Andrew Gwynne

Working as a personal trainer, one of the first things I learnt was the importance of communication and empathy. When a decision to change has already been made, conversations with clients are straightforward. Next steps can flow quickly, as we uncover motivations and agree goals. If we can set a goal, then we can make an effective plan.

But sometimes you’re in a situation where views clash. How do we start the conversation then, and work together? 

As COVID struck last year I was fortunate to find inspiration in the work of Chris Voss, a former lead hostage negotiator and siege-breaker for the FBI. He now teaches people and organisations how to avoid conflict and reach better agreements. 

Developing some new rules

Chris writes about how the early 1970s saw a number of kidnappings end with tragic consequences. One in particular, the Downs Airline hijacking, led to a US law that changed the landscape for negotiators forever. Old-school use of force went out the window, and the FBI started to develop the techniques we see today. 

The new style hinged on the principle that siege-like hijackings are more about emotions than rational bargaining. It’s often fruitless to ‘play hardball’ or use ‘good cop, bad cop.’ Instead, rapport must be built – the FBI called it ‘trust-based influence’.

The wrong way to manage conflict

Many of us have an upside-down view of negotiation. From Hollywood films and TV shows, we’re fed the idea that it’s all about strength and sticking to your guns. In this way of thinking, being flexible or agreeing to an adversary’s wishes is seen as weakness. But reaching a lasting agreement or managing conflict actually needs plenty of sensitivity. It relies on understanding someone else’s motives and emotions.

Tactical empathy

The best negotiators rely on emotional intelligence to win deals and improve relationships. This is one of the key things that experts like Chris Voss teach us. He invented the phrase ‘tactical empathy’ to describe how to work with your counterpart’s emotions. Building it into your negotiating style will help you get better results, whether it’s in a business deal or a family debate about how to eat more healthily.

You can also think of tactical empathy as taking a stock-check from the person you’re talking to. What do they like or dislike about an idea, and why? Is that everything? Understand this and play it back to them, calmly. You can understand their points without necessarily agreeing with them.

After all, we all hold different views of any situation we are trying to address, and often have different information. Think of the situation as the adversary, not your counterpart. Instead, you’ll work together with them to find a shared solution.

Using tactical empathy in your negotiations

There are many things in the ‘tactical empathy’ toolbox. All of them will build good faith and give the other person a sense of control. The goal is to identify what they actually need and get them feeling safe enough to talk, talk and talk some more.

Here are five that can be used in everyday communication:

Focus only on the other person and what they have to say. Good listening is not a passive activity, and needs concentration. When you have a response, ask a simple question to confirm and then wait. Use active listening followed by dynamic silence – it builds rapport, too. It isn’t only the voice we should think about. Be sure to follow gestures, the use of hands, body and facial expression. They’re there to overcome barriers, like impaired hearing and lack of a common language. In these situations, if you are not observing and paying very close attention then their message will be lost.

Start out with a mindset of discovery. At the beginning, your goal is to find out as much information as possible. Assume you know very little. Chris Voss says that really smart people are sometimes poor negotiators because they don’t think they have anything to learn.

Label emotions – don’t suppress them. When you spot someone’s feelings, find the word and respectfully repeat it back to them. “It sounds like this has made you feel frustrated…”. This is called labeling, and it’s a great way to improve your listening. There is no way to cut people’s feelings out of the process, so it’s foolish to try. 

Use calibrated questions. These begin with ‘How?’ or ‘What?’ and they are valuable for two reasons. First, they avoid the yes/no answers that give you little extra information. Second, they force your counterpart to help think about your problems in a co-operative way. For example, “What else would you be able to offer to make that work for me?”

Stay humble. Remember that we all hold different views of the same problem. And we often have different information, too. If at least one of you has the humility to know this, you’ll likely have a good outcome. Great negotiation is about great collaboration and creating influence based on trust.

