Ransom as a business, a disunited Europe, glorifying Hollywood actors

PRAGUE, November 15 -- President of the Association of Negotiators Radim Pařík met in Dallas this past week with negotiating legend and former chief international negotiator of the FBI with kidnappers Chris Voss to discuss the development of the field of negotiation in connection with the international situation. Radim Pařík is co-author of Chris Voss's forthcoming book “Empathic Management of People” and the only personal pupil of Chris Voss in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Most critical, both see the trend of kidnapping people becoming a gainful business for both kidnappers and some negotiators.

The Association of Negotiators works with The Trusted Agency, an elite team of people from around the world who, as part of this international NGO, recover their kidnapped relatives for families. The principle of The Trusted Agency is that its negotiators, such as Salva Badillo, whose negotiation training in Prague could be completed this August, earn exclusively by training, for example, the security forces, but they carry out the crisis negotiations themselves voluntarily and free of charge. They are trying to keep the hostage business from falling as negotiators continue to support it.

“Chris Voss and I agreed that volunteerism is essential when rescuing hostages from kidnappers. Otherwise, there will be an increase in kidnappings, as we can observe over the last two decades not only in the Middle East and South America, but also in recent years, for example, in southern Italy, where kidnapping is a starting point for subsequent business for mafia members,” says the president of the Association of Negotiators. “Even so, the presence of an experienced negotiator in a conflict is indispensable and essential,” he adds.

A similar case is the negotiation with hackers during a ransomware attack, that is, the ransom demanded for secured data from computers and servers. “A visible problem is the growing number of hacker attacks and the inability of corporate representatives to negotiate with them. It's no longer just that they block your data and demand money for unblocking it. They are, by not negotiating with them or negotiating poorly, more often willing to come back and demand ransom repeatedly, or threaten to release sensitive information they have gained access to,” says negotiator Radim Parik. “People's lives can be at stake here, too, when it comes to hospitals, for example. Anyway, we are already moving in the environment of business and state news,” he adds.

The solution, according to both global negotiators, Chris Voss and Radim Parik, is the introduction of lump-sum rather than proportional bargaining rewards. “This will prevent a situation where we negotiate not for the best possible outcome for the client, but for our reward,” explains the president of the Association of Negotiators, whose members also include Joe Navarro and Anne-Martje Oud, recognized world experts in the analysis of non-verbal communication.

They opened another interesting trend at the Key of Communication conference in Prague in October, and this is the necessary ability to communicate with complex personalities. “There are four basic groups of complex personalities in both communication and negotiation. They are narcissists, emotionally unstable people, paranoids and predators. We meet them more and more often in positions of power in the leadership of states and companies,” said Anne-Martje Oud, an expert in communication with complex personalities and lecturer of the world's leading managers.

“In negotiations, it is important that we first manage ourselves, only then assess the situation and plan the next steps. Anyone who cannot control their own emotions should not drive a car, let alone a state or a company,” adds Radim Parik. According to him, the problem has increased after the covid pandemic, when most managers are faced with the depersonalization of relations between employees at all levels of the hierarchy, that is, in the relationship manager subordinate as well as in the framework of collegiality.

Both professional negotiators and coaches, Parik and Voss, discussed the international security situation. A prime example of the failure of governments in individual steps is the situation in Ukraine. “Even in tactical business negotiations, we try to escalate the conflict so that we can subsequently de-escalate the situation and seek common ways and solutions. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2014 and then in 2021 was accompanied by indecision of NATO officials. Even then, we pointed out that the moment Russia announced the exercises on the Russian-Ukrainian border, NATO should have responded with the same step, that is, to go to the borders of Europe with Russia. “

The second mistake occurred when Russia invaded Ukraine. While there were words of praise from politicians inside the European Union for a unified approach, the reality was different. “In negotiations, strategic, crisis and business, we are talking about the so-called single point of contact. But Orbán, Scholz, Macron called the Kremlin. To Russia, which does not recognize institutions but personalities, this was a clear signal of EU disunity,” added Radim Parik.

The third mistake was that the Western allies did not include China in all sorts of negotiations. “In the last two years, we have focused on multi-party negotiations because we always have some other influential parties that are interested in the outcome of the negotiations. In this case, it was still a significantly impartial China, whose interests we could at least listen to each other in order to better understand them in the future and to work with them in further negotiations,” explains Parik.

Tactical empathy is among the most successful practices in negotiation. It was here that the world's most famous negotiator, Chris Voss, described and created. Tactical listening, which is an essential part of any successful negotiation, falls into this.

Tactical empathy also includes the so-called “golden bridge” for the opposing side. Both sides must be able to come back from the negotiations with the feeling that they have achieved the best possible outcome. “Whatever we think about it, even Putin cannot, in the event of failure to meet his military objective, eventually walk away from negotiations with Ukraine as a loser, he will want to present some success in exchange for an end to the war. If he does not have it, he will fight for many years to come,” explains Radim Parik, adding: “Chamberlain made a mistake when he returned from negotiations with Hitler and began to celebrate because he thought he had managed to prevent a war conflict. This offended Hitler. In the end, it was one of the triggers of World War II.” The Israeli Mossad has a principle—not only the first, but above all the last impression is important. “We apply this rule in business because we want to build long-term relationships in it and continue to expand cooperation,” says Parik. “We will continue to monitor events in Israel. Whether political interests and proclamations or a genuine appetite to resolve the conflict with Palestine pragmatically will be of greater importance. In the end, neither Russia nor Israel can do without peace negotiations. This will happen when one of the parties to the conflict no longer feels that it can win and sits down at the negotiating table. “

It was therefore a mistake for Hollywood actors to celebrate the outcome of the negotiations after the negotiations they had concluded with the producers the previous week. “The opposing party always gets the impression that it has negotiated little, that it is a loser. No one wants to be a loser. Therefore, with this approach, the actors compromised the agreement and its subsequent compliance by the producers. “