I'm going to becommunicating with people in a
stressful situation.
How bad can this be Right?
So, whereas most speakers startat the rotary or the local
(12:17):
church or wherever and kind ofwork their way up to the Ted or
TEDx stage, I started there andnow I'm kind of working my way
backwards to figure out how thiswhole process of professional
speaking works.
And long story short, the videowas published, it's been seen a
few times and I get invitationsto speak about my work in
(12:38):
negotiation.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
It's still humble.
It's been seen a few times.
So it's been seen a few times.
I saw you on YouTube.
The reality is, scott, asyou've been selling out crowds.
I've seen your LinkedIn, I'vebeen following and you are
getting quite the recognition.
So can you give us some nutsand bolts?
What are you bringing to theworkforce now that transfers
(13:01):
from your work in hostagenegotiations, like when you walk
into a company?
How do you help them?
What are the problems?
You're helping themselves.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Yeah, and it depends what they're looking for,
because the idea of conflictresolution and influence can be
used in so many different ways.
I found some success in theleadership realm, where we're
working with leaders to be greatcommunicators and great
influencers.
So it's not just because oftheir title or their position in
the organizational chart, it'struly because people want to
(13:29):
follow them.
And it's such a frustration forso many of us to say, hey, my
leader is not a leader, he orshe's not very good at what
they're doing.
And a lot of times people getpromoted because they're
technically very good at whatthey do, but they haven't been
giving the training to bepowerful leaders.
So that's a group that I workwith through YPO and some other
organizations working with theHR community right now.
(13:53):
And HR, what a challengingprofession.
They're dealing with emotionalpeople and they're having
difficult conversations.
So I tell them I'm going toteach you the same principles
that I've learned in these lifeor death conversations so you
can apply them and use them inyour very difficult conversation
with someone who might beemotional, who might be in a
(14:13):
difficult, dark time in theirlife, getting some bad news,
getting fired, maybe gettingdemoted, not getting the
promotion, and that really fallsto HR.
We work with project managerswho are working with teams of
people and maybe not so muchnegotiating on the outside.
But how do we bring all thesepeople together to have a
successful project on time onbudget?
(14:34):
And it's really interesting tosee where the requests are to
say, hey, we want to bring thisto us, and sometimes it's
keynotes for an event, sometimesit's corporate training for a
half day, full day or more thanthat, and it's just exciting to
connect with them and give whatI know in my experience and say
(14:54):
I'll, might this help you?
And then really engage them inthat conversation to get very
specific on takeaways that theycan use and put into practice
right away.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
How often do you think culture gets in the way?
Speaker 4 (15:09):
Often it's tough to change culture, isn't it yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
it is, and it's.
My experience has been thatsometimes a one level of
leadership will get the cultureshift and yet it doesn't trickle
down or maybe it doesn'ttrickle up.
So when you're talking abouthaving some of these crucial
conversations, I imagine thatsome of it is teaching, maybe
lower level to bring difficulttopics to the upper level.
(15:33):
Who may be out of touch ofwhat's going on with the company
, what's going on in the actualtrenches?
Here's what's coming to my minda situation where a leader
wants everyone to just kind oflike, go along with the, with
the ride, right, they just wantyou to drink the Kool-Aid or
whatever, and below that you'retrying to shift and change.
(15:55):
So you know your, your leaders,asking you a question you're
not drinking the Kool-Aid andall of a sudden you've got some
conflict right.
Those are crucial conversations.
Those are really difficultconversations.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
For sure, and that's scary for people to try to lead
up.
When I challenge people that weneed to lead up and challenge
our leaders to be humble, andI'll share stories of my
negotiations that maybe didn'tturn out very well and I'll ask
them what is the goal here?
Is your goal to be right?
Is your goal not to bechallenged, not to be
(16:29):
embarrassed, or is your goal toget the correct outcome for your
organization and the people youserve?
And I think that's whatnegotiations about.
It's about reaching an outcome,the acceptable outcome, the
optimal outcome for everybodyinvolved, and that begins with
working to understand.
So when we're teachingnegotiation, I want to be very,
(16:51):
very clear.
Your power comes frominformation and options, and
you're going to get neither ifyou're up there talking the
whole time.
