EP 113 Matt Todd, Hostage Negotiator. "Words That Save Lives: The Power of Tactical Listening"

In this episode of the Security Circle podcast, host Yolanda interviews Matt Todd, a seasoned hostage negotiator with 30 years of experience in the police force. Matt shares insights into the world of hostage and crisis negotiation, discussing the importance of emotional intelligence, listening skills, and non-judgmental communication. He recounts stories from his career, including negotiating with individuals on the verge of suicide and handling high-stakes barricade situations. Matt also touches on the complexities of kidnap negotiations and provides practical advice on improving listening abilities in everyday life. The conversation highlights the emotional challenges faced by negotiators and underscores the critical role of empathy and understanding in resolving life-threatening scenarios.

Matt Todd, PhD - Director

Matt is a Director in the Security Risk Consulting business where he currently delivers kidnap incident management training and hostage/kidnap negotiation skills to global companies and governments around the world. Prior to this Matt served with three UK police forces for 30 years, working predominantly in the area of serious crime. For the past 18 years, Matt has specialised in hostage and crisis negotiation.

Matt holds a PhD in terrorist negotiation studies with Manchester Metropolitan University. During his PhD studies Matt co-authored a paper titled “Police Crisis Negotiation”, published in the Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics.

Matt’s most significant experience and highlights include:

Deployed for 17 years to support policing operations in kidnap for ransom (including complex cross-border cases), blackmail, extortion, cyber-extortion, and international crime in action cases, supporting victims and families or as a coordinator providing strategic negotiation advice to senior investigating officers.

Lead for the Hostage and Crisis Negotiation Unit at Greater Manchester Police.

Supported the UK Government's Crisis Group (COBR), advising on international and terrorist kidnapping in cases involving UK subjects as individuals or part of multi-national groups.

Course director for the UK national hostage negotiator and kidnap negotiator courses training UK and international law enforcement and military personnel in hostage and kidnap negotiation.

Delivered lectures and training programmes in crisis and communication to private companies in the UK and aboard.

As a course director, prepared and delivered UK’s national hostage negotiation course and also delivered the UK’s international hostage negotiation training course to police and military staff around the world.

Delivered training for the United Nations Department of Safety and Security hostage incident management programme and the United Nations Counter Terrorism Centre’s capacity-building project on international best practices on addressing kidnapping for ransom

He has been a member for the FBI’s hostage negotiator programme and the International Negotiator Working Group, where he presented his research program on negotiation at marauding terrorist attacks in Japan.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-matt-todd-0818823b/

Security Circle ⭕️ is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

0:01

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Yoyo: 0:44

This is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast. IFPO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers, and we are dedicated to providing meaningful education. information and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference to our members mental health and well being. Our listeners, like you, are global. You are the decision makers of today and tomorrow, and I want to thank you personally, wherever you are, for being a part of this Security Circle journey. If you love the podcast, we are on all podcast platforms. Tell your friends. Uh, don't forget to subscribe, or even better, just like, comment, And share the LinkedIn post. Thank you for your company. Well, we have a long awaited session today from a gentleman who I've been trying to capture and pin down and negotiate into giving me a podcast for quite some time now. His name is Matt Todd. You're going to hear about his career in just a second. Matt, welcome to the Security Circle podcast. How are you doing?

Matt: 1:49

Oh, thank you. I'm trying not to laugh because you're absolutely right. I feel like I've let you down so many times. So it's a real pleasure to be here. It's going to be great. And I'm looking forward to chatting through with you.

Yoyo: 2:01

I came across your profile and you know, it's really funny. I said this about the ex British service, intelligence, personnel that I've had on the podcast. You're looking for one and all of a sudden three come along and I've even found a pal of yours who's also going to come and join us on the Security Circle podcast because this is a subject that I think. Well, it makes movies, doesn't it? Hostage negotiations.

Matt: 2:26

Yeah, that's probably the only reason that I signed up for it. Little did I know.

Yoyo: 2:31

Tell us how you became a hostage negotiator, because there'll be lots of people thinking, whoa, what kind of journey do you have to go through to do that?

Matt: 2:40

Yeah. Oh my God. And I wish that I could give you as some of my colleagues probably could a really glamorous story as to, how I got into that role. But no, I've been in the police force for 30 years and I'd been in for some time. And I was down in London doing some business and literally on the train on the way home to Manchester, there used to be an old magazine called Police Review and in the back of it, there was jobs advertised and roles advertised. And I remember on the train just looking browsing through the jobs at the back and seeing this advert for hostage negotiators. And of course, Hollywood popped straight into my mind. I'm a big, big movie lover. I just thought, you know, and excuse the term here, but you know, you've asked me the question. I just thought, That is the most sexy title I've ever heard. I didn't, I don't even think I read what it entailed or anything. I didn't really care. I just wanted to be able to say, I'm a hostage negotiator. And that's it. That was the start of it. I remembered then going through the application process, and there, and I actually call it a journey really there, there started my journey. 19 years later, so 19 years in the role as a hostage and crisis negotiator, it really has been a journey and I've absolutely loved every minute of it. It's been incredible.

Yoyo: 3:55

We talked, didn't we, in the pre chat around how one of my favorite movies is the negotiator with, Samuel L. Jackson? Yeah,

Matt: 4:04

never say no. Kevin

Yoyo: 4:06

Spacey, and you know, I like that whole bit in the beginning where he says he can't negotiate his 14 year old daughter out of the bathroom. And then I got to learning that, especially talking to your colleague, it's difficult when emotions are involved. And that's why it's so much harder to negotiate with your family, right?

