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Podcast Summary - The Art of Charm: The Art of Negotiation: The Balcony and The Bridge | Dr. William Ury
Episode Overview In this episode of *The Art of Charm*, hosts Johnny and AJ interview Dr. William Ury, a renowned expert in negotiation and conflict mediation. Dr. Ury has nearly 50 years of experience and is the co-founder of Harvard's Program on Negotiation. He discusses key insights from his book *Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict*, focusing on transforming conflicts into collaborative opportunities, negotiation strategies, and the importance of human dynamics in conflict resolution.
Key Concepts and Insights
Introduction to Dr. William Ury
- Background in negotiation and anthropology.
- Co-author of bestsellers *Getting to Yes* and *Getting Past No*.
- Engaged in significant global conflicts, applying negotiation skills.
Understanding Conflict
- Destructive vs. Constructive Conflict: Conflict is necessary for growth; however, it can either tear apart or build relationships depending on how it is handled.
- Going to the Balcony: A metaphor for stepping back to gain perspective during a conflict. This involves pausing to understand one's emotions and objectives.
The Power of Pausing
- Emotion Management: Pausing helps reduce emotional reactivity and leads to more thoughtful responses.
- The Magic Question: "What do you want here?" This question helps clarify objectives during negotiations.
Building the Golden Bridge
- Strategy for Collaboration: This involves creating agreements beneficial to both parties, ensuring they can both feel like "winners".
- Active Listening: Listening actively to the other party's interests and needs to build rapport and trust.
Common Negotiation Pitfalls
- The 3A Trap: Attack, Avoid, Accommodate. Instead of these, Ury advocates for engaging directly with curiosity.
- Creating a Collaborative Atmosphere: Essential for productive negotiations.
Leveraging Curiosity and Creativity
- Curiosity as a Tool: Asking open-ended "what if" questions to encourage brainstorming and creative problem-solving.
- Separating Evaluation from Creation: During brainstorming sessions, suspend criticism to foster creativity and innovation.
Transforming Relationships through Conflict
- Long-term Relationship Building: Focus on relationships rather than short-term victories. Successful conflict resolution enhances relationships.
The Victory Speech Exercise
- Imagining Success: Envision the other side's victory speech post-agreement to understand their perspective and what constitutes a win for them.
- Case Study: Ury applied this technique during negotiations between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, which helped de-escalate tensions.
Key Takeaways
- Negotiation is about relationships: The ultimate goal is not just to "win" a negotiation but to build lasting relationships based on trust and respect.
- Listen to understand: Genuine listening leads to respect and can transform adversarial interactions into collaborative dialogues.
- Patience and Persistence: Successful conflict resolution takes time and continuous effort; it isn't always wrapped up neatly in one meeting.
- Reputation Matters: A negotiator's reputation for honesty and fair dealing can lead to more successful outcomes in the long run.
Conclusion This episode provides listeners with actionable strategies for effective negotiation and conflict resolution, emphasizing the importance of empathy, active listening, and the transformative power of human connection. The insights shared by Dr. Ury are applicable not only in professional settings but also in personal relationships, making them relevant for anyone looking to improve their negotiation skills and interpersonal dynamics.
For more resources and information on Dr. Ury's work, visit [williamury.com](https://www.williamury.com).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:28You know why you're tired all the time? talking or even using my camera. Stuff is built to intake information quickly in whatever form you think in and turn it into actionable tasks right away. Lists and stuff are built like completable projects. So that book you want to write, that business you want to start, or that trip you want to plan starts to take form inside stuff, step by step. The magic is it gets exponentially more powerful the more you feed into it. Download stuff today. Start brain dumping and organizing your tasks and feel the freedom of an uncluttered brain. Download stuff for free today by going to trystuff.app.
1:04That's T-R-Y-S-T-U-F-F dot A-P-P. Or simply by searching stuff, S-T-U-F-F in the app store and to enjoy everything stuff has to offer. You can get 50 % off your first year of extra stuff by using code charm at checkout. Get stuff done and start closing your open loops. Download stuff from the App Store today. The single biggest obstacle to us, in this case, to me getting what I want, to advancing my own objectives, is not the difficult person on the other side of the table. However difficult that person might be, it's the person sitting on this side of the table. It's me. Welcome to the Art of Charm podcast, where we break down the science of powerful communication and winning mindsets so you have the cheat code to succeed with people.
1:54Every episode is jam-packed with actionable steps to unlock the hidden superpowers inside of you. Level up with us each week by listening to interviews with the best in business, psychology, and relationships. We distill thousands of hours of research into the most effective tools and the latest science so you can start winning today. Let's face it, in order to be seen and heard, your communication needs to cut through the noise and we're going to show you how. I'm AJ, successfully recovered introvert, entrepreneur, and self-development junkie. And I'm Johnny Zubak, former touring musician, promoter, rock and roller, and co-founder here at The Art of Charm.
2:28And for the last 15 years, we've trained thousands of top performers and teams from every background. We have dedicated our lives to teaching men and women all they need to know about communication, networking, and relationships. You shouldn't have to settle for anything less than extraordinary. All right, let's kick off today's show. Today, we're talking with Dr. William Urey, author, academic, anthropologist, and negotiation expert. We're leveling up our conflict resolution skills and supercharging our negotiation strategy with William, the co-founder of Harvard's program on negotiation. His books, Getting to Yes and Getting Past No, have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide.
3:08He received his BA from Yale and a PhD in anthropology from Harvard. William has nearly 50 years of experience and knowledge grappling with the world's toughest conflicts. And today, we're talking with him about his most recent book, Possible, How We Survive and Thrive in an Age of Conflict. William shares what it means to be a possibilist and why conflict is necessary for growth. He breaks down his famous Golden Bridge strategy that helped him end the conflict with Hugo Chavez. He discusses how to avoid the 3A trap, as well as the three biggest pitfalls in negotiating, and how to successfully prepare to win a high-stakes negotiation.
3:43Welcome to the show, William. Great to have you. Oh, it's a huge pleasure. As Johnny and I were talking before the show, we were really curious to hear what drew you to negotiation and conflict early in your career. Early in my career, first of all, I grew up in a family where there were quarrels at the family dinner table. Right there, that sparks an interest. And then I grew up, I was a kind of child of the atomic bomb, and I could never understand why we were prepared to kind of put life on earth at stake for a conflict. So I always had those questions and I studied anthropology, just really understand human beings and human relationships and culture.
