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Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation.
William, thanks for joining us today.
It's a huge pleasure for me.
It is our honor, my friend, to have you here.
So how would you get us started by telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Well, I'm a long -term student of negotiation.
I started off as an anthropologist, studying human beings and the way in which we deal with our differences and in the context of our societies and cultures.
And I wanted to get my hands dirty so I jumped into the field of negotiation because I felt wow, there's got to be a better way for us to handle our differences than getting into these vicious disputes, or in my case I grew up under the shadow of the atomic bomb blowing the whole world to smithereens.
There's got to be more creative, more constructive, more compassionate ways to deal with differences than...
And so I spent my whole life looking for those and wandering around the planet, working in conflicts ranging from coal mine strikes, to boardroom battles, to civil wars, Middle East, Yugoslavia, the Cold War, you name it, always with that passion of, where's the better way.
incredible incredible and and listeners For those the few of you who don't know our friend william here is very humble he is also the the co -author of the the most um impactful book on negotiation out there getting to yes and then also co founder of the harvard program on negotiation So we are talking to a legend here today, and it's exciting because you're coming out now with a new book Can you tell the audience about about that too?
Yeah, the new book's called POSSIBLE.
How We Survive and Thrive in an Age of Conflict.
And, I wrote it inspired by a conversation on a mountain hike with my friend Jim Collins, who's a leadership author as some of you may know from Good to Great.
And he asked me, he said, he said, well, you know, we're in tough times here, in turbulent times.
You know, it around the world, do you think you could sum up everything you've learned about negotiation in a way that might be relevant to today's times?
And here's the clincher, in a single sentence.
I looked at him as if he were an idea, I said, I said, you know, Darwin could know, he gave me the sentence in the Origin of Species, which I summed up the whole theory of evolution.
And I like simplicity, I like threes you know, and I thought okay, I looked back my whole experience what are three principles, three metaphors, three things that really hang together, that might offer some guidance for us about how we take these seemingly impossible situations that we face at every level of our lives, and in the world at large, and see where there might be possibilities that we might not have seen.
That's the book the book is about passing it on to people like you I might say.
You and I'm sure the people who listen to you you give me hope because it's the next generation because we've got our work cut out for us and and I thought okay let me see if I can sum up what I've learned and when I went over the sentence with Jim on our next site he said now go write the book.
It's not just about to go over the sentence, you have to write the book, so that's the book possible.
That is great, and one of the things that I really appreciate about your work is that you come from a different angle, and I think it's the background of you being an anthropologist. Can you tell us about how your background as an anthropologist impacts your perspective on conflict?
Yeah, well, you've got a background in psychology for just a second.
You know, anthropology and psychology are like twin sisters and sociology.
They're all kind of trying to understand the human dimension of these conflicts.
We're all human beings and we've got our conflicts and anthropology actually has at its core the idea of, can we put ourselves in the shoes of another culture, of another society?
can we see things a little or feel things the way they see and feel them.
And interestingly enough, that's the core competence of negotiation and mediation, is if there is a core competence, is that ability to take a different perspective.
And the other thing about anthropology that I think really brought, I brought into negotiation for me was that the methodology of anthropology is participant observation.
You are a participant and an observer at the same time and that's what you need in negotiation and you are, you know, especially if you're a mediator, we have to learn to observe the process as we participate so that we can learn, so we can see ways out.
You know I use the metaphor of like going to balcony it's almost like you're negotiating on a stage part of you goes to a mental and emotional balcony overlooking that stage where you can see the larger picture, you can observe, you can see what's happening, you can see what's happening inside of you and you can see what's happening on the stage and you keep on.
What I find successful negotiators do is they go to the balcony then they go back on the stage, they go back the balcony stage so rapidly in between those two but it's being a participant and an observer so that you can see where there might be possible ways out, ways out of the labyrinth, you can see ways forward that might be from mutual gain.
And that's that I also brought from anthropology really.
It's brilliant because it gives you a different perspective in the conversation because we are in the conversation with the other side but at the same time we have to absorb another perspective not just empathetically just try to as much as possible see things from their perspective but just holistically as well and that's it it sounds like that comes with a lot of responsibility because you might be negotiating with somebody who has not read your book.
When you find yourself in a situation where you're trying to be reasonable empathetic and respectful but The other side is not returning the favor.
How do you adjust and adapt in that kind of conversation?
Well, I'd say that's more the case than not.
And that's why after working on Getting Yes with Roger Fisher many, many years ago, my next book, Down the Pike was getting past no. Because that was a question I most frequently got was, well, what if people haven't read your book?
What if they're not gonna play by those rules?
And how do you deal with the difficult people?
The difficult situations?
The difficult challenges that we all face?
And so I've made a lifetime study of those situations.
And most of my passion really is peace.
And so I work in a lot of war situations where that's the last thing.
I mean people are not just not wanting to be cooperative.
They're actually actually Actively trying to kill you.
So I do you negotiate no situations Yeah, it's it's tough.
And I think it's really challenging for people because it feels unfair It feels as though we're having this conversation.
I'm treating the other side with respect They're not returning the favor and I think that people will really often they read the book and they say I'll try this and then Seven minutes into the conversation.
They say you know what?
I've had it I'm just going to fight through it.
That's why when I wrote this book, I realized a lot of getting to yes would be what I would call, it's about building bridges between parties.
Building bridges, invent options for mutual gain, looking for creative options or whatever.