Matt: 4:24

Absolutely. And so, So much of what we do is based around emotions and emotional intelligence. And as we all know, you know, a few years ago, I think emotional intelligence became a real buzzword, a real focus for people. And a couple of new books were written on this. There's been a couple of really sort of stalwart books on this that been around years, but people wrote a load of new ones. Some of them, I think are a little bit, you know, overcomplicate the whole thing. The reality of it is, is the more emotional we get. the more challenging things become for us because the more emotional we get, the more irrational our thoughts and our behavior becomes. And so that's that scene at the start of that movie. I can actually encounter that myself. You know, I've got, I've got children and when they were a lot younger, I can remember exactly the same kind of scenarios where my daughter's in the bathroom. Everybody's waiting to go out, you know, and your family are looking at you sort of, you know, can you hurry up and get her out of the bathroom and you kind of knock it on the door, you know, and say, hi, sweetheart, you know, can you just move along? And that, you know, still not out then, you know, 20 minutes later, I'm sat on the end of the bed with my head in my hands, and my family looking at me like, I'm an international hostage negotiator and I can't even talk my daughter out of the bathroom, you know? And when you sit down and think, well, why is that? You know, why couldn't you just get her to come out? Well, because It's personal, and so when it's personal it becomes emotional, and when it's emotional we become more irrational, and I like to think of that irrational as our skill set really, so if you think about it, the more emotional we get, the more difficult it is to maintain the skills for what we need to do. That's no different when I'm dealing with a real life situation in the crisis world. You know, if I'm going up onto a bridge to try and negotiate somebody off that bridge, I'm going to get emotional as I'm going up there, particularly if I've had a briefing in it and maybe I don't like this guy. You know, I had to deal with an incident where I had a Uh, a paedophile on a bridge who was going to take his own life. So this guy's been in prison, you know, more years of his life than he has out. He's a really, really nasty, offender. Who's, who's predatory, uh, against, you know, particularly young boys. And the police are after him for a really serious assault. He's gone up on a bridge. And so I get called out to come and talk him down. And when I'm getting told about this guy, all I think, I just want to give you a quick shove off that bridge. Yeah,

Yoyo: 6:41

not even that. Big gust of wind, you know?

Matt: 6:43

Yeah, that's right, yeah. But we live in a day and age now, don't we? With body worn cameras and people, you know, everybody's filming you somewhere. And so, I know that my job is to get him off that bridge and let the judicial system deal with him. And so, I have to use the same skills with him that I'm going to use with somebody else's daughter, with my own daughter. whoever it is, the skills that I need to get him off that bridge. But my emotional intelligence as I'm walking up that bridge, I'm having to be really aware of that and really conscious that how I emotionally feel about him is going to affect the skills that I'm going to use when I get up there. So emotions are absolutely critical for us. And I think, you know, a lot of people talk about understanding other people's emotions. One of the greatest challenges is recognizing your own emotions and how your own emotions affect your behavior. And I think if you can start to work on that, then you're in a much better position than to start thinking about how other people's emotions affect their behavior as well.

Yoyo: 7:39

In the very famous movie, It's a Wonderful Life, featuring, James Stewart as George Bailey, there's a scene, isn't there, where he just feels utterly desperate, and he goes and stands on a bridge, and, I don't know why people love this movie, I think it's because the whole movie takes you on a journey of how would I feel if I was going through this, and would I do the same thing, and for anyone who hasn't seen It's a Wonderful Life, You really need to see it. Matt, he's standing on the bridge and I get this feeling he's really going to jump. All right. And I'm thinking about being a hostage negotiator. I think we're all thinking about being hostage negotiators in that sort of time. Do we enter into these situations fully trained, knowing that we have to consider that every single situation could end up as a worst case scenario?

Matt: 8:28

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so I've done this for a long time and, and I've lost people and it's, uh, it's challenging. And what I find interesting, what I suppose I've taken away from that is that you can never go into any one of these situations making assumptions. So many times you'd turn up at an incident exactly as you've described and the police officers that are already at the scene Will say to you, you know, they're a bit blasé kind of this guy's been here five times already. He's never gonna jump They're never gonna do it. The reality is you've got absolutely no idea. You you don't know that individual You don't know what's going through their life Maybe they have been on that bridge five times in the last month already, but you don't know what's happened in the last 24 hours in their life to affect the decision as to what they're going to take on that bridge now. So I know that, you know, I've trained a lot of hostage and crisis negotiators, and I've been an operational hostage crisis negotiator for a long time, that we go into every single deployment like that with the belief that the reality is this individual could take their own life at any moment. And you never, you can never step back and take that feeling of I'm okay here, this is going to be all right. Now don't get me wrong, reflecting back on that service, I think there are probably a lot of people that will go up on a bridge or on a roof and maybe haven't got the intention of taking their own life. Some people, do they do it as a cry for help? I would say, yeah, some people do. Some people have reached out for help from friends, family, medical, GP, teachers maybe, not got the help that they needed and so they end up finding themselves in that situation, and all of a sudden they're getting help, they're getting the attention they need, because we're there and we can help them and we can take them through that. I wouldn't, you know, and some people might criticise me for saying this, but I've got the experience and the background to be able to say that I also think some people just need a You know what? Some people just need, you need to just put your arms around them and give them a hug. I can tell you of a number of times people have come down off bridges or rooftops and we have literally just stood there and hugged. You know, and cried and people, some people just need to feel that there's somebody there for me, that I'm not completely alone.

Yoyo: 10:45

In 2023, you were awarded a PhD in terrorist negotiations, which I'll be honest with you, I didn't even know existed, but wow. Um, wow, wow. Uh, so, uh, ladies and gents, uh, there is a PhD out there you can get. Is there any proof, and I'm asking this as a purely curious person, is there any proof if we take the bridge scenario, because I'm going to take you deeper into different types of scenarios in a second, if we take the bridge scenario, is there any kind of evidence to demonstrate that there is suicidal ideation prior to taking this very big step?

