Get what you want from even the most difficult characters

All of us have to deal with difficult people. Whether we’re asking our neighbour to move a fence or our boss for a pay rise, we can struggle to avoid arguments and get what we want.

Laurence and Emily Alison are world leaders in forensic psychology, and they specialise in the most difficult interactions imaginable: criminal interrogations. They advise and train the police, security agencies, the FBI and the CIA on how to deal with extremely dangerous suspects when the stakes are high.

After 30 years’ work – and unprecedented access to 2,000 hours of terrorist interrogations – they have developed a ground-breaking model of interpersonal communication. This deceptively simple approach to handling any encounter works as well for teenagers as it does for terrorists. Now it’s time to share it with the world.

Rapport reveals that every interaction follows four styles: Control (the lion), Capitulate (the mouse), Confront (the Tyrannosaur) and Co-operate (the monkey). As soon as you understand these styles and your own goals you can shape any conversation at will. And you’ll be closer to the real secret: how to create instant rapport.

ORBIT (Observing Rapport Based Interpersonal Techniques) is an approach to interviewing high-value detainees, encompassing not only analysis and research into the methodology, but also a framework for training. ORBIT: The Science of Rapport-Based Interviewing for Law Enforcement, Security, and Military offers comprehensive treatment of ORBIT's unique perspective on human rapport and the role it plays in the interrogation of difficult subjects, including suspects, detainees, and high value targets. Alison and colleagues provide an overview of ORBIT, which was developed from analysis of nearly 2000 hours of recorded interrogations. They go on to define rapport, explaining how and why it works by reference to this corpus of data-by far the largest of its kind in the world. ORBIT reveals what this data shows: that rapport-based methods work, and that coercion, persuasion, and threats do not. Outlining the development of their own unique stance on rapport and its influences, the authors demonstrate, through real-life examples and careful analysis, why harsh methods must be rejected and why compassion and understanding work.