And, what I realized over the years in this world is conflicts...
I mean, yes, negotiation has spread enormously.
I mean, you know, when I started off there were hardly any courses in negotiation, there were no programs on negotiation.
There were no... you know, it was in a field, and it's had enormous success in some sense of really permeating the society.
me, at the same time conflict is a growth industry.
We're looking around at political polarization, wars and Ukraine and the Middle East. You know, just A .I., I mean, there's so much change happening and all the change brings more conflict.
So what I add so my question is, so what does it take beyond, you know, if you use Getting and those kinds of methodologies as kind of a core, what else does it take?
That's necessary, but not always sufficient.
So, what else do you need to bring to the table?
Enhance the chances for success.
So, that's really what possible's is about.
And let's get into those things.
So, let's say somebody's trying to get deeper and understand what it takes to have those really tough conversations when there's a lot on the line and the emotions are running out.
What are the things that you've seen expert negotiators do that novice negotiators often don't?
The first thing and I would say maybe the biggest, perhaps the biggest lesson I've learned since getting a yes, is that the single biggest obstacle to me, getting what I want in a negotiation is not what I think it is.
You know, we tend to think it's the that difficult person, client, boss, the whenever it is, the situation in the family.
It's a difficult person, actually.
It's not the person on the other side of the table.
It's the person on this side of the table.
It's right here. It's me.
It's in our, lies in our own very human, very understandable, very natural tendency to react.
To, in other words, to act without thinking, to react out of fear often in conflict situations, to react out of anger, and as the old saying goes, when you are angry, you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
you will send the best email you will ever regret.
And the question is, it turns out that even though we think of negotiation as influencing the other side, it starts by influencing ourselves.
It's an inside game.
It works from the inside out.
And so the very the foundation of negotiating, particularly in the conflictual situations that we face is we have to get to yes with ourselves in order then to be able to get to yes with others.
Maybe you should write a book on getting to yes with yourself, that sounds like a great idea.
And that's one part of the equation.
To me there's kind of three parts of this equation, there are three parts of the secret sauce.
One of them is getting to yes with yourself.
it's it's the it's the balcony you know I use that metaphor of the balcony the ability to go to the balcony you know we ask ourselves well you know it's really hard to listen listen as you were mentioning listen the things you don't want to hear I think negotiation and it's really hard to do this stuff and what I found paradoxically actually is if you want to listen to someone else you have to start by listening to yourself first because our minds are so full of all these things you know thoughts and emotions and baggage from the past and traumas and all this stuff there's no space for us to be
able to take in someone else's we might even hear the words we can't even take in where they actually are unless we clear that a little bit by listening our own feelings listening to her knowing our own traumas listening to our own thoughts and sensations if we can take a little bit of that internal work then can clear out space so that we can actually take someone else's perspective in into account so it starts there and all of us have our favorite ways of going to the balcony I mean you know uh in the moment a lot of people they like to let me ask you what's your favorite way to go to the balcony?
Ah great question. I like to take notes as you can tell I'm already taking pages of notes already.
Right I see that. So I take notes but sometimes if I realize that I'm getting a little bit triggered, I will say, oh okay, you just gave me a lot to think about, would you mind giving me some time to take a few notes?
And so a lot of times, I'm turning that into a meditation.
A lot of times, I'm not even writing anything at that moment if I just really need to calm down.
I like to focus on my toes a lot too, because I don't want to give away any tell that I'm, as much as possible, I don't want to give away a tell.
And so I recognize that if I'm just kind of turning the movement of my toes into a meditation that can ground me in in reality a little bit better, and then focusing on my breathing.
And then usually once I do that for about five, 10 seconds, I can come back to the table with an open -ended question to try to steer the conversation in a positive direction.
Beautiful, that's gorgeous.
I never hear your voice.
But you know, it's like, taking a breath.
You know, taking two breaths.
It brings oxygen to brain, you're going to see things more clearly.
It calms your nervous system.
When you take notes, you're on the balcony.
You are becoming an observer.
You're actually creating a little bit of psychological emotional distance between you so that you can then see things more clearly.
I love focusing on your toes.
I haven't heard that one, but it makes perfect sense to meditate a little bit.
And it just could be as you mentioned, just could be a few seconds, but our physiology shifts.
The limbic system which controls the emotions, the prefrontal cortex can get a little bit engaged.
That's an evolutionary gift we have from our ancestors, use it to think before you act or before you react.
So it's the ability to just pause for a second.
And I have a colleague at MIT, Eric Curran, who with his colleagues, did a study once of they teach negotiation, and they recorded a whole bunch of negotiations, and they just measured the relationship between the amount of moments of silence in that negotiation, like you were just talking about a moment of silence, and the cooperativeness of the outcomes.
And there was a direct correlation.
The more silence, the more cooperative the outcome.
So there's evidence behind this.
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Incredible, incredible.
And hey, William, I know you have a really good story about maintaining your equipment under duress and staying cool under pressure, can you tell the audience about the difficult conversation you had with Hugo Chavez?
it? Very sure. It was 20 years ago.
There were a million people on the streets of the capital of Venezuela, Caracas, demanding the immediate resignation downfall of President Hugo Chavez.
There were a million people on the street supporting him.
Violence was breaking out.
People were arming themselves.
There were rumors. Civil war was in the offing.
And former president Jimmy Carter asked me if I would go down there and just listen to see what I could do.