Matt: 11:18

Yeah, absolutely. There's lots of research out there about this kind of stuff. There's a whole different avenue of why people end up in that situation. There is people who plan it. You know, that suicide sort of ideation, that ideology, for a long period in time. Some people have very depressing lives, that they can't find a way out of, and they've tried everything, you know, and so the suicide is the last resort. We've actually looked at cases where, bizarrely enough, People suddenly become happy in the, in the idea that they're going to take their own life. So, when we've, when we, people have committed suicide, we investigate it as to, you know, as you'll know from your background as well, you know, we investigate the circumstances around that and we speak to colleagues and friends and family. And that, that we've had cases where people have, have been so surprised that someone's taken their own life because they would say, I've never seen them so happy recently. And actually that's because people will plan, their suicide and for them it's a relief. It's like the end of the suffering is going to be on this day and therefore I can, I'm, I'm happy now because I'm no longer going to have to suffer on that. So there are people that plan it like that. I think there are also people who just get that emotional state. So get into such an emotional deterioration in their own lives, that the only thing to do is to put themselves in that position. And I've spoken with people who've found themselves on a bridge or on a rooftop and not even really understood how they've got there. But it's generally a culmination of a lot of things. And people will tell you, all sorts of reasons why they're there, but actually you probably have to go an awful lot deeper to find out the real reason why they're there, why they're on that bridge, why suicide is the last resort for them. And you know, for a, for a lot of people, it's easing pain. You know, so many people in that situation are in immense pain and suicide is a way of, you know, taking that pain away.

Yoyo: 13:19

It must be very difficult if we use a train scenario, for example, or a railway station, they have recently worked together on a campaign, haven't they, to, it's like the power of hello in counter terrorism, to go up and say hello, hi to someone, it can break that kind of, zone that they're in, if they are contemplating, if they are contemplating suicide, um, and, And I'm thinking about you in this scenario, and I'm thinking of all of the reasons we've established already that could be going through an individual's mind. You've got to very quickly try and ascertain with very little information exactly what you could be potentially dealing with here. What's the kind of process you're going through?

Matt: 14:03

as a police officer deploying to something like that, my job is always to save life. so ultimately my aim is to influence that person to change their behavior and to come down off that bridge or step away from the platform, you know, whatever the situation is that they're in. So ultimately I'm looking at using a very famous. Behavioral change stairway model, you know, created by the by the FBI met many years ago. That is kind of a very stable backdrop for for negotiators around the world. So I need to arrive at that location. I need to think about my own emotions. I need to think about my introductions. And I need to work through a process where I build some sort of relationship with that individual so that I can then have that the responsibility to then try and influence a change in their behavior. And to be quite honest with you, the only way that I'm really going to do that is to listen. people talk about the Hollywood movies and negotiating, and how did you negotiate somebody out of that scenario? And we laugh about it in our world because we say we don't negotiate people out, we listen people out. And people always feel really let down by that. In the pub, they go, well, what do you mean that we listen them out? That doesn't sound very cool, very sexy. But the reality is that everything really about negotiating falls around listening. You know, too many times people will start to talk to people in crisis and the conversation is all about them. And even people will say, well, no, it's not about me. But when you listen and analyze that conversation, people make it about themselves. And in a situation like that, it's never about you. It can't be about you. It has to be about them. The only way that you're going to influence them is to influence them with what's important to them. I can't get you to come off that bridge for the reasons that I think that you should come off that bridge. You're not interested in that at that point at all. The only reasons that you're going to come off that bridge is because I use things that are important to you. And the only way that I can find out what's important to you is by listening to you and encouraging you to talk to me. That way I can get into your head. I can listen to your values, your beliefs, your emotions, your motivations. Once I know all those things about you, now I can start to influence you with what's important to you. That's how we ultimately aim to bring people down or move people away from that life threatening situation.

Yoyo: 16:22

No, no day is the same, is it really, in the police anyway for a police officer, let alone a police hostage negotiator. I should imagine after 10 years managing a hostage in crisis, a crisis negotiation unit for I think it was the largest police force in London, isn't it? You manage a team of operational hostage negotiators. What's that like? I mean, do you, because I remember my life in the police, when you're part of the policing community, you come back and you discuss, the incident you've all been involved with. How beneficial is that to have a great chat afterwards and talk about, you know, the, the learning experiences from, from incidents like that?

