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Sometimes you want to access somebody’s secrets, but you want to do it in a way where they don’t realize you’re prying or searching for secrets. We use a term called elicitation for this activity. When you are trying to elicit specific information without demonstrating that you’re interested in that specific information. If you think about the average movie where you see a guy walk up to a girl in a bar, he’s having a conversation to try to see whether or not she’s interested or whether or not she has a boyfriend. What he’s doing is he’s eliciting. He’s talking about the weather, talking about the band. He’s talking about mundane things, but what he’s really doing is gaining assessment information from his target to see, is she smiling at him? Is she interested in him? Is she wearing a wedding ring or an engagement ring? The same thing is true when you’re trying to collect secrets from other people.
One of the most powerful tools that you can use to elicit is open questions. Open questions are questions that cannot be answered in a single word or a short phrase. Open ended questions start with words like how or why or to what extent or tell me about. When you ask an open ended question, the person who’s hearing your question has to interpret it through their own psychology, their own perception, their own lens of beliefs and biases. And because they have to interpret your question, they oftentimes share much more information than they intended to share. When you ask somebody how they feel about the passing of a loved one or how they feel about getting a new puppy, you will actually get much more information than what you’re seeking, and that is how you get deeper into understanding the biases, beliefs, and opinions of other people. When you understand their biases and their opinions and their core beliefs, it gives you more information to craft your next question.
We have a concept at CIA called windows and doors. That windows and doors idea means that when people share information, they’re either giving you a window into the way they think or a doorway into the way they think. When people give you a door, it means you can ask a follow-up question about the same thing you just mentioned. When people show you a window, it means you can ask even more questions into what they believe or how they think. These concepts of open ended questions that open doors and open windows allow you to dig deeper and deeper into the secrets that people are trying to keep without them ever realizing they’re sharing their secrets with you, their secret opinions, their secret thoughts, their secret biases, their secret feelings. They’re sharing them verbally. They’re sharing them non verbally. They’re sharing them with their face. They’re sharing them with their mouth. They’re sharing them with their body.