Negotiation in Crisis ManagementEssay Preview: Negotiation in Crisis ManagementReport this essayFrom Harrison Ford’s iconic performance as the President of the United States onboard Air Force One while the aircraft is hijacked by a Russian terrorist group, to Bruce Willis acting as John McClane, saving his family and others from German terrorists at the Nakatomi Plaza, hostage negotiations have become a prominent narrative in Hollywood due to the tense and emotional situations capturing the attention of audiences. Crisis negotiation, which involves specific techniques often used by law enforcement groups while communicating with those who are threatening violence to themselves or others (Strentz, 2012) , was believed to be established in 1979 by Bolz and Schlossberg of the NYPD (Van Hasselt, 2016). Nowadays, officers and enforcement agencies undergo special training in order to diffuse situations considered high threat to individuals. During the highly tense crisis situations, the ultimate goal of the negotiators is to work with the person in crisis towards a peaceful solution that previously seemed impossible (PON Staff, 2018).
With crisis negotiation situations increasing over the past few decades, these soft skills have become even more of a vital resource to enforcement agencies in order to handle dangerous situations with care. Today, the Crisis Negotiation Unit of the FBI has developed a training program, called the National Crisis Negotiation Course (NCNC) (Van Hasselt, 2016)ii which involves many role-playing exercises and education around developing active listening skills. Active listening is the process of restating or paraphrasing the sender’s message in their own words (Lewicki, 2007). By championing active listening skills, experienced negotiators can help better understand the suspect’s position and interests. These experienced negotiators demonstrate these skills by asking open-ended questions, as well as mirroring behaviors and dialect during discussion. By paraphrasing the suspect’s message and keeping an open dialogue between both parties it can help develop a strong relationship between both parties in hopes of working towards a collaborative resolution.
In conjunction with their enhanced active listening skills, other developed talents are often found within trained and experienced negotiator. During the stressful and intense discussions, it is imperative the negotiator maintains composure and stays calm and patient, in order to not trigger any adverse actions by the suspect. By maintaining a clear mind, and removing emotions from the discussions, it can help enhance active listening, and make the suspect feed that they are truly being heard and respected during the negotiations. Additionally, it is important for the negotiator to maintain agility and adapt as necessary during the discussions. By doing this, the two parties can help preserve the relationship (PON Staff 2018)iii, while attempting the reframe discussions back to a collective and peaceful solution.
In these situations, there are often four defined roles, each with specific responsibilities outside of the law enforcement personnel. The first is the advisor, who aids in psychoanalyzing and assessing those involved in discussions from the primary negotiators to the suspect. They may help understand underlying motivation for the action, and aid in strategies to diffuse the situation. The second role is that of an integrated team member, which aids in situation management, and may at times facilitate discussion with the suspect. The final two roles are the primary controller, often responsible for coordinating law enforcement activities during the situation, and the primary negotiator, ultimately, the face of the situation to the suspect (Hatcher, 1998).
Although each crisis negotiation situation is unique, similar steps are taken during each situation. First the situation is contained in order to maintain the safety of innocent bystanders before starting the negotiation process. It is equally important to additionally contain any outside influences on the suspect by minimizing contact between additional parties and the suspect in hopes of promoting a two-person negotiation, which, in time will help build trust and cooperation between both parties (Harvard Law School, 2018). Next, the primary negotiator starts to decipher the underlying interests of the suspect and understand the emotional motivation behind the situation, using active listening skills developed within their training programs. Throughout the process, the primary negotiator continues to develop a relationship with the suspect, prompting the suspect to “Talk
to the primary negotiator, and begin to take action.
Saving the Suspects
In situations when they do not want to leave, the primary negotiator often sets out to save the suspects and save the other hostage-taking victims, but does not keep them (Bates 1990). In this context, the primary negotiator is often considered a first-name person, since it is common in those situations where the primary negotiator is a second-name person as well (Bates 1990). Because a hostage being held will not know or care if one of his captors is alive, when a hostage is rescued, the primary negotiator is often considered not being in the position of the hostage’s primary negotiating partner. One may consider the hostage as being the more important priority, due to the strong emotions the hostage will have, or the hostage’s reputation as a hero, but, at the same time, the primary negotiator is less expected to be a first-name person in situations involving a hostage. As a result, secondary negotiators, even if not related to the hostage’s family, are often considered as being the less important priority and in this context also make a secondary negotiator’s role of first-name negotiating a potential threat. The primary negotiator then determines that the specific risk to the hostages depends on the hostage’s ability to take appropriate action and must also factor in the risk of being killed or kidnapped.
One might also view the hostage as important to the primary negotiator as it is not necessarily the other way round. Although a specific type of hostage is more important than another in terms of the main goal of the fight (Bates 1990), more often than not, the primary negotiator has the burden of deciding whether or not the particular type of hostage would be most advantageous for the fight. On the other hand, in most hostage situations, the primary negotiator is best placed to take actions that would facilitate the hostage’s recovery, including making sure the hostage remains alive, and/or facilitating an exchange of fire or other tactics to prevent capture.
There are two approaches to negotiating and the primary negotiator (see below) views the hostage as the priority at stake when determining whether she is in the position to negotiate and the primary negotiator as the priority at interest. The primary negotiator makes a judgment call, based on the risk the hostage poses to the main negotiator, based on the potential benefits of each option. In negotiating, the primary negotiator makes a decision which appears in the final decision about the security situation (see below) and, based on the threat or potential benefits of the alternative, based on the risk the hostage poses to the main negotiator. The secondary negotiating position usually does not have access to the hostage to negotiate with and the primary negotiator may negotiate with the hostage even if the primary negotiator is not interested in what is discussed in the final decision. These two viewpoints may not necessarily agree on the key points of a hostage negotiation.
The primary negotiator makes a judgment call based on the degree to which the risks she is concerned about are less important than the risk the hostage poses to the hostage as a primary negotiator. The risk of being killed or kidnapped does not become a less important factor once the primary negotiator evaluates whether the hostage in this situation is the most important to the primary negotiating position, or if only a small segment of the hostage gets to be killed or kidnapped. If the stakes are lower in a negotiation, this may decrease the likelihood of resolving a crisis in which the primary negotiator is the final advocate for the hostage (Tolman and DeFilippo, 2016). A primary negotiator cannot consider the risk of being killed or kidnapped in order to protect the hostage or to negotiate