Matt: 17:05

It's really interesting because the role of the hostage negotiator. I work outside of London. So I work in Manchester. So, so the team that I manage just up in Manchester. So it's a really interesting dynamic that one, because, you know, a lot of major. It's quite high profile. Sometimes it will be in the media. There'll be a lot of people involved in the role of the hostage and crisis negotiator. The police will arrive. The uniform response will arrive at somebody in crisis on a bridge or wherever that's going to be. And then when they realize that. You know, maybe an hour into it that this person is not coming down, or they feel that that risk is elevated, then the on call negotiator gets a phone call. So, more often than not, not all the time, but a high number of times, this is going to be in the middle of the night. So your phone goes, you kind of wake up in that blurry sort of state. You get told that you're required, and a fast response car will come and pick you up. You jump in that car, you know, you're 100 odd miles an hour down the motorway. And you arrive at this incident where there's a lot of blue lights, the motorway is closed, you know, your heart is elevated, you're starting to think around, what have I got here? What's my opening lines going to be? How can I start that first impressions off by making sure that I get this right? Am I dressed right? You know, what's the individual, what briefing have I got on the individual? A lot of negotiators don't want a briefing at all, because they don't want to be already influenced before they go up there, so they like to just go in cold. Hopefully you're going to have a second person meet you there, and you're going to go up together, but quite often, you need to just get straight up there, because there's a risk that this person could jump or could end their life, and so you need to get engaged with them. And so, you kind of go up there, you introduce yourself, You do what you're going to do. You could be there for 20 minutes. You could be there for 20 hours. You, you've no idea, absolutely no idea what you're going into and you're on your own. You know, the, the uniform, please kind of like breathe a sigh of relief. The negotiator is here. Everybody steps back. You do your bit. Nobody has any idea what you've talked about. And, and hopefully, you know, the, the person comes down. And, you know, you have a hug, you walk them off the bridge, they either go into an ambulance or into a police vehicle. You get back in your car, or you get a lift home, you arrive back at your home address. You know, it's kind of three in the morning and I sit on the drive and think I've just been on a bridge with someone for five hours who's told me the most horrific, detailed story of their life. You know, and a lot of the time it's really, really sad. And you kind of sit on your drive for a few minutes, but, but really you need to go back in and go back to bed and go to sleep. Because you could get another call. Or, for most negotiators, it's, this is a role on top of their day job. So for most of them, they'll get a call out in the middle of the night, but they've got to be back in the office in the morning to carry on with their day job. And nobody will even know when they go back to the office that they've been out all night. So they go back into their day job looking a little bit tired and everybody's like, are you alright? Have you had a late night? And nobody's really got any idea that actually they've been out all night. Generally we work in pairs, so one of the things that's great to do when you finish a job is to just take a little bit of time to do what you've just said. Just talk it through. You need to do that. You need to just vent your own emotions, manage that emotional intelligence, bring back your emotions back to that rational level, so that you can rationalize what you've just dealt with before going home and back into your family environment. And you know, remember that we don't just deal with You know, suicide interventions, that's a high percentage, but we deal with a lot of kind of barricade hostage siege scenarios. You know, your classic kind of weekend, somebody comes home drunk, class A drugs, creating a real mixture that gives that high paranoia. They maybe get into a domestic argument with their loved one, the police get called, they barricade themselves into the dress, highly emotive again, therefore we see poor rational decision making. So really volatile, really high risk, you know, uniform response outside, the person knows they're going to get arrested, maybe go to prison. sends them into a real turmoil, a real spiral of bad decisions. And so, you know, we have to turn up to an incident like that, uh, and, and, and deal with that in the same way that you deal with the person on the bridge. And it's exactly the same skills. It's all about listening. You know, so when I turn up at the angry man in the house, he hates me already. I represent everything that he doesn't like. And so your work is really cut out there compared to going up to somebody on a bridge, because now I've got to influence the person in the house not to harm the people, to let their children out, to let their partner out, maybe even themselves, not to harm themselves. And I've got to sell it to them really, why they should come out of that house. And what I'm trying to sell them is maybe five years in prison if they're, if they're wanted for an offence. So you think about trying to sell me a nice new Mercedes. That's lovely. When I walk into the showroom and I see those beautiful metallic paintwork under the lights that they've put on specifically. And they've got the windows down on the car so that you get that lovely smell of that fresh leather on the seats. Look, I've already bought that car in my head. I just need to find the money for it. So you haven't really got a very difficult job to influence me to buy that car. And you're going to use all the things that we'd expect. Scarcity, this is the last one, we can't get this colour anymore. You know, commitment, consistency, that we'll do you this deal and we'll honour that. You're going to use all those things to make me buy that Mercedes. I'm going to use an awful lot of the same skills to get you to put the axe down in that house and come out. But the only difference is I'm not selling you a Mercedes, I'm selling you five years in prison. And I'm still going to get you to come out. That's how good this stuff is. The ability to listen to somebody and allow them to vent and make somebody feel like they've genuinely been heard allows me to hear all the things that are important to you. Once I know what's important to you now I can start working on options to bring you out of there. But it's got to be your reason to come out not mine. I always remember a guy on a bridge once who gave me a really good analogy of this and he said to me This is after he'd come down. He said, when I was up on that bridge, it was kind of like a tumble dryer and all the clothes were going around in there and they were like my problems. And I felt like my head was just bursting with so many different problems that I had. Then you arrived on the bridge and it's kind of like the tumble dryer stopped. And it was, my head was just full of problems, but you were here. And then over the couple of hours that I was there, it was almost like we took all the clothes out of the tumble dryer and we put all the trousers in one pile, all the jumpers in another pile, the shirts in another pile, the socks, the underpants, and at the end of it, I still had all the same problems, they hadn't gone away, but you'd helped me rationalise them into a a neat sort of situation so that I could start to work through my problems one at a time because I could see them quite clearly in front of me. And I like that because I think that's what we do. Negotiators don't turn up and come up with solutions as to why you shouldn't do it. We come up and we create space for you to find the reasons why you should change your mind, change your behavior, and that's really what we're trying to do.

Yoyo: 24:31

Matt Todd, world class hostage negotiator and hypothetical laundry man.

Matt: 24:38

Yeah, I love it. And you know what? You have to use these things. You have to, these are unique situations that as with a lot of roles in law enforcement, you know, military, these high pressure roles where you're dealing with life at risk. Sometimes you have to revert to something as simple as that, you know, as simple to help you work through this. To help you manage it and understand what you need to get through and, you know, the, the hostage in crisis negotiation course that we put police officers through is probably one of the most two week intense learning courses that you can go through in the policing career. It's really, really puts the pressure on you. And a lot of the time, you know, people say to me, well, who are you looking for? What sort of person are you looking for to be a negotiator? And the reality is, I kind of think, you know, and it's quite entertaining, this people will say, well, actually we're just kind of looking for the gray man. Really. The the person who's not shouting and bawling, who hasn't done this, who hasn't done that, somebody said to me, what kind of that middle aged boarding, overweight, and I sort of looked in the mirror and. Oh, bugger. Yeah, exactly. That's me. That's me through and through. Uh, and so yeah, you know, and it's about people come along on that course with no idea what to expect that they really haven't. And we say to people, you know, you can't, you can't come into that course. You can't come into that environment and us make you a negotiator. You have to kind of be that person already, and we'll give you the skills that you then need to do it. But we can't change you to be the person that you need to be to do that. So, quite often people come on that course, and after the first week of it, they'll put their own hands up. And it's really interesting to see, and people will say, you know, I recognize myself that this, this just isn't for me. And, you know, it takes a lot of courage to do that on a course like that, but it's, it's quite, it really sort of shows you the power. It's a very emotional course. You know, you see, you see delegates on that course go through a huge amount of emotions. There's no room for pride. There's no room for ego. You know, we tell people, leave all that in the car, on the car park. It's quite a humbling role, the role of the hostage negotiator. And, uh, and yeah, it's a, it's in a really, really intense two weeks for people.