So we teach people how to begreat listeners, how to ask
powerful questions, how toconnect with others, because
once you got that bond, thenyou've got a little bit of
safety.
You've got that influence thatyou can extract some of that
information to help you makebetter decisions.
(17:13):
So it's not about being asmooth talker at the table, and
while that's part of it, it'sreally much more about being a
listener.
So we'll challenge.
Hey, come into these meetingsand ask questions and be a
listener.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
Right and Scott, everything you said was so on
point to what I believe as well.
And you use the word safety.
It's really about creatingsafety so that people can have
the regulation in their nervoussystem You've heard me talk
about this so they can thinkabout better outcomes and have
information and options.
So my question to you are whatare the barriers to great
(17:47):
outcomes?
Speaker 4 (17:50):
I think egos are always one of them.
If it has to be my idea or I'mnot playing and you'll see that
on teams that if it's not me ormy thing, I'm not going to go
along with that, so that can bea barrier.
People who don't managethemselves very well can be big
barriers, and this this can showup in a variety of different
(18:12):
ways.
So maybe we'll just take aminute and reflect on this one.
How are we managing ourselvesto make sure that we are not a
barrier?
Because when things don't gowell, it's easy to look outside
and say this person's not doingthat, this situation should be
different.
But we rarely reflect onourselves to say how can I show
(18:32):
up differently?
And managing ourselves could besimply just understanding our
triggers.
What upsets me, what can bedone or said that's going to
throw me off?
Am I impatient?
Am I not taking in theinformation?
Do I see it incorrectly?
Do I see it improperly?
Maybe it has my vision of thischanged over time?
Are we willing to admit thatI'm growing, I'm maturing, I'm
(18:55):
developing and how I see this?
So how about we start?
With ourselves as a barrier?
I am the barrier to preventingthis, to getting to the outcome
that we want.
And maybe, if we come in withthat mindset, think of how
differently we come in to sayI'm just going to keep working
on myself, rather than pointingthe finger at things I can't
control.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Yeah, self-awareness is huge, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
So you, when I was listening to you talk, I was
just fascinated.
How fascinated.
Excuse me, how you translatedthis.
Can you give us a personalstory from your experience, one
of your experiences in Hastisnegotiation, where you were just
really proud of the outcome andyou didn't know if it was going
to go south, but you were ableto get the outcome that you
(19:42):
wanted.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
Yeah, there's a lot of these that are happy endings
and a lot of times they'reresolved even before the SWAT
team gets there.
But if you're calling for theSWAT team, things have escalated
pretty substantially andthere's nothing that's done
without a team.
So if anybody's out therethinking this is Denzel
Washington on his cell phonestrutting up and down New York
(20:06):
City looking good, it doesn'twork like that.
You know, it's always a teamand everybody's always
contributing to a good outcome.
And one of the ones that standout in my mind was a woman who
had been stalked by a man formany years, or maybe a year, and
they had a romanticrelationship.
(20:26):
It had gone south and he wasn'tgetting the message and she was
so afraid she actually movedout of her home after he had
been arrested because she wasconcerned he was going to come
back and harm her.
And this is a woman.
Who's listening to that gift offear a really great book by
that same title out there.
And a few days later he foundher, showed up with a gun and
(20:54):
started threatening her and theother two women that were at
this home, and then from therethings escalated pretty quickly.
As they call police.
This woman was grabbed by thisman who's now holding a gun, and
when the first police officergot there, this man with a gun
shot the police officer right inthe neck and the cheek.
So this violence escalatedsignificantly and she was in
(21:17):
serious danger of being harmedor killed.
And the negotiation team wentto work and they worked for
hours and I was there on thescene watching, participating in
this negotiation, and everybodywas contributing in their own
way, and our lead negotiator onthis one, joan, was terrific,
(21:39):
but not for her work this womanwouldn't be alive today, because
, statistically, when the FBIteaches this type of situation,
it's shown to be not good thatthis is a victim to be and
showing how prone this man wasalready to violence and how
(22:01):
little regard he had for life.
It was incredible that thiswoman survived this incident
physically unharmed, and all thecredit in the world to these
negotiators who really givetheir I mean, this is their life
work.
It's not just something thatthey do, and when you're having
conversations that have thislevel of consequence, you have
(22:25):
to be really, really good atwhat you do.