Tactical empathy works for an age-old reason. We are complicated creatures, and at root always an animal. Whatever our age, background, education or outlook, we first act from our fears, needs, and desires. This is our limbic system kicking in, the part of the brain involved in our  behavioural and emotional responses. 

Plugging into this system has always worked better than appeals to our reason, and probably always will. So try to magnify those positive emotions. After all, people are smarter when they’re in a positive frame of mind – and so are you.

Learn more

Video: Never Split The Difference

Book: Never Split the Difference

It’s not every day you learn a lesson from a Post-it note and a retired US Navy commander. But it happened to me last week. It’s a tale of leadership, and how to create places where everyone is thinking and engaged. That’s valuable in the military or the workplace, but it also has lessons for any group you’re involved in.

The Post-it that drew me in comes from the ever-wonderful Sketchplanations website. The image and caption made me stop and think:

“Bosses push information up to authority. Leaders push authority down to information.”

We’d all rather be called a leader than a boss, and most of us have some kind of leadership challenge in our lives. So I dug further to find that these were the words of a naval man called David Marquet. Twenty years ago, he ran an interesting social experiment. 

The boss who knew everything

In the 1990s, Marquet was living his dream. After years at the Naval Academy he was now the captain of a nuclear submarine, the USS Olympia. For a whole year, he went back to school to learn about the ship. He memorised the wiring, the piping, how the pumps worked. He read about the crew and knew how they dealt with problems. He knew more about the submarine than anyone ever had, and was ready to give all the orders. Then something changed. 

The fleet had another submarine, USS Santa Fe. It was the runt of the litter, with poor morale and performance. Other submariners knew it was the sub that never put to sea on time and couldn’t keep hold of its crew. When its captain resigned, Marquet was asked to step in – at two weeks’ notice. The USS Santa Fe was a very different type of submarine. What use was Marquet’s hard-won knowledge now?

His studying was now irrelevant. He couldn’t be the know-all leader he’d trained to be because he didn’t know it all. He couldn’t hide. After all, in a submarine, no-one is ever more than 200 feet away from the boss, day or night. 

Around the same time, he’d started to question what he knew about leadership. His textbooks said it was ‘directing the thoughts, plans and actions of others.’ But he knew there was only one Obi Wan-kenobi, and that the rest of us can’t decide what other people think. In a world where he was no longer the know-all, he needed a new approach.

One event really brought this home. It was an exercise where the crew pretend the reactor is broken. They must power the ship on batteries – a bit like running a car on an electric toothbrush. When they shut down the reactor there’s a race. Can the crew solve the problem before the battery is drained? 

During the exercise, Marquet asked an officer to speed up, using the battery faster. The order was passed on, but the speed stayed the same. A young crew member explained that, unlike other classes of submarine, theirs had only one speed under battery power. Marquet asked the officer if he’d known this. Yes, he had. So why had he passed on the order? “Because you told me to.”

Marquet realised that they were in a bad way. His lack of knowledge did not mix well with a crew that expected to follow orders. On a nuclear submarine, that was risky. At a meeting, he said that he’d trained for a different ship and needed them to be more proactive.

A young sailor chipped in. “No captain, it’s you. You need to be quiet.”

These days Marquet jokes that “perhaps this kid hadn’t seen too many submarine movies.” But an inner voice made him give it a try. He told the crew that (bar launching a missile) he was never going to give another order on this ship. He didn’t know what it was going to look like, or how it was going to work.

Pushing authority down

Marquet soon saw the advantages in working this way. He looked for more opportunities to push authority down to those with the best information. To apply for vacation leave, for example, a submariner had to use a form that went through six levels of sign-off. Yet his team leader was clearly the best-placed person to manage this. Empowering the crew to own more decisions was a great way to flatten the hierarchy and get stuff done.

How language changes culture

For their part the crew agreed to stop bringing the captain problems without solutions. They stopped saying “I recommend…” or “I’m thinking about doing this”. They switched to “I intend to…” and Marquet would nod and ask questions.

