Book hostage negotiator Richard Mullender and his team

Imagine you’re on the end of a phone negotiating the release of hostages. Diffusing a domestic siege. Or dissuading a would-be suicide. Think how well you’d need to listen, understand and influence. Our founder, Richard Mullender has dealt with just such life or death situations many times. So he knows a thing or two about remote communication. A skillset our team of UK and US hostage negotiators is uniquely equipped to share with your people.

Richard Mullender
Richard Mullender designs all our training.

Eight hours of life-changing training

Choose in-person, online or hybrid

Brief us on your team’s needs and your desired training outcomes. We’ll deliver the ultimate 'sticky' course that will enable each of your people to

  1. Set an outcome for every phone or video call.
  2. Adopt a position to put your brain on high alert.
  3. Select a mindset for success.
  4. Subtly use minimal encouragers to keep the other person talking.
  5. Identify - at speed – the secrets that lie in their ramblings.
  6. Echo, to delve deeper without changing the subject.
  7. Differentiate between facts, emotions, motivators, values and levers in the other person’s conversation.
  8. Identify, select and interpret the key words that turn information into intelligence.
  1. Turn questions into suggestions by stating your impression.
  2. Suggest a course of action using the other person’s values, beliefs and motivators, rather than your own.
  3. Test your hypothesis without offending the other person.
  4. Work as a team during meetings so you stick to pre-agreed roles and never undermine each other.
  5. Deliver a benefit-rich proposal using the intelligence you’ve gathered, so you sell-in a solution that precisely mirrors their priorities.
  6. Know how to bargain with the four negotiation tradeables of price, quality, quantity and delivery.
  7. Review success

Online delivery still means a highly interactive course, with lots of breakout exercises and round ups.

FAQs

  • Do you use Zoom?

    Yes, Zoom is our platform of choice since the functionality it offers is best suited for the highly interactive nature of our sessions. However we have used other platforms for clients who specify them.

  • How do you make the sessions interactive?

    We include lots of practical exercises and role-plays. Team members are allocated to breakout rooms to complete exercises in pairs and report back. The tempo is upbeat and you can expect your people to be entertained, challenged and stretched. This is a course to remember; delivering life-changing skills that your team can put into practice straight away.

  • Do you set homework between the weekly sessions?

    Yes. Before Covid we delivered this course content over one day. We’ve learnt a lot since then. We’ve found that a great advantage of shorter online sessions is that delegates have the opportunity to go away and practise and develop each skillset. They then report back their successes and bumps on the road and we give practical focused guidance. It makes for ultimate stickiness.

  • Do you have a maximum delegate number?

    We can train up to 14 delegates at any one time on The Listening Advantage course.

  • What’s the most cost-effective way for a small number of my team to attend?

    We offer The Listening Advantage Diploma as an Open Course for independent (often self-funding) delegates to attend. You can book up to eight individual places for your organisation on these courses. Often representatives from an organisation attend our Open Course to sample the content with a view to offering the course internally.

  • What support materials will my delegates receive?

    All delegates will receive two pdf copies of our support guides:

    • Listening in 10 Easy Lessons
    • Five Stage Negotiation Protocols

    We also send out hard copies to delegates in high-retention envelopes containing the easy to use printed drop-down guides. The guides work as practical aide-memoires, ideal for embedding elite listening skills from day one.

  • I’ve got a different question

    We're happy to answer any questions you have. Just get in touch

The listening institute team in discussion

Add a ‘Live’ Hostage Negotiation Team-Building hour

You can add this hugely memorable and skill-testing experience to the end of any course you book with us. It’s unnervingly authentic since all hostage negotiation is conducted remotely. It’s also a unique opportunity for your team to work together to solve a problem that is literally life or death. (Well, almost literally.)

Learn more
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“In terms of return on investment, this training is unparalleled.”
— Laura Cullen, Learning and Development Director, LMA
More from our clients
Illustration of a certificate

We issue delegates with the Institute’s Listening Advantage Diploma Certificate on completion of the course

To pass, delegates need to demonstrate that they have learnt:

  • What to listen for
  • How to interpret the true significance of what’s been said
  • Precisely how to pitch a course of action for optimum success
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