So I try to put that inperspective for the audiences
that we're working with to saywhat difficult conversation are
you afraid of.
They're going to tell somebody,hey, they didn't get the job,
they're not getting promoted, ora performance review, it's not
going very well.
Or I need to talk to a supplierand say, hey, we need to up our
prices.
Okay, tell me what's the worstthat's going to happen here.
(22:47):
And you kind of give them thisperspective and give them that
confidence of I can do this.
And it's actually very kind tohave these difficult
conversations, because whathappens if we don't?
What are we doing for thatperson if we don't, if we're
afraid to do that?
So that's just one of manyexamples of the amazing work
that these train negotiators doin really, really tough
(23:07):
situations.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, I'm listening to you and I'm thinking.
You know, I've been in adifficult situation where I felt
like I had to put people atease and I felt myself getting
calmer to be able to put them atease.
Tell me what's going on in yourbody when you're in that very
tense, stressful situation likehow are you feeling?
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Well, first of all, we got to make sure that it's
not a tense, stressful situation, that this is just what I do.
This is a part of who I am andthis is.
It's like tying your shoes.
This is just something that wedo.
So for a regular person, itwould be a lifetime event to be
part of something like this, butin the work of law enforcement,
particularly on a SWAT team,this is pretty standard business
(23:54):
.
We're getting there.
There's potential for violencewhere there has been violence
and we need to get into theseconversations.
But, that being said, it's notquite that easy.
I mean, I remember my firstnegotiation and it was intense
and I was struggling to rememberthe things I was supposed to
say and the tactics I wassupposed to use and all the
(24:14):
things we have been taught, justsimply because I haven't
operated under that much stressbefore.
It's different when you'repracticing in the classroom with
friends and colleagues versus,hey, this is for real and
there's an outcome tied to this.
So you just get comfortable inthe training and practice that
this is how it is, this is whatit looks like, here's the sounds
(24:34):
and the effects going on aroundyou.
So you're going to prepare likeyou're doing the real thing and
then getting good at yourbreath work to make sure I am
managing myself that when I amdelivering the message, that it
sounds good, that the deliveryis probably just as powerful as
the message itself.
So when I am speaking it's goingto be smooth and calm, because
(24:58):
I want them to feel my comfort.
I want them to feel that hey,I've got this.
And I think that we draw ourstrength from others when it's a
tough situation and we'relooking at this person and
they're like I've been herebefore, I'm going to get you
through it.
And sometimes for me that meansjust slowing down a little bit.
I get excited and I want totalk and give you everything I
(25:18):
have, and that just meansintentionally slowing my pace
down and maybe speaking a littlebit more softly.
It has a little bit greatereffect, the words have a little
bit more impact and I really amtrying to get this person to
mirror what I'm doing, becauseif they're a little bit slower
and a little bit more calm, it'sless likely they're going to
(25:38):
make an emotional decision and,whether it be in any negotiation
or conflict situation, wesometimes make emotional
decisions that are not the bestfor us or for the outcome.
So we just want to make surethat people can be very
thoughtful about this whenthey're going about their work.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
And so that translates very well into the
workplace, when you're the onethat's initiating the crucial
conversation practicing yourbreath, work, thinking about
what you want to say ahead oftime and maybe even practicing
it before you head into thatconversation.
Is that what I hear you saying?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
We're sure and I'll challenge my audiences all the
time Number one should always bepreparing for this.
Don't wing it If it's aconversation that's going to
have a consequence tied to it.
But most people will developwhat they're going to say.
They'll have their talkingpoints and consider here's what
I'm saying.
But rarely do people everconsider how they are saying,
(26:33):
how they are delivering themessage.
And you can get an executivecoach and work with you for $500
an hour, or you can recordyourself on your iPhone and play
it back how do I sound?
How is the delivery?
But also, how do I look?
How are the nonverbals?
If there is a difference betweenwhat we see and what we hear, I
think we're going to default towhat we see.
So are we being mindful of ourfacial expressions, our hand
(26:56):
gestures, our posture, our bodylanguage?
Because people are taking inthis information even before you
start talking.
So there's so much, so manylittle adjustments that can be
made that have such a tremendousimpact on how we are received.
So I'll ask them how is yourperson effect?
How do people receive you?
