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This is the Executive Connect Podcast - a show for the new generation of leaders. Join us as we discover unconventional leadership strategies not traditionally associated with executive roles. Our guests include upper-level C-Suite executives charting new ways to grow their organizations, successful entrepreneurs changing the way the world does business, and experts and thought leaders from fields outside of Corporate America that can bring new insights into leadership, prosperity, and personal growth - all while connecting on a human level. No one has all the answers - but by building a community of open-minded and engaged leaders we hope to give you the tools you need to help you find your own path to success.
Melissa Aarskaug (00:01.436)
Welcome to the executive connect podcast where we take a deep dive into the myths Mind missed minds. Let me start that again Welcome to the executive connect podcast where we take a deep dive into the minds of executives and learn their success stories in today's episode We're going to be speaking with two people chip in a dow
Adele is a PR strategist who has managed top PR firms and worked with high profile clients like President Joe Biden and CEO of Lockheed Martin. Known for her expertise in crisis management, Adele has led campaigns for major brands such as SAP and Verizon. Joining Adele is Chip, a former FBI special agents and hostage negotiator turned business consultant.
Chip co -founded the convincing company with Adele, leveraging his unique high stakes negotiations and behavioral analysis. His transition from FBI to corporate world offers a fascinating perspective on how techniques from law enforcement can be applied to business strategies and crisis management. Welcome Adele and Chip.
Chip (01:20.618)
Thank you, Melissa.
Adele Gambardella (01:20.866)
Thank
Melissa Aarskaug (01:22.408)
Thanks for being here today. Adele, I want to start with you. Ladies first, of course. Given your background with clients like President Joe Biden and the CEO of Lockheed Martin, how did you get into the industry you're in now from PR to crisis communications?
Adele Gambardella (01:45.71)
Yeah, so I started my career at George Magazine as a reporter for John F. Kennedy Jr., his publication that was, you know, the melding between politics and pop culture. And it was a really interesting place to start my career. And ever since I worked there, anytime I whipped out my resume for like another 15 years thereafter, people would be like, did you meet him? Was he a handsome?
Do know your name? mean, like it was like, didn't matter what I did 15 years thereafter. They were like, what, what was John F. Kennedy Jr. like? But I did that. I was an under reporter. was an investigative reporter for the Asbury Park Press and then USA Today once they bought them out. But as the person who was the first person to graduate college in my family, I had to pay off my student loans. So I sold out and went over to the dark side as they call
on Madison Avenue launching big dot coms because I did it during the dot com era. So eBay, Moviefone, 1 -800 -Flowers got the 1 -800 -Flowers guy on the cover of Time Magazine. that sort of solidified the fact that I was in PR because they were like, wow, what did you just do? You just blew this company up. And it was pretty exciting. Did that. And did that for quite a while, worked with some
big memes, some celebrities, and then started my own agency. So I did that. I started my own agency 15 years ago, and I've been working with Chip for about five years. So I've been in business for myself for a little under 20 years. So I started when I was five, naturally, because I'm so young. But yeah, so it was really fun. And I got to work with some really high -profile individuals. And some of those people were really interesting to work with.
Some require different convincing strategies, some of which we talk about in the book. And it is certainly interesting to work with people who are at the top of their game. And it does require a different set of skills and a lot of patience. Believe it or not, it is much harder to work with a big name than it is to work with just any executive, right? It is different. They have different standards. And so it is a little bit of a different process, which I can talk about a little bit more on the podcast. But
Melissa Aarskaug (04:10.024)
Well, thanks for being here, Adele. I'm anxious to get into it. Now, Chip, you have a similar interesting background from FBI special agent and hostage negotiator. Your experience is equally as unique. You have led the transition from FBI to co -founding the convincing company with Adele. Tell us a little bit about your story.
Chip (04:36.36)
Yeah, so I started my career with the FBI in the Washington DC field office. That's where I began and I was on an espionage squad. did fugitives, drug violations and espionage. And from there I transferred to the New York City field office. And that's where I also worked other violations and I was the team leader for the New York City.
hostage negotiators.
Melissa Aarskaug (05:08.584)
That's fantastic. I'm excited to talk to you both today. So thanks for being here to talk about crisis management. Adele, can you share a little bit about your key strategies and how to navigate crisis management and any key takeaways you can share with our listeners?
Adele Gambardella (05:30.094)
Yeah, so I mean, I think when you are dealing with people who are in a crisis situation, one of the first things that we encounter is really is the game of being convincing. So they're going through a difficult time. You have got to sort of get them out of that, like, poor me fairness. This is like so unfair. I've done everything right for 20 years. We call it the fairness fallacy because some people stay there for a long time.
where they're just like, this is so unfair. Why am I being portrayed like this? I've done so many things right in my career. Why is this one thing just really, you know, becoming such a mar on my name? And so what we have to do is we have to sort of get them out of this mindset. And that's where, you know, Chip and I working together, we really, we bridged our two disciplines because I can be focused on knowing exactly what they need to say, what they need to do, the strategies, the steps.