He realised how important language was in changing his crew’s culture. In a debrief after a fire drill he noticed a pattern in people’s responses. He was told that ‘they’ “didn’t pressurise the hose” or “were too slow.” Even among a hundred submariners, a ‘them and us’ tension had developed. Marquet fixed this with an easy-to-remember rhyme – “There’s no ‘they’ on the Santa Fe.”

One day an engineer came up to him with some bad news. He was about to explain that a pump repair would be delayed because the supply team ordered the wrong part. But he remembered he couldn’t say ‘they’. ‘They’ had to be replaced by ‘we’. And by saying ‘we’, the crew re-wired their brains. They started thinking of each other as one team, with no boundaries.

What happened?

David Marquest says it took him 10 years to figure out what really happened on the USS Santa Fe. He sums it up by saying they created leaders. Officer after officer was promoted to command their own ship. Inspections reported that the crew had the most powerful culture of teamwork ever seen in the US Navy. One year, 35 out of 35 submariners re-enlisted, when once it had been just three. 

What can we learn?

For me, Marquet’s experiment is a classic case study in teamwork, culture and motivation. You may think you can control people, but this is a short-term fix. To really succeed, you must be happy saying, “I don’t know.” You need to build leaders around you – so their skills and energy can be applied to their workplaces, families, schools and communities. You have to create an environment where people can do what’s needed, without being told.  

Learn more:

Sketchplanations – push authority to information

Book: Turn the ship around

Video: Turn the ship around

Video: What is leadership?

Nearly 2,500 years ago, a wise Greek man died in old age. He was at least 80 years old, perhaps even 100. We can’t be sure. But we know that Hippocrates, the father of medicine, thought deeply about health and wellbeing. He advised others to, “Leave your drugs in the chemist’s pot if you can heal the patient with food.” These days, we’re beginning to realise just how profound this guidance might be.

Hippocrates believed that all disease began in the gut. Could he be right? To find out, we need to learn more about microbes, the tiny living things that are all around us. The most common types are bacteria, viruses and fungi. These microbes are too small to be seen by the naked eye, but they’re powerful when they get together. Our bodies contain around 100 trillion of them. Yes, trillion. Some microbes (less than 5%) make us sick, but most are important for keeping us well. 

Listen to those gut feelings

Modern techniques are revealing that the microbes in our guts may be as important as Hippocrates suspected. Perhaps deep down we’ve known this all along. All of us have experienced butterflies in our stomach before an important event. We talk about gut reactions and gut feelings. Boxers show gutsy behaviour and sometimes we all have to make a gut-wrenching decision. In our culture, there’s a relationship between the gut and our moods that’s been around long before we had electron microscopes. 

The organ you didn’t know you had

Experts call the gang of microbes in our digestive system the ‘gut microbiome’. Many even think of the microbiome as an organ in its own right. That’s partly because it contains as many cells as there are in your own body. It’s also because they’re vital for managing many aspects of your health, including your digestion and immune system. A poor balance of unhealthy and healthy microbes will push you towards gaining weight, high blood sugar, and high cholesterol.

So what can we do to improve our own gut microbiome? I’ve listed some tips below. But keep in mind that this is a new and complicated subject. Much of our knowledge is based on research that was made possible only after the human genome project, which was completed less than twenty years ago. 

These new methods allowed scientists to study which microbes we have inside us, and what they do. They began to see that some could be linked to conditions such as obesity, type 2 diabetes, and even neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s. They also learned that we each have a microbiome that’s unique – like a fingerprint. So much more research is needed to understand its role in keeping us healthy.

Tips for eating well

By now you know that eating isn’t just fuel for your own body. It also feeds the trillions of bacteria that live in your gut. Everyone’s microbiome is different, but if you want to improve your digestion, lose body fat, or look after your general health, try these tips:

Increase your range of foods

There are countless species of useful bacteria in your gut microbiome. Each needs different nutrients, so be good to them all by choosing different types of food. Next time you’re shopping, seek out something new you’ve never tried. Try to steer away from the typical modern Western diet, as it leans towards fat and sugar. 

