An Interview with Roger Fisher and William Ury

Author(s): Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bert Spector

Source: The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005) , Aug., 2004, Vol. 18, No. 3
(Aug., 2004), pp. 101-108
Published by: Academy of Management

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4166096

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The Academy of Management Executive (1993-2005)

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10 Academy of Management Executive, 2004, Vol. 18, No. 3

.......................................................................................................................................................................

An interview with Roger Fisher

and William Ury

Interview by Bert Spector

Executive Overview
Roger Fisher is director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, Williston Professor of Law
Emeritus at Harvard Law School and co-author of Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement
Without Giving In. His latest book, Getting It Done: How to Lead When You're Not in
Charge, was co-authored by Alan Sharp with John Richardson. Roger Fisher is concerned
with developing concepts and tools that help practitioners deal with their differences in a
less costly and more effective manner. He is the founder and Senior Advisor of Conflict
Management, Inc., and the nonprofit Conflict Management Group.
William Ury is co-founder of Harvard's Program on Negotiation. He frequently gives
seminars to companies such as IBM, AT&T and American Express and has served as a
consultant to the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon. Working with
former President Jimmy Carter, he helped found the International Negotiation Network,
which seeks to end civil wars around the world. His books Getting to Yes (with Roger
Fisher) and Getting Past No have sold more than five million copies. Ury and his work
have been featured in The New York Times, Newsweek, and on ABC-TV's "Good Morning
America."
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The two of you came to Getting to Yes from very tion I picked to study: how do human beings deal
different backgrounds. Can each of you talk about with their differences? Then Roger and I worked
how your fields helped shape the ideas in the together on a guide for international mediators.
book? Fisher: What we were saying in that guidebook
was that you want to negotiate like a mediator. A
Roger Fisher: I worked for the government, in the mediator tries to understand the interests of both
Solicitor General's office. I realized when I was sides and figure out how they can dovetail together.
arguing cases in front of the Supreme Court that Ury: As we worked, it was clear to us that the
most of them should have been settled. But people very same principles that we were applying to
went on fighting for years and years. And why? international diplomacy could be applied to busi-
Because lawyers love to argue, they love to do ness, to personal life, and to organizational life. So
battle. And clients want a gladiator, not a media- we came forth with the idea of taking that as a
tor. They want someone to fight for them. I was body of ideas and writing a book that could be
coming up to Harvard at the time to teach civil applicable across many domains. So in 1979, just
procedure, so I started thinking about what's the as we were starting up the Project on Negotiations
best advice to give lawyers on how to settle cases. at Harvard, we decided to write a book that would
They should focus on their concerns, not their po- be our best rendition of some working hypotheses,
sitions; they could disagree without being dis- principles, and methodologies for this dilemma of
agreeable; and they could come to an agreement how human beings deal with their conflicts, reach
without compromising. And the idea was to give agreement, and settle disputes.
identical advice to both sides. Fisher: You see, we thought that there are some
William Ury: My background is anthropology common ideas about negotiation. It's not that dip-
which is the study of human behavior. There's no lomatic negotiations are one thing, buying a house
problem more central to human behavior than con- is another thing. There are some common standards.
flict and joint decision-making. That was the ques- Ury: So Getting to Yes was our best hunch at the

101

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 102 Academy of Management
Roger Fisher
time, based on our experience, our research, and
our intuition about what seemed to work.
Before we get to the book itself, could you tell me
about the state of the negotiation field in 1981?
How was it being taught, and how was it being
practiced?
Ury: At the time, very few courses on negotiation
were being taught in business schools or law
schools. When we wrote the book, the field of ne-
gotiation was just in its very beginning as an iden-
tifiable academic research and practice area.
Fisher. What most negotiators had leamed was
that you ask for more than you expect to get, you
offer less than you expect to give, you compete as
to who can be more stubbom and who can better
threaten to walk away from a deal. Professional
negotiators thought you were either hard or soft.
Ury: The idea of negotiation was perceived as an
adversarial affair.
So what were the most important new ideas that
Getting to Yes brought to the field of negotiations?