And so in the course of that, I had a number of meetings with President Chávez.
One of them in particular, he liked to meet at night.
It was nine o 'clock set in the presidential palace.
He was there. I was there with my Argentinian colleague Francisco Diaz from the Carter Center.
We waited patiently, nine, ten, eleven.
We're finally ushered in to see the president, expecting to find him alone.
In fact, he had his entire cabinet array behind him so we were a little shocked.
And then he motions me to a chair and he says, so Uri says, tell me what's your impression of the situation here in Venezuela?
And I said to him, I said, Señor Presidente, I've been talking to some of your ministers here I've been talking to some of the leaders of opposition and I believe they're making a little progress well progress wasn't the word he wanted to hear he said he stopped shouting he said are you a fool you naive you third parties you mediators you know nothing at all you're not seeing the dirty tricks those traitors on the other side are up to and he leaned very close to my face I could feel his you know I could smell the breath you know and he proceeded to shout at me for approximately 30 minutes.
And, you know, I was kind of stunned.
I wasn't expecting this, you know.
I was feeling a little embarrassed in front of the entire—dressed down, I'm just seeing all this work I've been doing for months down the drain.
You know, you're going through this whole internal thought process, and feelings going.
A friend of mine had once said to me, he said, William, when you're in a tough situation, pinch the palm of your hand and I said I'm not, why would I pinch the palm of my hand?
He said because that will give you temporary little pain to keep you alert.
Whatever reason that was my way of going to the balcony was pinching the palm of my hand so that I could then, when you go to the balcony the balcony is that place of calm and perspective we all have inside of ourselves.
We have to access it where you can keep your eyes on the prize.
And what was the prize here I could ask myself the fundamental question what do I want here?
What's my My goal is to try and calm the situation, and then I could further ask myself, because I was preparing my defenses as we do, what are you going to say in response to all these attacks.
I said to myself, is it really going to advance things if I get into an argument with the president this way?
And I could say, no. So then, I bit my tongue, and I listened, and having paid attention to myself and my own feelings for a moment in that those little moments of silence that you're talking about Kwame, I just took those little moments to pay attention my nervous system subbed a little bit and I was able to listen to him like in the balcony just watching it as if it was a play unfolding you know and and and is he trying to impress his cabinet?
Why is he doing this and just bring curiosity this is one of my favorite things is meet animosity with curiosity.
You know just okay be curious and so what's going on for him and you know he was a man who could give speeches for seven eight hours no problem.
But thirty minutes without any reaction from me I was just watching his body language and his shoulders slowly sank for a moment and in a kind of weary tone of voice he said to me so Eury what should I do?
Well, that, my friends, is the faint sound of a human mind opening, because before that, if I tried to reason with him, someone's angry, they're not going to listen.
It's like banging your head against a wall, but in that moment he was open, and so I said to him, you know, Mr. President, it's nearly Christmas, the festivities are all being canceled like they were last year.
Why not just give everyone a break, a Tregua in Spanish.
You know a truce. For three weeks, four weeks allow people to enjoy the holidays with their families.
Come back in January.
Maybe everybody will be in a better mood to listen.
Well, he looks at me with a moment of silence.
He says, you know what?
That's an excellent idea!
I'm going to propose that in my next speech. And he collapses and comes back.
So, you know, his mood had completely shifted, And when I learned then and there, or realized what was dramatically is that the greatest power that we have, negotiation is the power not to react.
It's to pause. It's to go to the balcony.
The best way to start a negotiation is to stop.
Oh my goodness. I am tempted to end the interview right there, but I shall not because I am very intrigued.
I mean, where do I start here?
So let me I'm going to give a brief breakdown and then See and kind of go through this line by line here.
So first we see a trigger word So you use the word progress and that was a trigger word. Typically that's a positive word It was negative for him and those will happen from time to time.
Sometimes you can anticipate them sometimes you can't and I like the the pinching of the hand strategy and And what it shows is that there are multiple ways to get to the balcony.
And it really inspires authenticity because people might listen to you or me and say, okay, this is how we get to the balcony.
No, you have to figure out what works for you through experience.
And then when you go to the balcony, you're having that conversation with yourself, it's an actual negotiation, engaging in meta -cognition, asking yourself questions and answering it in the moment.
Powerful. And then as you're going through that investigation with yourself, I think A lot of times people from the outside, looking in, looking at a negotiator that might say there's, they don't feel these emotions, but clearly you did.
You didn't reject them, you didn't deny them.
You acknowledge they accepted them, and that helped you to process it.
And it was almost as if you became, you switched from being a negotiator at that moment back to an anthropologist, observing this with curiosity and understanding that the best move was really no move.
And I love this story, but I know there are going to be some people who are greatly entertained, but also deeply distressed, because they're probably going to say, I want to be able to say something.
Can you give me some negotiation wizardry tips to say these things?
But I think that's the hardest part, embracing silence, for that long and absorbing that much vitriol can be incredibly tough, but it takes a really strong person to recognize that sometimes the best move is no move.
That is so beautifully analyzed I don't think I've ever heard anyone give such a beautiful uh break it down like that but that's that's exactly it and I just want to emphasize there is no um the magic lies within you it's not you you can take a technique you can take a phrase but it's like this is our birthright we all if you think about your own experience.
We all have ways we go to the balcony.
What are your strengths?
What is your favorite way?
What works for your psychology?