And this is this is soimportant.
(27:17):
So are you practicing this?
And just a couple reps watchingyourself on video, you're going
to say, oh, this is terriblebecause we're our own biggest
critic, right, and what do youthink on that?
Aren't we critical of ourselves, you're sure?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Scott, as you're talking, I'm just absolutely
fascinated in the parallelsbetween what you do and also
what I talk about with myclients in marriage counseling.
And I'm not sure if I told youabout this, but there's a book
called Hold Me Tight from SueJohnson and it is definitely
parallel to everything that youteach and it would add more
depth and breadth.
So I'm going to give you thatresource.
It's amazing, but what you'retalking about is something that
(27:53):
Sue Johnson talks about in herbook.
When you're in a conflict withyour spouse or your significant
other, it's like everything isslow and soft.
And when you are going 100 milesa minute and you're arguing
with each other and you'retalking super, super fast, like
it's so easy for our brains toshut down and go into that fight
or flight mode and we're likethe reptilians again.
(28:13):
And when you talked about body,that's something that I've
really had to work with with myhusband, because I come from a
trauma background with a dad whowas a Vietnam veteran and there
was a lot of violence in myhouse and I've tried to explain
to him that even your body, yoursize, is an intimidating thing
to me.
And when we argue, I'm lookingat every micro moment and my
(28:35):
body is remembering that from mychildhood.
And so, as you're giving thatexample, the reality is is
people that we work with andeverybody we encounter.
They have those histories andthose pasts that we have no
knowledge of, and to have thatawareness that we are really our
job is to manage ourselves andto soothe other people in those
really hard conversations is sovital.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
And being.
Once you can manage yourself,then you have the capacity to
think beyond yourself and thenwe can be much more thoughtful
of the other and explore theirpain and explore their
perspective.
And for the people who areamateurs at this, they're so
busy trying to manage themselves, they're thinking about what to
say next.
Maybe they're listening to thatperson, maybe they're not.
(29:20):
They don't have awareness oftheir delivery.
And when they're at this level,how can you in any way be able
to connect with that person andtruly be thoughtful and present
and explore some probably deeply, pretty privately held thoughts
and emotions and go deep withthem when you're not able to
(29:40):
manage yourself?
So there's so many people thathave pain.
I think that this is a hugedriver of behavior and so many
people are not mindful of thatand particularly in a time where
we've all gone through stress,anxiety, lost, trauma, grief and
the last couple of years, we'renot aware of that because
(30:03):
nobody's really sharing that ontheir social media.
I'll let you see the picture ofme out on the beach, the
picture of me smiling with myfriends or with my family, but
we don't share these moments andsometimes, when we don't see it
, we don't believe that it'sthere.
So I think those who aremindful that everybody's going
through something can have alittle bit more grace, a little
bit more patience, and that's animportant mindset to go into
(30:27):
society with.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Yeah, I've always hated conflict.
I'm a little bit in the sameboat with Amanda a lot of
childhood trauma and so conflictto me kind of equals potential
for loss.
So when I think about enteringa difficult conversation with
someone in my personal life orpersonal relationship, I always
(30:48):
think, well, what if it makes itworse?
And I'm going to talk on yourwebsite today.
It says to avoid conflict is tofail.
Tell me what you mean by that.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
We see conflict as an opportunity to find amazing
results.
That conflict is always goingto exist because there are
different people competing withdifferent interests, and I want
my team to be focused on what'sright for me and your team to be
focused on what's right for you.
But what are we going to loseby having a conversation to say
here's what I'm looking for?
(31:21):
And a negotiation is not aboutmaking you believe what I
believe.
A negotiation is about reachingan agreement, and usually that
means that you have somethingthat I want or that I need or
that I could value.
So we should have a richdiscovery and exploration to say
what do you have that combined,we can do better things and
(31:44):
bigger things.
It's a collaborative piece here.
So in the broader aspect ofnegotiation, why not explore how
we can grow together and how wecan use our strengths to get
more?
But in a true conflictsituation, it's not going to
resolve itself that.
(32:05):
We have five different styles ofconflict approach, and one of
them is the avoider.
Well, how you can close youreyes and hope it goes away.
But if somebody is approachingyou in your personal life and
they say I have this emotion orthis thing that hasn't been met
and we avoid it and we avoid it.