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Executive August
Ury: Most of the advice proffered by books on
negotiation at the time our book came out was
designed to give unilateral advice. It was about
how to take advantage of the other person. Of
course, if the other person knew the same tricks,
your advantage was neutralized.
Fisher If a negotiator goes at it like an adver-
sary, the other side will respond in kind. You may
hack out an agreement, but you're hurting the
long-term relationship, and you're missing the
chance to make a better deal.
As I've read over the reviews of your book when it
came out in 1981, I have to say they were not all
positive. There seemed to have been some resis-
tance.
Ury: If you asked managers who they negotiated
with, they would have said, "I don't need to nego-
tiate. I don't negotiate with my employees. My
labor management person negotiates. I don't nego-
tiate." They also viewed negotiation as a transac-
tional moment. That one moment in a sales nego-
tiation, for example, was where they negotiated
the price. They didn't see the whole process as a
negotiation. When I ask managers these days who
they negotiate with, they give me the whole range:
up, down, across. These are all ongoing relation-
ships where you've got some shared interests and
some differing interests. The whole question is,
how do we manage those over time?
The book sort of straddled the field. The idea
was that you cooperated, as if you had no differ-
ences, or else you tried to win when there were
conflicts. There were books out about how to col-
laborate and work together. There were books
about how to win in competitive, adversarial ne-
gotiations. What we were trying to talk about was
how you cooperate when you also have some con-
flicting interests. That's the challenge. So this book
was kind of a bridge: it bridged academia and
practice, it bridged situations of cooperation with
situations of competition, and it bridged negotia-
tion expertise with the idea that everyone was a
negotiator.
We were providing a common language for a
dilemma that was coming into increasing focus: in
order to get my job done, I'm dependent on hun-
dreds, if not thousands, of individuals over whom I
can exercise no direct control. How do I get that to
work?
When the book came out, there was a stigma
about negotiation. There was the thought that only
the weak negotiate. The strong dictate. There was
also the belief that negotiation was some kind of
 2004 Fisher
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manipulative trickery. There was no idea that you
could work at your needs while being sensitive to
the other side's needs-well, that was a novelty for
a lot of people. Finally, there was a widespread
feeling that nice guys finish last. Our point was
that you didn't need to be disagreeable to dis-
agree. You could be both forthright and respectful.
Fisher. And every negotiation book before Get-
ting to Yes was about how to be a better adversary,
how to push the other side, how to dominate.
Ury: Our book aimed to give the same advice to
both sides. We had in mind a robust criterion that
said: if both sides in a negotiation read this book,
they will both do even better than if just one side
reads it.
Fisher: That's a very important principle. I re-
member when I met with Roberto Canas, the FMLN
guerilla leader in El Salvador. He said, "My spies
tell me you had lunch yesterday with the Presi-
dent."
I said, "I'll tell you that myself. You don't need
spies. I'll give you the same advice I gave him."
He said, "Whose side are you on?"
I said. "I'm on neither side. I'm helping you guys
dance together by teaching you how to do the
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and Ury 103
steps." What we're trying to get at is, what's the
best advice we can give to two people to help them
deal with their differences?
Ury Over the years, I keep hearing stories from
people who have read the book and then give it to
their negotiating partner and say, can we negoti-
ate in this fashion? Labor giving it to management,
management giving it to labor, joint venture part-
ners giving it to each other. They say, in the end, I
think we'll both end up with a better deal and a
better relationship.
You bring up the importance of building a relation-
ship as part of the negotiation process. That's an-
other central aspect of the Getting to Yes frame-
work. But do I need to follow the framework if an
ongoing relationship is not important?
Fisher. There's always a short-term relationship
to take you through the negotiation and then the
implementation of the agreement. Most negotia-
tions are not about meeting a stranger, making a
deal, and then moving on.
Ury: In truth, 95 per cent of our negotiations are
with people with whom we have an on-going re-
lationship, whether it's a customer who you're
hoping to keep, or with your vendors, or with a joint
venture partner, or your boss, your peers, your em-
ployees, not to speak of your spouse and kids. And
even if it is a one-shot deal, your customer will go
out and talk to other people, so you have to be
concerned with your reputation. Look, if you're a
man from Mars and you parachute in to make a
deal and then leave, there will be fewer con-
straints. But most situations that people have to
grapple with on a daily basis have an important
relational structure.