And obviously, it's tough to be able to take that.
And for some of us, it's extremely tough for anyone stuff.
But, but, and, you know, in some situations, silence is the best thing.
You know, especially if you can't think about anything, but silence is, that there's a reason why they silence is golden.
Silence is maybe the ultimate power move in a negotiation.
You know we think of negotiation as talking.
So much of negotiations is about silence.
So much of it is about listening.
You know there's a reason why we're given two hears and one vouch, you know, because we're listening is when you actually shift minds, listening is when you have a change.
By listening to him he you know For me, in my sense of that, I was able to go to the balcony, which was not easy.
But that's what you do.
You go to the balcony.
And by going to the balcony, I was able to help him go to the balcony.
And he wasn't a guy who naturally was to the balcony.
He was more of a very emotional, passionate leader.
And then, interestingly enough, by him going to the balcony, he was then able to propose in his next speech, a way for the whole country to go to the balcony, to give.
So it starts within us, it then influences the other, and then it maybe influences the whole society.
Just a breather, a pause.
Does it end the conflict?
No, but it creates a better condition than to deal with the next thing.
And arguably, even though Venezuela is still a deep political struggle, it didn't tip as many international observers were fearing at the time it didn't tip into a civil war that as I saw because I worked in the country, neighboring country Colombia where hundreds literally like 400 ,000 people died there were 8 million victims it didn't tip into that kind of situation.
It's bad but it didn't go as bad as it could go.
Right and it shows that winning looks differently in different situations you know.
And it might not have resolved the conflict completely, but it did not escalate the conflict unnecessarily.
And I love this concept of silence.
It's one of the most powerful tools we have. And then of course, listening and pausing, I think about silence almost like, all right, we might have silence in the moment in a conversation.
We might need to take a break or a caucus too, to reevaluate.
And then sometimes the negotiation needs to end completely.
And in the moment let's say if you're having a tough conversation and you recognize this might be a good time to take a pause What is a good way to approach?
Taking that break in the conversation without losing face yourself and while helping the other party to safe faith as well Yeah, well for one phrasing my say like we've been going on for a while here Let's grab a cup of coffee a bathroom break I mean you could you know, there are a lot of, but this is the thing I remember this early on because I used to work in labor management negotiations, you know they would go at it sometimes and I remember hearing from a union leader, you know, we'd go at it and management in union was sit down and somehow there was some kind of thing that whoever asks for a break
is the weak one. And so he said we would go for 12 hours and it was an exercise in bladder control, And you know, we've got to break that, we've got to change the game.
You know, one of the most powerful things you do is change the game and just say, yeah, actually frequent breaks helps.
You can even introduce it up front.
Let's make sure that we build in balcony space.
You know, you could actually have that conversation about how we're going to continue this negotiation.
And when anyone starts to get really angry and lose it have a ground rule we can take a break anybody can say hey you know like in sports they have timeouts why not timeouts in negotiations and conflict where things get even testier you know I'm just speaking of the Union stuff I remember one Union management they thought about this problem and they developed a ground rule which was a very simple one which is only one side can angry at any one time.
So you can imagine, if you adopt that as a ground rule, then one side is you know blasting the other side, the other side is sitting there kind of like well it'll be our turn but we'll get our turn and you cut that reaction reaction reaction cycle that so often causes the train to go off the tracks.
And what we're seeing here is that you can negotiate anything.
Aha, you see the name of the podcast, right?
Because you can negotiate the process too.
And at the age, we think there is a certain specific way that negotiations have to go, but when you read the room and understand the situation you can say, no, this process is not working for either of us right now, let's take a step back, negotiate this process so we can move forward in a productive way.
Yeah, you got it. That's it.
And that's what, I mean, I call that the meta -negotiation, it's like metacognition, the meta -negotiation.
And metamagotiation is just so useful because you go into a situation like it's going to be hard, but suddenly you're having that metamagotiation.
How are we going to talk about this difficult subject?
Suddenly you're on the same side of the table talking about what are the ground rules.
So, the joint problem solving stance starts to—you introduce it when you don't—you know, when you can all agree, yeah, let's agree that we're going to hear the other one out, it's not going to be interruptions, you know, we're going to take breaks.
Whatever those rules are—we're going to treat this with confidentiality—whatever the ground rules are, that's the initial success of reaching agreement.
and then that creates the momentum.
And you do that, when you're bringing, I've brought Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, Guerrillas and Government, you bring them in Columbia, you bring them together.
You wanted to have that meta -negotiation of what are the ground rules so that people can feel safe enough to actually talk about things when outside of the room they may be killing each other.
Right. And you discussed a number of incredibly high level negotiations that you've had.
What does the preparation process look like for something like that?
Preparation is absolutely essential.
And it's the thing I really think prepare, prepare, prepare.
And that doesn't mean that everything will go according to your plan, but you prepare and you've been you know and the plan should have to ship because you have to improvise on the spot but for example with President Chavez this is an example before I met with him I ran up everything I could on him I listened to his speeches I had learned that the person he revered the most was Simon Bolivar was kind of a revolutionary you know he's like the George Washington, Latin America, Bolivar.
And I wrote a biography of Simone Bolivar, because I kind of sensed that it's really trying to get into the essence of what makes this human being tick.
And I sensed that he saw himself, he didn't talk about so much, but he saw himself kind of as a modern day reincarnation of Simone Bolivar.
