The Like Switch

An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over

Jack Schafer, Marvin Karlins

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781476754505
• Topic: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Subtopic: Persönlicher Erfolg

From a former FBI Special Agent specializing in behavior analysis and recruiting spies comes a handbook filled with his proven strategies on how to instantly read people and influence how they perceive you, so you can easily turn on the like switch. The Like Switch is packed with all the tools you need for turning strangers into friends, whether you are on a sales call, a first date, or a job interview. As a Special Agent for the FBI's National Security Division's Behavioral Analysis Program, Dr. Jack Schafer developed dynamic and breakthrough strategies for profiling terrorists and detecting deception. Now, Dr. Schafer has evolved his proven-on-the-battlefield tactics for the day-to-day, but no less critical battle of getting people to like you. In The Like Switch, he presents these techniques for how you can influence, attract, and win people over. Learn how to think and react like your favorite TV investigators from Criminal Minds or CSI as Dr. Schafer shows you how to improve your LQ (Likeability Quotient), "spot the lie" both in person and online, master nonverbal cues that influence how people perceive you, and turn up or turn down the intensity of a relationship. Dr. Schafer cracks the code on making great first impressions, building lasting relationships, and understanding others' behavior to learn what they really think about you. With tips and techniques that hold the key to taking control of your communications, interactions, and relationships, The Like Switch shows you how to read others and get people to like you for a moment or a lifetime.

1

THE FRIENDSHIP FORMULA

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

—MAYA ANGELOU

OPERATION SEAGULL

His code name was Seagull.

He was a highly placed foreign diplomat.

He could be a valuable asset if he became a spy for the United States.

The problem was, how do you convince somebody to pledge their allegiance to an opposing country? The answer was to befriend Seagull and make him an offer too tempting to refuse. The key to this strategy involved patience, painstaking intelligence gathering about every facet of Seagull’s life, and a way to foster a relationship with an American counterpart he could trust.

A background investigation of Seagull revealed that he had been passed over for promotion several times and was overheard telling his wife that he liked living in America and would consider retiring there if that were possible. Seagull was also concerned his country’s small pension would be insufficient to provide him with a comfortable retirement. Armed with this knowledge, security analysts believed Seagull’s allegiance to his country could be compromised if he was offered the proper financial incentives.

The challenge became how to get close enough to Seagull to make him a financial deal without “spooking” him. The FBI operative, Charles, was told to slowly and systematically grow a relationship with Seagull, like aging a fine wine to bring out its best flavor, to a point where the time was ripe to approach him with an offer. The agent was told if he moved too fast it was likely that Seagull would go “shields up” and avoid him completely. Instead, he was instructed to orchestrate his approach, using behavioral strategies designed to establish friendships. The first step was to get Seagull to like Charles before they exchanged a single word. The second step was to use the appropriate verbal prompts to translate that goodwill into a lasting friendship.

The preparation for the critical first encounter with Seagull started many months before the actual meeting took place. Surveillance had determined that Seagull routinely left his embassy compound once a week and walked two blocks to the corner grocery store to shop. Armed with this information, Charles was instructed to station himself at various locations along Seagull’s route to the store. He was warned never to approach Seagull or threaten him in any way; instead he was to simply “be there” so Seagull could see him.

As a trained intelligence officer, it was not long before Seagull took notice of the FBI agent, who, by the way, made no effort to conceal his identity. Because Charles made no move to intercept or speak with his target, Seagull did not feel threatened and became accustomed to seeing the American on his trips to the store.

After several weeks of being in the same vicinity together, Seagull made eye contact with the American operative. Charles nodded his head, acknowledging Seagull’s presence, but showed no further interest in him.

More weeks passed and, as they did, Charles increased his nonverbal interaction with Seagull by increasing his eye contact, raising his eyebrows, tilting his head, and jutting out his chin, which are all nonverbal signs that scientists have discovered are interpreted by the human brain as “friend signals.”

Two months elapsed before Charles made his next move. He followed Seagull into the grocery store he routinely visited, but kept his distance from the foreign diplomat. With each new trip to the store, Charles continued to enter the grocery as well, still maintaining space between himself and Seagull but increasing the number of times he passed the diplomat in the aisles and increasing the duration of visual contact with him. He noted that Seagull bought a can of peas on each of his shopping excursions. With this new information, Charles waited a few additional weeks and then, on one occasion, followed Seagull into the store as he usually did, but this time to introduce himself to Seagull. As the foreign diplomat reached for a can of peas, Charles reached for the can next to it, turned to Seagull, and said, “Hi, my name is Charles and I’m a Special Agent with the FBI.” Seagull smiled and said, “I thought so.” From that first innocuous meeting, Charles and Seagull developed a close friendship. Seagull eventually agreed to assist his new FBI friend by regularly providing him with classified information.

