The origin of the Black Swan concept was from 16th century Europe, when all they

had were white Swans.

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And somebody along the line thought of, well, what would happen if there there was
a Black Swan.
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Well, it's impossible, you know, that would change everything, That would change
the complexion of everything.
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And then not long after that, they discovered black Swans in Australia.
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They discovered that black Swans actually exist.
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And suddenly the impossible was possible.
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And it was a game changing concept and this has been resonated throughout the
years, have been picked up in other books that the Black Swan is something that
nobody expected would happen, but in hindsight changed everything as soon as it was
revealed.
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So this is what great negotiation is about.
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Discovering the Black Swan, discovering the piece of information that nobody
expected that would change all the outcomes.
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It's central to everything that we do.
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And that's why I named my company the Black Swan Group.
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If you're negotiating for a salary.
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You might not know the behind the scenes of the company that the person that you're
going to work for is going to leave in a year or they're going to retire in a year.

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You don't know what opportunities are coming in conjunction with that job that the
company's already forecasted and budgeted out.
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You don't know who's planning on moving on.
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You don't know all the things that are going on behind the scenes.
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All you know that they've offered you this job within these parameters, but they
already know I have a very good idea of the dynamics that they hope to change in
the company over the next year.
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Finding out those dynamics behind the scenes could either make it a wonderful place
for you to work Oregon, a horrible place and it has nothing to do with the job
description at the moment.
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The things that they know that you don't know are the Black Swans.
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Also, what they don't know about you is you may really be committed to that company
when they're just looking for someone that wants to be there for a year or two,
they have strategic needs that they haven't imagined that they can share with you
because they don't understand that you're the person that can fill those specific
strategic needs.
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They have no idea what you really want out of life.
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What you really want out of life may be exactly what they need in that company.
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Since they haven't met you, they don't know that yet.
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This is an example of a Black Swan that you bring to the negotiation that they have
no way of knowing in advance.
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So the idea is to start the communication and for me to start getting the
information flowing from you.
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So that I can find out what those black Swans are and I can change the outcome.
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Since I don't know what you're hiding and you don't know what I'm hiding.
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There's stuff in that overlap.
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That we really don't know is there at all.
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You know, a long time ago, Donald Rumsfeld talked about the unknown unknowns.
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The real black Swans are where the unknowns overlap, and there's some crazy stuff
in there You can't tell yourself.
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I understand the situation, I understand all about it.
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You can't tell yourself that.
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That's to close your mind in advance.
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And there isn't anybody anywhere that says a closed mind.
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That is an advantage.
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So open your mind and be curious.
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Be interested, wonder about it.
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Don't be afraid of being surprised.
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Actually hope to provoke suprises.
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You should take the attitude that if I'm not surprised, I'm not doing my job
because it's not possible to know everything and as soon as you start opening
yourself up to the possibility, you start to open yourself up to better outcomes
and better relationships.
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And long term relationships where the other side is actually surprised at how good
the deal was and how happy they were with it and how engaged they felt in the
process and consequently how much they look forward to dealing with you again.
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All these things begin to combine.
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To make you more successful negotiator.
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The Dwight the Tractor Man case is a great example of how the discovery of a Black
Swan.
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Leads to a breakthrough in the case Washington DC Saint Patrick's Day just before
the beginning of the second Iraq war.
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DC is kind of a touchy place at the time.
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You know, we're probably about a year ish off of the DC sniper that you know two
people that were shooting and murdering people over the DC metro area.
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So there's no shortage of reasons for people to be jumpy all over the place and you
know, poor tobacco farmer drives a tractor onto the.
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The National Mall that, you know, the park that's referred to as a mall that runs
from.
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Basically, the capital to the Lincoln Memorial in the middle of Washington, DC
drives it into the middle of a big pond that a lot of people don't even know it's
there because it's off to the side of the reflecting pool and claims that he's got
4 bombs and he scattered 4 bombs around the DC metro area.
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It's a great way to get people's attention when everybody's so jittery about