And CHIP is focused on getting people to do what they need to do in these high stress moments, like the emotion that goes into it, which is a lot harder than it sounds. So, I mean, it's really an interesting combination of skills. And I think because we both come at it from different places, the people who work with us, feel when they're having a crisis, they feel so much calmer.
They feel like they understand what's next, and then they also understand why they're feeling what they're feeling. And that's, I think most people in the industry of crisis, while they might be good practitioners, they really don't understand the emotional elements that the executive, the team, people around them are going through. And so we can predict that with some level of certainty, and I don't think many other people in our field can do
Melissa Aarskaug (07:21.534)
That's great.
I think FBI negotiation techniques are really relevant with what we're going to talk about today. From your perspective, how has that helped you with corporate crisis management?
Chip (07:36.676)
yeah, that's a great question, because one of the things that I was, you know, transferring from government work to the business sector and working with Adele, you know, it's it's a I guess I'm used to a different kind of situation. know, so for example, one of one of my first times of working with Adele in an engagement.
When we first started working together, she said, Hey, I've got this thing with this with this company. Could you swing by? I just want to get your your read on it. I said, yeah, absolutely. And so I go there and the scene is this, you know, I enter the boardroom and Adele's already there and I'm looking around and here's what I see. Melissa, I got three people off to the corner in the back that are literally crying. I mean, they're
And then I've got some other people that are sitting at the table and they're like stone -faced zombies. It's like they can't, it's like they've seen something they can't process. And then I've just got some other people that are standing around and they are mad. They are just angry. So my take on it from coming from, you know, law enforcement is some people died, right? This is a bad situation.
Obviously they're all dealing with grief and the shock and the stress of all this. I'm guessing that's why Adele wanted me to swing by. So I leaned over to Adele and I said, okay, what do we got? me the quick of it. And she said, okay, well, one of these people sent an email they weren't supposed to send. I said, what, what? I said, one more
somebody sent an email that was supposed to end and then somebody died, right? She said, no, nobody's dead. No, there's no death. I said, no terrorism, no, nothing like this. She said, no. She said they just literally sent an email that they weren't supposed to. I said.
Chip (09:45.746)
This is what it's like, right? So it's a different context. Absolutely. But what I found and what Adele helped me understand is that really stresses relatives. And, you know, my day to day. Yeah, there were times it was life and death. Their day to day is I could lose my job. Right. I could lose my my career here. It's my reputations on the line. I've
a mortgage, I've got another house in the Hamptons, how am I supposed to pay for this?
Adele Gambardella (10:17.902)
Let me just say this, we do handle harder things than sending the wrong email. mean, like we do handle like multinational crisis, foodborne illnesses, infectious disease. it's not, please do not think that it's just you hire us just to not because you sent out the wrong email. No, like run the gamut and crisis. I just want to throw that in because I just like, I want to make sure people realize it's more complex than that. Yeah.
Chip (10:37.246)
Yeah. Yeah, it is relative.
Melissa Aarskaug (10:44.59)
No, and it is, and I think you make a really good point is, we stress is stress, right? And we all adapt to whether you're an ER doctor or you're working answering help desk calls or you're, you know, you work for the police force, stress is stress and at all, we all can handle different reactions differently. So I want to tie kind of what you two mentioned back
persuasive business strategies and how to use kind of what you both have talked about, the blending of PR and negotiation and how to use that in the workplace. so Adele, you mentioned a little bit at the beginning about talking about women in business. So how do you integrate persuasive communication strategies in business settings to achieve successful outcomes from a women's perspective?
Adele Gambardella (11:41.846)
That's a great question. And I do think it's different for women than it is for men. I do. I still think that is a key factor. While I think a lot of the biases have dissipated, they're still there. And women are still faced with, you know, there's not that many seats at the table for us. And so women are not necessarily kind to other women. And finding a mentor inside an organization, I never found one that was a woman.
And I worked at some big PR firms. I really wanted a mentor. I really wanted that. It was just not going to happen. And so what I tell women who are looking for a mentor is just don't look inside the company that you're at because there's not that many seats at the table for women. And women don't necessarily help other women inside their own company until they're just about to retire. That's one of the things I did find kind of funny, right? When they're just about to retire, women are like, OK, I'll tell you everything I know.
download all these things that you know I wanted to tell you but I couldn't because I felt like you might take my place. It's interesting and fascinating as that is but as far as persuasive techniques one of the things I want to mention and it's a very specific technique and so if your listeners are really tuned in and dialed into this I want them to go get a piece of paper and write this down. If you are a woman who is in business and you are you
firm and where you come across as maybe, you know, maybe some people have said, hey, you're kind of aggressive or you're kind of bossy or, you know, you dominate conversations, which is so many of us in leadership positions have gotten that kind of feedback, especially when we're in a roomful of men. Here's the one technique to use. Never ever start with your strongest point first. And it is so counterintuitive.
Because you would think that that would make you more competent. It would make you more persuasive. And actually all it does is it gets everybody in the room to think of the reasons why you're wrong, to dig their heels in for what they believe against what it is you are proposing. So instead of starting with your strongest point first, even though we're taught to do that, start with your point of agreement. Where can everybody in the room agree?