So, the first time actually I met with him, it was going to be a courtesy call, maybe 10 minutes, 15 minutes.
You know, who was it?
I'm a Yankee. I'm a professor, you know.
I mean, he's not going to have much time for me.
uh and it was interesting uh in the hubbub there was a lot of hubbub going around outside their protests and demonstrations i took a few moments before to go to the balcony i sat in a garden and just you know meditated for just to make sure i was gonna be at my best in those few moments that i might have with him um and of course if you're gonna have 10 minutes you start thinking what are the most intelligent things I can say?
You know what what what can I say?
And then I realized you know it's interesting.
I had been in Brazil a few weeks earlier and I'd heard a song in the jungle that had a line that said do not in Portuguese do not give advice to those who do not want to listen.
And I thought, you know what, that's it.
I was just about to try and give him advice, but he might not want to hear it.
So, and we make that mistake all the time.
So when I went in, having done all this research beforehand, about him, about his family, about his daughter, about his family, whatever it is, I went in and I sat with him and started a conversation with president Carter, sends his regards and all this but it but you know we we both had a three -year -old daughter and as I mentioned that we have you know his his daughter was named Rosínez my daughter's named Gabi, Gabriela and and so he talked about how much fun three -year -old daughters are a little bit and then I pointed out there's this huge painting of Sópon Bolivar I mean huge I mean there
were many paintings of Sópon Bolivar I've been reading this biography of Simon Bolivar.
What an amazing leader he was.
Well, he lit up. I mean, that was the pathway to his heart with Simon Bolivar.
He said, that's why I'm here in this office because I was a colonel in the army years ago and there was some food rioting going on in Caracas and they called us out to suppress it and Simon Bolivar said, never fire on your fellow countrymen.
And so I started a coup d 'etat.
Whatever. And I got thrown into jail, and then I came back out of jail, and then I ran for president.
But then he started telling me the whole story of his life.
And when I got to the palace, there was about, there were hundreds of people waiting to see him.
It was like everyone waiting to get a few minutes with him.
And I thought I would have 10 minutes.
An hour went by while he was telling me the story of his whole life, And all I was doing was connecting with him.
I wasn't trying to give him any advice.
And at the end of that hour, he turns to me and he says, so professor, you know, what would you say about our situation here in Venezuela and the conflict here.
That's the moment where he's asking me for advice, right?
So I waited for that moment and I could tell the rest of the, I could tell the conversation went on for two and a half hours and at the end of it he asked me to come back the next day.
Why? Because I'd gone to the balcony.
I'd given up trying to give him advice and I was just trying to listen to connect with this human being who was so vital to trying to influence if we're trying to prevent a civil war.
So much to explore here my friend William so here I was listening to an interview with Kobe Bryant and he said that when you're obsessed with your craft, the world becomes your library.
And I think it's fascinating because you got that negotiation piece of advice from that song in Brazil that was pivotal in your significant conversation with Chavez.
I think that is incredible because I think that goes back to the preparation process.
It's something that you've been preparing for all of your life through constant study.
But then also in the moment you're trying to figure out what is the best approach here?
and so you're most likely preparing for days weeks months you read us Biography for this and then in the conversation two and a half hours.
I'm assuming you spoke for maybe 10 % of the time If that and I think sometimes people have this mentality where they say I have prepared and I want to get points for that so I'm going to show off how much I prepared by regurgitating random facts and everything, but I think what's fascinating about this is that a good negotiator has to have the restraints to know how to use that preparation in the conversation, and you read a whole book to make one statement, and then it opened everything up, and then you started to build trust with somebody who I know was very guarded, and it triggered a little
bit of affinity bias.
so affinity bias is you are like me so i like you wow we like and admire the same person i you must be a good person just like me we both have daughters who this you're just like me and then that is what led to this connection yeah sorry some snow just dropped off the roof here That's it.
That's exactly it Kwame.
You've got it and the reason you prepare, you prepare then you throw out all the preparation in order to be present in order to not let that stuff you know you don't it's like to be fully at your full potential you know it'll be right you know to be to play basketball, you have to be there in the moment.
All the preparation goes, and then you, then you get rid of it all or you don't get rid of it all, but it all recedes into the background and only shows up that little bit that you need in that precise moment.
Absolutely. And you, as a negotiator, you have to understand how to adapt and adjust and flow during the conversation.
And that can be terrifying, because when people often prepare, They prepare almost in terms of a script.
It's very rigid, things have to go this way, then when things go outside of their anticipation or their preparation, things fall apart really rapidly.
And tell me if I'm conceptualizing this well.
It sounds like what you have to do is you have to prepare, prepare, prepare.
And then when you go into the conversation, you have to trust your negotiation skills, in the moment, to know when to use that preparation at the That's it.
That's it. Otherwise you're thinking about the stuff you prepared instead of like paying attention to connecting with them.
Because when he asked me what you do, I said, Well, Mr. President I think you have an amazing power here, which is you have the power to prevent a civil war before it happens.
So, I was appealing to his sense of statesmanship and You know, he's from on Bolivar, right, he could save the country.
I said, you could save the country because I've been in a lot of situations where the war's going on.
You'd have a possibility to prevent it before it happens.
You like that, of course.
He said, so what would you do?
I said, well, why not initiate a dialogue with the opposition?
And then he flew off the handle.
So plans off the handle.
He flew off the handle and said, what are you talking about?
Dialogue with them?