4:19And then I wanted to apply it to something real. And I went and talked to, I was a graduate student in anthropology and I went and talked to a professor and I wrote a paper imagining that I was a fly on the wall of a negotiation, in this case, a Middle East peace negotiation. You know, what would I see if I was a kind of fly on the wall? What would you observe about people's, the way they behave, you know, Arabs and Israelis and so on? And I sent it to the professor, Roger Fisher, and I got a call one cold, wintry night when I was up in my little Garrett room grading exams and said, this is Professor Roger Fisher.
4:57I just read your paper on the Middle East peace negotiations, and I sent the central chart to the Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East because I thought he might be interested. Would you like to come work with me? And so I got hooked. I mean, the idea that you could kind of be creative or come have an idea that might actually be helpful to someone in a real world conflict, like maybe the most difficult conflict in the world, the Middle East, that was addictive. And so I've been on that path ever since. I feel that very few people in their career would be able to write a paper about being a fly on the wall in that room, and then later in your career be able to actually be in that room.
5:36So how accurate were you in that depiction? I was thinking really simply in that time. I was thinking, okay, how would you know if things were going well? I like to do thought experiments, you know, like how would you know if things were going well? Well, if things were going poorly, people would be focused on the past. They'd be engaged in the blame game, you know, accusing each other of all the things that happened in the past. If things were going better, they'd be focused on the present and on the future of like, what can we do to move forward here? And it was that kind of thing. And I would say that's been pretty accurate.
6:13It's quite remarkable and definitely comes through in your latest book, Possible. I think when we think about the rise of social media and the internet news cycle, it feels like conflict is everywhere and getting worse. And you argue that actually we need more conflict. What do you mean by that? Yeah, well, I say that provocatively because in a sense we do. Because, you know, wherever there are problems, wherever things need to change and we're in an age of disruption and change, things need to change, there's going to be conflict. In fact, wherever there's injustice, you need conflict to engage it.
6:47Whenever there's a problem in your relationship, you need conflict to engage it. So the choice isn't about getting rid of conflict. I mean, we might wish that we could get rid of conflict. You know, some of us, like me, we tend to be a little conflict-diverse. But the thing is, conflict is here to stay. It's actually going to intensify. And the real choice we have is, how do we deal with the conflict? Do we deal with it destructively through, you know, vicious arguments and attacks and even violence? Or do we deal with it constructively by listening to each other, trying to figure out what the other side really is coming from, figure out where we're coming from, trying to be creative, trying to be collaborative?
7:29And that's our central choice is to, it's not to end conflict, it's to transform conflict, to change the form. And I think that's why I'm a possibilist. I believe in human possibility, a human capacity to take difficult conflicts in relationships, whether they're small or large, and transform them. That viewpoint of a possibleist, I think for many of us, when we are encountering conflict, it's so emotionally charged. It's hard for us to tap into curiosity, collaboration, and think about the future. We get so hung up on the past and the emotions that we're feeling in the moment and how we've been wronged in these situations.
8:11What do you do walking into that room to prepare yourself to even start to envision the possibility? Well, that's the first challenge. The first negotiation, actually, that we have, AJ, is not with the other side. It's with ourselves. It's right here. You know, what I've found maybe in all these years, these decades of working in all kinds of conflicts from coal mines to boardrooms to relationships to wars in the world is the single biggest obstacle to us, in this case, to me getting what I want to advancing my own objectives, is not the difficult person on the other side of the table. However difficult that person might be, it's the person sitting on this side of the table.
8:54It's me. It's our own human, very natural tendency to react. In other words, to act without thinking, to react out of those emotions you're talking about. And as the old saying goes, when you're angry, you will make the best speech you will ever regret. You know, you'll send the best text you'll ever regret. And so what I find the secret of dealing with these times where social media, everything is like, everyone's on the edge of their nerves. There's so much emotion flying back and forth. So the foundation of successful negotiation is the ability to do what I call go to the balcony. In other words, you just imagine that you're negotiating on a stage, you and the other characters, the other place, like a play.
9:41Part of you goes to a mental and emotional balcony overlooking that stage, a place where you can keep your eyes on the prize, a place where you can kind of see the larger picture and you can see what it is you actually want. Because what I find in negotiation and relationships is our behavior, which is intended to be goal oriented, you know, to try to get us what we want, actually gets in the way of what we want. We actually do the opposite of what will advance our objectives. And so the ability to stop, to start the process, as you were mentioning, how do you start the process? You start by stopping.
10:20You start by pausing. You start by going to the balcony. And in that pause, what is the preparation like for you so that you're not allowing those emotions to get the best of you as you enter the balcony? So about 20 years ago, I was asked by actually former President Jimmy Carter to go down to the country of Venezuela, which was then roiled in political polarization, conflict. A million people on the streets demanding the immediate resignation of the president, Hugo Chavez. A million people supporting him. There was some violence between the crowds, and people were worried that there might be even a civil war.
10:59and I had a couple of meetings with the president and I remember one of them and the question is, how do you prepare? Before I even met with him, I really tried to really think through, understand who he is, study, read what he's written, watch his speeches, see if I can put myself in his shoes and I could see, this guy, he's very volatile, He's very emotional. He's quick to anger. He believes, you know, what's his dream, you know? And his dream was he envisioned himself as a modern-day Simon Bolivar, who was the, you know, great liberator, like the George Washington of Latin America back a couple hundred years ago.
11:43And he thought he was here to kind of save the country. So one of these meetings, he liked to meet at night. And he set, you know, the meeting was set for 9 p.m. in his presidential palace. my colleague Francisco and I arrive. We wait patiently, nine o 'clock, 10 o 'clock, 11 o 'clock, midnight. We're finally ushered in to see the president, expecting to find him alone. In fact, he's got his entire cabinet arrayed behind him. He's been having a cabinet meeting. He motions me to a chair. He says, oh, Yuri, tell me, what do you think of the situation here in Venezuela? How's it been going? And I thought I'd put a good face on.
12:18I said, Mr. President, I've been talking to some of your ministers here. I've been talking to the opposition. I think they're making some progress. Well, apparently progress wasn't the word he wanted to hear. He just flew off the handle. He said, what do you mean progress? Are you a fool? Are you not seeing those dirty tricks those traitors on the other side are up to? You third parties, you're just naive. And he leaned in very close to my face like he feels hot breath. And he proceeded to shout at me. At that moment, you know, I was like thinking, wow, all the work I've been doing down the drain.
