#198 | From the Vault: ‘The World’s Best Negotiator’ Herb Cohen Reveals the Secrets to Negotiating Anything

Douglas Vigliotti shares an interview “From the Vault” of his previous podcast “It’s Not What It Seems”, with negotiation expert Herb Cohen, who has advised US Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, and Bill Clinton. Cohen shares his insights and experiences negotiating everything from personal relationships to business deals, like mergers and acquisitions, to terrorist and hostage situations, like his instrumental involvement in resolving the Iranian hostage crisis of the 1970s. Listeners will learn his best strategies and tactics to negotiate anything effectively! (Original publish date: 9/16/18.)

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Welcome back to Books for Men, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So. I'm going to be brief with this introduction to this from the Vault episode because it is a great conversation and I don't want to hold you from it. It is with a wonderful individual named Herb Cohen, who was at one time coined the world's best negotiator by Playboy Magazine, and he negotiated everything from mergers and acquisitions to hostage and terrorist situations. He was an advisor to US presidents like Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, and Bill Clinton. Most famously or notably his expertise assisted in resolving the Iranian hostage crisis during the late seventies, which he safely brought home 52 American citizens and diplomats or helped in doing so. He also participated in many negotiations with the Soviet Union, also the NFL Player strike of the 1980s, and then assisted in the Gulf crisis of the early nineties, as well.

(01:16)

So I had the pleasure of interviewing him all the way back in 2018. So September 16th, 2018 was originally when this conversation aired on my old podcast. It's not what it seems in the basis of the conversation is around his iconic business classic, “You Can Negotiate Anything,” during the conversation. You will hear what to learn about negotiation from kids, the three most crucial variables of any negotiation, why you shouldn't care too much in any negotiation. Also, the secret ingredient in any negotiation, why specifically Herb got called in to handle the Iranian hostage crisis and then how to handle what he calls Soviet style of negotiation. In totality, this was just a conversation that taught me a lot. The book taught me a lot when I originally read it, and then this conversation only deepened that, and it was one that I was truly honored to have and lucky to have.

(02:18)

So I'm thrilled to be able to bring this conversation back and share it with you guys. I think you'll get a lot out of it. I should mention that his son, Rich Cohen, recently published a book in 2022 called “The Adventures of Herbie Cohen: The World's Greatest Negotiator”. And so if you're interested more in Herb, that's probably a good place to start or obviously his book that this is based around, which is “You Can Negotiate Anything”. Now, before I jump into the conversation, since there won't be any closing on this episode, I wanted to just share with you a couple things. One, please. If you are a regular listener, remember to either subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on or share with a friend or a family member. Either one of those two things goes a long way in helping more people find the show and inspiring more men to read.

(03:17)

Also, as a reminder, my poem collection “mini heartbreaks (or, little poems about life) is now live on the podcast “Slightly Crooked: Good Stories, Told Well.” I read that in its entirety, all 74 poems. So if you're interested in that, I would definitely go over and check that out. And lastly, before we jump into this episode, for more information on the show or the podcast, you can visit BooksforMen.org where you can also get full transcripts for all of these episodes, as well as sign up for the monthly newsletter, which is just one email every month that rounds up all the episodes from that month with full book information, all the best quotes, episode summaries and newsletter only book recommendations. So again, if you're interested in that, you could sign up at BooksforMen.org. Alright, so that just about does it. Now. Without further ado, here is my conversation with negotiation expert, Mr. Herb Cohen.

Douglas Vigliotti

Herb Cohen, welcome to the show.

Herb Cohen (04:26)

Thank you very much.

Douglas Vigliotti (04:28)

So I'm really, really excited to have you. I think this is going to be a great conversation. I just don't think the average person is that great at negotiating, and I don't even know if people consider it as a skill they can get better at. I think most people just try to avoid it, which is kind of odd because of how relevant it seems to be in our lives, not just in business, but personally, whether it's kids or spouses or friends, but pretty much are negotiating everything all the time. So with that being said, I'm really, really excited to have this conversation with you. And I remember you actually saying something and maybe I read it in your book. You can negotiate anything you said. Anything that's been negotiated can be negotiated. I thought this would be a good starting point for us because I've tried to say that to other people and then my tongue gets tied and I don't even know how to explain it sometimes. So maybe you can elaborate. What does that mean? Anything that's been negotiated can be negotiated.

