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Ross Hardy – What is a Crisis? | Expert Interview
Episode 23 - Interview With Crisis Negotiator, Ross Hardy
Ross Hardy spent a decade as a cliff-edge crisis negotiator at one of the world’s most notorious suicide spots. The team he founded and led there became the busiest search and rescue team in the UK and has rescued 1000’s of people to date. The leadership lessons that he learned in those years, he now teaches through Discovery Hope, a UK based leadership consultancy. His latest online course Smart Thinking For Times of Crisis is available on Udemy and teaches tools for self, team, and organisational leadership for times of crisis and high pressure.
You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
Welcome to another Sticky Interview with MBM, Making Business Matter. It's the home of, and soft skills provider to the retail and manufacturing industry of the UK. This podcast, the whole idea about this podcast is to be sharing great thinkers, and great concepts, and great ideas with you, to help you be the best version of yourself, especially in this time that we're living in right now with the crisis that are happening.
Nathan Simmonds:
Today, sharing the interview space with Ross Hardy, someone who's got phenomenal experience in crisis situations, in crisis negotiation, in crisis communication. And I'll introduce him shortly with a little excerpt from his bio, which is astonishing reading, and it comes with astonishing experiences. Ross Hardy spent a decade as a cliff edge crisis negotiator in one of the worlds most notorious suicide spots. The team he founded and led there became the busiest search and rescue team in the UK, and has rescued thousands of people to date.
Nathan Simmonds:
Just to add a little note in there, I live just down the road from this spot, Ross and I know the areas very well, locality and geographically. And yeah, world famous. The leadership lessons that he learned in those years, he now teaches through Discovery Hope, a UK based leadership consultancy.
Nathan Simmonds:
His latest online course, Smart Thinking for Times of Crisis, is available on Udemy we'll talk a bit more about that later, and teaches tools for self, team, and organizational leaders for times of crisis and high pressure. It's not just about today, in the day and age of COVID-19, it's about the crisis that was probably on people's tables 12 weeks ago, it's all about the crisis that will be on people's tables 24 weeks from now. This may be unprecedented times, but these are not unprecedented circumstances, or ways of thinking. This is why it's vital.
Nathan Simmonds:
Ross, massive thanks for being here, really appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation. Going to dive straight into this with some of the things. I want to find out why you do what you do. We've had a little bit of a conversation. I want to find out why you do what you do, and I want you to tell the world why you do what you do.
Ross Hardy:
Okay. Well firstly, as you mentioned, I spent 10 years as a crisis negotiator. I led a team of crisis negotiators on a cliff edge, dealing with people who were coming out to end their lives. Some actually from all over the world to that single spot. And in that time, I had an awful lot of experiences of people in crisis of course, learning how to manage people in crisis, throughout crisis negotiation techniques that we would use, and also learning how to lead myself, to lead a team, and to lead an organization that's dealing with crisis on a daily basis.
Ross Hardy - crisis negotiator
The crisis of people who were coming to Beachy Head, that's the place I was based, with the intention of ending their lives. But also, the kind of crisis that normal organizations come across, and crisis that were unique to that organization, the risks of the life of a team, the challenges in fund raising, and lots of different things that were associated around a kind of unusual workspace if you like.
Ross Hardy:
So that was my experience for 10 years. And as I stepped out of that, I realized that I'd began to realize that there were so many opportunities to share the skills, and the learning that I developed over that time with others, particularly in how we manage ourselves, our teams, and our organizations in preparation for, and during times of crisis.
Ross Hardy:
So that's primarily why I do what I do, because I'm passionate about leaders, I'm passionate about leaders ability to influence the world, to influence their world, to transform their organizations, to actually build organizations that really make a difference. And so I'm very excited to help equip leaders to be better equipped to manage themselves, their teams, and their organizations during those challenging times that we face. And obviously, at the time of we're doing this, of course, particularly challenging times with the pandemic, Coronavirus and all the lockdowns.