12:49I'm feeling embarrassed in front of the cabinet. But then I remembered, because I'd prepared beforehand, to go to the balcony. And I remembered a little technique that a friend of mine once said to me. He said, William, if you're ever in a tough situation, pinch the palm of your hand. And I said to me, Hernan, why would I do that? He said, because it'll give you a temporary kind of pain, a little bit of a, and it'll keep you alert. So whatever I remembered, I remembered to pinch the palm of my hand and pause for a second. Just take a breath. And this study, look inside and say, wow, look at all the swirl of emotions.
13:28Like from the balcony, just a little bit of distance. See all what was going on inside of me and ask the magic question, what do you want here? What's your objective? And my objective was to kind of calm the situation. So I could ask myself, was it going to do any good for me to get into an argument with the president of Venezuela? No. Bite my tongue. Listen to him. Just listen. And he shouted at me, and he shouted at me, and he shouted at me. And I was just listening to him, studying him, wondering, what's going on for him? Is he trying to impress his cabin or whatever? But after 30 minutes, and this was a guy who could give speeches for seven hours.
14:06It was, after 30 minutes, he began to run out of steam because I wasn't feeding him any kind of reaction. I was just looking at him, nodding my head and so on. And I was watching his body language, and I watched his shoulder slowly sink. And in a kind of weary tone of voice, he said, Yuri, what should I do? Well, that, my friends, is the faint sound of a human mind opening. at that moment you know before that if you try to reason with someone who's in an angry state of mind it's like banging your head against the wall you'll get nowhere but by listening his his emotion level went down a little bit and now he was asking me what for something for advice so I said Mr.
14:49President you know the whole country is in crisis here there are millions of people on the streets it's almost Christmas time the festivities have been canceled why not just call a truce you know allow the whole country to go to the balcony, as it were. Truce for a few weeks. Allow everyone to go celebrate Christmas with their families. And then maybe in January, people will be in a better mood to listen. You know, he looked at me for a moment. There was a moment of pause. And then he said, you know what? That's an excellent idea. I'm going to propose that in my next speech. And he clapped me on the back.
15:24And his mood had completely shifted. So what I learned in that moment was that the greatest power that we have in negotiation is the power not to react. It's to pause, go to the balcony, figure out what you really want, and get the conversation going in a more productive direction. It seems to me like there is two moments there that are happening simultaneously. So you're processing your own emotion and the reaction that you're feeling of being shouted at face-to-face with someone directly in front of you. And at the same time, he has to process all of his emotions and anger and frustration that things aren't going his way either to you.
16:04So that pause allowed both of you to process those emotions to get to a place where we then can actually be collaborative, not reactive. That's exactly it, AJ. In other words, if you can go to the balcony and model that behavior, you actually make it easier for the other side who's in a high emotional state to go to the balcony. And then there was a third thing, which is him by going to the balcony, because he was the leader in this case, allowed his whole country to go to the balcony. So it's kind of like it starts from you. This is an inside-out game, right? It works inside-out. It starts from you, goes to the other side.
16:44And then if they're a leader or anything, it goes to their whole team, their whole group, all the people they deal with. And so that's the way you drop that little stone in the little pebble in the pond and it starts to ripple out. And recognizing the power that you have in that moment through the pause, because so many of us want to react, want to come back with something. Maybe it's something from the past. Maybe it's something you've been ruminating on, or maybe it's something you prepared to say, and you are ready to go and fired. But that pause, actually processing your own emotions, allowing him to process his emotions, gets to the place where your solution is actually viable now.
17:19It's not reactive. That's – you've got it. You prepare the way. You prepare the atmosphere. Because, you know, the best idea, if you bring it out, you could have an idea that's even good for them. But you bring it out in the wrong moment when they're still in an angry state, they'll find a defect with the idea. They'll find a way to reject it. So you're absolutely right. It's that preparation work, that balcony work that turns out to be key then to build what I call a golden bridge with the other side, which is to kind of fashion some kind of agreement for everyone's gain. So, William, for our audience, what are some of the questions that they should have prepared or at least consider in getting things prepared for their conflict?
18:01Yeah, well, one is, you know, go to the balcony. And, you know, when you're preparing, I often find it, you can prepare by yourself, of course. But I often find it's very useful to find a friend, find a coach, find someone to prepare with. Someone who can serve as your balcony. Because the truth is, in a lot of these situations, I or we, we're so emotionally involved in the situation that it's hard for us to go to the balcony. And so, you know, you someone, you know, like hostage negotiators, rarely, if ever, negotiate alone. They always have someone there because you get so involved in the emotions of that situation.
18:34Same things. So one is find a coach. You could just be a friend. Just ask him for, you know, an hour or whatever it is, 15 minutes even, just to kind of like work you through it. And then ask yourself the question, what do I want? What do I really want? Not, you know, we often like when we say what we want, we give our position. But what's the why behind it? Why do we want it? what are the underlying interests? What are the underlying concerns or needs or desires or aspirations? What's your dream? Really spend some time thinking about what you want. And, you know, you might seem like obvious, but I find in negotiations so often people go on negotiation and they don't, haven't really asked themselves what they really want.
19:17You know, it's like, you know, the classic example, you know, we use in getting to yes, you know, it's like, But two students are quarreling in a library, and one wants the window open and then goes and opens the window, and one goes and shuts the window, and they bother everyone in the library. The librarian comes over, and she asks the first one, well, why do you want the window open? She asks that magic question, why? She says, well, I want some fresh air. So she asks the second one, why do you want the window closed? Oh, the draft, the wind's blowing my papers around. So then she asks them, well, how do we get you fresh air without your draft?
19:54Two of them think about it for a while, and one of them has an idea, and he goes to the room next door and opens a window there, thus providing fresh air for one person without a draft for the second. Now, if you take that very simple situation, it resembles a lot of the negotiations we get involved in. It all starts with positions, the concrete things we say we want, the open window, the closed window, the money, the terms. By asking the magic question, why? Why is it you want that? You get underneath the positions to what are the underlying interests, the needs, the concerns, in this case, fresh air, no draft.
20:28And then you're able to be more creative and think of are there ways to actually satisfy both sides' interests and come up with the equivalent of an open window in the next room. That's what successful negotiators do. What I find curious about that is we're actually starting with our own why. I think many of us, when we think about preparing for conflict or negotiation, we just focus entirely on the other party. what they might say, what they might do, what their why is, and we neglect ourselves. That's right. It all starts with us. I mean, we have to know what our why is. And then once we've established that, we go through the same exercise for them and try to think about what really drives them.
21:05But it all starts here. It all starts with what's your objective? What do you really want? Let me give you an example. I was once called into a big business dispute, But, you know, it was kind of a dispute over control of a company. Happened to be Latin America's largest retailer, but it could be a small company, whatever it was. And I met with the guy who was the founder of the company, Abilio, who became a friend. I mean, this conflict had been going on for two and a half years. They had lawyers, lawsuits, arbitrations, got in the press, character assassination. I mean, it was a battle royal.
21:41And I asked him, you know, the question I would ask, which is, what do you want? Abelio, what do you want? And he, like a good businessman, rattled off exactly what he wanted. He wanted a massive sum of money stock. He wanted elimination of the three-year non-compete clause. He wanted the company headquarters. He wanted the company sports team. He had this whole list of demands, right? That's what we say we want. But I said to him, but Abelio, tell me something. You're a man who has everything. I mean, you've got, you know, he's got his own plane. You know, and his young kids were wandering around, you know.
22:16And I said, Abilio, what do you really want? I mean, what do you really want in your life right now? Because he was like besieged by this conflict, as we do. We get obsessed with these conflicts. Well, he looked at me for a while as if he hadn't been asked that question, thought about it. And finally, he said to me with a sigh, he said, you know what I really want? I want my freedom. That's what I want. I want my freedom. And the tonality, and you listen for tone in these situations, the tonality with which he said freedom knew that I'd gotten to the bottom, gotten like gold. And at that point, I thought maybe I can help him.
22:55Because up to that point, I didn't know if I could help in this situation, but maybe I could help him get his freedom. I said, freedom, what does that mean to you then concretely? And this is something you do. You get to rock bottom. What do you really want? Is it freedom? Is it recognition? Is it well-being? What do you really want? Is it dignity? What do you really want in this situation? And then I asked him, well, what would that look like? What would it mean? He said, well, it would be freedom to do what's most important to me, to spend time with my family, he pointed to his kids. It's freedom to make the big deals that I love to make.
23:30And once we'd established that, then, I mean, I won't go into the whole story, But when I met with the representative of the other side, it took us exactly four days to figure out a way through the situation. Because it turned out the other guy, what did he really want? He wanted freedom too. And they both wanted dignity. They couldn't afford to be seen as losing and had gotten so public. So we needed to find a way that gave each one of them their freedom, their dignity. and they arrived at a deal, you know, where they were signing, shaking hands, going to the executives, making a speech together, doing a joint press conference, you know, making a joint press release, wishing each other well.
24:11And this conflict, which had been so titanic, was over. How? By getting to what people really want, having people really figure out, what do you really want here? What's your equivalent of freedom? What's up, analytical thinker? Ready to dial up your charm and master persuasion? Then listen up. Welcome to the Art of Charms X Factor Accelerator. We've been at it for 17 years, helping over 10 ,000 listeners just like you grow their social capital and improve their dating life. Whether you prefer learning at your own pace or thrive in group coaching settings, we've got your back. Our comprehensive program is packed with secrets on swaying others, nailing chats, the secrets of influence, and the nuances of effective communication and rapid rapport building.
24:59Picture this, reading rooms like a pro, nailing every social situation, and a network that flings doors wide open. That could be you with our X-Factor Accelerator. Live implementation sessions, daily accountability, and weekly missions and exercises to hone in your new skills. Don't just take our word for it. Ask the execs, engineers, and military badasses who've stepped up their game with us. Head over to unlockyourxfactor.com to jump in. Your mastery of influence starts now. Let's unlock your limitless potential at unlockyourxfactor.com. So in hearing you break that down, we're not just asking great questions, but we're really listening, not just to the words, but you mentioned tonality, body language, we're soaking in as much of what that other person is sharing about their why as possible, not stopping at just the data or the information, but really the core motivators we all have as humans that are underlying in these conflict negotiation situations.
26:02That's exactly it. It's like getting beneath the surface. and the deeper you go, interestingly, you know, at the surface, the position seemed very opposed. I mean, we just lock horns and we just push each other. I want more money. You want more money. But why do you want the money? What's really going on here? And once you get down to that deeper level, there's a lot more room for flexibility where actually both sides can benefit, as in the case I mentioned. Both sides can find a way through. You can find an open window in the next room. and so many of these titanic conflicts, which on the surface is like a storm on the surface, but if you go under the sea, the sea is relatively peaceful.
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30:25So as you start to listen and hear both your own why and the other person's why in a deep way, walk us through your process for building that golden bridge. What are you looking for and how do you tap into your creativity? Well, the magic word you just mentioned, AJ, is listening. You know, we think of negotiation as talking. You know, if you look in the press, it's talks are being held. Actually, what negotiation is more about, what it's really about is listening. You know, there's a lot of talk, but how much listening is there? And the first act of building a golden bridge is to listen. Listening may be the cheapest concession you can make as a negotiator.
31:05It costs you nothing to listen. But it means everything to the other side. It shows respect because people want to be seen. They want to be heard. But it also gives you intelligence about what is it that they really want, which then allows you to figure out, okay, how can I design a way that gets me what I want and gets them what they want? And so listening is kind of the key. And something, you know, there's a saying that, you know, we were given two ears and one mouth for a reason, which is to listen twice as much as we talk. So the challenge in these situations and that point is, you know, you may be here, right?
31:41And the other side may be way over here in any kind of conflict situation, whether it's a relationship, business, or politics, or whatever it is. We're very far apart. There's like a chasm, like a grand canyon in between us. It doesn't seem like there's any way to bridge that gap, right? And so what we need to do, you know, we're trying to kind of like push the other side. You know, we're trying to, you know, they're trying to push us. We've taken a position. They're trying to push us. We're trying to push. But when both sides push, what usually happens? It's usually a standoff and it just goes nowhere.
32:15So what you find successful negotiators do is the exact opposite. the exact opposite of pushing, which is they attract. Instead of making it harder for the other side, they make it easier for the other side to move in the direction they want them to go. I mean, someone, one diplomat once defined negotiation as the art of letting the other side have your way. Let the other side have your way. That's what we need to do. That's the art of building a golden bridge, which is you've got that chasm there. And for a moment, you leave where your mind is, where your thinking is, and you put yourself by listening in the other side's shoes.
32:56And you start the conversation from where they are. And then you proceed to build them a bridge over that chasm, build them a golden bridge. In other words, give them an attractive way out. That's what I was doing in that business negotiation is finding an attractive way out for both sides. That's the key, is to make it as easy as possible for the other side to make the decision you want them to make. And oftentimes that feels like a concession. We come in prepared and we know exactly what we want and we dig our heels in, we take a defensive stance. So how do you reframe yourself to see that opportunity and make that initial concession that leads to building the bridge?