Herb Cohen (05:19)

Any price or any principle or rule comes about with one single exception as a result of a negotiation. Now, what's the exception? Things that are not negotiable. In other words, ethical, moral, and religious principles don't come about as a result of a negotiation. Moses didn't go up to Mount Sinai and the Almighty said, I think we should have 15 commandments. Moses was saying, I was thinking maybe five. And the Lord said, let's split the difference. That's not how it happened. The Sermon on the Mount was not negotiated, though Christ didn't get together with his followers and say, Hey, give me your input. We'll come up with some principles. Since those items were not the product of the negotiation, I would contend they're not negotiable. But everything else is You see a sign, checkout time at the hotel at 1:00 PM you go there, there's a big crowd at 12 o'clock, you come back at one 20, no one's on the line. Everyone has already checked out. Well, I know from experience that you can move up the checkout time, and I've gotten checkout time as late as 5:00 PM the next day when I was in the corporate world and I have been in the corporate world, decide on the price of an item, the accounting people would say, I think it should be $600. We'll make profit. The salespeople said, I think it should be five 20. We'll sell more. Some guy got together and said, Hey, how can we work this out? And suddenly that becomes the price, and they put a sign on top of the refrigerator or on top of the sofa and people, they back off signs. But anything that comes about as a result of a negotiation is negotiable.

Douglas Vigliotti (07:23)

So anything that's been previously negotiated?

Herb Cohen (07:26)

Well, everything's been negotiated. It's like every relationship. See, negotiation is about reconciling differences, resolving dispute, managing conflict, and people have different points of view. And when someone has an asking price, it's an asking price. As I once said to my late wife, it's not a wanting price even it's an asking price. They ask and you ask. And so you work something out. See, it's the way you go about doing this it you're an arrogant person. And if you give people ultimatums and you make demands and you come across very strong and super silliest, condescending manner, it's going to be hard for you to negotiate. But one of the things I believe in is if you approach people with what I call low keo of calculated incompetence, and you act like you don't know, even if you think you know, because in negotiation and in personal relationships, dumb is better than smart. Inarticulate is better than articulate. And you want to train yourself to say, I don't know, I don't understand. Help me. And when you do that, the other side responds favorably and virtually everything is negotiable. In fact, when I wrote my first book, which was called You Can Negotiate Anything, I was on TV and I was promoting the book and everyone would challenge me and they'd take cameras. One was in Gucci's and I actually negotiated with Aldo Gucci. In fact, I gave that up when someone had me negotiating a hot dog at the Atlanta Airport just to prove that I could do it, and I did it. My point is, sure you can do it. See people, their expectations are much too low. I'll give you an example of people, yeah, do it. All your listeners know as good negotiators. If you've got children or know someone with children, you have nieces, nephews, or observed kids. They seem to get what they want. These are little people in a big person's world, they have no authority and absolutely no power, yet they seem to get a hell of a lot. They are really good in dealing with parents. Now, what do kids do? Well, number one, they aim high because they understand that if you ask for more, you get more. And so they have high expectations. Second thing that kids do is they form alliances. When the father says no, they go to the mother, the mother says No, they unify. They go to grandparents, and grandparents get on their side. Why? Because they have something in common. They have a common enemy, the parents. So kids know all this stuff. And as a result, they're really very effective negotiators.

Douglas Vigliotti (11:04)

That's a very interesting concept. I've never heard it put quite that way. And they also definitely take the, I don't know, position, right? There's a lot of things that kids just don't know. So they're constantly saying that, right?

Herb Cohen (11:16)

Yeah, they don't know. They ask parents to help them. They aim high, they form coalitions. And in addition, see, kids know that no, no is not anything final. It's really an opening bargaining position. And if you surprise someone with a request or a demand, their first reaction, if they have any brains, is to say, no. Why? Because they say no. And then they move to yes, you like 'em. Hey, what a flexible person. But if they say yes precipitously, and then they say, oh, I just thought about that. No, we call that re nagging, and that's not a positive term. And so kids know that no means no at this particular moment in time. If I'm tenacious, if I'm persevering, I could change that no to a yes. And the way you change it is not, they don't, people parents don't go from no to. Yes, they go from no to, no, I don't think so. To, well, I don't know. Let me think about it. Well, maybe a little bit. Okay, all right. So if you're stay in there, you change the game. I myself, I'm the parent of three children. My wife and I had three children. We have them. And the first child, I spent a hell of a lot of child rearing time with that child that was my daughter, and we had rules and we had values. We insisted she'd adhere to that stuff. Second child, we had the same values, but we had a few more exceptions. Third kid, I was a tired person. And I remember saying to my youngest, why don't you ask your brother and sister? They'll tell you how it used to be around here. And so these kids warm me down, and kids are good at that. And so kids make things happen. And so if you take those four qualities, which I've tried to elaborate on, and you apply that to everyday life, you become a negotiator and you become an excellent negotiator. And the way to become a negotiator is to negotiate. So you have people in our government who know nothing about negotiating, for example.

Douglas Vigliotti (13:51)

Keep going. Let's hear this. I think the listeners will be glad to hear this. Let's hear what you have to say.

Herb Cohen (13:57)

Well, with all due respects, and this is not political either way, John Kerry, when he was Secretary of State, he never negotiated anything in his entire life. You think he buys wholesale, he pays retail. The only thing he specializes in is acquiring very rich wives, and his current wife is the widow of the Hines fortune.

