Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

lethal response from law enforcement—but there was an
even greater lesson at stake: the point of the story then, and
now, was how important it is to recognize the unexpected to
make sure things like Moore’s death never happen again.
On that day in June 1981, O’Brien kept calling the bank,
but each time the bank employee who answered quickly
hung up. It was at that moment they should have realized
the situation was outside the known. Hostage-takers always
talked because they always had demands; they always
wanted to be heard, respected, and paid.
But this guy didn’t.
Then, midway through the standoff, a police officer
entered the command post with the news that a double
homicide with a third person critically wounded had been
reported a few blocks away.
“Do we need to know this?” Van Zandt said. “Is there a
connection?”
No one knew or found out in time. If they had, they
might have uncovered a second Black Swan: that Griffin
had already killed several people without making monetary
demands.
And then, a few hours in, the hostage-taker had one of
the hostages read a note to the police over the phone.
Curiously, there were no demands. Instead, it was a
rambling diatribe about Griffin’s life and the wrongs he’d
endured. The note was so long and unfocused it was never
read in its entirety. Because of this, one important line—
another Black Swan—wasn’t registered: