Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict - By William Ury
Date read: 2024-05-06How strongly I recommend it: 8/10
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From the author of Getting to Yes and Getting Past No, his latest book focuses on what's possible coming out of a negotiation. Filled with many stories from his work as a professional negogiator for world leaders, it's very well structured and provides additional tools into building strong outcomes through negogiations.
Contents:
My Notes
Conflict can be defined as a clash between opposing positions arising from a perceived divergence of interests and perspectives.
The world needs more conflict, not less.
Facing challenges is how we as individuals and groups learn, grow, and change. Conflict provides that challenge, stimulating us and our societies to evolve. As my friend and mediation colleague Claire Hajaj remarked to me recently, “Constructive conflict is the foundation of human growth.”
The real problem is not conflict but rather the destructive way we deal with it.
If possibilists have a core principle, it is humble audacity. The audacity of our goals needs to be balanced by the humility of our approach.
In my conflict work, I have noticed that if I simply start from the problem, it is all too easy for me to get lost in its details and difficulties. So I like to start by drawing an imaginary circle of possibility around the conflict. That circle contains all the potential positive ways the conflict could unfold. I find it easier to address the problem if I can situate it within the larger context of possibility.
“What is possible here? Not probable but simply possible?”
“The path to possible is to go to the balcony, build a golden bridge, and engage the third side—all together, all at once.”
Victory Speech Exercise: Imagine for a moment that the other person has accepted your proposal. Incredible as it may seem, they have said yes. Now imagine they have to go in front of the people they most care about—their family, their colleagues, their board of directors, their voters—and explain why they have decided to accept your proposal. Consider it an “acceptance” speech. What would be their three main talking points
The balcony is a place of calm and perspective where we can keep our eyes on the prize.
The first is the power to pause—to stop and reflect before you act. Instead of reacting, give yourself a moment to calm down so that you can see the situation more clearly. When faced with Chávez’s angry outburst, I pinched the palm of my hand and remembered to breathe in order to pause and quiet my mind.
The second is the power to zoom in—to focus your attention on what you really want. Go deep into your interests and needs. In the heat of the moment with Chávez, zooming in gave me a chance to remember why I was there and what I wanted to achieve.
The third is the power to zoom out—to focus your attention on the big picture. From the balcony, you can see the larger scene unfolding on the stage. With Chávez, I zoomed out to see the exhausted protesters and imagined how families and children in Venezuela might benefit from a peaceful Christmas holiday.
Power to choose to stop and stop to choose.
Meet animosity with curiosity.
The quickest way to pause is very simple: remember to breathe.
Building a balcony can also take the form of recruiting a trusted person whom we can call on for help whenever we feel as though we’re becoming reactive.
Building a balcony means choosing and designing a physical environment in which the parties can pause.
To zoom in means to focus on the interests that lie underneath our positions. Positions are the things we say we want. Interests are our underlying motivations—our desires, aspirations, concerns, fears, and needs. Whereas positions are what we say we want, interests are why we want what we want.
The deeper we go into motivations, the more possibilities we find for transforming conflict. So don’t just stop at positions or even interests. Keep zooming in until you reach basic human needs.
Begin by zooming out and asking which stakeholders are missing from the table.
The purpose of negotiation, I would suggest, is not necessarily to reach agreement. The real purpose is to explore with the other side whether you can meet your needs through negotiation better than you could by not negotiating—in other words, better than by using your BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement).
The key BATNA question: “How can I meet my needs if I cannot reach agreement with the other side? What is my Plan B? How can I improve it?”
“I like to look not only at my BATNA but also at my WATNA—my Worst Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement,” a business leader once told me. “At moments in a deal when it looks like it might all fall through, I like to remind myself of what is the worst thing that could happen to me. I tell myself that if the other side is not actually going to kill me, then I will probably survive. Believe it or not, that helps reassure me and settle down.”
Successful negotiators, I have long observed, do the exact opposite: Instead of pushing, attract. Instead of making it harder for the other side, make it as easy and as attractive as possible for them to say yes to the decision you would like them to make.
A golden bridge is an inviting way for the parties to cross the chasm of conflict.
A golden bridge goes well beyond a classic win-win agreement. It aims to transform the relationship.
If you want to make it easier, start by making it harder. Aim for an audacious outcome, and use equally audacious means. We are often capable of achieving far more than we think possible. Don’t just build a bridge; build a golden bridge.
We build a golden bridge by deploying three natural powers.
The first is the power to listen deeply: to hear what those on the other side really want. Leave where your mind is and start the conversation where their minds are.
Effective negotiators are persuasive listeners. They listen more than they talk.
Offer advice only if invited. Drop whatever agenda I had and just go into the meeting ready to listen.
The longest distance in the world is the distance between the head and the heart. It doesn’t mean giving up our rational faculties. It means using both our heads and our hearts to tap into our full potential.
The second is the power to create: to invent options for mutual gain. Once you understand the other’s perceptions and needs, begin to craft creative ways to bridge the gap.
By delving deep into what people really want, we may discover that although the parties’ positions may be rigidly opposed, their interests may not be. That gives us a chance to expand the pie before dividing it up. Through the application of creativity, there can be more for all.
I decided to stimulate our imaginations by starting off with my favorite possibilist exercise: writing the other side’s victory speech. As I described earlier, the victory speech is a creative thought experiment that invites us to picture success and work backward from it.
Who can do what tomorrow morning? In other words, which leader could make which decision that could de-escalate a conflict or interrupt a war?
“We want your best ideas,” Roger said. “Wild ideas are positively welcome. Many of the best ideas started off as wild ideas. To encourage creativity, we will adopt the golden rule of brainstorming. So for the first half of dinner, no criticism is allowed. Save your criticism for later.”
Separate the process of generating ideas from the process of evaluating them. Evaluation is vital but best done after people have had a chance to come up with creative ideas.
I have noticed often in negotiations that creative ideas and potential breakthroughs rarely emerge in the formal talks, where the parties are guarded and wary. They happen most often between individuals who know and trust each other personally. They happen in corridors, during coffee breaks, over a meal, or in retreat settings like the ferryboat on the lake.
Make it easier—more attractive—for the other side to make the decision we’d like them to make.
“A trust menu is a pre-agreed language of goodwill. It is a list of positive signals that each side can send that have been checked out previously with the other to make sure they will be heard and appreciated. It is not a list of demands. It is a menu of choices.
The third is the power to attract: to make it easy for them to say yes. Creating good options is usually not enough to persuade people. Obstacles often stand in the way.
Their secret to managing conflicts is the vigilant, active, and constructive involvement of the surrounding members of the community.
In the conflicts around us, each of us is a potential thirdsider—as a family member, a friend, a colleague, a neighbor, or a fellow citizen. When conflicts affect everyone, it is our responsibility to help. Transforming conflict is not just the job of specialists. It is everyone’s job. The third side is us—each of us and all of us working together.
To offer counsel is different, in my experience, from simply offering advice. Advice starts from the advisor’s perspective. What are the brightest ideas one can offer? Counsel, by contrast, starts from the other person’s perspective. If we put ourselves in their shoes, experiencing their problems, what would be the most useful questions to ask?
Advice is 80 percent talking. Counsel is 80 percent listening.
To swarm a conflict means to surround it with a critical mass of ideas and influence.