Douglas Vigliotti (14:24)

Let me ask you, do you think it's important then to understand what your specialty is and then build around? If you're not a great negotiator, would it be appropriate to suggest that you should look to add somebody who is a good negotiator to your team?

Herb Cohen (14:40)

Absolutely. See, when you're an executive in a corporation, which is something that I was in three major corporations, and I, by the way, at the bottom, I started as a claims adjuster on the streets of New York where there were 8 million sagas in the naked city. And every day there was another saga. And that's how I learned how to negotiate. People think, well, you must've been born with this. No, I wasn't born with this. I was a dummy like everybody else. In fact, my family came to America. They were very young, they were immigrants, and they were so happy to be here. They paid retail for everything they never negotiated. And in fact, they were over-insured, but never made a claim because they thought, well, they'll cancel my policy or they'll raise my rates. And so they were very timid. They really didn't negotiate. And by the way, don't get me wrong, if you ask me, oh, so you negotiate everything? No, no, I don't. But if it's something that's of great substance and it won't require much time, do I negotiate? Yeah, but see, the seller knows what he can do in terms of price. He know what he paid for the item, he knows what his inventory is, he knows or she knows when the renters do. And so if they sell you something, they know what they're doing. See, the buyer is someone that's really in the dark, but the buyers, the people are listening right now have tremendous leverage why they got money. Money is a fungible commodity. If I don't buy this car here, I buy this car somewhere else. So as far as the seller is concerned, money walks and money talks, the only thing it doesn't say is when and if it's coming back.

Douglas Vigliotti (16:57)

So let me ask you, do you think it's easier to negotiate for yourself or for somebody else? Because obviously negotiated as a career, but you had made mention that you don't negotiate always on your own behalf or for things all the time. Is it easier or harder to do one or the other?

Herb Cohen (17:15)

Yes. It's hard to negotiate for yourself because one of the things you want to do as a negotiator is don't fall in love with something. Don't get too emotional about it. I use the expression in my second book, you want to care, really care, but not that much. You want to recognize, hey, this situation is a blip on the radar screen of eternity. It's a walnut in the batter of life. And so never fall in love with a material thing. What you want to do is fall in with it and be prepared to walk out. In other words, you want to balance responsible, reasonable despair with a rational exuberance, a rational exuberance meet you really excited and reasonable despairs you can't, but not that much. And so that's the appropriate balance. Fact, I'll tell you one story. Many years ago, General Motors put the Chevrolet engine in Oldsmobile cars. I don't know if you remember this, probably before your time. And this was the Rocket Olds engine, and they ran out of them. And so they decided General Motors will put Chevrolet engines in the Oldsmobile cars. Well, ultimately the public found out about it, and they brought a massive class action lawsuit. And so ultimately I was brought in there to help settle a matter, and I was there with the plaintiffs on one side of the table and General Motors and their lawyers, executives on the other side. And because I wasn't picking up on what they said or acted like, I didn't care that much. General Motors was getting aggravated with me, and they implied I would never work for General Motors again. My whole career would go down and drain. And I remember it was a very formal setting. In fact, I even remember the hotel we were in. We were at the Hyatt in Chicago, right, on Michigan Alien. And I remember standing up, which is unusual, and I remember saying, I'm 60 years of age, and when I look back on my life, I realize I was blessed. I had a good life. I have three children. They're healthy, my wife's healthy. We make a reasonable living. And so if I died tomorrow, I would've said it was good, you see? And if I died, it would be without having worked for General Motors. So I decided I don't have to work for General Motor to have a good life, and these guys were bewildered by this knit, that's me. And I sat down. As soon as I sat down, I said, okay, we'll give you 12 million.

Douglas Vigliotti (20:29)

They wanted you to stop.

Herb Cohen (20:30)

Yeah, because I wasn't taking this thing that seriously. I don't take anything that seriously unless it involves a human being and a person's life or wellbeing.

Douglas Vigliotti (20:46)

I think one of the things is, I know I always kind of point to this with some of my work, is the distinction between fear and danger. And a lot of things just aren't as, they don't have irreversible outcome. So they're not truly dangerous. You're not jumping out of a plane, you're not skydiving you, you're having a conversation with somebody or you're negotiating with somebody. You might be afraid of it, but that's really just something that's built up in your mind. And it's not like you can't recover from one misstep, one wrong word choice or one wrong statement. So I think that's a great takeaway. You've been called throughout your career, you've been called the world's best negotiator. And I know that that's subjective, I guess, but I'll go with it and I believe it. But when I read it, I kind of thought to myself, the world's best. When you consider it, when you think of anything about world's best, whether it's world's best chocolate or world's best car or whatever it is, there's usually a secret ingredient or there's usually a key ingredient or a key process or a secret process that makes it the world's best. So if you had to name maybe one thing that maybe would be the key ingredient into being the world's best negotiator, what would be that key ingredient?