They're traitors. They tried to murder me right here in this room.
six months ago there was a coup d 'etat and you know he got he got into a fury so then of course his script is out right so what do you so I'm just listening and I think so listen right so that I said you know I understand you don't trust them right so you're darn right I don't trust them and so suddenly we're then we're you know we're then talking about distress I said okay I I understand you don't trust them.
And then an idea showed up.
Maybe, I don't know why I'd prepared this idea.
I don't even know if, or maybe it's from the past, but I thought, you know, if you don't trust them, what about this?
Let me ask you this question.
Is there anything the leaders of the opposition could do tomorrow morning that would send you a signal that maybe they turned over a new page, that maybe you could begin to think about entering into a conversation with them.
Just what would be the very beginning.
What could they do?
They looked at me and said you know what they could do?
Because the opposition owned the private media.
They said they could stop calling me on their television shows a mono. and a Mono is a monkey and you could just even like grimaced is it made his face almost like yeah and and I could tell it was it was a sign of dis -respect like it was almost like he like like like like a racist thing of kind of like going back to his indigenous origins or whatever and and you could just tell.
And that's what's often behind conflict.
It's like, this conflict is about political power, of course.
It's about economic resources, oil, Venezuela was the leading petroleum producer in the continent.
But in the end, it came down to basic human respect.
That's what he wanted.
And I said, what else could they do?
And he said, well, they could stopped berating generals with all their uniforms on their television calling for the overthrow of the government.
Anyway, so I said, what about this?
What about this? What if you were to make up a list?
What if you were to appoint someone?
We make up a list like a like a menu, I call it a trust menu, a list of what are some small significant steps the other side could take that would send you a signal of goodwill let's say and maybe they would do it the same.
What about that he said seniales you know signals I said yeah signals make the list of signals we could send.
He said that's a good idea and he pointed to the person right next to him was the right hand guy, the minister of the interior, he said work with this guy figure out that list of signals and come seebar.
And you know the story goes on from there but it was It was just...
It was all about, in the moment, seeing where the opportunity is.
And just following it and leaving the script behind.
One of the things I'm recognizing, I'm seeing this pattern, is that we have in these conversations a high level of emotionality.
When people are emotional, you're not offering solutions.
You're not trying to get them to be creative.
You're not trading proposals at that time.
when people are emotional, it sounds like your focus is listening and managing those emotions.
And then you're paying attention to the body language.
Recognizing when the shoulders start to relax.
And then once they move into a more receptive mental state, it's at that point that you're giving the proposal.
Am I sensing that right?
Absolutely. Because in negotiation, we're often in the business of giving bad news.
We're telling people things they don't want to hear, right?
And you know, there was a a cis psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler Ross, I don't know if you know her, but she once studied how human beings react to bad news.
In this case, in her case it was like getting the news that you're that you've got a, you know, a terminal disease, say, and people go through a series of emotions.
It's not lockstep but it's kind of like the first thing is avoid the thing.
You know, you know, do anything.
You know, you've got, you've got a diagnosis.
Then it's denial. No, that can't be right.
It's a test again, whatever it is.
You know, then it's, um, then it's anxiety, right?
And then it's anger.
Oh, you doctors, you know?
You know, it's like this thing.
And then if they, it's almost like it escalates up to anger.
And then if you can stay with it, depression is on the other side, and after depression comes acceptance and after acceptance comes problem -solving.
So it's almost like a curve, right?
It's not locked step, but I've noticed the same thing in negotiation.
You present something, you know, like Chavez, you know, he got angry, you know, he gets angry, and you feel like when you're in the presence of someone who's getting angry at you, and if that's a person of superior authority of some kind, you can see your light flash before your eyes you think this is going up to you just you extrapolate the curve to nuclear war but if you can go to the balcony and listen you can help them go through that cycle quicker so that they go into depression the shoulder sank remember that was depression then there's acceptance and then he might be open to problem -solving
but but trying to you we want people to directly from giving the news to problem -solving.
No, we're emotional creatures.
You were giving people news they don't want to hear.
They need to go through their cycle.
See your job as helping them go through that cycle.
You're the psychologist as it were, not only your fancy therapists but your psychologically accompanying them, helping them go through that cycle until they're ready to hear the things that you want to present.
Powerful. Powerful.
William, this has been an absolute masterclass my friend I really appreciate this and before you go I want to give you an opportunity again to remind the listeners about the new book that is out I'm really excited about it and I want to make sure that my listener is going to go out and get it Well thank you Kwame.
You know people often ask me after all these years are you an optimist are you a pessimist?
And I like to answer now, actually I'm a possibleist. I believe in human possibilities.
I believe in our human potential to take these really difficult conflict situations and transform them from destructive fighting into constructive creative negotiation.
And I believe if you're listening to this podcast you are a possibleist. I know you are crying.
So, right now, the world needs possibilities.
We need all the possibilities we can.
My dream is to have a league of possibilities around the world of people, individuals, and teams swarming the toughest conflicts there are, looking for possibilities, whether they're conflicts, you know, legal conflicts or business conflicts or personal conflicts or whether they're the political conflicts that are bedeviling us.
That's that's my dream so my my humble request to all of you are listening to this is you consider taking your Negotiation skills, which I'm sure are well developed and applying it to these tough conflicts because if we can transform our conflicts We can transform our lives and we can transform the world William.
Thank you so much for joining us really appreciate it.