Yoyo: 26:56

Uh, uh, you know, file me a crime report now for theft, because you just stole that question right out of my brain. Ha,

Matt: 27:03

ha.

Yoyo: 27:04

Look, you are a nationally trained hostage negotiator, and a kidnap negotiator as well. What are the differences in terms of kidnap negotiation? My next question after this before, yes, deal it, is going to be around crisis management. I think that's going to be quite relatable, but let's talk about the differences around kidnap negotiation.

Matt: 27:25

Yeah, kidnap negotiations really different. And so we train once you've been a hostage in crisis negotiator for some time, generally, then we look at training people up to be kidnapped negotiators. And so I won't go too much into that kind of role, because I suppose out of all the roles. For hostage negotiators, the kidnap world really is quite a still a very sensitive environment that we operate in and something that I wouldn't really sort of share in public view. What I would say is that, you know, believe it or not, the skills, the core skills remain the same. that ability to connect with people through listening to them, understanding what's important to them. But I suppose that the, the difference with a kidnap negotiation, and to be quite frank with you, you spend more time in a kidnap negotiating, negotiating with the bosses in the office and with families, you know, that, that can be much more challenging. And so a lot of the kidnaps when I was in the police that I work with are very much. You know, bad on bad. It's one drug gang rips off another drug's gang, and so they kidnap someone from that gang. They're very short, they don't last very long, they're very intense, they're very fast, you know, quite often a lot of violence involved, and so we need to operate quite quickly on that. to to keep an individual safe. And what will be happening is, you know, the bad guys will think that they can get their brother or their, you know, their gang member back. They suddenly realize after a few hours that they can't get him back. And despite the fact that we don't like the police, we need to go to the police because they need to help us. And so as a negotiator, we'll deploy to support them in the negotiations to get that, you know, that individual back if we can in any way, shape or form. And so that's very different to the crisis world. Where you're dealing much more on a, on a one on one basis, you know, in a kidnap world, it's kind of a, it's a police investigation, I suppose, you know, like a, like an ongoing crime that's happening at the time that you're working on it. So it's, so it's very different in that respect. But then you've got a different type of kidnap. Then you've got kind of the world global. commercial kidnap, so kidnap for ransom. The kind of thing that you'll see, you know, Nigerian gangs kidnapping, you know, expats, you know, in countries there. We see it on the news, Somali pirates boarding vessels. Let's go back to Hollywood, Captain Phillips.

Yoyo: 29:46

Yeah.

Matt: 29:48

You know, if you haven't seen these, you've got to watch them. No. Uh, but, but we, so you see commercial kidnap around the world like that. And again, you know, negotiators get involved in these kinds of things to work with the families to negotiate, navigate their way through this period of time that the criminals are going to hold their loved one. And again, you spend more time on these, I think, negotiating with family members to support family members. It's about understanding what their needs are and to understand what their needs are, you need to listen to them. But people will say to me, you know, you can't negotiate with a kidnapper, a Nigerian kidnapper. Well, of course you can. People say, well, you can't influence them. Well, of course you can influence them. And so, you know, you, I'm, I'm a strong believer and there'll be critics out there for this. I know there will, but have. You know, done this for 17 years and got the doctorate, the academic research in it as well. And I can absolutely stand there and say you can influence anybody. It might be challenging and it might not be easy, but by listening to people and understanding what's important to them, you open up a doorway to be able to influence people. That's actually, and I'm sorry, I'm going off piece, so stop me here. That's actually where the, the, the academic research that I did into the terrorist negotiations, that's where it came in for me. So after sort of 15 years of this being my profession and working all around the world, training police forces and specialist military units and things in hostage negotiation. Uh, we had the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2016. You'll remember the Bataclan theatre and The attacks at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, places like that. And then in the same year, we had Orlando, the Pulse nightclub was attacked with that marauding attack. And during these marauding attacks, where lots of people were killed, there were police negotiators engaged with the people inside. I kind of sat back at that point and decided I really wanted to know around the stuff that we teach, the skills that we use, could you actually use them in that environment? Because that's probably the highest level of intensity when you think about influence. So, you know, I've gone into the Bataclan theatre, I've killed an awful lot of people, maimed, critically wounded a lot of people, and now I'm holding 12 hostages. I'm a suicide bomber, I've got a suicide vest on, And I've got a police officer, a negotiator on the end of the phone. You know, it's, you know, some people would laugh and say, you can have no influence over those people at all. But actually those 12 people survived. You know, and they weren't killed despite all the other people that were killed before them. And so I really wanted to look at how can we manage that situation and actually we can by using the same skills, by listening to the person on the end of the phone, understanding what's important to them. And we can do that by even listening to the way that they introduce themselves. Who do they introduce themselves as? What are their allegiances to? What's important to them to put them in that situation right now? Forget about talking about me. Forget about telling people you shouldn't do this, or you should do that, or you should Nobody's interested in that. Forget about telling them about religion, you know, and Islam says that you shouldn't They've already justified their reasons for doing that, religiously, before they've got there. They've already worked through all that. So there's pointless me trying to influence them with what I think might influence them. I have to listen to them, understand what's important to them, what's brought them there, and then try and use that as a reason for them not to do what they're going to do.

Yoyo: 33:22

Well, I might take you there. Well, let's talk about angry man in the house as a serving police officer. I attended a role like that where I had a perimeter, post, role. So, you know, there was a debrief afterwards and you are right. It is one of the most common, kind of community scenes. Drugs was a huge impact on that particular, offender. And it was only really when the drugs were starting to wear off that the ability to reason with him and come to a reasonable conclusion without any harm to others was, was significant.