Fisher. That is especially true in intemational
negotiations. The two sides don't just make a deal
and walk away. Take the Middle East. There will
be Arabs and Jews there forever. Whatever agree-
ment they might sign, within weeks the sides will
be quarreling. What about irrigation water? What
about extraction of prisoners? Reaching agree-
ment is about more than signing a piece of paper.
The paper provides a legal framework. But the
sides have to build a relationship that allows them
to deal with their disagreements.
The book itself was written in a popular rather
than an academic idiom. Why did you choose to
write that way?
Ury: Our thinking was that we were writing a
book about influence, and we were trying to influ-
 104 Academy of Management
ence behavior out there. I remember that one of the
publishers told us we had to write the book either
as an academic book or a popular book, but that
we couldn't bridge the two audiences. But that
book, if I'm not mistaken, has managed to bridge
the audiences. I think that's one of its successes. It
is used extensively in both universities and the
real world.
As you present your arguments in the book, you
rely more on stories and anecdotes than on empir-
ical evidence.
Ury: Right. A lot of the credit for writing in a
popular idiom goes to Roger. He was already a writer
in that vein. He believed in writing for a general
audience as did other academics such as John
Kenneth Galbraith and John Maynard Keynes. So it
seemed to us that we should write as clearly and
lucidly as we could. We were trying to speak to an
audience beyond the university, to lawyers and dip-
lomats and business people. It was our view that
nothing is a practical as a good theory. That was the
idea. Why hide behind jargon?
Another choice you made was that your stories
tend to be about individuals in everyday situa-
tions: dealing with landlords or with car salesmen.
Why that choice?
Ury: Remember, the antecedent had been the
guide to international mediation. Then we started
working on some of the early negotiation courses
given at the Harvard Law School. So we were try-
ing to broaden out our framework to people's lives.
What were the issues that people could under-
stand in their lives? So the bulk of the examples
are interpersonal, because we were trying to
get these concepts across in a way that people
could understand. We were looking for "aha's" for
people.
Also, as you started out in the book, you were
trying to convince people that they did, in fact,
negotiate. Negotiation wasn't just for experts; it
was also for you. So you told stories to show people
that they had been in situations that involved ne-
gotiation.
Ury: Yes, there was the idea that everyone, like it
or not, is a negotiator. That was a leap for people,
particularly at that time. They understood that la-
bor and management negotiated, but most manag-
ers would say, "I don't negotiatte." Now. I'd say,
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Executive August
there is a much more widespread appreciation that
people are negotiating every day. Over the last 25
years, there has been something taking place in
the world that I would call a negotiation revolu-
tion. It accompanies the knowledge revolution.
It's really about the way decisions are made in
organizations.
Traditionally, decisions were made by the peo-
ple at the top of the organization who gave orders
to people down below. As the hierarchy flattened
and organizations relied more on networks, deci-
sion-making shifted from vertical to horizontal.
And horizontal decision-making is negotiation.
That's happening in business life, in political life,
and in personal life. I think this shift more than
anything accounts for the enduring popularity of
the field of negotiation.
I remember people telling me that negotiation
was a fad, just like, say, reengineering, and that it
would be a fad for three or four years. But it has
been enduring. The reason it's enduring is that it is
rooted in a basic shift in the way individuals and
organizations make decisions. Negotiation has be-
come the preeminent form of decision-making.
So you see negotiation as an alternative to hierar-
chical decision-making?
Ury: It is. Or maybe you should say that today
hierarchy is the alternative to negotiation. Take
legal disputes. Nine out of ten are not resolved
hierarchically by the judge. They're resolved
through negotiation. The same is true in busi-
nesses. The great majority of issues today are re-
solved horizontally, at least in a healthy organiza-
tion. If all disputes are being resolved by the boss
in a hierarchical way, you wouldn't be a healthy
organization for long.
