We have a special program We’ll be speaking with William Ury, who’s the co-founder of the Harvard program on negotiation? he’s the co-author of One of the best-selling negotiators handbook getting to yes William Ury consults political leaders engaged in demilitarizing conflicts, and he’s been doing so for quite some time his most recent episode Has been in Colombia where he’s been part of the kitchen cabinet of President Juan Manuel Santos for the last five or six years William Ury has helped and aided and abetted the Colombia peace accord Welcome to the program William Ury My pleasure Jeff well Five six years of work Oh, let’s hear about it Why did how did you get involved in consulting one Manuel Santos about bringing about the Colombia peace accord? Well about six years ago. I got a phone call an invitation to come meet him down in Bogota to talk about the possibility of Re in re Renewing talks with the FARC, which is the major guerrilla group in Colombia where there’d been a war been going on for for about 50 years at that point and and the president who had been a defense minister in the previous government and now had been elected president was thinking of Actually trying to go for a peace and most people the vast majority of people in Colombia and perhaps around the world who were knowledgeable about it thought this was a You know quixotic it was the the the conflict in Colombia was widely regarded as absolutely intractable. I mean so Complicated so, you know linked with narco trafficking just the history the trauma very few people gave him much chance of success, but he wanted to go for it and I met him and I saw that this Was a this was a leader who was really willing to Invest all his political capital in this because that’s what it takes It’s actually much more popular to make war than to make peace And so as a as a as a political leader, you have to be willing to sacrifice that political capital in order to arrive at the goal, I Wonder if we could have more leaders who would sacrifice their popularity for say a Nobel Peace Prize or something That’s it. Although you never know you’re gonna get a Nobel Peace Prize, but it yes he did actually and that was a real surprise because as you recall The The agreement was reached and signed. I was there there in Cartagena in September and then six days later. There was a plebiscite To give the people a real chance to have a vote on it and the polls and everyone expected an overwhelming vote in favor of the agreement and by some set of circumstances There was a 50-50 vote with like point zero two percent More going for no vote and it threw the whole country into a crisis and What was gonna happen, you know, the the guerrillas were already starting to move towards the camps the UN observers were there You know, it’s just like what’s what’s gonna happen and then five days later Surprise the Nobel Peace Prize was announced which no one expected that point to go to Juan Manuel Santos and it went but it actually provided that extra kind of like whiplash positive whiplash that allowed the country I think helped the country wake up to the and and seized the chance to pursue the peace process and not give up after the plebiscite and then Five weeks later after receiving the Nobel He convinces he goes back to the table. He convinces the National Assembly to approve The accord right so that was one of my questions earlier if if there has ever been a Nobel Prize winner who has made such quick and effective use of the prize as what he just accomplished I don’t think there has been actually I really It was I was in Oslo at the time when he received the prize in in early December and He noted that in his speech and it was it was like the I think the first of all the Nobel Committee deserves real credit for You know taking a risk and because after all they’re they’re giving a prize of someone To a peace process that you know, a lot of people thought maybe be a failed peace process and they and he made good use and they they made they made a wise decision, so it was a good use of Kind of global recognition and global support at a time when the peace process was a little bit on the ropes Sometimes when Nobel Peace Prizes are awarded in conflicts like this both sides get a Nobel If there were another side or representative deserving of the prize in this case Who might that be? Well, the you know the obvious ones would be the people on the other side of the table who were the FARC guerrilla leaders and that was I’m sure that was a question that was in people’s minds and weighed in people’s minds and certainly they deserve The FARC leaders deserve a lot of credit for the peace and there’s it takes two to tango There’s not going to be a peace agreement unless both sides reach agreement and they themselves had to show a good deal of The strategic persistence And courage to be able to conclude this process because it’s not so easy If you and your troops have been fighting for 50 years to suddenly say, okay guys We didn’t you know, we may not have gotten the revolution that we set out to get but it’s now time to to pursue our aims by by other means in this case by politics and With the level of distrust sewn over of the course of a 50-year conflict when the The army shows up in helicopters to take you to the peace agreement There isn’t always a welcome You know, it’s there’s a lot of suspicion there. Can you recount some of Those early encounters where they everyone was trying to convince people to come to the table Yeah, the The level of distrust. I mean, that’s that’s the that’s a key It’s a key obstacle to trying to make peace and after off you’ve been killing each other for 50 years And there’ve been there were a number of previous peace initiatives and one of them in the in the in the 80s where there had been a kind of agreement with the FARC and There were literally thousands of FARC members who were assassinated by right-wing death squads During that time and so the war began again so particularly if you have traumas like that the the It takes a lot to start it again and I’ll just tell you that one story about the helicopter that you just alluded to which was we were faced with a challenge early on of Okay There the forces within Colombia that were Opposed to a possible peace process were strong enough that the president felt that he needed he needed some kind of agreed-upon agenda With the FARC before he’d be willing to publicly say we’re going into peace Negotiations so we had to have a secret phase of the negotiation and the secret phase meant that almost no one in the country knew That we were going to try and and and have these negotiations not the military not the police not I mean just a handful of people in the country in order to allow the conversations to mature to a certain point and So we were faced with the challenge of how do you extract a guerrilla commander out of the jungle? take them to Cuba to be able to talk with them in this secret phase and the government official One of the government officials with whom we were working Well, first of all, he and his and his colleague had to like go down a river down in In Venezuela and then a river into Colombia blindfolded into a FARC camp and just even to make the initial contact and then the question of the extraction he they had to hire a private helicopter and the helicopter was gonna fly in the jungle, but The helicopter pilot couldn’t have the coordinates because they were afraid that there’d be a trick and that the military would then attack The the place the the rendezvous spot So, I think it was the Red Cross