Hi, I'm Eric Maddox, the former US Army interrogator who in 2003 while assigned to a Delta Force team in Iraq, tracked down Saddam Hussein. In 2003, the United States went to war Iraq and their primary mission was to track down Saddam. He was the ace of spades. That mission was given to the elite unit of the Joint Special Operations Command, specifically it was Delta force. There was a Delta Force team in Saddam Hussain's hometown, and they needed an interrogator to gather information from prisoners to help them track down Saddam. I was assigned as their interrogator. When I began the interrogations of the prisoners, I'd received the best interrogation training in the world. Everything we were taught, there were excellent communication skills.
But it was much like what most of us, what many of you learned in leadership. In sales, it's this idea you're going to sit with an individual, be kind enough, nice enough, at least build enough rapport to get them to talk. Believe it or not, prisoners do talk in interrogations, but the goal was to listen to them, right? We always know listening is important to identify their needs, and then with conviction and authority, we were trained to convince them, you're in big trouble. I have the solutions. I have the knowledge. I have the wisdom. I have the experience. I know exactly what you need. And I was on Delta force. They have tons of resources. My commander was very clear. He said, Eric, you can pay them. We can release them. We will protect their identity. And when I began these interrogations, it quickly dawned on me, these are never going to work. Why on earth would this guy trust me? This isn't a movie.
I went through dozens of prisoners and I realized I don't know what I'm going to do. But the prisoners would talk to me and they kept telling me, "Eric, You don't get it. Eric, you don't get me." And I'm talking to this prisoner. We're going on and on. He's listening to me and he sits there and he said, "Eric, you don't get me." And then he said something that changed my life forever. He said, "You don't get me and you don't want to get me." I realized he's right. What am I listening for?
He's talking to me. But every time he speaks, all I'm listening is to data points to build my argument, information that I can use against his argument. Everything he's saying to me, I have a goal and I have an agenda and an objective, and I'm not actually listening to what does it mean to be him? I don't get him. I don't want to get him. And I thought, I don't know if I've ever done that in any conversation. And I thought, Eric, clear your mind. Figure out what does it mean to be him? As I did this, and we're continuing this conversation, I realized every time I'm about to respond, my statement does have an angle, an agenda, and I got silent, and I was worried because it's a two-way conversation, right? No, no, no. Believe it or not, a two-way conversation. If you don't say anything, they keep talking.
And as he was talking to me, and I have no agenda, no goal, and I'm just sitting there, I started to realize every statement he makes that has words, terms, phrases that he most needs me to hear. It's almost the essence of what they're trying to say. I call these words breadcrumbs, and I thought, this is what he needs me to solve on. And I thought, don't solve now, what did he say? "You don't get me. You don't want to get me." And when I heard these breadcrumbs, all I did was discover on them. What does that mean? Ask a question. I had no plan, no agenda. And as I'm just simply asking questions on these breadcrumbs, I started to realize this man's opening up. He's not breaking, he's not confessing, he's not providing actionable intelligence. But you can tell when somebody's leaning into a conversation and really getting into it.
And he finally looks at me and he said, "Eric, I know you're going after my brother. He's in the insurgency." He said, "I will not take you to my brother. I'll never take you to my brother." And I thought, he just confessed. Maybe I should pounce on this. Really? He's in trouble now, right? And I thought, don't screw this up. Just discover on those breadcrumbs. A couple of minutes later, he looks at me and he said, "Eric, I'd actually love to take you to my brother's commander. The man that recruited, forced my brother into this insurgency. He said, "I'm not going to do that either." He said, "I take you to my brother's commander. Everybody in this town would know it's me. It puts my entire family's lives in danger." And I thought, just keep discovering. In a couple of minutes later, he looks at me and he said, "I have an idea."
He said, "I actually know few fighters across town, different part of town." He goes, "I know two fighters across town, and they too know the exact location of my brother's commander." He said, "If you'd be willing, Eric, I would take your team to those two fighters. If you'll go straight from their house, capture them, go straight from their house to my brother's commander's house, everybody in this town will think they took you. No one will know it was me." And we came up with this crazy plan, and I pitched it to my Delta Force commander. His name was Bam Bam. He was awesome because he's a Delta Force commander and his name is Bam Bam. And Bam Bam is super cool. And he's like, yeah, I give it a shot. We executed that plan, and for the first time I'd been with this Delta Force team, not only did I get cooperation from a prisoner, but we captured someone we were looking for.
We went across town. We captured these two fighters. The team went straight from their house to my prisoners brother's sub commander, and we brought the sub commander, and I told Bam Bam. I said, "Watch me talk to this guy." I said, "I'm trying to figure something out. I don't know what it is yet, Bam Bam, but watch me do this." By the time the sun came up, talking to this known sub commander, simply knowing every time somebody makes a statement, they drop a breadcrumb. It's what they most need someone to hear, but they want to know, if you do hear the essence of what I'm saying, what are you going to do with it? You're going to make it about yourself. Or do you even have the ability to seek to understand what it means to be me? These prisoners, before they cared what I could do for them, what Bam Bam and the team could do for them, they first want to know, do you even have the ability to seek to understand what it means to be me? Do you want to know what it means to be me?
Understanding this process over the next five and a half months, learning exactly what breadcrumbs are, how to ask the questions, 300 interrogations. The prisoners laid out the insurgency in the Suni Triangle, and they took us to the top, and we knew there was one man, a former inner circle bodyguard of Saddam that I believed, knew his exact location. And through these prisoners on December 13th, 2003, we captured the bodyguard. The one man I believe knew his location. I brought him in using this empathy based listening. It took me one hour and 45 minutes for the one man Saddam trusted to never give up his location. And the bodyguard looks at me and said, "Eric, we got to go. We got to go right now."
And that night, he took Bam Bam and the Delta Force team to the exact location of the spider hole. As a result of the capture of Saddam, I didn't know what was going to happen to my life, but I was taken directly to the Pentagon, to the Office of Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Donald Rumsfeld loved the way we tracked down Saddam, and he loved the way I did the interrogations. In front of all these admirals and generals, he tells them, he says, "I want my own team of interrogators, and they're only going to do empathy based listening." He created a 30 person civilian interrogation team, and I was hired as the first one. Over the next 10 years, I did a total of 2,700 interrogations, eight deployments of prisoners from 25 different countries. And for those 10 years, I focused on this communication technique I didn't know I was looking for in order to build the highest level of trust.
And what I realized is trust is the most important thing in any relationship, but the highest level of trust. The first thing people want to know when they're going to have a conversation, build a partnership, they want to know, regardless of how good you are at your job, regardless of your solutions, do you get me? And I can promise you the answer's going to be no. It's really hard to actually fully understand somebody, but the thing they want to know is, do you want to get me? Do you have the capability to seek to understand what it means to be me? And we can demonstrate that. They will look at you and go, "You're different. You're different than the rest of the world." They will continue to drop those breadcrumbs because everyone's looking for one person in their life to get them.
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