Herb Cohen (21:59)

I try not to get too emotionally involved. You asked earlier why maybe I'm less effective negotiating for myself in negotiating with my children. I don't think I was effective as negotiating with strangers. So I think it's your attitude to pick up on what this program is about. Things are seldom what they seem. Even skim milk masquerades as cream, we live in the world of illusion, and most of what people are afraid of are things that aren't even there. And what you want to do in life is take risk, but incremental or moderate risk, you can operate at high levels of stress if the way you get there is incrementally bit by bit by bit. See, because the human mind is like a reciprocating engine. What happens if you hit the gas pedal and give too much gas? The car spurts sputters, it cos out. And the way to start and move a car is give a little gas and then a little more, and then you're on your way and that's the way your mind works. And so gradually you do things and if you can, you get some support. See, it's hard to be alone, but once you have a partner, someone to rely on, someone will give you feedback. You're much better off. Therefore, what's the ideal group of people you want negotiating? Three people, two people. You want someone who just listens and takes notes.

Douglas Vigliotti (23:58)

That's interesting. And I tend to find what you're saying to be kind of, maybe it's enlightening. I don't know. It's interesting, right? Partner. I think people often assume when they're doing anything that involves conflict, that it has to be high stress and it has to be very difficult to do. And I think what you're alluding to is maybe at secret ingredient is making it as non-stressful as possible and treating it as almost as if we're going to approach this as a conversation, we're going to approach this as a problem to solve with each other. We're not going to approach this as a conflict because we know that there's a conflict. We know that I want $10 and you want $1, I want 10 million and you want 1 million. We know that. But if we can approach it as a problem to solve, then I think that's some of what we're getting at here. One of the things that I think people, I don't think people wake up and they think of themselves, I want to be a professional negotiator. I don't think that it's, I mean the people say law maybe, but negotiating not so much. Do you remember at all your first negotiation that you got paid for or how that came to be? If someone's out there and they're like, I want to be a negotiator. I want to learn how to become a negotiator, do you remember your first negotiation, how that all happened?

Herb Cohen (25:18)

What happened to me is I came back from military service and I went to college, finished my fourth year. This was at the time of the Korean War, and I met my wife in the cafeteria. She was a freshman. A year later we got married. So I am now concluding my first year of law school, she's finished her first year of college. We get married and we realize we have no money. And so I decide to switch from day law school to night. I get a job, I answer an ad in the paper it says claims adjuster. I don't know what a claims adjuster is because my parents never made a claim, but they paid you $350 and they gave you a company car. I needed a car. Of course, they take this job and essentially what I'm supposed to do is settle claims, get people to agree, and then you interact with them and they think this is fair, and you write them out a check. And I find out that at the end of a month, everyone is settling two cases, three cases. I'm settling 14 and I'm also going to law school, so I'm not working that much. So suddenly they all realize, how the hell are you doing this? Could you tell everyone else what you are doing? And so I start riding around with other adjusters. Then ultimately, I began to teach a three week course in negotiation. This is 1963, and I didn't have any material. It wasn't very much written then. The only thing that was written was really about game theory. And so I tried to understand what I would do to become successful and put this in a three-week course. And then I kept getting promoted in this corporation. And then I was an officer in the company. And then I went to another company. Actually I started with Allstate Insurance Company, and then I was an officer there, and then I went to Sears, which was then the largest retailer in the world. In fact, in that book, you can negotiate anything. I started out talking about everything you could say to Sears to get them to negotiate. And people would come up to me and say, you obviously don't know Sears. Sears is a one price store. You cannot negotiate. I was a corporate executive in Sears. In fact, Sears bought 40,000 soft copies of my book when it came out. They were cheap. They didn't even bought a hardback book, but I knew about them. And then I went to work for IBM, and then I went out on my own and I taught at the University of Michigan. I have a checkered career, but we limit ourselves. And it's all about perception and perception is reality. See, we don't see things as they are. Each of us see things as we are. We're captive of the pictures in our brain and the experience we had. And so we limit ourselves where the product of habituation see, things start out like cobwebs, but then they become shackles. People say they do something so often they assume that's the only way to do it. And I could show you all sorts of things to make that particular point. We don't see what's there. We're not cameras.

Douglas Vigliotti (29:24)

So how do we account for that in a negotiation? If you're trying to get through to somebody, say that you're negotiating between two people are negotiating. And that means there's two different realities in play in this negotiation, right? Yeah. You have your reality and their reality. How do you attempt to see the world from there’s?