Adele Gambardella (14:01.464)
and then move them down a continuum. We call it the convincing continuum in our book. We give specific processes for how to do this, but just a quick thumbnail sketch of it would be, you start with your point of agreement, then you use fear. What are their fears about what you're proposing? You use their uncertainty. What is their uncertainty around what you're proposing? To create and cast some doubts in their mind about their own current biases that they may have about what you're proposing.
And then this is the sneaky, interesting technique that most people don't do well. Then what you have to do is you have to give them just enough information to inspire them to go research what the possible solution is on their own so they can convince themselves. But most of us, we start with our strongest point first, we back it up with our emotional argument, we back it up with our fact -based argument, we put all our cards in the table and we're hoping we are convincing enough.
When in actuality you start with your strongest point first, you examine FUD, fear, uncertainty and doubt. You make them doubt what they believed before. And then you give them just enough information so they want to go seek out more information. And you stop. You don't go to their latitude of rejection. This is based on 40 years of social science research. If you go too far, if you are too forceful, if you are too in people's faces about things,
They will reject what you're saying wholeheartedly and never come back to it again to hear your point of view. So what I would say is this isn't about being softer. It's about just changing your approach a little bit. And I think women just had such a hard time with this. It's like, well, I don't want to come across as weak. I don't want to come across as somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about. I want to come across as competent. But in actuality, what you should do is you should be coming across as someone who understands what everybody else agrees with in the
and then move them down the continuum and stop. Have the discipline to
Melissa Aarskaug (16:07.07)
Well, that is fantastic advice. I think you're right. Women are so used and conditioned, I'll use the word conditioned, to feel like they have to defend their ideas. I mean, they could have the best GPA, graduated from the best school, practiced for 20 years, and they're still used to explaining why their point is right. And so that is fantastic sound stage advice because you're spot on. You
And what's that saying that says, you know, pick your battles. Sometimes you have to let it go and, you know, circling this back to crisis management and stress, you could fight, fight, fight and everybody's telling you no and fight, fight, fight again. And through this whole process, you could become more stressed. And sometimes give your point, like you said, give them just enough then counterpoint and
let them come back with you. And sometimes I think just kind of one other layer of that, we got to pick our battles, right? And let go sometimes of that win. But I think we have to uncondition ourselves a little bit, right? I think as women, women leaders and that's fantastic.
Adele Gambardella (17:14.402)
Yeah, I mean, the picking the battles. I I think yes and no, right? It's like, if you have something you really believe in, right? It's like, again, where do you wanna show your competence? I think that's a great point that you're bringing up, like where is it really important that you show your competence? Women wanna show their competence all the time in all areas. I think that's what you're talking about, right? And it's like, you know, it's like you
Melissa Aarskaug (17:38.174)
Right. Yes, exactly.
Adele Gambardella (17:42.942)
You can't be competent all the time. You can't be the smartest person in the room all the time. You have to come at it from a more indirect approach with these convincing strategies.
Melissa Aarskaug (17:52.934)
I love it, I love it. That's great Sage advice. So Chip, I wanna talk about, from your perspective, more like the male side as well, talking about some common mistakes businesses make in high stakes negotiation and how they can actually avoid these
Chip (18:14.666)
Sure. One of the things that we teach often is this concept of forensic listening. And really what it's all about, and I think you agree with us on this, Melissa, is that too often we set up a dichotomy that is a us versus them, or there's two sides. you know, it's already the feel, the vibe of the whole thing is off.
And what we teach is the concept of forensic listening, which is the art and science and analysis of a conversation after it's happened. Because what we say is words leave clues. And so we tell people that we want you to examine a conversation and a person's interactions with you, whether they're leading a meeting or it's a one -on -one call or it's in person.
to look at it from four different perspectives. And the first perspective is their voice, their pitch tone cadence. Where are they up? Where are they down? Where is it that their speed and pacing picks up? The other is the themes that they're developed. What is it that they are repeating? What is it that, you know, because we know that if somebody repeats something more than once, then it's important to them, which means it better be important to you.
And the other is the whole idea of body positioning, which we differentiate a little bit from body language, because body positioning is that we are always, you know, creatures of movement and how we interact in the world around us. So, so, so it could be, you know, where's the person really, you know, gesturing, where are they animated and where are they just kind of pulling back and maybe their energy drops. And then the, the other is the emotion.
What emotion are they attaching to the themes and you to, and you hear it in their voice. Where does that happen? And then you can start to dig in why. So you have all those four things. And what we say is you go back after you've had that conversation, do some quick note taking. So, you know, just divide a page up into like four quadrants or some corner of it and write in those things. Okay, here under voice, here.
Chip (20:41.256)
this where they were body position is where theme development and so on. Now you pull all that together and then you get a kind of a distillation of who they are, what they are and what is important to them. And then you take that and let's say you go two weeks later, you go up to that person and you say, you know that meeting that we had on, you know, in increasing our visibility on social media. I just realized
You know, while you were talking in that meeting, I sensed that you, what you thought was really an issue that we needed to follow through on was the whole idea of, client development and deepening these relationships. And I just want you to know that I took that information and I took it back to my team and I implemented a couple of things that you had mentioned and it's really made a big difference. And I just wanted to say, thank you. Now imagine that throwing that kind of thing.
framework into your day -to -day talks with clients, interactions with board members, financing, whatever that is, you are connecting with people. clearly Melissa, you're very skilled at this, adept at this, but there's so many people that have difficulty with the idea of, wait, I've got four points that I've got to get. I've got to get the numbers right. I've got to make sure the deliverables are there.