What's the problem with a manager saying, "I'm
the boss and this is what I want done"?
Fisher: I'll give you an example. The boss tells
the office boy, "Get me a newspaper right now."
The boy has no idea why he wants the newspaper.
Is there a can of paint leaking? Does he want the
latest stock market figures? If that's what he
wants, the office boy can get it for him off the
Internet much faster. So the boy doesn't under-
stand the purpose, and the job isn't going to be
done very well.
The same is true in international affairs. Look at
Iraq today. There are more terrorists, more suicide
bombers, more Americans being killed than ever.
People who are working with us are being killed.
 2004 Fisher
Why is that? It's because George Bush, when he
declared his war on terrorism, acted in a unilateral
way. "We'll tell you what to do. We're not bringing
other countries along. We're acting like we know
what's right." That approach has produced all this
backlash. In our war on terrorism we've created
more terrorists.
Another vital idea presented in Getting to Yes was
the notion of separating positions from interests.
Can you talk about that concept?
Ury: That's the concept that was at the heart of
Getting to Yes, this distinction between positions
and interests. I can't tell you how many times I've
worked with people-heads of states and compa-
nies-who have trouble with that. They take short-
term positions, and then their behaviors lead them
in the direct opposite direction of their interests.
Often they arrive at their positions out of fear or
anger or pride. People often follow their own emo-
tional narrative, which is they try to make them-
selves feel good. But they abandon their goal of
making their organization more effective.
In fact, most people naturally think positionally.
They think, "Here's my solution to the problem.
That's my position." Rarely were people stepping
back and saying, "What's my real interest? What
am I really trying to advance here? And what is the
other side doing?" That simple distinction between
position and interest turns out to be key. I remem-
ber hearing this story at a Ford plant where I had
done some work. A union guy walked into the plant
manager's office with a long list of things he
wanted management to do. The manager said,
"That's your solution; now what's your problem?"
The union guy told him, and the manager said,
"Well, I can't give you that solution, but I think we
can solve your problem this way." Two months
later, the plant manager walked into the union
office with his own set of demands. The union
leader said, "That's the solution; what's the prob-
lem?" That became their mantra, and it trans-
formed their relationship.
Fisher: When parties have interests that they
think conflict, they take positions that are truly
inconsistent. Take Taiwan and Beijing. They're ar-
guing about one China or two Chinas. Looks like a
zero sum game. I'd say, what does Taiwan really
want? Do they want a lot of embassies all over the
world and membership in the UN? No. What they
really want is significant autonomy. What is main-
land China really afraid of? They're afraid that
independence for Taiwan will start all their other
provinces wanting independence, and China will
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and Ury 105
fall apart. Taiwan doesn't want China to fall apart.
They want to do business with China. It's a market
of 1.2 billion people! So their positions- one China
or two-are totally inconsistent. Their interests, I
think, are totally consistent. There is an enormous
advantage to both of them to work this out to-
gether.
Once people identify their interests, they can be
creative in coming up with a solution. What I've
learned is that there are two distinct phases to
mutual gains negotiations. The first phase in-
volves being creative in formulating options that
meet the interests of each side. The second phase
involves making a decision about the options. The
first phase involves identifying your interests and
then brainstorming with the other side about how
to achieve those interests without compromising.
What I've found is that decision-makers make poor
brainstormers. Whether they are presidents, prime
ministers, or company presidents, they are con-
strained.
Why is that?
Fisher: If one says, "How about this wild idea?"
the other might say, "All right, we'll do it!" The best
people to brainstorm ideas and notions as to how
to achieve the interests of both sides are people
who have no authority to make a decision. If you
can't separate the brainstormers from the decision-
makers, you can at least separate the two activi-
ties. Do your creating and then move into another
room and do your deciding. When I have people in
a brainstorming phase, I'll write a big note on a flip
chart page and tape it to the door: "Nothing said is
a commitment by anybody-ideas only."