33:39Well, the initial concession is to listen, which costs you very little. Essentially, you have in mind, you start in your mind where you want to be going. And your job is helping them move in the direction you want them to be going. It's letting them have your way. So it may feel, it doesn't feel oppositional. It's a little bit like jujitsu. Or in other words, you do the opposite of what, you use the power of surprise instead of attacking them, you invite them into a process of like, you listen to them, you step to their side. You know, in judo, you often go to the other person's side because that's where they can attack you.
34:21So you use a lot of paradox here and surprise to be able to kind of shift a very stuck situation where it's, you're locking horns and suddenly you're on their side and saying, okay, let's face the problem. Let's move in this direction. Maybe instead of attacking the person, you attack the problem together. It's like you're on, like oftentimes in negotiation, where we're on opposite sides of a table. We're on one side of the table, the other side of the table, we're glaring across the table. No, you go across the table, you start on their side, and you're on their side jointly facing the problem.
34:56How do we attack the problem jointly? You depersonalize it. For our audience, they can be a bit conflict adverse. And for a lot of people Having a great framework gives them the strength to walk into conflict. However, what should our audience be looking out for as the most common pitfalls and how are they able to get around them? I would start with the most common pitfalls to react. It's just to jump in and react, which often reaction leads just to a fight. I would say the three most common ways we, like pitfalls when we face a conflict situation is, I call it the 3A trap. We go on the attack.
35:47And some of us do that, you know, kind of, and it's like some of us have the tendency, like we're attacking, or we're like, we go on the attack. But attack, you know, an eye for an eye, as Gandhi once said, and we all go blind. And that often happens. We end up with a lose-lose situation. The second A is we avoid. And a lot of us, as you mentioned, Johnny, are conflict-averse. You know, every one of us has a learning edge. Some of us has an edge around attacking. Some of us have an edge around avoiding. I would say I'm more of avoiding. Maybe most of the listeners right now, you know, we tend to avoid.
36:21We don't want conflict, right? It's dangerous. We saw conflict happen in our families. We saw what happened. And so we avoid. But when you avoid, of course, you don't solve the problem, right? You just delay it, and I can get worse and worse and worse. And then there's a big blow up. And the third A is accommodate. We give in. We just, I can't deal with this. You have it. You know, you're right, whatever it is. And we just accommodate, which is, you know, kind of appeasing, you know, which not only doesn't feel very good because we just gave in on something that's important to us, but it actually rewards that very behavior.
37:00So they tend to have to engage in more of that behavior. So what's the way out of the 3A trap? What's the way out of the trap where you attack, avoid, or accommodate? And that is, I would call it to engage. It's to actually lean into the situation. So doing the exact opposite of avoiding, which is lean into the situation. Lean into the situation instead of, and so you bring the assertiveness of attacking without the aggressiveness of attacking. You bring the kind of like, you know, the detachment of avoidance without avoiding. You lean in and you engage. You move into the situation. You move right into the conflict with curiosity.
37:45You meet animosity with curiosity. And then you look for creativity. You look to collaborate. You look to kind of turn the situation, as I was saying, so both of you are attacking the problem. You engage. You do the exact opposite of avoiding, which actually has the best qualities of attack, avoid, and accommodate without the worst. And when it comes to building the bridge, so recognizing now that the problem's in front of both of us instead of between us, and we start working towards bridging that gap, what are some of the ways that you harness creativity in those moments to think outside of even your preparation?
38:25Well, first of all, I would say to get to creativity, your best, you know, the best human quality I know for dealing with this is curiosity. Just bring your natural curiosity. What's going on here? And then something happens and your mental talk, your self-talk is, isn't that interesting? A little bit like a scientist. I know you've got a scientific background, you know, just approach the situation a little bit like a scientist. Isn't that interesting that we're headed this direction? What works here? Bring that curiosity. And that curiosity then is the foundation for creativity. And one of the best questions, going back to, you know, Johnny was asking one of the best questions to ask is, what if?
39:07You know, I understand that you wouldn't agree with this proposal, but what if we were to frame it this way uh what if what if lends itself to curiosity i understand uh that you wouldn't agree on this but under what circumstances under what conditions might you agree so kind of going into that hypothetical realm suddenly engages a different part of the brain the part of the brain is open to new ideas you know that the biggest block to creativity, I find, is a little voice in the back of our heads that's always saying, that won't work. You know, you're at a meeting with some of your colleagues, you know, at a work meeting or whatever it is, and you come up with a creative idea and everyone else jumps on and says, you know, that's a terrible idea.
39:51That won't work. We tried that. We never tried that. Whatever it is, you know, these killer phrases. The part of the brain that evaluates the judges tends to shut down the part of the brain that's creative. And so the whole secret of creativity is for a moment to suspend the part of the brain that evaluates. Now, that's the whole secret of brainstorming is you say, look, for five minutes, for 10 minutes here, let's adopt a simple rule. No criticism allowed. Let's try to see to come up with as many ideas as we can. Then let's evaluate. That simple trick, that separating the process of evaluating from the process of creating, of inventing options, allows you to come up with creative, innovative ideas.
40:32Because everyone, what I find in meetings is you free people up to come up with the craziest, the wildest ideas you can. That's what we're doing. We're trying to get as many ideas on the table. Then we'll criticize, but no criticism. People let loose. People are enormously creative. If we could just bring the creativity that we love in music, in art, in play, in sport, if we could bring that into negotiation, we would enhance the natural potential, the natural superpowers that we all have within us to transform conflict. And that what if welcomes the other side to be creative too. So following along, recognizing that if you're reactive, you're going to lead the other side to be reactive.
41:16So we want to be as curious as possible, invite the other person to share and understand what's their deeper why. And with this what if scenario brainstormed together, it opens the other side to being creative and thinking of possibilities that maybe you hadn't even considered. That's what I found. I found so often in situations where, you know, when I started off as a graduate student just studying negotiation, I was like working on international negotiations or things. You know, South Africa was in the midst of apartheid. It seemed like blacks and whites were going to kill each other forever.
41:49Northern Ireland, Catholics and Protestants were at each other's throats. That war was going to go on forever. You know, Israelis and Arabs are going to go on forever. You know, Russians and Americans, Soviets and Americans in those days, you know, the Cold War was going to go on forever. And yet I watched, and I was there, I went to Northern Ireland, I went to South Africa, I went to Moscow, I went to the Middle East, and I watched, you know, in these extremely difficult situations, how people did exactly that with what if, with creative, with, you know, whatever, turn these seemingly impossible possible situations around.