Herb Cohen (29:39)

You say things like this. See, when you're dealing with demands, demands are different because people are different based upon their experience, based upon their expectation. So when someone says, I want this $6,000 or whatever, okay, you say to them not well, you can only get four. You don't say that. You say, how'd you come up with the six? I don't understand. Can you explain it to me? See if you can get below the surface. You got to remember, people are different. Everybody's different. If there was anybody here, exactly you, there'd be no reason for you to be here.

Douglas Vigliotti (30:32)

Just so I'm understanding you correctly, really what you're trying to do is reframe that question to understand the process that they got to something.

Herb Cohen (30:38)

Yes, I want to understand how they came up with that number and then I could understand them. See, since we really are not alike, for years, people would use the analogy of a pie. Well, they 12 slices in this pie. If I get six, you get six. But if I get seven, you only get five. Now that presupposes that you like that pie. As much as I like the pie that you value the crust as much as I value it, that the amount of apples in the pie you like and you don't like that syrupy stuff. And I have identical likes and needs as you do. I mean, I've sat down with people. I order a slice of pie, I eat that slice of pie. I've been with people you wouldn't believe this, who only eat half of the pot or half of the slice. They actually leave over. I don't leave over because I was raised with the belief that people are starving in India and China and I don't want to leave over food.

Douglas Vigliotti (31:46)

So I think that plays perfectly into one of your three crucial variables of negotiation information. So it's time, power, and information. And how much information do we know about the two parties that are negotiating for this pie? Do we know? Do they even pie? Do they not like pie? What kind of pie do they like? So let's talk about those three crucial variables for a moment. Time, power, and information. And maybe we could quickly touch on each one and we can use maybe one negotiation example. I'm trying to think of one that maybe let's use, let's use a car. Let's use negotiating for a car so we have time, because I think that's probably really relevant to a lot of listeners no matter what they do. So let's talk about information. How does information into negotiating for a car?

Herb Cohen (32:42)

Well, first of all, you use your lead time. See, negotiating is a process. What many people think is that negotiation starts when you go into the car dealer and you sit down with him. Okay? No, that's like the central core of negotiation, probably best call bargaining. It's very much like a relationship with your wife. What there is is something called you should pardon the expression, foreplay. There's foreplay, there's interplay, there's the physical interaction, and there's after play.

Douglas Vigliotti (33:22)

Alright, we need all three.

Herb Cohen (33:23)

You need all three. Well, if you want to have a good relationship, women understand this better than men because they play music, they look at you, they smile, they make you a meal, whatever the hell they do. And then there's maybe physical touching. And then afterward, I don't think it's a good idea to turn over and go to sleep. You got to go through the whole process. Well, negotiating is the same way. So what I do with a car, whatever everyone should do is one, you use the internet today to look up the prices and they will tell you what a reasonable price should be for that particular dealer. Then you may try one particular dealer and see what they have to say, and then go to another dealer. In fact, get a card from the first dealer and put it down on the desk when you speak to the second guy who's right in your neighborhood, who you want to do business with, and you'll get a very good price. So you want information. And very often you can get information from the people you don't even negotiate with. You just walk around the showroom and ask people to work there.

Douglas Vigliotti (34:46)

So let me ask you this. How would you, just to stay on this whole overarching concept of information, how would you negotiate in a situation to use a car? Example, you knew the other side had more information than you.

Herb Cohen (34:58)

The other side is the deal. Of course they have more information. And then some people think they don't, but they do. And you just walk in there and say, Hey, I'd like to buy a car, help me. And you see what they say. And these are not people that are especially skilled at negotiating because unless it's a used car dealer in a big city, when your car breaks down on the highway somewhere, and this is the only guy around, he's a used car dealer and you need a car that's a one-time transaction, he's going to do his best to shaft you and you recognize that. But if you're dealing with a local guy who wants your business for a long period of time, if he's smart, what he does is he gives you a reasonable price where he makes a profit and it's a profitable deal for you. So the more information you got, the better off you are. And then if you walked out and say, well, no, I don't think so. I'll go to this other guy. And he may say to you, look, Mr. Cohen, look Doug, why don't you take my card and give me a call when you change your mind, never take his card, give him your card and say to him, Hey, when things change a little bit, why don't you call me? And by the way, within the next week, within the next month, you got a personal guarantee from me. You're going to get a call from the guy. Because his boss, the sales manager said to him, Hey, this whole month you move one car. You know what I mean? We can't stay in business that way. You better start selling a car. And what the guy will do is he'll cut his commission, will do anything to sell you a car.

Douglas Vigliotti (37:04)

So I think that's actually a great piece of advice because I think a lot of people in that situation are going to take the card because they don't want to give their information to the person because they're like, oh, if I give my information to this person, they're going to call me nonstop. But you're saying that actually through the art of negotiating, that's actually the wiser move is to give your information and put them in no, give me a call.

