Jonah Berger - Catalyst

ALSO BY JONAH BERGER

Contagious:

Why Things Catch On

Invisible Influence:

The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior

First published in the United States by Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2020

First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2020

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Copyright Social Dynamics Group, LLC, 2020

The right of Social Dynamics Group, LLC to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4711-9377-4

eBook ISBN: 978-1-4711-9378-1

To Jordan, Jasper, Zo, and little piccolina

For changing my life in all the best ways

As a case agent for the FBI, Greg Vecchi specialized in international drug trafficking, money laundering, and extortion. Many of his targets were hardened, violent career criminals. The kinds of guys who sold helicopters to the Medelln drug cartel or tried to buy old Russian submarines to sneak cocaine into the United States from Colombia.

To corner one suspect from the Russian mob, Greg led a three-year wiretapping effort, painstakingly collecting information and building a case. When the warrants were ready, Greg called in a SWAT team: dozens of stocky guys in full body armor who would then storm in, neutralize the bad guys, and collect the evidence.

As he briefed the team, he outlined the various concerns. Greg emphasized that the suspect might be armed and was certainly dangerous. The SWAT team formed an arrest plan that left no room for error. They needed to get this just right or things could turn violent in a hurry.

At the end of the briefing, everyone left the room except for one guy. Greg had spotted him earlier. In a room full of commandos, this guy looked out of place. Fat, short, and bald, he was nowhere close to the chiseled picture of SWAT material.

Tell me about your guy, the man asked. I want to know more.

Not sure what you mean, said Greg. I just did. I said Ive got this whole file of

No. No, no, no, went the guy. I dont mean his criminal history. I dont mean his violent past and all the other stuff. Youve been on the wiretap, right?

Yeah, Greg replied.

What is he like? the man asked.

What do you mean, What is he like?

What does he do? What are his hobbies? Tell me about his family. Does he have any pets?

Does the suspect have any pets? Greg thought to himself. Were about to send a paramilitary unit after a guy, and you want to know whether he has any pets? What a bunch of crap. No wonder this guy got left behind by the rest of the SWAT team.

Greg dutifully provided the information and started to collect the briefing documents hed laid out.

One last question, the guy said. The suspect is there now, right?

Yeah, said Greg.

Well, give me his phone number, the guy said, before walking out the door.

When it came time for the arrest, the SWAT team was ready. Stacked in a line outside the building, one behind the other, waiting to kick in the door. Dressed in black from head to toe, they had their shields out and guns drawn. Get down! Get down! Get down! theyd yell before rushing in and grabbing the suspect.

But as the seconds ticked by, the SWAT team still hadnt gone in. A few minutes passed. Then a few more.

Greg started to worry. He knew the suspect better than anyone. Hed listened to him talk with his friends and associates. The guy was bad news. He would kill people. Hed been in a Russian prison and he wasnt scared of a fight.

Then all of a sudden the door opened up.

And out into the open came the suspect. With his hands up.

Greg was dumbfounded. Hed been in law enforcement for a long time. Years as a special agent in the U.S. Army and the Department of Agriculture. Hed worked undercover across the United States and done anti-corruption work on the Mexican border. He had a good chunk of experience. But a guy coming out of his own accord and getting arrested without incident? Hed never seen anything like it.

Then he realized: that short, bald guy hed been talking to? That guy was a hostage negotiator. And the hostage negotiator convinced the suspect to do something no one thought possible: turn himself over to the authorities, in broad daylight, without a fight.

Shit, Greg thought. I want to be that guy.

Since then Greg has spent more than twenty years as a hostage negotiator. Hes dealt with international kidnappings, interviewed Saddam Hussein after his capture, and headed the FBIs legendary Behavioral Science Unit. From talking down bank robbers to interrogating serial killers, hes changed peoples minds under seemingly impossible conditions.

Crisis negotiation emerged after the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, where terrorists took hostage and then killed eleven Israeli Olympians. Previously, the focus had often been on force, telling people, Come out with your hands up or well shoot! But after Munich and a number of other very public failures, it became clear that bullying people into submission wasnt working. So practitioners turned to the psychology literature, using behavioral science to build new training techniques that could safely deescalate a crisis.

For the last few decades, negotiators like Greg have relied on a different modelone that works. Whether trying to convince an international terrorist to let hostages go or to change someones mind about committing suicide. Even when talking to someone who just killed his family, whos locked himself up in a bank with hostages, who knows hes talking to a police officer, who knows the consequences and knows his life is going to change. Nine out of ten times he comes out by himself.

And he comes out just because someone asks.

Everyone has something they want to change. Salespeople want to change their customers minds and marketers want to change purchase decisions. Employees want to change their bosses perspective and leaders want to change organizations. Parents want to change their childrens behavior. Start-ups want to change industries. Nonprofits want to change the world.

But change is hard.

We persuade and cajole and pressure and push, but even after all that work, often nothing moves. Things change at a glacial pace if they change at all. In the tale of the tortoise and the hare, change is a three-toed sloth on his lunch break.

Isaac Newton famously noted that an object in motion tends to stay in motion, while an object at rest tends to stay at rest. Sir Isaac focused on physical objectsplanets, pendulums, and the likebut the same concepts can be applied to the social world. Just like moons and comets, people and organizations are guided by conservation of momentum. Inertia. They tend to do what theyve always done.