Matt: 33:57

the drugs one is really interesting. Because a lot of the time the angry man situation that you describe is a result of or is impaired by drugs, alcohol, or a mix of the two. And I think I mentioned this before, that generally induces this high level of paranoia anyway. And quite often, It, you know, sometimes it might even be the same in a crisis one with somebody on a bridge. Maybe they've had a lot of drink, a lot of drugs. Often I know, or a negotiator will know when they get there, that the ability to influence will be really distorted when that person is under the influence of those drugs or alcohol.

Yoyo: 34:34

And if I may, due to the recent erosion of trust in the British police force, Which has happened. How does that make your job even harder when we consider angry man in the community?

Matt: 34:45

Yeah, of course it does. When I arrive at that, that house, so I'm going to arrive in the middle of the night, you know, to this address, it's going to be surrounded by police. A lot of those police are going to be kitting up with the riot gear on because they're the tactical team that if needs be are going to have to, you know, put the door in and go into this house. So the guy inside is extremely paranoid and I say guy because look, 100 percent of the times that I've dealt with this, it is a guy, so I'm not, not doing that in any sexist way. People always sort of say to me, you always say it's the man in, the angry man, well it, because it is. All they can see out the window is all these riot police that are about to come through that door. Tear them to pieces and drag them off to prison. And so, when I arrive, that first impression is that I'm another one of them. I represent that police force, that distrust, I can't trust you, you're going to lie to me, you know, because like you say, that's how a lot of people will reflect on current policing. And so it really is right back to basics, you know, and sometimes we laugh because I'll arrive at a scene like that, you know, the inspector on the ground will be like, you know, Hi Matt, I'm glad you're here. You know, he's, and he's got a job to do and he's there and then they're all in their uniform and, and it's, what do you want us to do? And I'll say, okay, if we, uh, offered him a cup of tea, does he want a pizza? And they'll look at me, everybody like, like I've gone mad, like what he's not, we're going to starve him out. We're going to cut the electric. He's having nothing from us. And I'll sit there and think. This is going to be a long night, you know, this is all we're all we're doing here. We're just fighting, you know, that they're not coming, they're going to fight back against that. We're going to fight back against them and nothing's going to happen here. And so what I want to do is offer them something, you know, I want to make this look, let's get a cup of tea. Do you need some cigarettes? You know, because if we think about the rules of influence of which there are, you know, several sort of very powerful ones, reciprocity. I do something for you. You're more likely to do something for me is one of the most powerful tools that we use in the world of negotiation. Yeah. And I kind of want to get that person in my debt. You know, I want to offer them some food, offer them something to drink, because at some point then reciprocity is going to kick back in and I'm going to be able to recall those favors and it might not be, it doesn't have to be something. you know, physical that I'm going to call back. It might even just be that they owe me their time. And so even an hour later, I might be able to say, look, when I got here, I got you some food. I got you a phone call to your, you know, to your mother. You know, I got you some cigarettes. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Now I lay my cards on the table and I call in that reciprocity. So please just take some time to. To listen to me, to talk to me, to tell me what's going on in there, to tell me how you feel. And, and that's, you know, that societal need of reciprocity says that they will give you something back. And that might be where we start. And so it's, it's quite a challenge. But we have to you have to think about not this, you know, this kind of battle that is which the police generally will go into that scenario because we're the uniform police response we've got a responsibility to protect life if there's people in the dress do we need to go in, but actually you know if we can listen to this individual understand what's going on and the amount of times in those angry man situations. You know, you come away from the front door, you go around the back of the house where you can talk through a window where it's not on view, they haven't got all the local community cheering them on, looking at them because they've got a reputation to maintain, uh, actually then you can start to have a conversation with them. And look, I'm not saying that we're ever going to trust each other. You know, there's a lot of people out there at the moment on places like LinkedIn. And I was really interested in the, uh, the podcast you did with the, you know, with the CIA guy talking about LinkedIn, because I, I share some of those frustrations that you were talking about. And there's a lot of people out there now that, you know, you can say anything really, and people just take your word for it with no justification. And quite often I see, you know, negotiators talking about, you've got to have trust. And I'll challenge that every time. Quite happily I'll challenge that. I can tell you now, the angry man at the back of that house who's going to prison for ten years, who's battered police officers half of his life, who hates the police, who can't really stand me, but is going to come out of there, we don't need to have trust to negotiate a solution here. We can talk to each other. We might have a bit of likability where he might think, I don't, you know, I like you. I don't trust who you are because you're a police officer, but I like you. And generally that likability will be because I've listened to him and I'll probably be the first person in a long time that has genuinely listened