Stalling for Time: Memoir of a Hostage Negotiator

On April 9, 1988, Gary Noesner received a phone call in the middle of the night. The veteran hostage negotiator was asked to go to Sperryville, Va., where a man was holding his former common-law wife and their son captive. The man had told the police that he planned to kill both of his hostages and that he wasn't coming out of the house alive. Noesner's task was to defuse the situation and bring the hostages out safely.
[...]
His agenda was the same on each case he worked,[...]: He wanted to establish a relationship with the hostage taker, demonstrate respect and establish trust — in every potentially volatile situation.

"Usually the man that is holding the victims is so emotionally enraged that he's not really thinking clearly," Noesner says. "He doesn't have a plan [and] is not sure how to get out of a situation that he got into. So we have to try to steer them through that course and try to do it in a way where we appear to be nonthreatening."

Confrontations and demands from a negotiator can often make a tense standoff even worse. Making a hostage taker feel safe and secure helps establish a bond between a negotiator and a hostage taker. Forming that relationship is one of the key factors in starting negotiations for the victims' release.

"Negotiations requires a lot of patience," Noesner says. "You typically don't create that relationship of trust by the specific words that you articulate. You have to earn the right to be of influence with someone, and you do that by projecting sincerity and genuineness. And those are great qualities for a good, successful negotiator."

Article