A casual observer, watching the many months’ wooing of Seagull, might wonder why it took so long for the first meeting to take place. It was not by accident. In fact, the entire Seagull recruitment strategy was a carefully choreographed psychological operation designed to establish a bond of friendship between two men who would, under normal circumstances, never contemplate such a relationship.

As a member of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Program, I was assigned, along with my colleagues, the task of orchestrating the recruitment scenario for Seagull. Our objective was to get Seagull comfortable enough with Charles, our FBI operative, so that a first meeting could take place and, hopefully, would be followed by future meetings if Charles could make a good impression on Seagull. Our task was made more difficult because Seagull was a highly trained intelligence officer who would be constantly on the alert for any person who might arouse his suspicion, and which would result in his avoidance of that individual at all costs.

For Charles to have a successful face-to-face first meeting with Seagull, the foreign operative would have to be psychologically comfortable with his American counterpart. And for that to happen, Charles would have to take specific steps, which, it turned out, he successfully achieved. The steps Charles was required to follow in winning Seagull over are the same ones you must take if you want to develop either short- or long-term friendships.

Using the Seagull case as a backdrop, let’s examine the steps Charles successfully completed to recruit his target using the Friendship Formula.

THE FRIENDSHIP FORMULA

The Friendship Formula consists of the four basic building blocks: proximity, frequency, duration, and intensity. These four elements can be expressed using the following mathematical formula:

Friendship =Proximity + Frequency + Duration + Intensity

Proximity is the distance between you and another individual and your exposure to that individual over time. In the Seagull case, Charles didn’t simply walk up to Seagull and introduce himself. Such behavior would have resulted in Seagull’s rapid departure from the scene. The conditions of the case required a more measured approach, one that allowed Seagull time to “get used” to Charles and not view him as a threat. To achieve this end, the friendship factor of proximity was employed. Proximity serves as an essential element in all personal relationships. Just being in the same vicinity as your recruitment target is critical to the development of a personal relationship. Proximity predisposes your recruitment target to like you and promotes mutual attraction. People who share physical space are more likely to become attracted to one another, even when no words are exchanged.

The key to the power of proximity is that it must take place in a nonthreatening environment. If a person feels threatened by someone being too close, they go “shields up” and take evasive action to move away from that person. In the Seagull scenario, Charles was proximal to his target, but he kept a safe distance to prevent him from perceiving Charles as a potential danger and consequently triggering a “fight or flight” response.

Frequency is the number of contacts you have with another individual over time and Duration is the length of time you spend with another individual over time. As time passed, Charles employed the second and third friendship factors: Frequency and Duration. He did this by positioning himself on Seagull’s shopping route in a manner that increased the number of instances (frequency) where the foreign diplomat saw him. After several months, he added duration to the mix by spending longer periods of time around Seagull. He did this by following his target into the grocery store, thereby extending the contact time between them.

Intensity is how strongly you are able to satisfy another person’s psychological and/or physical needs through the use of verbal and nonverbal behaviors. The final factor in the Friendship Formula, Intensity, was achieved gradually over time as Seagull became more and more aware of Charles’s presence and the FBI agent’s seemingly unexplainable reluctance to approach him. This introduced one type of intensity, curiosity, into the mix. When a new stimulus is introduced into a person’s environment (in this case a stranger enters Seagull’s world), the brain is hardwired to determine if that new stimulus pre­sents a threat or a perceived threat. If the new stimulus is judged to be a threat, the person will attempt to eliminate or neutralize it by employing the fight or flight response. If, on the other hand, the new stimulus is not perceived as a threat, then it becomes the object of curiosity. The person wants to learn more about the new stimulus: What is it? Why is it there? Can I use it to my benefit?

Charles’s activities were conducted at a safe distance and, over time, became the object of Seagull’s curiosity. This curiosity motivated Seagull to discover who Charles was and what he wanted.

Seagull later told Charles that he knew he was an FBI agent the first time he saw him. Whether this was true or not, Seagull received the nonverbal “friend” signals the FBI agent was sending him.

Once Seagull determined that Charles was an FBI agent, his curiosity increased. He certainly knew he was a target of recruitment, but for what purpose and at what price? Since Seagull was already unhappy with his career advancement and looming retirement, he no doubt thought about different scenarios involving Charles, including working as a spy for the FBI.