Herb Cohen (37:25)

By the way, when I speak about something, it's something I've done a number of times. In fact, when I lived in Glencoe, Illinois, there was a car dealer I bought a car from who once said to me, do me a favor. He brought in the manager, I was too tough to handle. And the manager said he had one of his acting fits. It was like said, Mr. Cohen, you're the worst customer I ever had. You are here to, you don't just want to make a good deal. You want to steal my money? Yeah, take $20 here, you put a $20 on the table, take this, take this 20. That's what you want. So at the end of the negotiation, we were like $13 apart. And I said to him, by the way, I'll take my 20 guy gave it to me. And after that he said to me, do me a favor. You want to buy a car? I love to sell your car, but you don't have to come in. You could send your wife, you could send a child. It’s a true story.

Douglas Vigliotti (38:37)

That's funny. So let's talk about time. How does time play into all this?

Herb Cohen (38:42)

Well, concessions and agreements occur at the deadline no matter how far you are apart. If the other side perceives as a deadline, oh, it's like walking toward the abyss and you look down, oh my God, you're going to fall off a cliff. They suddenly become much more flexible. For example, when do people file income taxes? They file 15th, two, three days before the deadline, before April 15th for the most part. Now you'd say, yeah, because these are people that owe money. That's true. But according to the IRS statistics, even people that have money coming back wait to the deadline to file. And so everything occurs at the deadline. So therefore, even though you're far apart, things will close.

Douglas Vigliotti (39:43)

So would you suggest then maybe as another takeaway into going into a negotiation that before you start a negotiation to always set a deadline?

Herb Cohen (39:51)

The deadline. But what you want to do is say, get them to believe the deadline is literal. Okay. By the way, I'm talking about more competitive negotiations. You said something earlier, which is very true. You see, you start out negotiating, viewing it as an opportunity to solve a problem where you want both sides to come out as winners in this situation. And one of the reasons why you do that, see, even if the other side is ruthless and competitive, it's easy to go from nice to tough. You start out collaborative and then you toughen up a little bit and then maybe you go competitive. But it's hard to go from competitive back to collaborative. Where I say to you, look, the son of a gun, you'll take this oath. Perhaps I misspoke, I came on a bit. You can't do that. So what you do is you start out viewing this as a problem to be solved. But if you are in a more competitive situation, you know that deadlines are flexible because they come about as a result of a negotiation. They're not ethical or moral principles.

Douglas Vigliotti (41:11)

So anything that's previously been negotiated could be negotiated.

Herb Cohen (41:15)

You see? So I get you to believe the deadline is not flexible, but I'm thinking to myself, Hey, there's a deadline. There's a deadline. I don't take it literally. And even after the deadline, I don't stop negotiating. See what I say to you after the deadline, you are packing up your stuff, leaving, it's over. You're depressed. I say to you, now that it's over, where did I go wrong? What should I have done? What could I have done help me? And you know what they tell you, see, it's over, they think. But I view breakdowns as potential breakthroughs. Every exit is an entrance someplace else. Pathology is opportunity. And so you resurrect things that look like failures.

Douglas Vigliotti (42:08)

Okay, I love that line. Pathology is opportunity. That's one I'm going to reproduce in multiple ways. And the third element, the third crucial variable is power, right? So is power more of a perception thing too? So perceived power, is that more important than actual power?

Herb Cohen (42:25)

Yes. Power is based upon perception. If you think you got it, you convey it to the other side. Even if you don't have it, they think you got it. If on the other end, if you think you don't have it, even if you got it, they think you don't have it. So people underestimate themselves. They think, well, they're down on themselves for the most part because very often the other side's with a big corporation, the other side seems to be more experienced. But no, you have more power than you think. In fact, I use the analogy very often of a prison is in solitary confinement. When you're in solitary confinement, they take away your belt and your shoe license and the guy's walking around holding up his pants, he decides he has a craving for cigarette, he knocks on the steel door and the God comes over, what do you want? He says, I'd like a cigarette, please. The God slams the steel thing in his face. He goes back again and knocks on the door and the guy says, I told you, what do you want? And the guy said, look, I want a cigarette. And if I don't get the cigarette from you, I intend to beat my head up against the stonewall till I'm bloody and unconscious. And when they revive me, I intend to swear that you did it. Now as far as the God is concerned, he believes he will be vindicated, but he's thinking all the paperwork involved that I'll have to fill out all the hearings I have to go through. Will he give you the cigarette? Yeah, he may even give you a half a pack. So my point is, you have more power than you think you have. You can't show me a situation where I don't know power.