Once you separate creating from deciding, you
don't have to hedge your ideas and think, should I
say that? So it's good to have some people creating
options. The big help I am to people, I think, is that
I help them be creative in dealing with the prob-
lem. A perfect example of this happened in 1980
when the American hostages were being held in
Iran. [In November 1979, Iranian students took 52
American hostages and held them in the American
embassy in Tehran.] This was just after the failed
rescue attempt [in April 1980]. I got a call from
Lloyd Cutler, the White House lawyer. He said,
"Roger, let's see what you can do. You have no
authority to commit the United States to anything.
You have 24-hour-a-day access to me. Good luck."
That was perfect. Just the way I like it.
Through some students I got hold of the Ayatol-
lah Beheshti. I got on the phone and said, "What do
you want?"
 106 Academy of Management
He said, "I can tell you what we don't want." And
he went on for half an hour. "We don't want New
York courts deciding anything about the financial
disputes" [The US government had frozen approx-
imately $8 billion of Iranian assets.]
I said, "Well, do you want this settled by courts
in Tehran?"
Well, he laughed and said, "Of course not. How
about arbitration in The Hague?" I said, "Do you
think your government will accept that?"
He said, "I'll accept it right now on behalf of Iran.
Will you accept it?"
I said. "As a professor, I'd be happy to accept it.
But what I can do is recommend it. What else do
you want?"
He said, "Help us make sure we've found all the
money the government froze." There were bank
accounts from the Shah and bank accounts from
the Iranian government. He said, "Under interna-
tional law, the US should help us find our assets."
I said, "Okay, fine, but I'm not sure we'll be able
to separate the Shah's family money from govern-
ment money."
He said. "Fine. We'll negotiate with the banks,
and what we can't agree upon, we'll arbitrate."
I said, "Where do you want the money to be
held."
He said, "Bank of England."
I said. "Okay. What else do you want?"
He said. "We want recognition. We've been in
office for over a year, and we want the United
States to recognize us."
I said. "Okay. So you want recognition. How
about diplomatic relations?"
He said, "No."
I said, "Explain that to me."
He said, "Well, they can recognize us without
establishing diplomatic relations."
I said, "That's true! But why don't you want dip-
lomatic relations?"
He said, "We're going to turn the American Em-
bassy building into a museum of American atroc-
ities. If the US wants another building, we'll help
them find it."
I said, "Okay, anything else?"
"End sanctions," he told me.
I said, "Give me some good arguments."
He said, "We've been punished enough."
I said, "Well, there is no objective measure of
enough-ness. What else do you have?"
He said, "Further sanctions will destabilize the
whole area."
"I don't understand that."
"You don't understand that? Doesn't your govern-
ment understand?"
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Executive August
I said, "I have no idea what the government
doesn't understand. I don't understand."
He said, "What we're doing now is bribing peo-
ple at our borders. That's the only way we can get
goods in. Everybody's bribing everybody. It's just
crazy, and it's destabilizing."
I said, "That makes sense, but I need another
argument."
"Isn't two enough?"
"You're so good at this," I said. "Give me one
more.
He laughed, and said, "Well, if they don't end
sanctions at the time of the hostage release, they'll
never have a better excuse."
"Good point," I said.
So I went back to Lloyd Cutler. I said, "I've got an
agreement blocked out and it looks like this. Now I
need a mediator."
He said, "You're doing fine."
I said, "Look, I'm an American citizen and a
friend of yours. I want an Islamic state."
He said, "I'll call you back tomorrow." He called
and said, "Algeria." He said, "We have a very prag-
matic relationship with Algeria even though our
ideologies are so far apart."
I said, "Great."
He said, "Do you want us to accept the deal?"
I said, "No, no. I want to know that you will
accept the deal. I don't want Algeria to go to Teh-
ran at the request of the United States. I want them
to go at my suggestion. But I want to know if we
would be wasting our time."
Cutler said, "I don't think you'll be wasting your
time. The United States will accept Algeria."
So then I was out of it until the night before the
inauguration. [Ronald Reagan had been elected
President and was to be inaugurated on January
20, 1981.] I got a call from a former student of mine
who said, "Roger, the Bank of England has not
received instructions." Both countries had talked to
the bank, but they had received no written instruc-
tions from either side. I knew of an Iranian banker
who was in the United States with the Interna-
tional Monetary Fund, so I called him up. I said,
"What's the problem?"