42:24And that's why, you know, I started off in the coal mines in Kentucky, you know, miners and managers, you know, wildcat strikes, bomb threats. But in fact, what I saw is human beings rise to their potential. And that's why, that's why I'm a possibleist. I'm not saying it's inevitable. I'm just saying it's possible because I've seen it happen with my own eyes. Yeah. I think for many of us, when we think of those conflicts, we get so wrapped up in the number of people on either side, and we often aren't privy like you are to what's actually going on in the room between two humans or a group, a small group of humans representing either side's interest.
43:03And really humanizing the conflict is a big part of this. It's easy on the outside to only look at the other side as the enemy. And we've shared on this podcast that a lot of that is going on right now in our current political climate, recognizing that conflict is inevitable. It's a part of change. It's a part of growth. And understanding that it's ultimately a group of humans on either side negotiating, working through this conflict that creates the breakthrough that we're looking for. People sometimes think, oh, those bigger conflicts, those are very different from what we do. But my, you know, I'm an anthropologist.
43:35I study human beings. And I can tell you everyone is human beings. Everyone, it all breaks down to human beings dealing with human beings, sometimes at a larger scale, sometimes at a smaller scale. But it's the same phenomenon. Balcony. Listening, creativity, building a golden bridge, all those things apply across the board, whether you're dealing with your teenager, you're dealing with a friend, you're dealing with a colleague, you're dealing with your boss, or whether you're dealing with a dictator. Obviously, listening is a crucial part, an integral part to conflict resolution. And the other, both parties need to feel seen and heard.
44:19William, perhaps you can shed some light for our audiences on some tactics in listening that will allow the other person to feel that, hey, this person is listening to me. Not only is this person listening to me, they get me. They understand what's going on here. Yeah. Well, there are some techniques and tactics that help. The main thing I would say, however, is techniques and tactics, if you use them manipulatively, in some ways, people will pick up on it right away. People have a BS detector. So a lot of it is like inside yourself, how do you approach listening? If you approach listening with genuine curiosity, then you can, for example, just even body language, just listening, paying attention, nodding.
45:11And then one thing that works is paraphrasing. Let me, hold on, let me just, before you reply, let me see if I understand what you just said. and you repeat, not in their words, not just parroting, but just like in your words, what you understood and you ask them to correct you. That's all a sign of respect. And then people start to say, wow, no one understands my problems. If you understand my problems, you must be intelligent. If you're intelligent, maybe you're worth listening to. And that's how it gets contagious, but it starts with really paying attention, listening, nodding, paraphrasing, making sure you get it right, taking as long, you know, you know, another, another thing that works as a technique is, can you tell me more?
46:03That's the last thing people expect in a word they think, you know, cause they think you're just eager to come and interrupt them. Now, can you say more about that. I'm curious about that. And just draw them out. And it might take 10 minutes. It might take 15 minutes. It might take an hour. That is maybe the best hour you ever invested in saying nothing but simply listening. You've just invested in the relationship. You've just learned a lot about them that will allow you better to influence them. Because after all, what do you think about negotiation? Negotiation is an exercise in influence. You're trying to change someone else's mind.
46:36How can you change their mind unless you know where their mind is? And the way you learn where their mind is, where their heart is, is by listening. For our students, one of the conflict resolution tactics that we have is, well, when it comes to the paraphrasing, to let the other person know that you are going to attempt to paraphrase or attempt to summarize what they had just said or the situation. However, with the caveat of, if I get this wrong, Please correct me. That way, you have the freedom to give it your best shot. And if you do get it wrong, well, they're going to fix it for you. They are going to correct you.
47:14But the greatest part is even if you get it wrong, you win because they're going to give you the exact scenario of how it looks for them. And because they've corrected you, they're like, now this person's got it correctly because I just wrapped it up for them. And we have some common ground now. That's exactly it, Johnny. You hit it on the nail. That's exactly it. It's win-win. I mean, it's not about getting it right. It's about showing that you care. And you may not get it right the first time. You may not even get it right the second time. You might get it right the third time. But then you're engaged in a conversation where you're jointly trying to reach, ideally, what I would call second-order agreement.
47:54You know, like take politics right now. People can't agree. Well, hey, we can't agree at the dinner table, Thanksgiving, whatever it is. can we set as an objective reaching second order agreement? Can we agree about where we agree and where we disagree and why we agree and why we disagree? And if you reach second order agreement with them, that is a huge investment in the relationship. Oh, okay. Because we don't have to agree on everything. We don't have to agree on everything. Life's not about reaching agreement about everything. It's not about just getting to yes on everything because we got conflicts.
48:29It's about how we treat other human beings. It's about respect. It's about understanding that every person has this irreducible dignity that we all share, that's indivisible. And their dignity is our dignity. And it gets you so far. You know, I've been in the toughest situations where the only difference between success and failure was someone showed a little bit of respect. For our listeners who are conflict adverse, the avoiding the conflict is only the going to make it worse. Now, one of the reasons that they are conflict adverse is because they don't want to engage only to make the conflict worse.
49:08So here we give you a surefire way to engage and show that the other person that by engaging is because that you care. You care to get to a win-win and so that everybody is happy and we get to a resolution. So as long as you go by these guidelines, yeah, it may be clunky. It may be a little wonky. You probably had some hiccups, but everyone should leave feeling better to have engaged in this conflict and working towards a solution. And I think also, don't worry about making sure that it is wrapped up with a bow in one sitting. Sometimes it may have to take a few, but as long as everyone's listening and working towards it, then that's progress.
49:53That's exactly it. And, you know, I mean, if you had a, let's say, you had a friend, a couple friend, who had terrible problems in their marriage, let's say, or their relationship, and they go off for a weekend, and they come back and they say, we solved all our problems. You know, you, but somehow, you know, it's interesting. I find that, you know, when people are looking at the Middle East right now, you know, terrible war. They think you can go away to Camp David and you can solve all the problems in a weekend, but you can't. It takes time. It takes persistence. This is some of the hardest work that human beings can do.
50:31And it's possible. And it takes exactly what it takes. It takes patience. It takes persistence, but it's extremely rewarding because what you're doing is you may not reach agreement, but you're transforming the relationship. And after all, agreements are just, you know, they come and they go, but relationships last for a long time. Relationships with family, relationships with friends, relationships with in business and work and so on. And so it's about investing in those relationships. You don't always have to have like a, as you mentioned, Johnny, a little bow and put it to an end. It's just like, and what shows up in those conversations when you're trying to listen to them, when you're doing exactly what you're saying, kind of correct me where I'm mistaken and whatever, is you are, it's like putting deposits in the bank account, in the social capital, in the emotional capital that you have.