Eat lots of vegetables, legumes, beans and fruit

All of these are high in fibre. While you can’t digest it, fibre will stimulate the growth of healthy bacteria in your gut. Foods that are good for this include:

• Artichokes
• Beans (kidney, pinto, white, black and red)
• Broccoli
• Chickpeas
• Green peas
• Lentils
• Raspberries
• Whole grains

Experiment with fermented foods

These foods are altered by microbes before they reach you. Bacteria or yeasts have been used to convert sugars in the food to acids or alcohol. Some exotic-sounding examples include:

• Kefir – a cultured, fermented milk drink
• Kimchi – pickled vegetables
• Kombucha – a fermented, sweetened black or green tea
• Sauerkraut – finely cut raw cabbage
• Tempeh – a source of protein, made from soybeans

Many of these foods are rich in lactobacilli, a ‘good’ type of bacteria. It’s not certain these bacteria reach the gut, but, in countries where these foods are common, people appear to have less bowel disease. Some kinds of yogurt may also help people with irritable bowel syndrome, but stick to plain, natural versions.

Go for whole grains

Whole grains contain lots of fibre and carbs you can’t digest. So they’re not absorbed in the small intestine and instead make their way to the large intestine. Once there, they promote the growth of beneficial bacteria. As a bonus, they also help you to feel fuller for longer.

Seek out polyphenols

These are plant compounds that help reduce blood pressure, inflammation and cholesterol. We absorb them inefficiently, so most end up being digested by our gut bacteria. Good sources include:

• Almonds
• Blueberries
• Broccoli
• Cocoa and dark chocolate
• Grape skins
• Green tea
• Onions
• Red wine

Choose extra-virgin olive oil over other fats if you can, as it contains more polyphenols.

Conclusion

If you thought bacteria were the bad guys, I hope this has made you think again. Along with other microbes, they’re often thought of as sources of disease. But in fact many play an essential role in keeping you healthy. Look after them by choosing a range of fresh, whole foods like fruits, veggies, legumes, beans and whole grains. And treat the little fellows with respect. At 3.5 billion years old, they’re the world’s oldest resident. So they’ve earned it.

Learn more:

Blog: How to escape the shops with a healthy trolley

Blog: Healthy eating for children

You may remember the name Charlie Unwin from some of my other blogs. He’s a sports psychologist who works with top athletes and other peak performers. Many of his ideas can be applied to daily life, and I thought I’d explore one of them here.

Let’s start by using your imagination. Picture walking on a pavement, along the granite kerbstones. They’re wide enough to walk on, so you won’t worry about toppling over. But what if the edge was a steep cliff face down to the ocean? You’d probably freeze. Yet you’ve been walking all your life. Practising more walking won’t help. The only fix is to deal with the fear and discomfort that’s playing out inside your mind.

This focus on what’s inside our heads is what Unwin calls the ‘performance inside’. And the reason it’s so important is that the way our minds work is relatively constant over time. Our goals will change over the years, as different parts of our life become more or less important. But the more we get to manage our thoughts and emotions, the more consistently we can apply ourselves to every challenge. The benefits stay with us forever. 

I find this useful because it helps us see beyond the short-term. It also encourages us to stop judging only on outside appearances. If appearances are our yardstick, then we may value things like big biceps, a narrow waist or a six-pack for summer. These can be handy goals, of course. But long-term success on the outside will only come from building consistency on the inside. 

So what things can we do to improve our ‘performance inside’? Here are five ideas to play with:

Find time for recall and reflection 

Training for skills and fitness is great, but be careful not to focus only on ‘doing’. If you don’t carve out time for reflection, you won’t be able to judge the quality of your efforts. That gets in the way of making changes for the better. 