And I have to, I have to make sure I can depend upon it. I got to all these things. If I don't hit all these things, I'm in trouble. Right? No, it's about the connection. You make that connection to a person. You understand them in a way that, that no other vendor, no other supplier, no other company has yet. Can you imagine the impact? And you'll have, you'll become a trusted advisor. You'll become that go -to person that they call. So it's
That's what we advise. advise deep in that relationship, take a few steps back and figure out who they are, what they are, and how they want to be seen in the world, and you'll have a friend for life.
Melissa Aarskaug (22:47.26)
Well said, you're almost reading my mind, Chip. I was going to kind of move in that behavioral analysis after, and I want to just kind of a quick story. had, mentioned clients and sales years ago. I had been part of a call with a client that I understood his personality. understood his desk setup. I knew how he moved. thought, I knew a lot about this person and the people on the other end of the conference call didn't.
And the guy kept going like this during the call and kind of rolling his eyes and everybody like, God, he's such a rude person. Well, they didn't realize that how his desk was situated, his camera and his monitor was in a different location, right? So they thought his body language was really rude. He's not interested. He's not engaging. And so kind of to what you were saying is, you
Chip (23:37.514)
Right?
Melissa Aarskaug (23:43.908)
during FBI negotiations, it's really important to understand and watch body language, tone, voice, the way their body's moving. And so how can these, as we correlate it back to people and their day to day, how can these type of techniques benefit business leaders and their day to day operations with their personnel?
Chip (24:06.104)
that's a great question. Absolutely. And you apply this in terms of, so you take this framework and you apply to each person on your team, anybody that reports you, anybody that has an important relationship in the dynamic of your company, you had better have some type of what we call pattern of life on that individual. This is their kind of baseline behavior. And you want to know that person so thoroughly
you're going to you're going to not only detect when they're in a bad mood, everybody says, he's kind of off today. Must have had a bad commute, something going on at home. But you should know that person's hopes, dreams and aspirations. You should even know the things that they're not telling you. One of the principles in our book is this idea of the unstated narrative. And the unstated narrative is simply that there is a disconnect between what somebody actually believes about you, your company.
who you are as a leader, who you are as a salesperson, and what they'll tell you to your face. So we all have to have this, right? In order for it to function as a society, we have to have these rules. But if you're able to get closer to what that person's unstated narrative, what they actually are reticent about, what are their holdbacks? Why might it be that they in particular have this
one thing that seems to be just not working. Figure that out, come close to it. And when you're talking to that person next, say, you know, I just noticed that when we brought up and I heard your team talking about that there was an idea that was pushed out and you seem to really have a, you know, just went in the opposite direction and kind of shut down. You know, I'm just wondering, is there something behind that? Is
you know, perhaps, you know, you're it's just that you have a you have a bad feeling about this one team member. Could that be it? And what you're doing is you're taking again your knowledge of who that person is. Again, their baseline, what their pattern of life is like. And that might have been out of character for them. So now you're asking them to to say, all right, you're identifying one thing. You have a bad feeling about that person and you're giving them an opportunity to talk and say,
Chip (26:29.64)
No, it's not that I have a bad feeling about that person. It's just that that idea, we heard that before, it didn't work last time. And I really wanted the team to stretch. Okay, appreciate that. Thank you for that. And hey, that's great. And then tie it into leadership. Validate them in some way. all those things, yeah, Adele?
Adele Gambardella (26:47.694)
I, yeah, just really quickly to add to that, right? Like, I'm just thinking throughout my career and Melissa, I'd love for you to weigh in here too, right? Like I'm thinking about all the bosses I had throughout my career. And I would say no one took an interest in what my goals, my aspirations, my beliefs, where I wanted to go. No one really took an interest. I mean, occasionally they would be like, hey, do want this training because it's in our budget? And we
We put it in and it's like, hey, we've got every year it's a yearly budget. Why don't you go do this thing? No one really took an interest. And I just think if more companies, if more leaders, if more managers took an interest in the people they were actually managing and threw away these old concepts of like the sandwich method and pips, which would never work really because you're never really getting to the heart of the matter, right?
Chip (27:18.654)
the year.
Adele Gambardella (27:44.337)
All of these things that we're all taught in management and leadership that is supposed to work, to move someone to change, to move someone to do more of what we want, to change their approach, idea, to motivate them really, is broken. And our book, what it really does is it examines what motivates people to change, how you can do it in everyday settings, and things like listening at a deep, deep level with forensic listening.
This will make all the difference. If you take one thing away from our book, and trust me, we have like 50 actionable takeaways in our book, more even. But if you take away forensic listening as the one thing that you do, everyone on your team will feel more hurt, more seen, more validated, and their emotions will be actually felt by the person that's managing them. I mean, think about the level of retention, the level of
excitement people will have to come into their job, the way in which people will work, even if you don't pay them more. If you do this, if you do this, this is what people want. They want validation within anything.