Nathan Simmonds:
Yeah. And I think the interesting crossover, you talked about that leadership of the self. So the skills that you learned going through that process, and then how you reapplied them to yourself, super important. One thing that I am a big proponent of is self-leadership first. You cannot give more to someone else than you have yourself, therefore, if you're not able to take the lead on yourself, you cannot lead a situation.
Nathan Simmonds:
And no one managed their way out of a crisis. It takes leaders, internally, externally; full-works. So it's interesting, when you're looking at, say, a suicide hotspot like that, where people don't know, and I'm aware of the sensitivity of this, they don't know what the next step is, they can't see the next future step, and they can't lead themselves out of that situation. So the only course of action they have, is to complete in that exercise.
Nathan Simmonds:
And again, scale up, you transfer that over into business. Business people making themselves redundant, or taking actions which aren't appropriate to the growth of that business in tricky situations. It's the same kind of thinking that creates that detrimental outcome, I think is the closest I can get to that.
Ross Hardy:
Yeah.
Nathan Simmonds:
Super important. So how did you become a crisis negotiator? Because I mean, it's not kind of the line of work you suddenly look for a job, "Oh, look, there's a post in the Job Center, I think I'll go and do that because it sounds interesting." There's a calling that comes with that for sure, Ross.
Ross Hardy:
Absolutely. I mean, I actually, I used to be a church leader. Led a couple of churches, spent a whole number of years leading churches. And I was actually just praying one Sunday morning, and then I got such an impression about ... I live local to this suicide spot. And I knew the situations that were going on there, and they were in the paper week in, week out, the recoveries, and so on.
Ross Hardy:
And so it was very much something I've been aware of for many years. But I just suddenly really got such an impression about the importance of reaching these people. And I had, in my mind, this picture of these two people paroling Beachy Head, reaching out to the suicidal, actually going out, and interacting with people on the cliff edge, and actually hopefully interacting with them in such a way to deescalate crisis, and get them to choose life.
Ross Hardy:
And so it really started from there. I had started actually with very little clue of how to do it. We just started putting things together. And we learnt a lot from some materials we had from the FBI crisis negotiation units in Quantico. Also, we had bits and pieces from various different sources that we brought together to start to develop a training to actually implement crisis negotiation with these people at Beachy Head.
Ross Hardy:
So it took us about a year from that moment. I think it was a year and one week before we became operational. And we started with a little team of six. So yeah, so that was back in 2003, and we began in August 2004.
Nathan Simmonds:
I've got to ask you though, there is a level of sensitivity with what you were working in at this point. And I'm aware, working in middle management groups predominantly, that there is a reticence to ask questions, there is a hesitation to get involved with people where mental health is prevalent. So whether it's an anxiety attack, PTSD, different whatever. A lot of leaders feel nervous about asking the right question, or asking any question, because they feel it may be right or wrong, it may be taken the wrong way, they have a fear it may make the situation worse.
Nathan Simmonds:
So in having that fear, they then therefore, they don't take any action at all. How do you do about ratifying your content, your questions, and your approaches before you go out there on the edge, and actually go into the ‘real’ as it were?
Ross Hardy:
Well one of the things we actually realized quite quickly as we began to assess how best to negotiate a crisis, hopefully for someone to choose life. We realized actually, we couldn't beat around the bush. We couldn't actually, we couldn't kind of side step the major questions. So we actually had to begin to face the crisis people were struggling with head on.
Ross Hardy:
Now, there were variations in this, but they would ... And it's extreme, it would be, the person that I was convinced was suicidal on a cliff edge, I would simply, one of my first questions after introducing myself would be, "So what's brought you to the point of wanting to commit suicide?" I would get directly to the point that they, of why they've come there, and what was in their mind, and then we'd talk from there.
Ross Hardy:
Then we've ... I've already said, "Actually, it's safe to talk about this stuff. You're not going to suddenly surprise me, you're not going to suddenly overwhelm me with your response." And I think that's often what can happen in our communication.
