Advanced Negotiation Strategies and Concepts: Hostage Negotiation Tips for Business Negotiators

Upset by a delay in the delivery of one of your products, a longtime buyer threatens to go public—or turn to the media—unless you meet his extreme demands. Suddenly, not only is the relationship at risk, but your company’s reputation may be on the line as well.

What should you do?

Surprisingly, one useful place to look is hostage negotiation strategy.

Before dismissing life-and-death negotiations as irrelevant to your professional life, consider the practical lessons crisis negotiators have learned. The techniques used to calm dangerous confrontations often translate well to business disputes, customer crises, and high-pressure negotiations.

In fact, many experts note that the same elements appear in both situations: high stakes, emotional intensity, limited preparation time, multiple decision makers, and outside interference.

And in today’s social media environment, business conflicts can escalate just as quickly as physical crises.

Why Crisis Negotiation Techniques Work in Business Disputes

Hostage negotiators train to handle situations where emotions are extreme and mistakes carry enormous consequences. While business negotiations are rarely so dramatic, the psychological dynamics are often similar.

Common features include:

• Heightened emotions
• Urgency and pressure
• Threats or ultimatums
• Limited time to prepare
• Multiple stakeholders
• Fear of reputational damage
• Outside audiences influencing outcomes

Because of these similarities, crisis negotiation techniques can help negotiators navigate tense professional situations more effectively.

Five Hostage Negotiation Techniques You Can Use at Work

The Negotiation Briefings newsletter has outlined five hostage negotiation strategies that also help diffuse professional negotiation crises.

1. Gain Control Through One-on-One Communication

In chaotic situations, too many voices increase confusion and escalation. Crisis negotiators work to establish a single line of communication.

In business disputes, designate one calm, trusted representative to speak with the upset party. This reduces miscommunication and emotional escalation.

2. Explore the Emotions Behind the Demands

Extreme demands are often driven by fear, frustration, or a desire to be heard.

Instead of arguing immediately over terms, ask questions:

• What concerns are driving this reaction?
• What outcome are they truly seeking?
• What problem are they trying to solve?

Often, once emotions are acknowledged, demands soften.

3. Let Time Help Defuse Emotion

In hostage negotiations, time is often an ally. As emotions cool, parties become more rational.

In business disputes, rushing to “fix” the issue can worsen matters. Allowing time for emotions to settle often produces more constructive conversations.

Patience is frequently more powerful than speed.

4. Help Solve Immediate Problems

Crisis negotiators focus on addressing short-term needs that lower tension.

Similarly, in business disputes, look for ways to solve urgent concerns:

• Offer interim solutions
• Provide updated timelines
• Create temporary workarounds
• Show visible efforts to fix the problem

Progress reduces panic.

5. Allow the Other Side to Save Face

Even when you secure a favorable outcome, helping the other side maintain dignity preserves relationships.

Allowing a counterpart to explain the resolution positively—to customers, leadership, or the public—makes future cooperation more likely.

Winning publicly at someone else’s expense often damages long-term relationships.

The Power of Patience in Difficult Negotiations

Few business negotiations last the 50 hours or more that some hostage negotiators endure. Still, their example offers an important lesson: patience and perseverance often resolve conflicts that force cannot.

Over time, anger tends to subside, positions soften, and creative solutions become possible.

When tensions run high, slowing down is usually wiser than rushing to closure.

Do you rely on any of these advanced negotiation strategies at the bargaining table? Share your experiences in the comments.

Related Articles:

How to DEAL with Threats – Here is a four-step process for dealing with threats from your counterpart at the negotiation table. While all negotiators will face difficult people in their careers, few have honed their ability to deal with uncooperative counterparts and may risk having their negotiations derailed if they respond to threats and belligerence ineffectively. Learn how threats impact the negotiation process and what integrative negotiators can do to head off the threat, neutralize it, and get negotiations back on track.

Think Like a Hostage Negotiator – Crisis negotiations, unlike many negotiation scenarios you will face, are high-pressure, intense situations sometimes involving life or death. As different as these scenarios may sound from a commercial or sales negotiation situation, there are many negotiation skills and negotiation tactics that hostage negotiators use that have real applicability for negotiators of all backgrounds.
Negotiation Skills: Threat Response at the Bargaining Table – Responding to threats in an effective manner is an essential skill for crisis negotiators but also has use for business negotiators and diplomats as well. Learn negotiating skills and negotiation tactics for dealing with threats at the negotiation table in an effective manner.
Police Negotiation Techniques and Negotiation Skills from the New York City Police Department Hostage Negotiations Team – Few teams of hostage negotiators have more experience in the field than the NYPD. In this article, we explore the negotiation strategies and negotiating tactics employed by the New York City Hostage Negotiations Unit, a part of the New York City Police Department.
With No Good BATNA, Police Negotiators Accept Texts – Text messaging and communication through electronic devices changes the dynamics of negotiation quite fundamentally. In this article we explore how police forces around the United States are embracing new technologies in order to talk with their counterparts in crisis negotiations.
Top 10 Business Negotiations of 2013 – Here is a list of the Program on Negotiation’s top ten business negotiations for 2013. From sales negotiations to international negotiations, these are the top negotiation case studies, news, and negotiation research for the year 2012.

Originally published in 2009.