Okay, maybe they haven'tbrought it up again or lately,
(32:28):
but I'll assure you that desirethat hasn't been reached is not
going to go away.
It's not going to fix itself.
There's a reason.
They came to you with thisrequest or with this feeling, so
let's discuss it.
Maybe it means that we can't dothat, but I also really
challenged the students of myclasses to add the words right
(32:49):
now to a lot of what they say.
That no sometimes means not now, or hey, you're in a very
difficult relationship, a verydifficult position.
Finances are tough and I wantto honor what you're saying.
I'm not going to sugarcoat thatand be like, oh, things are
going to get better.
Hey, I can see this is a verydark period for you right now,
(33:10):
because I'm honoring whereyou're at and not devaluing it
by telling you it's going to beokay.
But, putting that perspective in, say we still need to turn the
page because we don't know whattomorrow brings.
Everything you say might becorrect.
The facts are what the past hasshown you.
But that doesn't mean that wegive up.
That doesn't mean that we'renot going to make an effort for
(33:32):
what could be and I think thevery best negotiators are
possible lists.
They believe what is possible.
I might not know how to getfrom where we are to where we
want to go, but I believe thatwe can do that and with that
mindset we can do this and we'regoing to continue to explore.
With the different people andresources that we have, I
(33:52):
believe that we can make thefuture possible.
I know where we want to go.
We're just going to figure outhow do we get there.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
We'll give one example for us.
I know there's confidentialitythings that you have to be
respectful of but can you givean example of something you're
really proud of, where you wentinto a company or helped when
they seemed to be at animpossible impasse, but you
helped make it possible?
Speaker 4 (34:15):
Yeah, we get feedback from companies and individuals
that we work with.
I do individual coaching andjust two days ago I was working
with an executive on leadershipand communication and influence
and it was only our fourthsession together and he's
telling me about theconversations that he has the
courage and the confidence tohave, that he's been meaning to
have and he goes.
(34:38):
I feel the bond deepening withmy team that I'm serving, even
though I'm delivering the badnews, and we teach them put that
fish on the table, be willingto say here is the issue, and
now let's work through that,rather than all the pleasantries
and oh, by the way, let's fixthis one thing and then the
conversation is over.
So, from individuals hearingthat I am feeling closer to my
(35:01):
team and we're going to getbetter results from this, I love
that.
So that's personal successes.
And just within the last week wehad a, an organization that we
worked with, come back and toldus about how they've acquired
two big contracts for them thatthey didn't think that they were
going to get, and it turns outthat it was a 90 times return on
(35:24):
their investment for being inour one day class around
conflict and negotiation.
And they say we're using thesetactics to help us get what we
want.
So we're seeing that people aregetting more financially,
they're getting better in theirrelationships and it's cool that
I'll have people just randomlyreach out to me hey, I watched
your Ted talk and I'm using someof these principles that you
(35:44):
talk about and we're findingsuccess in all these different
places, whether it be in theirchurch and their company and
their organization, and it'scool to see I never even
considered using this approachor these techniques in your
space, but I love to hear thesepositive outcomes that you're
trying it and you're gettinggood results.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
What an amazing journey you've had, just from
somebody reaching out to you onLinkedIn saying hey, like what
do you think about giving a TEDx?
Speaker 4 (36:13):
And that's what it was.
That's what it was, that yousay yes to these things and it
kind of goes back to thatjourney.
I'm gonna say yes becausethat's where I want to be,
because I don't know much aboutTed talks, but it looks like
people up there are prettycredible and established and you
know they told us if you have agood talk will publish it and
(36:34):
some of these talks could belife-changing for you and how
your journey looks, as I cool.
Well, I don't know what I'mgonna say for those 18 minutes
that I have on that red dot orhow that Approach is going to be
, but I took some time and putit together.
I said we're gonna figure outhow to make it work and we did.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
So I'm just it in.
Sorry, terry, I'm alwaysinterested in learning about
what's on your mind now.
So you have topics.
You clearly are a researcher.
I can tell that you Arefascinated by human behavior and
you read and you study.
I can tell that what are youreading right now and what kind
of topics are you fascinated inand diving into now?
Speaker 4 (37:13):
Yeah, we.