terrorism and warned snipers and everything else.
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And we engage with Dwight Watson who we find out after the fact his family's
tobacco farm has been destroyed by the.
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Settlement and the restrictions on tobacco being farmed and how they're being sold
and it is just utterly destroyed his family's business.
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He's.
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Protested on the National Mall several years in a row with a legal permit and
nobody cared.
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You know, nobody cares.
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So he finally decides I got to get somebody's attention.
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The best way to do it is to show up there and claim I got some bombs.
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The more we talked to Dwight, the more more we find out about.
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What he's after and and really what he resonates with.
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And he talked openly a lot about his, his family farm.
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He talked openly a lot about.
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His time in the military.
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But there was a, you know, and his sense of duty, but it was there was a lot of,
there was much deeper spirituality to him.
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I mean, his religion was really important to him.
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But we only heard that in bits and pieces.
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We begin to talk to him and we realize that he wants to get the word out.
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He wants to have made his point.
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He doesn't really know how to get out of this, probably about 36 hours in.
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He starts talking to us about, well, when I was with the 82nd Airborne, if we
parachuted behind enemy lines.
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We'd have to stay behind enemy lines for at least 72 hours and then we could
withdraw with dignity.
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He kind of throws an idea out at us that he could stay there for 72 hours and then
he could withdraw.
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The only problem with this is.
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He's shown to be a fairly volatile person.
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He still claims to have 4 bombs.
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We don't know that.
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He doesn't.
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We don't know that in a fit of rage he might not set them off.
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We get to the point about 36 hours in where the decision has been made that if he
makes a move to the Jeep, that's on the back.
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Of the trailer that's in a pond with them.
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That's got to be where the bombs are.
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If he goes to the Jeep, there's an authorization to take him out with what's called
an open air assault, which is a sniper shot.
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You know, and law enforcement terms, an open air assault is a sniper shooting
somebody between the eyes.
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Nobody wants to do this.
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Even if we're authorized to do this, nobody wants to do this, especially with some
poor guy who's family got family farm got crushed.
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So how do we get them out of there without him making a stupid move that causes his
own death because he didn't know it better? That's the dilemma we're faced at about
36 to 48 hours in.
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We got to get him out of there before he gets himself killed.
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We began that negotiation knowing that, you know, let's find out what's driving
somebody first.
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Let's worry less about what they want and worry more about what's making them want
it.
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You know, I'm intentionally avoiding the word why here? Because we're very careful
about the word why.
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So what's driving this guy? The last crucial discovery we made about the white was
that one of our negotiators.
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Who was listening in? Because we have a team that listens in.
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One of our negotiators heard him say something.
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Realized that his religion was really the dominating factor in his thinking.
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The 82nd Airborne was OK.
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That mattered some.
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But his religion resonated with him a lot more and about 48 hours in.
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We said Tom.
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Do I need to come out tomorrow morning, right?And he said no, no, I'm not day after
tomorrow.
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He wanted a 72 hours.
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One of our negotiators had heard his religion and she had suggested that we say to
him.
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That tomorrow is the dawn of the third day, which is a reference to Christianity
and Jesus.
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It gives them the opportunity to change the 72 hours to three days to actually 48
hours for them to be Christ like for to appeal to something that's a much larger
issue to him.
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So the negotiator gets coached up and she says, but Dwight, tomorrow's the dawn of
the third day.
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There's a long silence on the other end of the line and he says I'll come out
tomorrow.
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And we had him out the following morning.
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So in this case, the Black Swan was Dwight's religion, something we had no idea
about going into the case.
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We're never going to tease that out unless we engage in conversation with them and
we pick it up in bits and pieces along the way, and then at the one crucial moment
when we need him to change his mind.
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We need for him to violate the other rules and come out sooner, come out a full day
sooner and characterize it in a way that he can accept.
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That was the Black Swan in the Dwight Watson case.