to him. Can I give you an example? So I dealt with a guy, I got caught out to a guy on a bridge. Okay, and, uh, and when we get there, he's really seriously aggressive. So he's on drugs of some sort, or alcohol, but that was quite evident. And he's really, really aggressive. That nobody can get anywhere near him. And as the information develops, we realize that this guy's jumped off this bridge previously and survived. So he had a whole hip replacement, uh, some quite significant injuries, but he's back there on this bridge now. He's urinating on the ambulance underneath the bridge. He's swearing at everyone, if you come near me, I'm going to jump. I'll go head first this time and all this sort of stuff. And so with the drink, I know that I've got to wait till the effects of the alcohol wear off before I can start to use the skills that we use as a negotiator. And so. Quite often, you know, I might say to the person that's in charge of the scene, I'm probably not going to be able to influence them to come down at the moment, but what I can do is try and keep them safe. And you'll literally, over time, you start to see the effects of the alcohol wear off. And as I start communicating with this guy, Maybe about an hour into it, he climbs over the bridge, over the fence, and he goes, and I think to myself, oh my God, he's coming down, you know, thank God. And actually he doesn't, he runs across the, across the road, and climbs over the barrier on the other side, and we're right back to where we were again. And I've literally, I can honestly say, on jobs like this, your heart is in your mouth. You know, your, your palms are sweaty, you're thinking, you genuinely think this person's going to go at any moment. And so I keep using the listening skills, I don't challenge him with anything, I just try to listen every time he talks, I'm kind of reflecting that back to him to show him that there's no challenge coming from me. And as the alcohol effects start to wear off, he starts to actually talk to me. And you see the aggression start to reduce. And over about another hour, he comes to the edge of the, the bridge, so it's over the embankment, where I can actually sort of feel that if he jumped or if he fell now, he probably would survive because he's not over the carriageway. And he starts to talk. And look, he tells me a story about how his girlfriend died in his arms. Okay. It's tragic. And she dies of a heart attack. Whether that's true or not, I don't know. Personally, I think from the background he was talking about, she probably died of an overdose. But I don't, I don't know that. It's not, it's not a problem for me, whatever he wants to tell me. But the reality of where he is, is because he held her in his arms. He dialed 999. He spoke to an emergency services operator who was trying to tell him how to do CPR and he didn't know how to do it and she died. And he can't live with the guilt. He's struggling with that fact that he couldn't save her life because he couldn't understand what he had to do with CPR. And at the end of all this, I never challenged any of this. Okay, so as a negotiator, all you do is listen to this. You listen, you tell him you can't imagine what that must be like for him, you reflect it back to him, but you literally let him tell the story. And at the end of it, I remember saying to him, you know, it just sounds absolutely awful, and I can't even start to imagine what that must have felt like for you. And at that point, he climbs over the bridge, he comes towards me, I'm a little bit like, oh my god, he's going to attack me. He's not, he's not aggressive anymore. He puts his hands out, he shakes my hand, and he says to me, nobody's ever listened to me tell that story before. And we hugged, and he squeezed me like, like you wouldn't believe. And it's, you know, it's a really strong, and I know it's hard to describe that on a, on a podcast here, but it's a very, very powerful emotional moment between two grown men. And he says to me, no, I've just never told anybody what happened. And we talked about that in the ambulance and, and said, you know, maybe that's because you get so aggressive. Nobody ever gets close enough to you to be able to. And he said, well, nobody listens to me. And when people tell you things like that, that's when you realize how powerful. this stuff is, the ability to listen to somebody at that level is, is really unique. And lots of people think that they're good listeners. I love it when I bump into people who say, Oh, I'm a really good listener. And they spend the next 10 minutes telling me how good they are at listening. And actually all they've done is talk. They haven't listened to a single thing I've got to say. The reality is that. A very, very high percentage of the population of the world listen from that autobiographical perspective. We listen from our own values. We listen from what's important to us. So when you tell me something, I think about it from my own perspectives. And that's how we respond. And that's how most of us communicate. I probably do when I'm not thinking straight and I'm communicating just relaxed at home like everybody else. But in that world of negotiation where you're dealing with those sort of life saving moments, you can't afford to do that. You can't respond from your own perspectives. You have to understand their perspective. Even if it's obscene, like the pedophile or the terrorist in the, you know, in the marauding attack, you have to be able to listen and see it through. It's about, we talk about reality paradigms. So wearing those glasses. So what's the filter on those glasses as to how they see the world in their through their lens at the moment is very different to how we see the world through our lens. And we need to try and influence them that if they were able to, to think about things differently. Yeah, then they would, the filter on their lens would change and we want to try and make them see the world in a similar way to how we're seeing it, not the way that we see it. Why should everybody see the world the same, but in a similar kind of view so that we can then start to, you know, introduce options to resolve the situation.

