Co-organised by the Police Negotiation Cadre (PNC) and the School of Professional Development of the Police College, former chief international hostage and kidnapping negotiator of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States Mr Christopher Voss was invited to speak on the topic of Effective Negotiation at a seminar of the Management Development Programme (MDP) in the Police Headquarters on January 23.

Mr Voss shared with Force members his negotiation strategies developed in the FBI, including the tactics of negotiating with hostage takers. He said that trying to guide a negotiation counterpart to say "no" at the initial stage of the negotiation was a good strategy. Answering "no" was usually more effective in pushing the negotiation forward than "yes" as saying "no" made the other side feel at ease but being pushed for "yes" made people defensive, he explained.

Another viewpoint highlighted in the seminar was the importance of empathy in crisis negotiation. Empathy can be shown by labelling the other side's emotions and paraphrasing what the other side had said. Mr Voss said, "By showing a sincere desire to better understand what your negotiation counterpart is experiencing, the other side will feel valued and the crisis situation will be de-escalated." Then under facilitation by Deputy Commanding Officer of the PNC, Senior Superintendent Wong Chi-kwong, the audience had a fruitful exchange with Mr Voss.