Melissa Aarskaug (28:57.998)
well said. I also echo you. haven't had a lot of in my W2 jobs. I've not had a lot of people that actively were trying to help me get to where I'm going, if ever. And to your earlier point, know, mentors and leaders in your company, I agree with you find someone outside your company because they're going to have a bias when you work inside that company man or woman. So I absolutely echo
Chip (29:04.682)
Thank you.
Melissa Aarskaug (29:25.842)
that from your perspective. I do listening, know, the analogy always plays through my mind. You have two ears and one mouth, use them proportionately. And although we laugh and joke about it, very few people are actively listening to understand, because we're listening to respond or defend or whatever the reason that we're listening. And so I absolutely agree with you. And from your perspective, Adele, as it relates to PR,
and strategy and growing people's brands and communicating, incorporating behavioral analysis and really understanding people on a deeper level to keep them. I'd love to get your feedback from a PR standpoint on strategies that employees can use or managers can use, right? If one of your employees is never on camera, we'll watch.
Right? You should understand why if this person never wants to get on camera. And so I want to kind of take a deeper dive into kind of a behavioral side from a PR lens.
Adele Gambardella (30:38.968)
Yeah, so one second, I believe you were breaking up during that question, so I'm wondering if you want to just restate it. Are you guys breaking up at all?
Melissa Aarskaug (30:47.356)
Did I break up? Did you hear
Chip (30:50.111)
I think it's your side, probably Adele, but.
Adele Gambardella (30:54.07)
Is it my side? Okay, I'm so sorry. Do you want to reframe that again? I apologize. Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (30:54.406)
I'll just... That's okay. So how do you incorporate... Yeah, Nah, no worries. Let's get it right. How do you incorporate behavior analysis from a PR lens? Let's take a look at from your lens using your PR experience and how people can use what they see to effectively communicate in any capacity.
Adele Gambardella (31:21.602)
Yeah, so a couple of different things, right? I mean, there's so much you can use from a PR perspective, just from messaging. What does that person sound like? How do they come across? What words do they use? I think, not to brag, but I think I'm really good at messaging because I pay deep attention to how people talk. And if you, and especially when I was dealing with like heads of state.
CEOs of major multi -billion dollar companies. My PR counterparts a lot of times would hand them messaging that got all of what they wanted to get across, but did not sound anything like the person they were actually writing them for. Or they would just deliver too many messages at once and they weren't really taking into account how this person had to memorize and what fears they had and how they...
they feared they were gonna come across. And I think that is so critical in being good at messaging and being good at representing other executives. So that's certainly one level. The other level is just a very broad concept. Hold on one second. I feel my computer is dying. I apologize. my God.
Melissa Aarskaug (32:37.424)
plug it in we can cut it, it, no worries.
Adele Gambardella (32:39.946)
I'm so sorry. The other recommendation I would have, and this is like a more simple kind of profiling method, right? And Chip really is like the expert on like reading people. He's so much better at this than me, than I could ever be, right? I mean, he's trained at this. This is like his expertise. And it is not mine. But I would say like, know, street smart girl from New York, New Jersey, I think I have some good situational awareness.
But one thing I would say is understand what your convincing style is like and know what the other person's convincing style or preferences are like and be able to adapt. And here's what I mean. So Melissa, would you say you're more, and this is just a gut, this is a gut reaction. So it's not like you're just one or just the other, but we think there's two convincing styles, right?
You're either an emotional convincing. So you use stories, you use feelings, you use emotions, or you're a fact -based convincing. You use stats, you use data, you use research to bring your point home. What would you say your emotional? Yeah, I would agree too. That's what I would think too, right? You're definitely a story -based person, right? Like that is like how you communicate and how you bring your point, right?
Melissa Aarskaug (33:53.63)
stories.
Adele Gambardella (34:05.1)
But when you're talking to someone else who is a fact -based convincer or likes to be convinced from facts, do you adapt? And do you come at them first with facts? And do you come at them with data? And our preference, usually what we like to do is we go, we're gonna convince them the way we wanna be convinced. And that is so backwards. And just if you come at them from that more fact -based approach and that's what they want.
that's the kind of data they want. I'll tell a quick funny story. I wanted to buy a Mercedes and I really wanted to buy one I had made a significant revenue amount and I got pushback from my now ex -husband for reason.
to buy the car, right? And he was like, I don't know. I was like, okay, you know, he sits back. like, I look so good at it. Come on. It's the car that I've always wanted. I wanted Mercedes because it spells success. And again, I'm coming from that emotional argument. Every time I'll get in it, I'll feel good. I'll remember my accomplishment. And he was like, whatever. Okay. And then I'm like, all right, he's an engineer.