My pleasure Kwame Listeners, if you liked that, you will love this bonus content, and I'll drop you right in immediately after the interview ended because what happened afterwards was magical.
That was great! Unbelievable!
This was so good. I want to introduce you to our executive producer, Simon Pérez.
He's here. Hey, Simon. Hi, nice to meet you.
Simon, tell him about your background.
them. this is wow it's incredible because where you were telling this story I was crying because I'm from Venezuela right.
I was 16 years old and I remember that I'm I have a I don't have father it's just my mother right so we were at home and we were scared we were scared because we were about to go to war you know so my mom said okay let's go to the forest we don't know what to do right and it was December so we was we were planning to go on vacation but then we said no You have to go to the force.
We don't know what to do." And then Chavez came and said, okay, let's make a pause and let's open a negotiation table in January.
So we said, oh my God.
Oh my God. Our Christmas is possible, you know, because we were in the other side, you know.
For William it's just a decision in a room, But for me, it was my life.
I didn't know what to do.
We didn't know if we we didn't know if we had to go out of the country.
If we had to hide or fight.
We didn't know what to do because it was what about?
We were close to a war and that's true.
And I remember, when you were telling me, I was remembering this list that they made, I remembered everything from the negotiation table when Chávez came out on television and he said, okay, let's stop and talk in January.
I remember everything.
It was vivid, it was clear for me and now I'm crying because I don't know if I would be alive or not, I don't know.
That is so touching Simon, it really touches straight my heart.
So, the world works in very strange ways, but the very last interview I had this morning was with a fellow in Venezuela who was there at a talk that I gave 20 years ago, in a theater between chavistas and anti -chavistas.
And it's amazing to be able - that you are listening to this conversation and for me to hear just the, what you were going through with your mother, with the fear, that palpable fear of civil war, and you have to go to the jungle.
It brings tears to my eyes.
Great, great. Yeah.
And my name is Simon because Tuft Simon is a believer, right?
There you go of course.
Yeah, Yeah. For me it was incredible.
This episode is incredible for me.
So this should be part of the podcast. I don't know if your recording this, but it's like, Yeah, we didn't stop.
We should. I think we did see it.
Now there's something very powerful here.
Yeah. Simon that's amazing.
What an amazing story.
and that's what it's all about.
Well what can you say about that you know it's that's why we do what we do It is.
And there's a business apparatus for the American with patient is to do it has to fuel this but it's action that's it well that's what gives me hope look I mean I was telling you Christian before I look call it Guame the that the yeah for me you know um it just gives me so much hope to see people like you and Simone and all the people because you know it's the next generation and I've been at this for almost 50 years and and yeah it's that that's why we do what we do.
Yeah and I was thinking about this earlier today I was not sure exactly if or how to ask but you know the world the world can be a dark place we want to make a change you've been a model and if you could mentor us as we grow?
That would mean a lot.
If you could help us in terms of you're busy, I'm not asking for a big commitment.
If from time to time if I have questions, Could we reach out, ask for guidance?
I modeled ANI after the Harvard program on negotiation.
You know, because I see the impact that you're having on a global level.
So it's confusing, it's hard, it's challenging and a lot of times I'm not sure where to go.
So the answer is yes, Kwame.
Yeah, of course. Speaking from the heart to the heart.
Okay… Oh my gosh… Everybody's gonna think we're weenies… Hahahaha.
Hahahaha. Hahahahaha.
Maybe a little bit of this weenie is what the world needs right now.
Oh man, this is... this is great.
Well, I appreciate this, William.
We are gonna expedite this.
We'll get this out tomorrow.
We're just excited to be part of the journey of helping you grow.
Thank you. Thank you, Kwame.
And I'd love to send you both a book.
Signed book. Oh, that would be great.
if you've got your address, or send me your address or something, I'd love to send it to each one of you.
Perfect. Thank you so much for the book and for being part of the history of my country.
Oh, yeah, you know, it's funny, Simone.
You go to a country like Venezuela.
You get touched in the heart, and Venezuela is still in my heart to this day.
And I actually, even 20 years later, I'm still working with some Venezuelans, and because you can't just walk away, you got to stay.
And it's that persistence.
and I have a group of Venezuelans whom I trained who are called the optimistas and the optimists and they're working behind the scenes trying to even see today in today's world what's possible there and as it's like you know it's like a game of tag when you're and you're touched, you're it you know and And you get tagged, and I got tagged, I could feel the heart of the Venezuelan people.
And it's just enormously painful to see, to watch all the suffering that's happened, you know, with all the people who've had to leave Venezuela, everything.
So my heart is part Venezuelan.
It's incredible. Incredible.
Thank you so much, this is incredible.
We're excited to promote, and we've taken enough of your time over it, we're two minutes over.
I'll let you... But yeah this is this is great we'll post about this and I would love to again I ask measure I'm a contributor for Forbes can I can I write an article please please please yeah let's make that happen we'll make that happen please and and yeah just feel free to reach out to me I'm about to go on sabbatical next month for a few months just to go myself to the balcony So, but if, but definitely between now and then, or after when I get back, feel free to reach out and you give me hope.
I mean it. Thank you.
Alright, thank you.
Thank you. This is great.
We will be in touch, my friend.
Okay, Kwami. Okay, Simone.
Bye. You have a good one.
Simone. And I find you Man, how do I how do we how don't I go to another podcasteveryone Lang.