He said, "I'm not sure there is a problem."
I said, "There is a problem. The bank has not
received written instructions from either side."
He said, "Oh, if there is a problem, I know what
it is. It's interest. Islamic countries don't take in-
terest."
So I placed a call to the Central Bank in Tehran.
It was about 9 pm their time. A woman answered
the phone in French, so I started talking in French.
She said, "Professor, I think your English is proba-
bly better than your French."
 2004 Fisher
I said, "I want to speak to the bank's president or
the executive vice president. It's urgent. It's about
the hostages."
She said, "They're both in a meeting."
"Where's the meeting?"
"Just behind the door."
"Oh, well, please take a note in."
"No, I won't."
Instead of blowing my top, I said, "You must
have a good reason for saying that."
"Yes," she said. "I interrupted the meeting about
an hour ago, and they said don't interrupt us again.
So I won't."
I said, "Is there anybody else in the outer office
with you?"
"Yes, there's a young man here."
"Ah," I said, "get him to take in a note."
She did and the executive vice president got on
the phone. So we talked about how the Bank of
England could hold the money and not pay interest
and then work out a payment later. "This can be
worked out," I said.
He said, "Okay, we'll try that." [The hostages
were released just before Reagan's inauguration
the next day.]
Are there any situations where you just don't want
to negotiate? One of the truisms you hear today is
that you should never negotiate with terrorists.
Does that make sense to you?
Ury: People say that. The truth is, I don't know of
a single country that doesn't negotiate with terror-
ists. Businesses negotiate with people who take
hostages. The Israelis just negotiated with Hamas
for the release of some prisoners. That was Ariel
Sharon, of all people! I think what people mean
when they say that is, you should never give in to
terrorists. And that makes a certain sense. Look at
professional police hostage negotiators. They say,
of course, we'll talk to anybody. That doesn't mean
we're going to let them get away. Twenty-five
years ago, the way police departments dealt with
hostage takers was the John Wayne approach.
They shouted into a bullhorn, "You've got three
minutes to come out!" Then they went in with the
tear gas and the guns. The hostages were dead.
The police were dead. The hostage-taker was
dead. So they thought there had to be a better way.
So now, the first thing they throw into a hostage
situation is a phone. Professional negotiators lis-
ten and they talk and they try to work things out.
They aren't going to let the hostage taker go, but in
99 per cent of the cases, the hostages go free and
the criminal is brought into custody.
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and Ury 107
Aren't there times when the parties don't have any
mutual interests and would therefore be better off
just walking away from a deal?
Ury: Every negotiation takes place in the shadow
of the question: What are you going to do to satisfy
your interests if the other side won't go along? Our
advice is: The purpose of a negotiation is not to
reach an agreement. The purpose of a negotiation
is to satisfy your interests in a better way than you
could by not negotiating. There's a section in the
book called "Yes. But..." We wrote that to deal
with people who were worried about how our ap-
proach was going to work with someone who is
pulling dirty tricks on you or someone who has a
lot more power than you. Remember, at the time of
the book, Roger and I were working in the world of
international politics where people build bombs
and go to war. We wanted to address those "yes,
but" issues. That's why we said you need a realis-
tic understanding of how you are going to proceed
on your own: What is your Best Alternative To a
Negotiated Agreement, your BATNA?
Fisher: That was a word we just made up. It was
a new concept. Nobody had ever talked about it
before. You've got to develop your BATNA first.
Otherwise you don't know how to negotiate. Take
the Middle East. People on both sides have to un-
derstand that unless there's a deal-and that
means two states, some agreement on Jerusalem,
and shared security-then there will just be more
terrorists, more assassinations, more suicide
bombings. That's the best alternative, and it's not a
very good one.
Ury: That's the discipline of understanding your
BATNA. Once both sides have a realistic under-
standing of their BATNA, they say, "You know
what? There's got to be a deal here." But a lot of
people don't like to go through that discipline be-
cause they think that its "worst-case" thinking,
that they can get some deal done. And in compa-
nies, sometimes the culture of the organization
takes away your BATNA. Let's say you're in sales
and you have a company culture that says never,
ever lose a customer. Now you don't have a BATNA.