That's not how he wants to be convinced. So I went and I did some research and like Mercedes are the safest, safest luxury car in the market. They've got the best resale value that, you know, they've got the, they maintain the right, whatever, whatever. And then he was like, okay, I'll buy it. But I should have bought the car to begin with. There's another lesson in that ladies, but anyway, shouldn't have even asked. But the point is, is that like, you have to come at your convincing approach, the way the person wants to receive
And most of us won't adapt at all, at all, because we don't think about
Melissa Aarskaug (35:51.19)
you nailed it. It's I love that you're talking about that because I'm very high energy and if I walk up to a lower calmer lower energy person, they're like, Whoa, they've been hit by you know, a train, right? And so I think you're spot on with understanding who you're talking to, and how they need the information. So if it's facts, give them facts. If it's stories, give them stories and really
I forget that book, The Five Secrets of Love Languages, I think there's one in the workplace now. And so learning who you work with and how they respond is very helpful with success on building teams and working cohesively in the corporate America today.
Adele Gambardella (36:22.091)
Yeah.
Adele Gambardella (36:34.872)
And one way to determine what someone's style is, and we have this in the book a little, and I kind of love this, ask them about the most recent vacation they took and see what they focus on about the vacation. Is it where they stayed? How much they paid? What the hotel was? Their experiences? That's more of a fact -based person who's more focused on money versus the person who's like, was so nice to spend time with family. I got to unwind.
that it's just going to tell you so much about who they are and what kind of convince are they are. And most of us just don't pay attention to small talk, but small talk is anything but small. It actually tells you so much about who the person
Melissa Aarskaug (37:16.158)
100 % I agree. That's a great tip. I'm gonna totally pivot gears now and talk about I I love the discussion about talking about fear and how to overcome it I grew up with a father that was military and so what I thought was normal is not really normal because a lot of times we're paralyzed by fear in the world like fear of applying for a job or you know fear of flying on a plane or whatever the fear
We're so paralyzed by fear. And then when life happens, because it's going to happen to all of us, we're going to have to respond to the situations that happen to us in our life. So I want to talk ship. know, fear is a significant factor in high stakes negotiation. And what techniques you're using is key during negotiation. And so can you share a little bit
how to manage fear and maintain composure when you're trying to negotiate anything.
Chip (38:17.438)
Absolutely. One of the, I guess, leading concepts that we talk about is the idea of the dial -in method or reversing the focus. So, for example, as a hostage negotiator, I actually never negotiated with anyone. That wasn't my job. It's kind of a misnomer. My job was to convince that person who had a gun to somebody's head in that
to value what I valued, which was life, which was peaceful surrender, which was releasing the hostages. Now it didn't start there. It never started there, right? Because they're way escalated. They're in crisis mode. They've got that reptilian brain online and their analyticals are all the way down if at all present. So my job was to slowly, like Adele was saying in the convincing
to bring them down from, want $20 million and a jet to, hey, can you help me get out of here alive? That was the idea. Now that's a process. But in order to get there, I had to dial into that person to such a degree that everything else falls away. Here's what I mean, is that if I'm thinking about he's
five people in there. He's got a gun. And if I'm focusing on the gun, Melissa, I'm lost because all I'm thinking now is bad outcomes. That guy's got a weapon. He's violent. He's, you know, he's up and down. He's he's, know, obviously in crisis mode. What if I say the wrong thing? What if I do that? And I'm thinking about the gun and what it can do. So instead of thinking about the
for and for your example, for executives that are dealing with a high pressure situation, what is that thing that is like a gun to them? It could be, I gotta make this number. If I don't get this number in negotiation, my boss is gonna eat me alive. Or I know if I miss the second point here and I don't come through on it, I'm dead. Whatever that gun is for you, get it out of your head and focus instead on that individual.
Chip (40:43.55)
that you're dealing with. Yeah, go ahead, Adele.
Adele Gambardella (40:44.878)
Can I just add something real quickly? Because I just think this is such a poignant thing. Have you guys been watching the Olympics? I mean, it has just been, right? It is so interesting. Okay, so last night, and I don't want to date the podcast, but last night there were a bunch of gymnasts and there was this high beam activity, right? And the best girl, the best girl fell off the high beam. And then the girl after her, she fell. And then the next girl, she fell and so on and so forth. I mean, like they all fell.
And the girl who won the gold medal was like, I can't believe I won the gold medal because I just did the routine as I needed to. She didn't fall. That's how she got the gold medal. She just did not fall. And I think that that is just such an interesting through line to what you just said, Chip. I think there's emotional contagion. If you see someone in stressful situations, if you think about their stress and you take it on, it can actually make you less effective.
It can make you less in the game, less in the moment and less likely to get the outcomes you want in business. And so I think you've got to take what Chip's saying and take their stress, understand it and then detach from it. How do you do that, Chip? Like how do you detach from it? Yes, I'm sorry, Melissa, go on. But yeah, but it's interesting.
Melissa Aarskaug (42:03.39)
Great point. I think you're right. Cause there, call them flashy, shiny things. The gun could be one of the flashy, shiny things. There's a ton of distractions. It could be the bar. It could be the audience. It could be the noise. It could be all the things that's going on around you. and these athletes are, you know, they're in interesting living conditions. There's people yelling. There's a lot going on. People are yelling. They're in, they're in a high pressure, high staked environment and they all want the gold.