Most of us will get better results by substituting quality for quantity. That means focusing on first principles, correct form and more planning. Then you can train with real intensity and will see the results. We are creatures of habit, and some people find it scary to pause and consider what it actually takes to improve.

Practise being brave in small doses

To maintain your confidence under pressure, you must practise dealing with your emotions. So challenge yourself little and often to do something a bit uncomfortable. It might be as simple as adding some hills to your next run. Or perhaps there’s a fear you’d like to overcome, such as learning to speak up when you disagree or need help.

These small inoculations will give you a healthier relationship with fear and excitement. It’s easy to avoid situations that make us feel uncomfortable, but dealing with this stress makes us more resilient. 

Work on your self-awareness 

We all do things without thinking. Do you tell white lies for an easier life? Or slump in your favourite chair? When you open an email, do you hold your breath? Most people do. Even tiny events create stress or discomfort we’re not consciously aware of. By deliberately watching yourself, you may pick up parts of the ‘performance inside’ you hadn’t noticed. That can help create more predictability and confidence in how you behave. 

For some bad habits, see if an internal conversation works: “Jess, you should calm down. Next week’s job interview is not the end of the world.” Psychologists call this trick ‘distanced self-talk’. It’s a simple way of finding some calm and emotional perspective. It may also let you re-frame what seems like an impossible challenge. Never under-estimate the power of your own encouragement.

Feeling like you belong

You may have heard about imposter syndrome. It’s a label for the self-doubt that leaves people fearing they will look stupid or be exposed as a fraud – especially at work. It tells us that being comfortable with our identity is a big part of the ‘performance inside’.

The issue is that a bit of success can challenge these identities. The move from rookie to champion, or apprentice to boss, is hard. You’re no longer the underdog, so now much more is expected. As a rookie, you were trying to master something. You felt the rewards of day-to-day progress, building your skills and experience. Now you’ve stepped up, the risk is that you think more about how you’re seen by others. 

One approach is to always keep that focus on learning and personal development. It’s necessary for high performance and will feed your confidence, too. Don’t pretend to be Superman or Superwoman – being authentic actually makes us more trustworthy and influential.

Harness the power of routine

A friend of mine enjoyed guitar lessons, but noticed that they made him nervous. Why? Because his tutor, however relaxed, was still an audience. Our brains know when there’s a performance and someone judging it. So the journey to the guitar lesson can bring the same kind of emotions as an athlete waiting for the starter’s pistol. 

This shows us that you’ll find high pressure situations everywhere. To manage them, it’s often wise to develop habits and routines. You can then anticipate when you might feel uncomfortable, and do something practical about it. A routine might mean visualising the positive outcome you’re looking for. Or simply packing your kit in the same way, the night before a race. Perhaps you have a ‘lucky’ watch or bracelet you can’t forget. Find what works for you and turn it into a routine that requires zero thought.

Conclusion

We all have things around us we can’t control. Life will throw many things at us – highs and lows, achievements and disappointments. So remember to train the ‘performance inside’ as well as your body. It will give you the intrinsic motivation you can apply to everything you do, paying dividends in the long-term. Consistency on the outside only comes with consistency on the inside. 

Learn more

Blog: Making stress your friend

Over the years, we’ve been taught that stress is unhealthy. Google the word and you’ll see lots of articles on its dangers, how to avoid it, and tips for coping. But what if that was only half the story? What if this enemy to our wellbeing can actually become a friend?

I’ve been learning more about stress recently, and wanted to share some things I’ve picked up. Among them are new ways of thinking about stress, and some surprising health benefits. It turns out that bits of controlled short-term anxiety are good for you.

What do we mean by ‘stress’?

When we bend a twig, it snaps when we apply enough force, or stress. From the 1940s, a researcher named Hans Selye took this term from physics, and applied it to the human body. At medical school he’d spotted that patients with different illnesses showed some common symptoms. These were caused by an imbalance in the problems they faced and the resources they had to deal with it. This is what we now call stress.