There are some customers you shouldn't make a
deal with; maybe the person is a pain, maybe he's
just not profitable. But the company culture has
taken away your BATNA.
Since Getting to Yes was published, the field of
negotiation has flourished. The book continues to
sell 3,000 copies a week. Why do you think that is?
 108 Academy of Management
Ury: Right now, people think that negotiation
skills are one of the two or three key competencies
of a good manager. They don't see negotiation as
win-lose. They see mutual interests between them-
selves and other parties. People have learned that
if you try to win at the other party's expense, both
sides end up losing. Labor and management can't
win at the other's expense. Increasingly there are
fewer situations where one side can win at the
other's expense. People experience lose-lose and
then say, there's got to be a better way. That's why
they get to win-win. That's the paradox these days.
The key competitive edge for companies is to know
how best to cooperate with partners. Sometimes,
you even have to cooperate with competitors who
are also partners. Relationships have become that
complex. I worked in one situation where two com-
panies were each other's biggest competitors and
suppliers and customers and joint venture part-
ners. That's a relationship you have to manage.
Can you give me a specific example of how your
mutual-gains approach to negotiation has been
used in a business case recently?
Ury: I've been working with a large hotel chain.
The hotel business has been having a lot of prob-
lems since 9/11 and SARS. There are tense negoti-
ations between the hotel chain which owns and
manages the brand and the individual hotel own-
ers who manage the local operations. The local
hotel owners need to cut costs as much as possible
to preserve their margins, but the hotel chain man-
agers are afraid that too much cost cutting will
hurt their brand name. So I worked with them us-
ing the principles of Getting to Yes. What are your
interests? What are the interests of your local own-
ers? What's your BATNA? What are you willing to
do to preserve the brand?
And can you apply the same ideas to international
negotiations?
Fisher: Every one of the major threats facing the
world today can and should be dealt with through
negotiations.
Ury: That's the lesson that needs to be learned.
We're all interdependent. You can win a war, you
can win lots of wars, but that doesn't get you what
you need.
Fisher: Look, for example, at North Korea. What
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Executive August
are their interests? They need economic help. They
want to be part of the international community.
What the United States wants is for North Korea to
abandon their nuclear program. Neither side is
going to back down to a naked demand by the
other. So I say, get two people together, one from
each side, and say, "Neither of you can afford to
back down in the face of raw demands. So let's
take a series of steps. First, let's freeze the North
Korean nuclear program, no expansion, with some
limited verification of that. Then we'll allow some
assistance to come in. We'll come up with six or
seven steps, each one contingent on verification of
the previous step." You want to give people a "yes-
able" proposition, something they can say yes to.
Look at what happened in Libya. They were smart
enough to go to England and not the US. Qadhafi
came to Tony Blair before the war in Iraq. There
was a potential deal there. You didn't need to go to
war. We got Libya out of the nuclear business for
nothing. We could have done the same thing in
Iraq.
Ury: There is a learning process going on, and
people are getting more realistic. If you look at
some of what we used to think were intractable
problems-US-Russian relations, South Africa,
Cyprus, Northern Ireland-you see how they are
gradually transformed as conflicts once both sides
realize that they cannot win. There might even be
ways both sides can benefit from a more peace-
able relationship. That's why I continue to have
hope in the potential of negotiation for helping
people, organizations, and nations deal produc-
tively with their differences.
Fisher. What we're trying to do is get these ideas
spread, to show how much can be accomplished
when you teach both sides in a conflict to negoti-
ate. We want people to know these skills and un-
derstand these ideas.
Bert Spector is an associate pro-
fessor of human resource man-
agement at Northeastern Uni-
versity in Boston. He is the
author of Taking Charge and
Letting Go: A Breakthrough
Strategy for Creating and Man-
aging the Horizontal Company
(Free Press, 1995), co-author of
The Critical Path to Corporate
Renewal (Harvard Business
School Press, 1990), and numer-
ous articles on organizational
change. Contact: b.spector@neu.
edu.