So to kind of your point is you don't focus on the rain that's outside or the beam that's this or the yelling of the crowd. You focus on your mission. Your mission is to get gold and it's to land on that beam. It's across the finish line. And there's gonna be people that are trying to get you off your game, like everything in life. People are like, you know, she's a really good speaker or he's really good at business. And there's always gonna be these people that are taking us off our game.
Adele Gambardella (42:48.088)
So good.
Melissa Aarskaug (43:01.168)
And that is where what you guys are talking about is key because when you can focus on your game, whatever your game is, and get the emotion out of it and forget about the gun and focus on getting that person out of the room safely, and you can sound convincing and calm. And you can kind of, I don't want to, you know, metaphysically say like throw your energy over the line, but really.
Adele Gambardella (43:24.994)
But you can, you can.
Melissa Aarskaug (43:26.34)
Show them you mean what you say. And so you're right. think Adele, you're spot on. And Chip, I'd love to also get your perspective on
Chip (43:35.71)
Yeah, and it's that simple. It's about, you you have to remember, whose crisis is this? You know, not yours. You're there simply to help this person through that. I can't go in, knock the gun out of his hand, pull the hostages out. There's a reason that I have to use my voice to talk to him, but I'm not caught up into what is going on with that gun. I'm caught up with, let's deal with your issues.
Let you know, you're it today. We're gonna deal with you. You know, cause that's the only way I can help anybody. But yeah, that everything else falls away, right? I'm not thinking about the helicopters overhead or the squawking on the radios or the press that's outside or the sirens. I'm only focused in on what's in front of me, just
Adele Gambardella (44:10.882)
You dial in so much to that other person, right Chip?
Adele Gambardella (44:26.796)
Melissa, what you said about the metaphysical thing, it's so fascinating because when we wrote the book, we actually talked to a neuroscientist whose name is Michael Platt, Dr. Michael Platt. And he's such an interesting and inspiring person to follow. So definitely check out his stuff if you haven't. But one of the things he talks about is this idea of syncing, syncing with another person. So you're telling them stories, group activities. There's different ways in which you literally neurologically sync.
with another person. So what you're saying about the metaph - I mean, it's a thing. It's an actual thing in neuroscience at which if you dial into a person, if you sync with them at such a level, know, if Chip, I saw your eyebrow go off, you could be super effective, right? I mean, like maybe, maybe I'm getting too, am I getting too woo woo? Okay. It's really true, right?
Chip (45:17.866)
No, no, not at all. No, that's the principle.
Melissa Aarskaug (45:18.714)
No, no, and I think you're right. You're right. So if you look at, I'll take one of my favorites, Michael Jordan. I'll take Simone Biles we saw with her, her with a gold. You know, they're focusing on what they're doing, right? Everybody's trying to pressure, is she going to get another gold? Is she not going to get another gold? Now, when she hears she's not going to get another gold, she can either say,
A, screw them, I'm getting a gold anyway, and move it out of her mind and focus on the gold. Or she could say, you're right. I didn't practice enough. I'm not strong on this. The other girl's stronger. I'm not sure. I'm not feeling great. My stomach's hurting. And we could go down this deep, deep dark rabbit hole of overthinking, over -processing. And so there is some truth to that. As an athlete, I've done a lot of visualizing myself across the finish line.
Adele Gambardella (45:47.896)
Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (46:14.674)
you know, being better than I really was and really just focusing on not so much everything that was around me, but what was I could control, right? And, and we can't control the gun. We can't control the people on the other side, but we can control how we're reacting and what we can control in our environment. So you're all.
Chip (46:24.084)
There it is.
Adele Gambardella (46:34.862)
Melissa, can you unpack that just, I find what you just said so interesting. Could you, for me, could you unpack the idea of how do you get yourself out of that bad space? I mean, I just think that's something nobody really talks about. It's like that overthinking, that over analyzing, that rumination so many of us do. How do you pull yourself out of that? Because there's a comfort.
Melissa Aarskaug (46:41.468)
Yeah!
Adele Gambardella (47:04.916)
in the failure, isn't there? Because the failure is sort of predictable. The success is what's unpredictable. How would you advise people to get out of that loop? I'm sorry, I'm dying to
Melissa Aarskaug (47:17.018)
No, it's a good question. Yeah, I think, know, I grew up, you know, I was way behind scholastically starting and so many people are like, she's not gonna do this. She's not gonna be doing that. And I'll give like my early childhood credit to my dad, cause he sat me down young and he said, hey, look, everybody's gonna tell you, you can't, you have to decide if you can or you can't and get rid of all the noise. So I think,
a lot of it's practice, like how do we get good at negotiation? How do we get good at confidence confidence, we don't just all wake up with confidence. We're not born with it. None of us are born with it. We have to fall off our bike and get back on the bike again and fall off again and scratch our knee and realize you know, got to slow down downhill. And I think it's just practice. And then when there's that noise around us, like the people that are like, why did you post that or
Why are you wearing that? Or, hey, you're really aggressive in these emails. It's part of its awareness, I believe, that if somebody, I've been told all kinds of things that I absolutely disagree with, and I tell that person, I'm sorry you feel that way, I have many others who would disagree, and I give them back that energy, right? Because I'm not taking on their belief that they think that I'm not smart enough to finish first grade.