The two types of stress

Dr Selye was a pioneer, and the first person to describe how our bodies behave in challenging situations. He also showed us that our ‘stress response’ is the same – whether its cause is negative or positive. It’s useful to make a distinction between these two types:

• ‘Distress’ is the unpleasant stress we try to avoid. It can be generated by life events such as losing a job, a relationship break-up or grief. It will often cause severe anxiety and get in the way of us functioning normally. 
• Positive stress, or ‘eustress’, can be a real motivator. It’s mostly short-lived, but boosts our mood and productivity. Our pulse quickens, but this time there is no real threat or fear. We feel this stress when we ride a rollercoaster, start a new job, or go on a first date.

The key is working out which of these stresses apply in our daily lives. Then we can take the ‘eustress’ and tame it to our advantage. As sport psychologist Charlie Unwin puts it, we can invite stress on our own terms. Being good with stress is better for us than trying to keep it away.

Treating stress as a skill

What does this mean in practice? We have to believe that we can get good at ‘eustress’. To do that, we’ve got to practise it like any other skill. 

Charlie Unwin recommends using a ‘stress ladder’. Firstly, think about a challenge you have where stress will be an obstacle. For English footballers, that might mean going to a major tournament and taking a penalty in a shootout. For you, it could be physical stress, like achieving a personal best in a running event. Or it might be a mental challenge like making a speech or a Zoom presentation.

Now write down all the things that might cause you stress. Planning a presentation, perhaps you’re worried about your posture or body language. You might be anxious about looking nervous, what to do with your hands, or your laptop going wrong.  

When you’ve got this list, you isolate one stressor at a time. Do this by adding each one to an imaginary ladder. Those easiest to deal with sit on the bottom rungs, with the toughest at the top. Now we invite in some stress by dealing with each stressor one by one, climbing from the lowest point. 

For a presentation, this might involve filming yourself on a smartphone to get your gestures and timing right. You could rehearse in front of your partner to fix any bad habits. You could look out for tips and advice on YouTube. If your challenge is a physical one, are you following a plan to introduce the stressors you need to adapt and improve? Our minds respond well to these bite-sized, daily chunks of controlled stress.

Let’s take a personal example. Right now I’m following an 8-week training plan to run 10k in under 40 minutes. The stressors I invite in will develop my physiological fitness so I can run faster for longer. This concept is also known as speed endurance. One of the central pillars is ‘interval training’, running hard then resting. The interval refers to the recovery period, which we can reduce over time. Each session, each week has a specific aim and the cumulative effect will deliver my goal.

Some experts call this process ‘hardening’ but I prefer ‘stress inoculation’, a phrase from the military. This reminds us that having a skill is not the same as being able to deliver it consistently under challenging conditions. To do that, you’ve got to get really comfortable with stress. That’s why the army trains recruits when their hands are frozen, their kit’s wet through and they’ve hardly slept. They use the stressor of repetitive drills to hardwire the right pattern into reflexes.

What’s the real health hazard?

Another thing I’ve learned is that it’s not stress alone that harms our health, but our attitude towards it. In the video I’ve linked to below, Charlie Unwin talks about a large-scale survey in the US. Over many years, those people who thought that stress was good for them had better health outcomes than those who did not. So our relationship with stress is very important, as are our beliefs about it. 

When you give it a little thought, a life without stress wouldn’t be any better. Many things that make us proud and bring purpose to our lives are hard. If we could wish away the stress, we’d say goodbye to a lot of the meaning and feelings of accomplishment that keep us going.

Stress is so often seen as a negative sensation. Work can pile up, family commitments wear us out, and it’s sometimes hard to relax. But it’s worth taking the time to re-frame that view. As the father of stress Dr Hans Selye taught us, we…

“…should not try to avoid stress any more than we would shun food, love or exercise.” 

Learn more

Video: Inviting stress on our own terms – Charlie Unwin