So my education is behavioralscience and a couple other
things in my undergrad.
My master's degree is inpsychology, so you're right on
with those pieces studied at theHarvard program on negotiation.
I do some work at IMD businessschool, so I'm around some of
these folks who do this type ofthing.
I just picked up the booktriggers, which is over here
(37:36):
somewhere, goldsmith just verynew so I can't tell you much
about it.
But it's talking about humanbehavior and how we're making,
how we're adjusting behavior andhow it's not just in the moment
but how it could be over thelong term.
So I'm excited to dig into that.
I I'm the book recommendationsfor anybody who wants to get
(37:59):
into Negotiation.
I mean there's just so many Iwouldn't know where to start.
But If you're into influence,influence the psychology
persuasion by Robert Sheldini isvery good.
Getting past no, william Uri isvery good in negotiations.
One of my favorite Hostage atthe table by George Cole Reiser,
(38:20):
who's had probably the mostsignificant impact on my
thinking around negotiation andbonding.
Really he's an amazing man'svery lucky to have studied under
him and that's his book hostageat the table.
So I mean we've got so manythat we can get into beyond a
reason using emotions as younegotiate, because we're all
emotional people.
(38:40):
We pretend that we're not, butwe are, and in that one, dan
Shapiro talks about five coreconcerns that we should be in
tune with when we'recommunicating with others.
So so many, so many good books,so so many great thinkers out
there.
I'm lucky to have learned fromso many people and trying to
synthesize that in my own uniqueway an approach to negotiations
(39:02):
and conflict.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
You know I was listening to something yesterday
and that you know it was justtalking about, like the
progression of you know how weget into relationships with
people and, and you know,somewhere around the age of like
15 or 16, we suddenly thinkthat we're ready to be in a
romantic relationship.
We have no idea who we are atthat point, but you know, what
it made me think was we shouldbe teaching communication skills
(39:28):
a lot earlier in life.
And as I was listening to youtalk, I was thinking, if there
were, if you had, a magic wand,what kind of, what kind of
things would you think we shouldteach much earlier in life?
Like when it comes to this typeof Topic, like conflict
resolution, and and I even sawthat you talked about gaining
(39:50):
influence through connectionsLike we feel like we're living
in in such a world where, youknow, we're all on our cell
phones and this is how we'recommunicating these days.
And how often have you sent atext or something and someone
took it the wrong way or so?
Like Could we just like rewindthings a little bit and say
let's start talking about thesethings a lot earlier?
And Also, I want to hear whatthe eight skills of active
(40:14):
listening are.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Sure, so we'll start with that one.
Eight skills of activelistening.
There's an acronym and it'smore pies, mora, e, p, I, e, s,
and any good negotiator Shouldbe able to tell you that and be
able to rip these off, and I'msometimes disappointed that
they're not.
I feel like we need to dobetter in this space.
But the eight of first areminimal encouragers, just saying
(40:37):
yeah, mm-hmm, okay, let themknow that you're still alive,
because on the other end of thephone and traditionally we do
our negotiations by telephone,so it's mm-hmm, yeah, okay.
But now that we're changing howwe've communicated in the last
couple years, minimalencouragers.
We should be doing this onvideo, you know, and it's almost
a bit exaggerated to let themknow hey, I'm still here with
you.
(40:57):
The O is for open-endedquestions, which I think is the
most important of the activelistening skills, and I found
that in doing scenario basedtraining with people under
pressure will default toclose-ended questions, the yes
or no, and there's nothingagainst that.
But we want to create adialogue.
Your goal is to create aconnection and that begins with
(41:17):
Creating a dialogue.
And how do you do that?
By asking good questions.
The R is for reflecting ormirroring, which is simply
repeating back the last threewords that somebody said.
You can do it like a Question.
With that upward inflection oran affirmation, with that
downward Authority piece, we gotM or R E.
Emotional labeling is the firstE and that's where I'll show
(41:43):
you the emotion wheel andanybody can Google emotion wheel
right now and you're gonna have150 emotions on a nice colorful
circle and we're good atidentifying those primary
emotions happy, sad, anger.
But when we get out we get alittle bit more specific and a
good emotion label sounds likeyou sound, a sense, you seem,
(42:04):
and then fill in that emotion.