Yoyo: 45:20

I think a lot of people listening will find what you've just said incredibly powerful and we all know people who think they're really good listeners and we all, and we also know certainly in, in corporate life that a lot of people listen to talk and I see it. I had to go through my own transition to become a better listener, to be a podcast host, because you don't invite, you don't invite a guest on and then do all the talking, uh, as much as I'd love to. No, I had to really learn to pin my ears back and really properly listen. And it is a skill and it's actually made me a better listener. Um, out there in the real world, I, I say less now than I used to, even though I'm proper chatty. Um, we are actually undergoing quite an international hostage negotiation situation at the moment, aren't we? And it's been on the center stage for a long time. I think talking to you, a lot of people will be thinking about You know,, Hamas releasing hostages, Israel releasing hostages. They must be just taking an appreciation like I did there for a moment, thinking an awful lot of work is going on in the background here to get to this stage where humans are being exchanged.

Matt: 46:36

Yeah, it's very live at the moment. And yeah, the company that I work with now, you know, we've had involvements and a lot of people, clients that I work with. But what I would say is on that it's kind of almost two sort of levels of negotiation. You know, you've got the very sort of high level government. Uh, you know, involvement in negotiations that but then you've also got the level that we're talking about here. So, you know, negotiators like myself representing families negotiating for the release of their loved ones. And, you know, all I would say to you is it doesn't matter, which is what I've tried to describe here from the, you know, the 15 year old girl on the bridge to the angry man in the house that's going to prison for 10 years. to the terrorist who's holding hostages in a nightclub who's just killed 50 people to, to Hamas. You, you still need to use exactly the same level of skills. It's about listening. It's about understanding what's important to them. There's no point in me trying to influence Hamas with my beliefs. That's going to get me absolutely nowhere, right? So I need to understand what's important to them and how can I use that to influence them? And those will be the lines that people will be looking at. And this, look, you know, you just said before that, you know, people will be interested thinking about, everybody's always interested when we come to the listening bit, because everybody, like you just said, will sit there thinking, well, I'm a good listener, so I'd be good at this. But, but actually we, when we think we're good listeners, we're not. And I think, you know, people should ask themselves, what do you listen for? So if you think you're a good listener, you know, what do you listen for? Because if we say, how do you listen? People will say, well, you need to empty your head. Well, don't you just love it when someone says empty your head? Because as soon as I try and empty my head, it suddenly becomes full of everything that I need, that I shouldn't be thinking about the shopping, the emails, the phones that I need to, you know, my dogs need to go out. I need to do so. So advice of empty your head really struggles for me. People will say, well, you need to look at me while I'm looking at you now, Yolanda, but am I listening to you? Probably not because I'm thinking about what am I doing after this? And so all you've done there is just told me to look at you. And so my mentor that kind of, that I went through all this when I learned to be a negotiator many years ago, you know, was, was really passionate about this and it stood with me all these years. And so rather than just thinking about, you know, teach me how to listen, we try and think about what are we listening for? And I think that's really interesting when you start doing that. And I, you know, I quite, I like to ask people, what do you listen for? If you're, if you're telling me you're a good listener, What do you listen for? And it's that kind of stores people. And I think, you know, for people that, that, that are interested in the listening aspect of it, you know, go away and look at your own families. When your husband or your wife or your partner or your parent or whoever you live with comes home from work today. Try listening to them. See how good you really are at listening to them. Don't judge them. Everybody hates being judged. Judgment or language is an absolute no no in the world of negotiators. Everything has to be non judgmental. And so I'm quite, I'm quite sad, I suppose, in that we have to practice these skills. You know, I say to negotiators all the time, you can't just do a two week negotiator course and expect to be a great negotiator for the rest of your lives. How do you practice this stuff? So like I might be working from home today and knowing that my, you know, my wife's coming home from work at sort of five o'clock and I'll know her routines when she comes home, you know, she'll come in, take her shoes off, put her bag down, give the dogs a bit of a fuss, go into the kitchen, get a drink. And so, you know, I'll use that time to think, okay, she's going to be my guinea pig today and I'm going to, you know, try and practice, turn on my listening skills when she comes in. And so when she comes in from work, you know, I'll try a classic line of listening to what her when she comes in, what she looks like, how she feels and just say, sounds like you've had a tough day. Well, I've had a tough day because I had to have a meeting with Mike and he doesn't understand the budget. I get the impression that the budget is really important for you at the moment. Well, it is important for because it's the end of the financial year. And I won't ask any questions, and so my practice is don't ask any questions. And so for anybody out there that wants to see how good they are at listening, try this, and try seeing how far you can get in a conversation without asking any questions. So look, we ask questions, of course we do, and they're a key part of conversation. But sometimes we rely on questions too much, and we don't think about the style or how we're asking questions, and so the questions suddenly make the conversation all about me. Why did you do this? How did you do that? It's all about what I want to know, rather than what you want to tell me. Same with those of you that have got children. You know, how often do you listen to your children? Or do we just tell our children, because we're parents, and so I tell you. How often do you actually sort of, when your child tells you something, listen to them, and understand it from their values, from their perspective? Yeah, I remember one lady saying to me, Matt, every time I pick my daughter up when we come out of school, I try to think about being really interested in her day. Yeah, and find out what she's done. And all she does is go, uh, uh, and grunt at me like teenagers do. And I said, well, that's really interesting. When you say you want to be really interested in her day, what do you do? Well, when she gets in the car, I say, how's school today? What have you done at school? What did you do? Tell me, tell me what, what was your favourite lesson? And I said to her, remember when you were 13 and you went to school, how much did you love school? Oh, I hated it. Okay, so she probably doesn't really enjoy school either. She's just spent the best part of six or seven hours there. And the first thing that she's doing when she gets in the car is being grilled about that day that she hasn't really enjoyed by you. What does she love to do when she gets home? Oh, well, we've got a puppy, uh, at Christmas, and she's just flipping, all she does is just want to play with that puppy. So when she gets in the car, that's her values, that's what's important to her, the puppy. Tell her something about the puppy. Don't even talk about your day at school. When she gets in the car, Hi! Oh my God, you won't believe what happened today with the puppy. Why? What happened mum? Oh my God. He got a pillow off the chair and he's done this. And now she's engaged because it's important to her what the puppy's done and she wants to communicate with you. And so I have a conversation about the puppy and she's all hyped up and she wants to talk about you with that. Maybe then talk about something else. I don't know. Maybe you're going swimming, you know, later that evening because she enjoys swimming. How do you feel about swimming? Stay away from school. Until we've talked about some things that have picked her spirits up, now she's in that switched on zone mode, and then maybe come back to school later with something like, how did your day go today? And now that we've talked about the things that are important to me, now we're more likely to talk about the things that weren't, you know, that weren't important to me.

Yoyo: 53:29

And never underestimate the power of a cup of tea.

Matt: 53:33

Absolutely. Absolutely. I can't, I can't think of how many jobs I've resolved, angry situations with weapons in houses and everything. So look, why don't you come out and we'll have a cup of tea and talk about this. Why don't you come down off that bridge, we'll have a cup of tea and we'll talk about this. It's probably the most used lines. Yeah,

Yoyo: 53:51

and I used to use it a lot when I was in the job as well. It really massively breaks the ice. You know, you're stepping inside someone's home, you're doing a lot of assessment every single minute, reading all the non verbal and the verbal body language. And the first thing you say is, hey, why don't we have a cup of tea and sit down? All of a sudden, it's like, you know, and I've been in situations where the cup of tea never gets drunk. Drunk and no one drinks the tea, but it's there in the middle. It's a staple of the situation.

Matt: 54:19

It's a fantastic icebreaker, you know, quite often, like you say, we never even get around to the tea. It's just, look, why don't we put the kettle on? We'll have a cup of tea and we'll work through this and the kettle will go on. There'll be no tea, but we'd start working through it. But it is very British that.

Yoyo: 54:33

Yes, the very British Matt Todd, hostage negotiator. Thank you so much for joining us on the Security Circle podcast. We'll have to get you back. You smashed it.

Matt: 54:43

Thank you so much for having me., it's been a real pleasure and if people want to reach out they can get hold of me through LinkedIn is probably the best way.

Yoyo: 54:50

Awesome. We'll put all of your links with your bio. All right, and then we'll look forward to the book.

Matt: 54:56

Yeah, yeah, that's what needs to come next for sure. The problem with the PHP is that it's very sensitive so I need to find a way to put that into, text that people can read. A lot of people have asked me for the PhD, but at the moment it's embargoed with the university just because of the sensitivity of it, but we're working around that.

Yoyo: 55:12

Awesome. Thank you, Matt.