51:23You're accumulating that, and that will later can be used for great benefit and great effect. You mentioned something there that is pretty profound, and I think our audience should definitely make note of that, which is conflict resolution is about transforming the relationship. And I don't think a lot of people see it in that manner. They're viewing it as, are we going to get to a solution to the problem? Am I going to win this conflict resolution? Or are we going to walk away with a relationship still intact through this conflict resolution? But in viewing it as that it's going to be transforming how you relate to each other and what that relationship looks like moving forward is incredibly important because you have the benefit of making it better.
52:13That's exactly it, Johnny. It's all about relationship. It all boils down to relationship. And relationships, you know, that's where the gold is. Because oftentimes we treat, you know, conflicts and negotiation like it's transactional. But, you know, how often do you have a one-shot negotiation? Maybe once you go to buy a used car. But the vast majority of our negotiations are with people with whom we have ongoing relationships. And sure, you can maybe do better in one round, let's say, by deception or by using your power. But what do you do? They're going to come back at you the next time or the next time or someone else will come at you next time.
52:56So what you find, what I find, successful negotiators, interestingly enough, sometimes people associate negotiation. You know, a good negotiator is someone who's kind of like, you know, clever with the words and kind of is distorting and maybe deceives or lies or whatever. No, the best negotiators I know, the thing they value the most is their reputation for honesty and fair dealing. And why is that? Because it's all about relationship. And if you can invest in those relationships, you know, by honesty and fair dealing, then people will want to deal with you. People will reveal their interest to you.
53:35They'll tell you what's their real concern. You're more likely to reach agreement. And you're more likely to reach agreement time and time again. Because sure, with deception and lies and whatever, you can win once. But then your reputation is shot. And then people won't deal with you. They'll deal with you at arm's length or whatever it is. And you'll continually do worse. And I'll give you just one example here. Warren Buffett. But, you know, he talks about how he had a negotiation once with one of his partners, Charlie Murphy, about making a major investment to buy ABC, you know, the TV network.
54:16And it looked like the deal was going to go through. This was a number of years ago. And Murphy called up Buffett and said, look, the deal is going through, Warren. You know, we're going to need$500 million. And what do you want for it? And Buffett said, well, Murph, you've thought about it more than I. What do you think would be fair? And Murphy then said, well, I think this amount for this share and so on in about 15 seconds. And Buffett said, that sounds fair. And they had a deal. 30 seconds,$500 million deal. Why did it take place like that? Because it didn't matter who made the first offer.
54:55because there was this basic trust that whoever made the first offer, they'd be taking into account the fairness to their partner. The result was a major success for both sides. ABC was later sold to Disney at a major profit for both sides. And you're able to, in these days right now, time is everything. How do you get time in negotiation? It's through trust, it's building up trust, having accumulated all that trust in the bank account. You can operate at the speed of trust. You can succeed. And recognizing that even those one-offs lead to future business. That used car salesman, if you get one over on him, is never going to call you about the great deal sitting on the lot two, three years from now when you need a new car.
55:36But if he thinks it's fair, you're going to be the first person on his list that he wants to do business with again. So oftentimes we take too small of a view around the outcome that we want and not the repercussions and the reputation that's built off of the outcome. You're exactly right, AJ. Even in those one-shot deals, there's a longer-term relationship. There's a longer-term thing. Or there's a reputation thing. So just think longer-term because life is longer-term. You're not just engaged in one transaction. You're going to be engaged in thousands of negotiations, often with the same people over and over and over again.
56:11If you have a reputation for honesty, fair dealing, creativity, and so on, people will want to deal with you. They're going to look for deals. you're naturally going to get more and more successful based on the network, based on the relationship, the network capital that you've built up. Early on in my career, I felt very strongly to be a fierce negotiator and to try to search for the wins. And what I found over time is that, yes, at the early stages, it felt like a win. I negotiated hard. I got a great rate. I got what we were looking for. But what it did was it demotivated the other side. They didn't want to reach those goals as fast.
56:46They tried to find other clients because now I got one over and I was making more out of the deal than they were. And ultimately, even though in the moment it felt great to have that win and feel like I'm using all these tactics and strategies, long term it created drag on the business because I wasn't allowing the other side to feel empowered and bold and collaborative in the negotiation process that I was trying to force through. And I think oftentimes we get so caught up in the outcome for us, not recognizing just the long-term view of what being a great negotiator means to your reputation.
57:19That's exactly it. I mean, Johnny, AJ, we're very much on this. That's been my experience. That would validate exactly what you just said. Well, there's one anecdote that I'd love for you to share with our audience here in closing that I think is a really powerful exercise, and that's the idea of really thinking about the victory speech. And I know for many of us listening to this, watching this, we recall this negotiation. We recall this event. But you had a real inside view into how this all took place. And this victory speech exercise was so powerful. One of my favorite things when you face a difficult situation is put yourself in the shoes the other side.
57:56Imagine success. Imagine that they've accepted your proposal. Imagine that they do what you want them to do. imagine the victory speech they then deliver to the people they care about, to their constituency, to their voters, to their friends, whoever it is, to them looking at themselves in the mirror, what would constitute a victory? And the situation you're talking about is like a number of years ago, Donald Trump had just become president for the first time. He was there. And Kim Jong-un of North Korea was busily, you know, building missiles, testing nuclear weapons, threatening the United States.
58:36And Donald Trump said, this is not going to happen. And he got into it. And it was kind of, you know, little rocket man. They started insulting each other. And observers felt, even Trump himself felt that the danger of going to war was as high as 50%, 50-50, of a first nuclear war since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just incredible. And so I was sitting there and thinking, because I'd worked on US-Soviet, you know, how to prevent Soviet war many years ago. And I thought, what could stop this war? And so I began by writing, you know, Donald Trump's victory speech and Kim Jong-un's victory speech. Like, if they decided not to go to war, if they decided to kind of meet and get together and try to resolve the situation, what could they say?
59:20And it's like, what I like to do with a victory speech is just write, you know, like three basic talking points. And for Trump, you know, Since he was well-known in the press and I'd studied him a little bit, it was like he needed to be able to say, I got the best deal ever. He prides himself on being a dealmaker. I got the best deal. This was the deal of the century. I saved, stopped a nuclear war, all of that. That was number one. Number two was I kept America safe. That would be really important. And the third was, he really cares about, and I didn't spend a penny. And for Kim, it was harder.