Douglas Vigliotti (44:18)

So this kind of goes back to that original thing that you said in regards to negotiation. Your goal in negotiation is to care but not care that much. So I have this thinking that what we give power to then has the ability to make us powerful or powerless. So if you're not giving people power by theoretically not caring, therefore they can't make you powerless, right? Or powerful at that matter. You're taking control of the power by your attitude as you approach it. So I think that kind of came full circle there. So I kind of want to spin out of this just for a moment and talk about something that maybe reflects a little bit back on your life. So you've had the honor of working with presidents, different administrations, and I was wondering if as you look back on life, was there maybe one who maybe left an impression on you and what was that impression that they left on you?

Herb Cohen (45:10)

Well, they all, every president, I worked with them for the most part. You don't work with the president. I wasn't high enough to spending time a lot of time, yes, I spent many an hour sitting around at the office talking sports with the younger President Bush, who by the way, I did spend a couple hours once at the convention with him at the Republican convention, and he really knows his baseball.

Douglas Vigliotti (45:46)

Yeah, he is the Rangers, right?

Herb Cohen (45:48)

The Rangers, yeah. Well, he was involved with the Rangers, but he was talking to me about the Miracle Giants and Bobby Thompson's home run. He knew who played each position and Whitey Lockman and who got on. And he was really surprised me. But in any event, all of them had certain ingredients that you found refreshing. But some presidents, like some people, there's many different forms of intelligence and some people were like good mathematically or they really knew a lot of detail, but they had a hard job in my opinion, in dealing with people in other cultures like President Carter, I thought who was the real classy guy in many ways, he tended to ascribe his beliefs to the people we were dealing with. And that's a mistake.

Douglas Vigliotti (46:54)

It's like going back to we don't see things as they are. We see things as we are.

Herb Cohen (46:58)

It's like our current president going and negotiate with the Koreans and believing in the North Koreans believing for one minute that they will keep a deal. Their word is not of any value whatsoever. And thinking Putin's a nice guy is like naivete maybe because I know a lot about the second World War. I remember Hitler's promise. No, I'll kick the Versailles Treaty. No, we'll just changed a little bit. And then he went into the Rhineland and then into Warsaw, and then he just wanted to Sudetenland. And then he took all the Czechoslovakia little stuff like that.

Douglas Vigliotti (47:42)

So you mentioned Jimmy Carter, and I think one of the things that you famously linked to is the Iranian hostage crisis, which was when 15 American citizens were held captive by Iran in the late seventies. You were instrumental in helping that in resolving that issue. How does that even happen? How do they call Herb Cohen and get him involved to make that happen?

Herb Cohen (48:06)

Well, at the time I was working for the Justice Department, but more significantly I was working for the FBI and I was one of the people that was involved in the development of the FBI's Hostage Negotiating Program. And this situation was seen early on as a hostage situation. Previously the Iranians had taken American hostages and let them go. I don't remember whether it was just before Khomeini came back from Paris or just after. And so that's what they saw it as. And I was talking to the FBI and the Justice Department at the time and would predict what would happen next. And I knew a lot about Islam. I knew the difference between she is and Sunnis, the difference between Arabs and Persians, which I think a lot of people did not know about. See, the head of the National Security Council was Brisky and Brisky was brought in because of his expertise dealing with the Soviet Union as this Polish background. And this occurred in the Middle East and it wasn't even where we expected it to occur. It occurred with the Iranians who spoke Farsi. I had been to Iran and had dealings with them. In fact, when I was in Germany at one time, I bumped into a, he wasn't an ayatollah, his name, his name was Beheshti. And when the hostage taking occurred, he was an ayatollah and he headed up the Islamic Republican party. And so all these things people recommended me and I ended up going to the White House and being involved. But then I was involved with other people afterward. I was involved with President Reagan, Bill Casey who when he was headed to CIA and Bill Clinton.

Douglas Vigliotti (50:19)

So it kind of goes back to that original point that you were making about understanding more information right about the other and not projecting your beliefs onto them. And it sounds like you were called into the Iranian hostage crisis because of your knowledge on Iranian culture or how they operate or how they, so I think that's quite interesting. In your book, you can negotiate anything you speak of. You speak about the Soviet style of negotiation, which is that basically like a pit bull coming straight at you take no prisoners win at all costs mentality. Is there a specific way that's better to handle that type of individual.

Herb Cohen (50:58)

Or you've got to know how the Soviets or the Russians negotiate? You see, you got to go back to their history. When they went into a state where they was disbanding the Soviet Union and everyone thought, oh, they'll be like a capitalist country. I knew that's not so they never had any history in the free enterprise system. And I could tell you a hundred stories where I was over there negotiating and you say, okay, how much is this one box, which is a handmade box? And they'd say It's 10 rubles. Okay, I'll get two. How much is it? 20 rules? I'll buy a hundred. How much is it? A thousand rules? They don't understand.

Douglas Vigliotti (51:45)

They're trying to get more and more and more and more and more, more.

Herb Cohen (51:47)

Yeah. We see with countries like Czech, Slovakia, Poland, they do understand because they've had some history in capitalism and free enterprise, but people are products of their experience and what they know.