The decision to become a spy is not made overnight. Potential spies need time to develop their own rationalization strategies and time to grow accustomed to switching their allegiance. The recruitment strategy for Seagull included a length of time for the seed of betrayal to germinate. Seagull’s imagination provided the necessary nutrients for the idea to mature and bloom. This latency period also provided time for Seagull to convince his wife to join him. As Charles moved physically closer to Seagull, the diplomat did not see the FBI agent as a pending threat but rather as a symbol of hope—hope for a better life in the years to come.

Once Seagull made up his mind to assist the FBI, he had to wait for Charles to approach him. Seagull later told Charles that the wait was excruciating. His curiosity peaked. “Why wasn’t the American operative making a move?” In fact, the second thing Seagull said to Charles when he finally introduced himself at the grocery store was “What took you so long?”

FREQUENCY AND DURATION

Duration has a unique quality in that the more time you spend with a person, the more influence they have over your thoughts and actions. Mentors who spend a lot of time with their mentees exercise a positive influence over them. People who have less than honorable intentions can negatively influence the people they spend time with. The best example of the power of duration is between parents and their children. The more time parents spend with their children, the more likely the parents will be able to influence them. If parental duration is lacking, the children tend to spend more time with their friends, including, in extreme cases, gang members. These people now have a greater influence on children because they spend most of their time with them.

Duration shares an inverse relationship with frequency. If you see a friend frequently, then the duration of the encounter will be shorter. Conversely, if you don’t see your friend very often, the duration of your visit will typically increase significantly. For example, if you see a friend every day, the duration of your visits can be low because you can keep up with what’s going on as events unfold. If, however, you only see your friend twice a year, the duration of your visits will be greater. Think back to a time when you had dinner in a restaurant with a friend you hadn’t seen for a long period of time. You probably spent several hours catching up on each other’s lives. The duration of the same dinner would be considerably shorter if you saw the person on a regular basis. Conversely, in romantic relationships the frequency and duration are very high because couples, especially newly minted ones, want to spend as much time with each other as possible. The intensity of the relationship will also be very high.

RELATIONSHIP SELF-EVALUATION

Think back to the beginning of your current relationship or a relationship you had in the past; you should now be able to see that it developed in accordance with the elements of the Friendship Formula. The Formula can also be used to identify the parts of a relationship that need improvement. For example, a couple who has been married for several years senses that their relationship is deteriorating, but they don’t know how to fix it. Their relationship can be self-evaluated by looking at the interaction of each of the elements of the Friendship Formula. The first element to look at is proximity. Does the couple share the same space or are they separately pursuing their own goals and rarely sharing physical space together? The second element is frequency. Do they frequently share time together? The third element is duration. How much time do they spend together when they do see each other? The fourth element is intensity, the glue that holds relationships together. The couple may have proximity, frequency, and duration, but lack intensity. An example of this combination is a couple who spends a lot of time at home watching television together, but do not interact with any emotion. This relationship can be improved if the couple increases the intensity of their relationship. They could go out on “date nights” to rekindle the feelings they felt for each other when they first met. They could shut the television off for a few hours each night and talk to each other, thus intensifying their relationship.

The combinations of the four elements of the Friendship Formula are seemingly endless, depending on how couples interact with each another. In many instances, one member in the relationship travels on business most of the year. The lack of proximity can adversely affect the relationship because it often leads to reduced frequency, duration, and intensity. The lack of proximity can be overcome with technology. Frequency, duration, and intensity can be maintained with the help of email, chatting, texting, Skyping, and social media.

Once you know the basic elements of all relationships, you will be able to evaluate existing ones and nurture new ones by consciously regulating the four relationship elements. To practice relationship self-evaluations, examine the relationships you are in right now and see how the four basic elements are playing a role in affecting them. If you want to strengthen a relationship, think of ways to regulate the Friendship Formula to achieve the desired outcome.

You can also extricate yourself from unwanted relationships by slowly decreasing each of the basic elements of the Friendship Formula. This gradual decrease will let the unwanted person down incrementally without hurting their feelings and without seeming like an abrupt break in the relationship. In most cases, the unwanted person will naturally come to the conclusion that the relationship is no longer viable and seek more rewarding interactions.

RECRUITING SPIES USING A SILENT PARTNER

Imagine you are a scientist, with a top-secret clearance, working as a contractor for the Department of Defense. One day, seemingly out of nowhere, you receive a telephone call from a government official from the Chinese embassy. He invites you to come to China to give a lecture on some of your unclassified research. All your expenses will be paid by the Chinese government. You report this invitation to your security officer, who t...