Name: Elicitation: CIA’s Technique to Make People Talk Without Them Realizing #humanbehavior #chasehughes
Uploaded: 2025-08-30T15:10:48.000Z
Duration: 6 min 42 s
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Gerund

But that elicitation is so powerful because we're not being asked questions So our brain doesn't set off little security alarms.

And this is how Soviet spies would get information from a 19 year old US Navy sailor in the early days of the Cold War You talk about this elicitation Yeah, what is elicitation?

It is It was originally came up with by this guy named John Nolan and his book is no longer for sale You have to get it on eBay.

You know, like it's hard to find but the book is called confidential Why isn't it no longer for sale?

I think that he just kind of pulled it off the shelf.

Okay, so Elicitation is about using statements instead of questions and I'll give you an example Let's say you and I walk into Whole Foods, which is we're in New York So it's probably a block away somewhere and we walk in there and there's let's say there's a young lady Stocking produce and you get in there and I say, all right Steven Your goal is to go figure out how much she makes in 60 seconds And you're not allowed to ask any questions or be awkward and that's tough, right?

It's it sounds really tough so if you went over to her and and this is a generalization just to get you to understand what elicitation is and Said hey, I'm trying to find the baby carrots and she walks you over there But while you're walking you say I just read this article online.

It says all Whole Foods employees just got bumped up to $26 an hour That's fantastic And she turns around goes what?

No, I make 17 so now she doesn't feel like she's been pressed or Questioned about how much she makes she's correcting you Or if you let's say you got into an uber tonight and you said I just read this article That uber drivers were one of the top most highly satisfied employees in the country.

You're gonna get a correction And you're gonna be like, where did you read that?

So triggering a need to correct the record is one of the easiest ways to use elicitation, but it's only one another one is Just making a statement afterwards and saying I bet you had some interesting experiences doing that or I can imagine that was challenging Statements are always going to be better than asking pointed questions because a person feels like they're volunteering information The third layer of that is disbelief.

Let's say I wanted to ask if you just got back from vacation I didn't want to use any questions Let's say we meet up for dinner or something and I said see you look like you just got back from a vacation That's a statement and you're like no actually I've been doing this this this and this so now you've you've given me more than if I just asked if you're on vacation And I said, wow that had to be interesting I can't imagine that there's got to be a lot of stuff going on there and you start talking more and more and more And then like that sounds great.

There was no challenges to that entire trip I love when everything is a hundred percent flawless And you're like no actually and then you start going into that and I'm like no way Then now we have disbelief that comes in and I haven't asked a single question yet So that's one thing that I challenge everybody that I trained to get really good at is that elicitation piece How many layers can I get into a person or a conversation just using these statements?

And that's why I wrote there's a whole chapter about it in in this book here But that elicitation is so powerful because we're not being asked questions so our brain doesn't set off little security alarms and this is how Soviet spies would get information from a 19 year old US Navy sailor in the early days of the Cold War they Ship would pull into Thailand or submarine to pull into Thailand or Singapore and a Russian would go up and these sailors would be drinking At the bar Russian would sit there.

He's got a Aloha shirt on or something and strike up a conversation.

They say I know that the the German submarines could outrun you because their propellers are 22 and all of your submarine propellers are 18 feet in diameter and The sailor slightly drunk turns around says no, they're not and starts giving up all this information Just to correct the record and that's all they did back.

I'm triggering this need to offer some kind of correction to information.

That's inaccurate and Even with business intelligence, let's say that a company's moving and they have to get business intelligence Somebody at that company will get approached at a bar and somebody will say yeah I heard you guys are moving between March and April And They'll get correct in this thing.

No, it's actually February, but we're not really supposed to talk about it It's like there's no way you're gonna move in February.

It's too cold and the interest rates are up too high There's no possible way that the CEO would ever do that It's like yeah, and then you're gonna you're gonna get more information out because of the disbelief.

So that was correcting the record a second technique called bracketing where I'm giving you a series like between March and May or Between 39 and 59 and the third is the disbelief that starts getting this information out of people So if you want to think about like, how do I start a conversation or continue one using elicitation?

Think of the words so and then do a recap.

So you've been doing this for three years or so This is not the best job, but it's getting things done for you or I bet so I bet that was interesting I bet there were still some challenges there I bet you overcame a whole lot to get to this point.

So or I bet is the best way to do that And when okay, so if I say I bet you hate that coffee Yeah, that that's a statement, but you're gonna endeavor to correct the record either way.

Yeah, and If you do hate the coffee, you'll say yeah, like even you saying yes, I do kind of hate it is offering up information Yeah, okay interesting and you could even go on with that.

I mean like I bet you hate that coffee and spices Yeah, well, I do kind of hate it, but I can imagine you're the kind of person who likes coffee a very specific way Well, yeah, here's how I like it a lot.

Well, if we're just talking about coffee, it's not sensitive information.

It's for sensitive information Yeah, we're trying to not get their guard up Yeah So the rule of thumb is the more sensitive the information is that you need the less questions you need to be asking