And I don't like to do this tooearly in the conversation
because we protect our emotions,we're a little bit protective,
but once we get into it you givea nice emotion label at the
right time.
This person's gonna realize notonly do you understand the
content of what they're saying,but now you get the emotion
behind it to it, now you'redeepening that connection.
(42:25):
The P is for paraphrasing, whichI think is really critical,
particularly in cross-culturalnegotiations or if there's a
language barrier.
My, my company, is up in Canadaas our headquarters in Calgary,
and a very Canadian word iskeen.
Are you keen?
And you know, go walk aroundChicago and you say, get a lot
(42:46):
of people looking at you likewhat, what, what are you saying?
What are you asking?
So, even speaking the samelanguage in different dialects
of different regions, do I fullyunderstand what you're saying?
And let's not have an unforcedair here, because we must
understand each other.
I message is the I and this is Ifeel blank when you blank
(43:06):
because blank.
So I feel worried when you keepshooting that gun because it's
unsafe.
Or I feel concerned when youkeep yelling at me because we're
not able to have a realconversation.
And this is just a polite wayof saying hey, knock it off,
stop that behavior.
And I'm just gonna see if theyactually stop that behavior.
And it tests that connection tosee if they really Can give you
(43:27):
that reciprocity of I careabout you as well.
We're at the E and more pies.
And this is An effective pause,because a pause or silence can
be really powerful.
It can allow the person you'respeaking with an opportunity to
keep talking or it can reallybring some attention to what
(43:48):
you're about to say.
And I think politicians havefigured this out and they're
really good at mastering thatpause as they lead into
something powerful and the S issummaries.
We're gonna gather everythingthat has been said, with all the
content, with all the emotionbehind what's been said, and we
kind of put it together so theperson knows hey, I'm right
there with you.
So I think most goodnegotiators can tell you the
(44:11):
eight skills of active listeningand Most people who have read
some books on active listeningcan tell you that.
And then it's a whole differentstory of putting that into
practice, because there is a bigdisconnect between knowledge
and skill.
So I like working with peopleto build that skill rather than
saying I can rip off the eightskills of active listening but I
can't actually put that in apractice.
(44:33):
Beep-beep and we have to hitthe rewind button.
There was a first part to thatquestion and I've forgotten what
that was.
So if you had some before, thatrefreshed my mind and we'll try
to hit on that.
Speaker 2 (44:44):
It was sort of a thought that you know, we go, we
get into the part of life wherewe think we're ready to be in a
relationship, but we've neverreally been taught how to listen
, how to communicate, becausecommunicating is more than just
talking, it's more than justtrying to get your point across
right, it's also listening and,as you've pointed out,
connection as well.
(45:05):
That's probably like what.
Do you think?
The three pieces ofcommunication right there, or is
there something I'm missing?
Speaker 4 (45:11):
Yeah, and you had also mentioned like with our
children, and we could teach atuniversity level, because in my
last few years in my role, I wasa training coordinator, so I
was responsible for bringing innew talent into these careers
and law enforcement, and I knowwe're not alone out there when
we're looking and we're tryingto teach them the technical
(45:32):
skills of how to do the job, butyet we're stuck on these
communication pieces and thebasic levels and I know that
there are other jobs out therethat people are going to be not
saying the very same thing.
We want to teach you to do whatwe do, but we need to start
with all right.
How do we interact?
How do we professionally manageourselves?
How do we communicate?
But one of the Harvardprofessors, dr Joshua Weiss, has
(45:54):
a series of kids books on theconflict resolution and
negotiation.
I have them and I've sharedthat with my children, who are
13, 10 and 7.
And I teach them that, hey, youget what you negotiate for.
You don't have to wait forsomebody to give you something
and you don't need to just saythank you when somebody does.
(46:14):
You can ask for more.
And I teach them rule numberone is if you don't ask for it,
you don't get it.
And some people think, well,it's in polite if I ask, or I
don't want to bother thewaitress that, hey, my order is
not right or this is, we'll justkind of go.
No, it's okay to say this, it'sokay to stand up for yourself
and let's be good atcommunicating.
And we almost encourage a bitof conflict to allow them to
(46:38):
have these conversations andwork through it.
We don't need to be theSuperman to step in and come and
immediate that for them.