Douglas Vigliotti (52:05)

In your opinion, from your perspective, I think a lot of people might be quite interested to hear your answers to this. Do you have an opinion on the ability of our current administration to negotiate with Russia right now?

Herb Cohen (52:17)

I don't see anyone with experience who's negotiating. I think, by the way, we have a very good ambassador. The gentleman from Utah, he used to be the ambassador to China. He's a Mormon. He comes from a very wealthy family and he's a brilliant guy. His daughter was on television, I forgot his name.

Douglas Vigliotti (52:44)

I don't know.

Herb Cohen (52:45)

But I don't know if they'll give him the authority to do what he has to do. And things I think are centrally controlled out of the White House. What you need is you need experienced people. You see negotiators are not born, they're made, they learn from experience. So what you got to do is make use of the State Department people that have a track record dealing with Russia and Soviet Union. And I negotiate a lot of places. And before I do, I really study up. I ask people, there's a Chinese proverb that says, if you want to know what the road ahead looks like, why don't you ask somebody who came back? So I am able to negotiate in China and have been there a number of times negotiating with the people's Republic of China. And my late wife who used to say to me, they're going to hate you here, you smart ass little Jewish guy from New York yet. Are you kidding? They'll throw us bump out of here in two days. They love me. They love me. Course. It's like a mutant from out of space. I never seen a guy like me. I tell people the most outrageous things. They laugh.

Douglas Vigliotti (54:06)

The saying dress for success. I have my own opinions on it, but I'm curious to hear your take on it. Do you think it matters when you're going into a negotiation?

Herb Cohen (54:14)

I think it's a damn joke. I've never been in a situation where the guy is saying, no, absolutely no, I'll never give you this. And suddenly you walk in and he goes, Hey, my God, I love the way you are. Put together, that matching tie. I love the cut of your garments. See, I was going to take a hundred thousand, but based on your clothing, I'll take 50. Are you kidding?

Douglas Vigliotti (54:42)

It might be the opposite, right?

Herb Cohen (54:44)

If a guy's dressed that good, you expect him to make the concession. I'm wearing jeans, I need the clothes, not him. Let him give me something.

Douglas Vigliotti (54:54)

Yeah. So I kind of fall under that same line of thought. So that's interesting. Well, this has been a lot of fun, Herb. I'm really excited and I'm really honored that you were able to make it on this show. With that being said, do you have any final ask for the audience, for the listeners, or anything that you want to tell them? Where's the best place? Maybe they could find out more about you online or anything?

Herb Cohen (55:16)

I'm not big on plugging myself, I guess people can look me up. I have a website that's probably 20 years old and it's herbcohenonline.com.

Douglas Vigliotti (55:31)

Excellent.

Herb Cohen (55:32)

But it's 20 years old and it's got all my personal opinions about things. I even recommend movies to people.

Douglas Vigliotti (55:40)

I think people would be happy to hear some movie recommendations from you. So, herbcohen online.com. That's great. So with that being said, we'll just have three final questions. They're going to be quick. You ready? Sure. What's one quote or motto that you've lived your life by?

Herb Cohen (55:56)

Do not abandon mature design to gratify a momentary passion.

Douglas Vigliotti (56:02)

Explain that. Do not abandon mature design to gratify a momentary passion.

Herb Cohen (56:04)

And I'll give you another quote.

Douglas Vigliotti (56:13)

Yeah, give me another one. That's a good one though. I like that.

Herb Cohen (56:16)

All that is required for evil to triumph is that people do nothing. The reason I wrote my first book was I wanted all people to feel they had power. And you have more power than you think. You have more control over your destiny. And you got to remember, see, you can't control what happens to you in life. What you can control is how you react to what happens.

Douglas Vigliotti (56:48)

I love that. So what's one book that's impacted the way you think?

Herb Cohen (56:52)

Several books. I used to Irwin Shaw's short stories. One of them was “The Eighty-Yard Run”. I thought that was going to be my life. It's about a guy who hits his peak in a practice at Yale and his life goes into the drain after that. And I thought that was my life.

Douglas Vigliotti (57:15)

But it turned out better than you thought?

Herb Cohen (57:17)

It turned out better. Better than I deserve. And I'm grateful for everything I have, which is mostly really the health of my children and grandchildren.

Douglas Vigliotti (57:28)

That's awesome. And last question, final question. What's one thing that you want to tell the world? It's not what it seems.

Herb Cohen (57:37)

There's people a concern with having and getting, and that's not what life's about. Life is about giving. You make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give.

Douglas Vigliotti (57:58)

Couldn't have picked a better message to end this conversation on Herb Cohen. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I truly, truly appreciate it. It's been a pleasure.

Herb Cohen (58:08)

Thank you for having me.

Douglas Vigliotti (58:09)

Absolutely.