View all episodes
By Darren A. SmithEpisode 23 - Interview With Crisis Negotiator, Ross Hardy
Ross Hardy spent a decade as a cliff-edge crisis negotiator at one of the world’s most notorious suicide spots. The team he founded and led there became the busiest search and rescue team in the UK and has rescued 1000’s of people to date. The leadership lessons that he learned in those years, he now teaches through Discovery Hope, a UK based leadership consultancy. His latest online course Smart Thinking For Times of Crisis is available on Udemy and teaches tools for self, team, and organisational leadership for times of crisis and high pressure.
You Can Read the Transcript of Our Interview Below:
Nathan Simmonds:
Welcome to another Sticky Interview with MBM, Making Business Matter. It's the home of, and soft skills provider to the retail and manufacturing industry of the UK. This podcast, the whole idea about this podcast is to be sharing great thinkers, and great concepts, and great ideas with you, to help you be the best version of yourself, especially in this time that we're living in right now with the crisis that are happening.
Nathan Simmonds:
Today, sharing the interview space with Ross Hardy, someone who's got phenomenal experience in crisis situations, in crisis negotiation, in crisis communication. And I'll introduce him shortly with a little excerpt from his bio, which is astonishing reading, and it comes with astonishing experiences. Ross Hardy spent a decade as a cliff edge crisis negotiator in one of the worlds most notorious suicide spots. The team he founded and led there became the busiest search and rescue team in the UK, and has rescued thousands of people to date.
Nathan Simmonds:
Just to add a little note in there, I live just down the road from this spot, Ross and I know the areas very well, locality and geographically. And yeah, world famous. The leadership lessons that he learned in those years, he now teaches through Discovery Hope, a UK based leadership consultancy.
Nathan Simmonds:
His latest online course, Smart Thinking for Times of Crisis, is available on Udemy we'll talk a bit more about that later, and teaches tools for self, team, and organizational leaders for times of crisis and high pressure. It's not just about today, in the day and age of COVID-19, it's about the crisis that was probably on people's tables 12 weeks ago, it's all about the crisis that will be on people's tables 24 weeks from now. This may be unprecedented times, but these are not unprecedented circumstances, or ways of thinking. This is why it's vital.
Nathan Simmonds:
Ross, massive thanks for being here, really appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation. Going to dive straight into this with some of the things. I want to find out why you do what you do. We've had a little bit of a conversation. I want to find out why you do what you do, and I want you to tell the world why you do what you do.
Ross Hardy:
Okay. Well firstly, as you mentioned, I spent 10 years as a crisis negotiator. I led a team of crisis negotiators on a cliff edge, dealing with people who were coming out to end their lives. Some actually from all over the world to that single spot. And in that time, I had an awful lot of experiences of people in crisis of course, learning how to manage people in crisis, throughout crisis negotiation techniques that we would use, and also learning how to lead myself, to lead a team, and to lead an organization that's dealing with crisis on a daily basis.
Ross Hardy - crisis negotiator
The crisis of people who were coming to Beachy Head, that's the place I was based, with the intention of ending their lives. But also, the kind of crisis that normal organizations come across, and crisis that were unique to that organization, the risks of the life of a team, the challenges in fund raising, and lots of different things that were associated around a kind of unusual workspace if you like.
Ross Hardy:
So that was my experience for 10 years. And as I stepped out of that, I realized that I'd began to realize that there were so many opportunities to share the skills, and the learning that I developed over that time with others, particularly in how we manage ourselves, our teams, and our organizations in preparation for, and during times of crisis.
Ross Hardy:
So that's primarily why I do what I do, because I'm passionate about leaders, I'm passionate about leaders ability to influence the world, to influence their world, to transform their organizations, to actually build organizations that really make a difference. And so I'm very excited to help equip leaders to be better equipped to manage themselves, their teams, and their organizations during those challenging times that we face. And obviously, at the time of we're doing this, of course, particularly challenging times with the pandemic, Coronavirus and all the lockdowns.