So I'm like, I'm sorry you feel that way. And my dad feels that I'm gonna pass it. So I'm gonna focus on that, right? So give it back, give that negative, you know, when I had a child older, people are like, no, you're gonna be in the hospital. You're not gonna be able to do it. You're too old. And I just, you know, I joke Adele. I was telling people, hey, I'm making a baby here. Take back your negative energy. And I think it's just as simple as that, is deciding what you let in and what you let out. And when
Question yourself. Like I'm sure all these athletes are like, God, can I do it? So and so is better. So and so is faster. Focusing on you. Yep, I'm gonna get gold. I'm gonna hit the finish line. I'm gonna get a PR. I got this. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling healthy. know, sometimes you gotta move your body to do it, right? Like you sit all day, you're like, you know, sluggish. You gotta get up and move. So I
Chip (49:29.162)
Thanks man.
Melissa Aarskaug (49:35.112)
You know, I'm not sure if I answered your question, but I think really it's not taking in all the negativity that's around us these days and then pushing it back out. And if there is validation for some of it, let's say someone gives you something that you agree with, work on it. Right? I've been given all kinds of advice that I disagree and agree with it. Some I flushed down the toilet and others of it I actually worked on and made myself a better person and a better leader. And so I
Adele Gambardella (49:42.05)
like pushing some of it out too, right? Pushing it back, yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (50:04.454)
It's up to us to decide whose noise we're gonna take on in a world that's constantly moving faster, constantly changing. You know, we're all gonna struggle with, you know, what you guys teach, right? We're all gonna struggle with making tough decisions. so I think it's just practice too, Adele.
Adele Gambardella (50:28.75)
You know, early on in my career, had someone say, like, you know, you're just not a really good writer. I'm like, I'm like, OK, that's an interesting piece of feedback. where did that come from? Because I've always been told all my life that I'm a good writer. I'm like, maybe they've got some feedback. But then I went and I looked.
And I realized they're not a good writer. They weren't a good writer. And it made me go like, don't really take, why am I taking criticism from someone else? I don't respect. I don't think has more talent than me. It's like, I think sometimes we don't analyze that. We just take in that like insult and we internalize it instead of going, who is this? is saying it? Who is the messenger? Cause that's also one of those things, right? That can get you out of that dark spiral.
Chip (51:01.8)
Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (51:22.312)
right? Do you respect them? Are they do they have what you want? Whatever it is that you want. So if you want to if you're an aspiring CEO, or an aspiring mom, or an aspiring aspiring gardener, to the person that's giving you feedback, have what you want, or do they have the skill set if they don't, and they're not, they could just be, you know, giving you noise trying to tear you down all those kind of negative words that go with it. So
Adele Gambardella (51:36.717)
Yeah.
Melissa Aarskaug (51:49.746)
We get to decide that as humans and that's up to us and our individual lives and our community that can pull that forward for us. But I wanna just kind of in closing get each of your just final thoughts or anything that we, I know we've covered a lot of ground, anything that we may have missed or anything that you wanna share with our listeners as we close
Adele Gambardella (52:12.514)
The one thing I would say is that there was a study done just last year on judgment and decision -making. And it said that most of us are as convincing as we will ever be at age six. And if you're a mom and your moms are listening, parents are listening, know, kids that are six are pretty convincing. They're pretty good negotiators, right? By the time you're six, you understand supply and demand, self -interest. mean, like all kinds of really high, high level negotiation tactics. But most of us
at about first grade from being convinced because if we sulked in the playground, we're likely going to sulk in the office because it got us where we wanted to go. So what I would just implore people to do is to take on this book, to read it, to study it, to actually implement these tactics, some of which make you uncomfortable, or maybe some of which you don't want to implement because you've always done it a certain way and you've gotten pretty good results. What I would say is maybe it's you. Maybe.
Some of the strategies that you've used that haven't gotten you the results you want, you've wanted is because you're not willing to adapt. You're not willing to try new things because it's scary. And what I would say is go try a thing or two in our book, just one or two, and you'll be so much more convincing as a
Melissa Aarskaug (53:28.126)
And that's a really great point. One thing at a time, not 10 things, right? You keyed one really important nugget is one thing you can't implement 50 strategies. You can't implement one, and I would suggest the one that is closest to achieving success, right? Whatever the easiest low -hanging fruit is, hit that first and then kind of strengthen your muscle and go for the harder thing. So I love that you mentioned one.
Chip, any of your final thoughts that we may have missed?
Chip (54:02.73)
You know, I just would like to emphasize and encourage just like Adele just did is that, you know, these skill sets, like the forensic listening, you know, even if you're just, you know, you can cobble together, all right, I'm listening to the voice here and I'm paying attention to the themes or, you know, just bringing some of that in to the four ways of observing somebody, use one or two of them, but you're going to get better as you do this, right? It's about reps. And if you do reps in the right
that we advocate, you're gonna be so much more ahead of the person that just is mailing it in, because you're trying, you're trying to make a connection.
Melissa Aarskaug (54:45.67)
Absolutely well said. I thank you both so much for being here your time. Get their book connect with them. That's the executive connect podcast.