We're going to allow them towork through it and then ask
them, hey, what worked well foryou, what didn't?
And really allow them topractice these skills as young
people.
So I think you come out withthis great emotional
intelligence that is going toallow you to separate yourself
(47:00):
from everybody else in the worldAbsolutely.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
I'm not going to agree more.
Speaker 3 (47:04):
Not agree more.
Yeah, but we just echoed eachother.
I could not agree more.
So, as we wrap up today, howcan people find you?
Because you're going to, I knowyou have a lot of listeners
that will be very excited tohear more about your background.
And then we have an audience aswell.
Where can they find you if theywant to hire you for a keynote
or come into the company and doa training?
(47:26):
Where can?
What's the best way?
Speaker 4 (47:28):
Yeah, I love doing those things and thank you for
asking my websitescottillamoncom my first name,
last name easy to find there.
Our company website isnegotiationscollectivecom, so
you can learn about me and mywork either one of those places.
But I am a regular person justlike everybody else out there
that's listening in right now.
So if you're on LinkedIn, shootme a LinkedIn request, put a
(47:51):
little personal message withthat and I manage my own account
on LinkedIn and be happy toconnect with you there and say
hello back and explore how canwe bring value to each other,
because I know that everybodyout there has great things that
they're doing and always lookingfor a great opportunity to
collaborate with others.
Speaker 3 (48:10):
You are.
Finally, I'm glad you said thatyou are doing some interesting
collaborations.
Do you want to tell us a littlebit about the one with your
friend that I met out in Utah?
Speaker 4 (48:23):
Yeah, so one of the people that is in a speakers
group that I'm part of engagingspeakers.
His name is Tom and we'relooking at developing a two day
class how to live like a highprofile operator and this is
going to bring in.
He's got some background doingsome celebrity bodyguarding, so
he's got some access and storiesto some pretty notable people
(48:46):
that we've all heard of.
One of his colleagues right nowis a former CIA and he runs a
spy week and a spy weekend outin Vegas.
So looking at maybe bringing inaspects of this.
Another gentleman, navy Seal, apsychologist from the Chicago
area maybe bringing her in andwhere she's got extensive
(49:08):
experience in the forensic world.
So bringing all these peopletogether to put on a two day
class how to live like a highprofile operator.
So a whole bunch of prettyunique and high level skill sets
that we're going to be able toshare with others to say we're
going to up your game very, veryquickly and then continue to be
(49:30):
a resource for them following.
Speaker 3 (49:32):
So the point is you're doing so many creative
and innovative things andthere's lots of opportunities to
collaborate, and I love thatabout what you're saying.
This has been a fascinatinginterview.
I know that our listeners aregoing to get so much value out
of this.
I'm so thankful that you saidyes right away, and one thing
that I want the listeners toknow is when Scott says, reach
out and he'll get back to you.
Really well, he's like a verycommunicative type of person and
(49:55):
he will follow through.
So it's been such a pleasure.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much for being onthe podcast.
Speaker 4 (50:02):
Thank you Terry, thank you Amanda 100% Until next
time, everyone.
Speaker 3 (50:08):
Have a great day.
Speaker 2 (50:14):
I mean, I don't know if this ever happens to you, but
I sometimes will learnsomething really cool on a
podcast, on a YouTube video,audio book, whatever.
I think I'm going to rememberit and then I forget.
Does that ever happen to you?
Speaker 3 (50:26):
Yeah, I call it brain after 40 all the time.
Speaker 2 (50:29):
That's what we'll officially call it.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
When we come up with something, do you want to
introduce it?
Sure, it's from an app calledQuick Jim Quick, and it's an
acronym called FAST.
Speaker 2 (50:41):
Yeah, in the F it stands for Facebook.
So we're inviting youofficially right now to come
over and join us on Facebook.
Get involved with the community, share your favorite episodes
with your friends on Facebook.
Speaker 3 (50:51):
Yeah, the A is go ahead and take an action, so you
can't remember anything if youdon't act.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
And S is for subscribe.
Make sure you're subscribed toour YouTube channel.
Speaker 3 (51:02):
And then T is teach.
Teach what you've learned tosomebody else.
Share the love.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
All right, we hope that works for you.
Thank you for joining us.
We'll see you next week.
Bye.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!