Nathan Simmonds:
Yeah. And I think the interesting crossover, you talked about that leadership of the self. So the skills that you learned going through that process, and then how you reapplied them to yourself, super important. One thing that I am a big proponent of is self-leadership first. You cannot give more to someone else than you have yourself, therefore, if you're not able to take the lead on yourself, you cannot lead a situation.
Nathan Simmonds:
And no one managed their way out of a crisis. It takes leaders, internally, externally; full-works. So it's interesting, when you're looking at, say, a suicide hotspot like that, where people don't know, and I'm aware of the sensitivity of this, they don't know what the next step is, they can't see the next future step, and they can't lead themselves out of that situation. So the only course of action they have, is to complete in that exercise.
Nathan Simmonds:
And again, scale up, you transfer that over into business. Business people making themselves redundant, or taking actions which aren't appropriate to the growth of that business in tricky situations. It's the same kind of thinking that creates that detrimental outcome, I think is the closest I can get to that.
Ross Hardy:
Yeah.
Nathan Simmonds:
Super important. So how did you become a crisis negotiator? Because I mean, it's not kind of the line of work you suddenly look for a job, "Oh, look, there's a post in the Job Center, I think I'll go and do that because it sounds interesting." There's a calling that comes with that for sure, Ross.
Ross Hardy:
Absolutely. I mean, I actually, I used to be a church leader. Led a couple of churches, spent a whole number of years leading churches. And I was actually just praying one Sunday morning, and then I got such an impression about ... I live local to this suicide spot. And I knew the situations that were going on there, and they were in the paper week in, week out, the recoveries, and so on.
Ross Hardy:
And so it was very much something I've been aware of for many years. But I just suddenly really got such an impression about the importance of reaching these people. And I had, in my mind, this picture of these two people paroling Beachy Head, reaching out to the suicidal, actually going out, and interacting with people on the cliff edge, and actually hopefully interacting with them in such a way to deescalate crisis, and get them to choose life.
Ross Hardy:
And so it really started from there. I had started actually with very little clue of how to do it. We just started putting things together. And we learnt a lot from some materials we had from the FBI crisis negotiation units in Quantico. Also, we had bits and pieces from various different sources that we brought together to start to develop a training to actually implement crisis negotiation with these people at Beachy Head.
Ross Hardy:
So it took us about a year from that moment. I think it was a year and one week before we became operational. And we started with a little team of six. So yeah, so that was back in 2003, and we began in August 2004.
Nathan Simmonds:
I've got to ask you though, there is a level of sensitivity with what you were working in at this point. And I'm aware, working in middle management groups predominantly, that there is a reticence to ask questions, there is a hesitation to get involved with people where mental health is prevalent. So whether it's an anxiety attack, PTSD, different whatever. A lot of leaders feel nervous about asking the right question, or asking any question, because they feel it may be right or wrong, it may be taken the wrong way, they have a fear it may make the situation worse.
Nathan Simmonds:
So in having that fear, they then therefore, they don't take any action at all. How do you do about ratifying your content, your questions, and your approaches before you go out there on the edge, and actually go into the ‘real’ as it were?
Ross Hardy:
Well one of the things we actually realized quite quickly as we began to assess how best to negotiate a crisis, hopefully for someone to choose life. We realized actually, we couldn't beat around the bush. We couldn't actually, we couldn't kind of side step the major questions. So we actually had to begin to face the crisis people were struggling with head on.
Ross Hardy:
Now, there were variations in this, but they would ... And it's extreme, it would be, the person that I was convinced was suicidal on a cliff edge, I would simply, one of my first questions after introducing myself would be, "So what's brought you to the point of wanting to commit suicide?" I would get directly to the point that they, of why they've come there, and what was in their mind, and then we'd talk from there.
Ross Hardy:
Then we've ... I've already said, "Actually, it's safe to talk about this stuff. You're not going to suddenly surprise me, you're not going to suddenly overwhelm me with your response." And I think that's often what can happen in our communication.