I want to retire yeah, I mean oh Man Wow that uh, I think we have our number one episode, I think that's pretty safe to say Unreal On the real.
Yeah it was incredible.
What it means to me man, what it means to me is incredible, it's incredible.
Because I was there you know, I was in the other side, I was suffering and we were about to go to war and we didn't know.
And I mean Chávez didn't go out and say hey William is here, you know.
He just said okay let's was like, okay, we're not going to war.
We can enjoy December because we had no food, we had no electricity, you know, because no one could go in the streets because there was almost a war, right?
It was very dangerous.
So when he said that, everybody said, okay, let's have Christmas and we'll do everything in January.
So that's the power, that's the power of costs, right?
The balcony, right.
You know I think for me, and I guess this is a good demo for negotiating anything premium too, there's no way we cannot debrief this, I think for me one of the things that's powerful is with 345, okay it is the the fact that there weren't any really negotiation lines that he gave in terms of okay say this and then they say that and they say this you do this because that's not how the good negotiation works and I think that's what makes people so scared about it too because they want that those those one liners that they can drop that change everything but those don't really exist. The experts don't
go in with the zingers they're going to say.
They prep, prep, prep, prep, prep more than anybody can even fathom.
And then they sit back and rely on their skills to lead the day.
They don't know exactly what's going to work, what's not going to work, what they're going to say, what they're not going to say.
But in the moment they will.
Yes. Yes, exactly. For instance, Sometimes when you make a cake, you follow a receipt, right?
Yeah. But when you play chess, you know not or less what you have to do, but you know that things will change over the road, right, over the game.
So, sometimes people think that negotiation is like a receipt...
Yeah. ...and negotiation is like a game.
Right, man, man, that was powerful.
And I think, again, he's one of the godfathers of negotiation.
several books and everything.
And to see the fluidity of his approach is just astounding.
And refreshing too, because you're seeing a lot of methodologies coming out that are very rigid.
And I think a lot of times that rigidity is a manifestation of fear.
I'm going to try to control the uncontrollable, because I'm afraid of that which I cannot control.
But if you can focus more on your skills, you get more confidence in those skills, and then you can be more relaxed in the heat of the moment.
And when he was talking about when Chavez was yelling at him, it was not comfortable.
But he had enough confidence in his skills to say, This is uncomfortable but I know what I'm going to do and I trust that it'll work even under duress because I think sometimes people say, Okay, well, that could work in a normal negotiation but the negotiations that I have are really high level.
Those things can't work at the highest level, but the negotiation fundamentals are the same in every conversation.
They're just applied somewhat differently.
And what's that difference?
It depends on the situation.
It's completely contextual, and the expert negotiators are able to understand that context, read the situation, and then do the right thing at the right time.
Yeah. Yeah. and uh I have listened to 1000 episodes of the podcast and I still make one mistake that when I'm going to negotiate I say okay and I'm gonna say this and I'm gonna say this and I'm gonna say this and that's wrong he said no you have to prepare and go to listen you know it's not about what you have to say it's about listening oh you know the prep for this interview is a great example because what I did is I created a dossying with just a summary of the book, this background, biography, and everything.
And then I came up with a list of between 100 and 150 questions I could potentially ask.
I turned it into an MP3 file and I listened to it for hours and hours and hours all this morning, just prepping.
I didn't prefer to, I took notes, but I didn't refer to notes during the conversation.
it's like at some point the preparation becomes a part of you.
Great. Yeah. Then you flow.
Yeah exactly. Yeah I don't even think...when I think about this specific questions that I wrote down I don't think I asked one specific questions but I asked a ton of questions and but it built on the preparation I did beforehand.
Yeah. and he was as well an example of preparation because he was prepared as well he was prepared yeah he knew about your psychology background he knew about the episodes the compassionate curiosity framework he knew about everything yeah that's wild hey why do you why do you know about me I'm for me and your William Urie.
Goodness gracious. I'm gonna have this dorky smile on my face for the rest of my career.
This is really, really good.
Amazing. Well, I'm glad we have 18 different recorders recording this episode.
So we should be good.
uh... man I am excited I am excited very very excited about this um anything else you need for me to or we like well no no I have access to zoom so once they've at least 100 % uploaded I'm going to to edit the file but I just wanted to know what things do you think we can add and what things what things you do you think we can remove from from the episode oh yes so let's do let's do this.
Let me let me just say something right now.
I'll um I'll just say something.
Maybe this deserves, I'm trying to think about how to introduce the bonus features.
Probably instead of recording an intro you will record like A mitral saying ok and from now we're gonna do an extra part of the episode so we don't use the outro instead we use that mitral like having two mitrals right?
okay gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha yes yes okay and so what we can do to signal that it's something different not just me saying you know we really appreciate you have you on the show and then flow into it and then And then I'm just like, and now for some bonus content the audio might sound too similar.
And they're like, are you saying that with William right there that's kind of weird. So we could throw some music behind it.
And then let me, let me just freestyle something here.
Congratulations. You've just joined an elite club by listening to a full episode you're now officially on The Negotiate Anything Team.
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The best things in life lie on the other side of difficult conversations.
Keep learning, keep practicing, and keep getting better.
Your relationships will improve, your career will soar, and you'll have the confidence you need to get the most out of these crucial conversations.
Again, thank you for joining the team, we're excited to have you and I will see you in the next episode.
I'll catch you later.