59:56And ultimately, you know, for Kim, but it was like, it went like, you know, he was, there was very little known, but it was like, as far as we could tell, it was about first thing is safety, security, which it is for most people, you know, you know, my family's safe, my regime is safe, you know. And the second was respect, because they felt intensely disrespected, stigmatized, you know, finally getting the respect we deserve from the world. and the third was economic, you know, we're going to be the next Asian tiger, we're going to succeed. And as I wrote out those speeches, just as a thought experiment, I realized, wow, it's possible they could actually do that.
1:00:34This was back in March of 2017. And then I spent the next two years working on that. And again, without taking, you know, just one person, you know, working behind the scenes and so on. But lo and behold, that happened. You know, Trump and Kim, for the first time, an American president and a Korean leader met, sat down in Singapore, and they actually, you know, they didn't reach final agreement, but they changed the tenor of the relationship. The risk of war went down from 50 % to less than 1%. How? Through that active imagination where you don't think it's possible and you look for that victory speech.
1:01:15So I offer that to your listeners as an exercise in any situation. Think about what's your boss's victory speech? What's your friend's victory speech? Write their victory speech and then see your job as helping them deliver that victory speech. How do you make it as easy as possible for them to look like a hero in agreeing to what you want? I love that. And we all feel we're a hero in our own story. So the more you can tap into their hero story, the stronger the negotiation and ultimately the collaboration will be. Thank you for stopping by. This was a true pleasure for Johnny and I. Where can our audience find out more about your latest book possible?
1:01:54Well, on the website, I have a website, just my name, which is williamurry.com. You can find out more resources and whatever. And obviously the book is available anywhere. So, but I really want to wish your listeners say, You know, this is the world is, you know, it's a little bit crazy right now. And what we need is possibilities like you are who believe in human potential to transform the conflicts that are small to the ones that are large. And we can create the world we want. Thank you for stopping by. It was a pleasure, William. My pleasure, AJ. Johnny, real pleasure.
1:02:40what a great show all right and now i want to give a shout out to one of our happy x-factor members take it away mike my name is mike and i'm a real estate developer in los angeles my experience with the art of charm x-factor accelerator program has been phenomenal and the most valuable lessons I've learned is how to carry a conversation better and identify emotional bits. Using these techniques now, I'm more comfortable in any social situations than I was ever before. By putting into practice everything I learned in this program has helped me improve my personal and professional relationships.
1:03:12I highly recommend this program to anyone that is struggling socially or in relationships in general because I have greatly improved. Thank you, Mike. It was a pleasure working with you too. 95 % of your success or failure in life comes down to who you surround yourself with. David McClellan of Harvard did a 25-year study on the characteristics of highly motivated, successful people. The people you habitually associate yourself with determine the level of success you achieve. Who you let in your inner circle has a huge impact on your beliefs, your values, and your actions. Here's the kicker. We all have this reference group.
1:03:47Think of them as your personal board of directors. Surround yourself with winners and magic happens. Imagine transforming your everyday just by upgrading your tribe. We created a free mini course for Art of Charm listeners with our best networking strategies and mindsets. Social capital networking is not just another networking guide. It's your doorway to turning acquaintances into lasting connections. Real relationships that push you towards your goals, both personal and professional. Head over to theartofcharm.com slash SC to get your free mini course. And if you've gotten value out of this podcast, head on over to your favorite podcast player and rate and review the show.
1:04:27It means the world to us and it helps others find the show. And before we head out, a huge thank you to our producers, Michael Harold and Eric Montgomery. Go out there, everyone, and have an epic, epic, epic week.
1:04:50You threw love away Like you were just a toy And you sold the world You're a song of a tragedy Cause you had your taste All black on the yesterday Yeah, but I remember you Oh yeah, I remember you You are my, my, my, my, my You are my way
From the publisher
In today's episode, we explore the art of conflict resolution, negotiation strategies, and transforming challenging relationships with Dr. William Ury, a distinguished expert in the field of negotiation and conflict mediation. Dr. Ury is the co-founder of Harvard's Program on Negotiation and has nearly 50 years of experience in resolving some of the world's toughest conflicts. His seminal works include the bestsellers "Getting to Yes" and "Getting Past No," which have sold over 5 million copies worldwide. In this episode, we explore insights from his latest book, "Possible: How We Survive (and Thrive) in an Age of Conflict," available now.
Join us for an enlightening discussion with Dr. William Ury, where he unravels the nuances of conflict resolution and high-stakes negotiation. How can you turn a seemingly insurmountable conflict into a collaborative opportunity? What are the key techniques to prepare yourself mentally and emotionally for tough negotiations? Dr. Ury shares his top strategies for avoiding common negotiation pitfalls and engaging constructively, drawing from his vast experience and groundbreaking work. Discover how to build a "golden bridge" in negotiations and the essential steps to transforming difficult relationships into productive partnerships.
What to Listen For
Introduction – 00:00
How does Dr. William Ury's extensive background in negotiation and anthropology shape his approach to conflict resolution?
What drew Dr. Ury to the field of negotiation and conflict mediation early in his career?
How does Dr. Ury define the concept of a "possibilist" and its significance in today's world?
Understanding Conflict – 05:02
Why does Dr. Ury believe that more conflict is necessary for growth and change?
How does he differentiate between destructive and constructive conflict?
What is the importance of "going to the balcony" in managing conflict effectively?
The Power of Pausing – 13:04
What role does pausing play in reducing emotional reactivity during negotiations?
How can the simple act of pausing transform a negotiation's outcome?
What is the magic question you can use to find the best compromise in a negotiation?
Building the Golden Bridge – 25:15
What is the "golden bridge" strategy and how can it facilitate successful negotiations?
How does listening actively help in building a golden bridge for the other side?
Why is it crucial to understand your own objectives and the underlying interests behind them?
How can you prepare effectively for a negotiation by considering the other side’s perspective?
What You Must Avoid in Negotiations – 30:14
What are the three common pitfalls in negotiation and how can you avoid them?
What steps can you take to create a collaborative atmosphere in negotiations?
Leveraging Curiosity and Creativity – 33:21
How does curiosity drive creativity in finding solutions during negotiations?
What are some effective "what if" questions to ask that open up new possibilities?
How can separating evaluation from creation enhance the brainstorming process in negotiations?
Transforming Relationships through Conflict – 39:31
How does engaging in conflict with curiosity and respect transform relationships?
Why is focusing on long-term relationship building more beneficial than seeking short-term wins?
How can understanding and articulating mutual interests lead to successful conflict resolution?
The Victory Speech Exercise – 52:23
What is the "victory speech" exercise and how can it shift the negotiation dynamic?
How did Dr. Ury use this exercise to help de-escalate tensions between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un?
Why is envisioning the other side’s victory speech a powerful tool in negotiation?
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