got into the helicopter handed the pilot the coordinates the helicopter takes off You know after I don’t know half an hour lot lands in a clearing in the jungle no one’s there and then after a few minutes later a swarm of Guerrilla sort of comes out all aiming there maybe hundreds of them aiming their ak-47s at the helicopter and my friend Jaime there was in the in the helicopter and he was wondering what to do He realized, you know, the helicopter can’t stop the bullet. So he figured he might as well get out of the helicopter So he got out of the helicopter. He strode up to the commander and he said the commandante. I Am now placing you under the personal protection of the president Now that in negotiation terms we call a reframe because essentially here he is He’s got all these guns named after him and he’s putting the other guy under his personal protection But that was like I’m trusting you now you have to trust me and So the commander got into the helicopter, even though a lot of his people were saying don’t get in. This is a trick They’re gonna jump dump you in the sea or whatever he got in the helicopter and they flew off and the talks could begin in Cuba that eventually led to the public phase and then to the to the peace agreement that we now have And yeah, how long there was a quite a long period of time between When the commandante, what was his name? Timoshenko? El Medico Right, but he’s who you would nominate to get the other side of the Nobel in this do you think well I think actually the truth is As the president made clear. I think it’s really It’s the Colombian people who and and and in particular the victims there have been so many victims of this conflict 220,000 dead you can imagine how many families are affected over 6 million refugees internally displaced people who lost their lands and their homes, so I Mean, I believe the the Nobel really belongs and I think the president made that clear He even donated the proceeds of the Nobel to the victims. It really belongs to the Colombian people including but including people like like El Medico showed the courage to to to trust Or to reach out to accept the hand of the enemy We’re speaking with William Ury William Ury has been Helping negotiators around the world for many years. He’s the author of getting to yes and the co-founder of the Harvard negotiation program We’re gonna try to Go beyond Colombia now to hear some of your other experience and I also want to mention to callers we can or to listeners We can take calls. If you have questions for William Ury the number here 449 4 8 8 5 Our studio line 303 4 4 2 4 2 4 2 and we’ll take your calls Later on in the program. So get your questions ready for William Ury We’re on the eve of the 45th president being Inaugurated I wondered William if and in your international experience You’re hearing from or about other foreign leaders response to dealing with this new kid in town Well, I think I have talked to a few And they’re very they’re puzzled. They’re curious. They’re apprehensive even Because this feels like a radical shift in direction and then the one they were perhaps expecting so They want to I mean the United States is Kind of the big kid on the block. The United States has More power than any other country in the world and the president of the United States actually paradoxically has more power over the rest of the world than he has over the United States because Within the United States. We have a very much of checks and balances system. But when it comes to International Affairs when it comes to pressing the nuclear button The president the American president has huge power. So so People are naturally on edge wondering what’s going to happen. It seems like a very unpredictable kind of Situation, you know, I’ll have to confess. It’s been decades since I’ve Read your book getting to yes It was the rage when I lived in Central America and all the way to Argentina people had copies of this and from that book Are there examples of the kind of negotiating style we can expect from Donald Trump as president? well, I think Getting yes was very much kind of proposing a shift in the net in the normal mindset around negotiation which at that time was very much that there were winners and losers and getting yes was No, really try to listen to the deep concerns and interests of each side behind their express positions And then see if you can invent Creative options for mutual gain so that both sides or all sides can get their essential interest met What I hear in Donald Trump was also prides himself on being a negotiator is he has more of a kind of mindset of You know win-lose, you know, I’m gonna be a winner and You know, the the Chinese have been winning and we’ve got a you know so it’s it’s more of what we call a negotiation of zero-sum mindset, which is you know, the pie is fixed and any part of the pie that that you get I don’t get and So, I think it’s gonna be it’s gonna be interesting and he also prides himself on being a dealmaker So well, it’s gonna be from a negotiation perspective. It’s gonna be a very interesting time to just watch how he learns on the game because the the world system is in is hugely interdependent and If you go and play a win-lose game in My experience in most cases you end up with lose-lose outcomes Everyone loses in the fact not just lose-lose But the whole world loses the the community loses in in questions of trade and questions of immigration and Not even to speak of questions of war and peace, which are the most important, of course Correct me if I’m wrong, but in the case of the Columbia Peace Accord Before the United States was even involved. There was a coalition internationally that formed beforehand In the case of Columbia, yeah no, and that was one thing that the president did and we were we were part of the process was that if you’re gonna make peace you have to build a coalition and the coalition has to include people who would be Unlikely or with people you might not even want to deal with at the point that he became president There were very bad relations between Columbia and Venezuela with Hugo Chavez and President Santos to his credit reached out in his first week to President Chavez and Said let’s start again. Let’s reset this and Chavez who had been a close supporter of the FARC And not just international supporter, but Venezuela’s as you know, it’s Columbia’s neighbor. And so there was a lot of support Given not always acknowledged. In fact, very rarely acknowledged but support given to the FARC Leadership to the FARC troops and so on and President Chavez actually became one of the strongest Supporters of the peace process and so did the Castro brothers So did Raul and Fidel Castro who who were very important in persuading the FARC to come to the table? and but this was Without the US State Department or US Embassy involved you were an independent contractor I was so our embassy and State Department were not involved initially And I the reason I asked this is I wonder if that we can expect more of that with Donald Trump as president where countries coalesce form coalitions to get some things accomplished without The United States stamp of approval necessarily. Well, I think we could we could I mean we’re seeing an example of that Not even I mean even before Trump is in power right now with Russia and Turkey Collaborating in Syria leaving the United States out in the cold and what I do remember from Your book getting to yes, and by the way, we are talking to William Urey anyone listening Who would like to call in with a question, please do for 303-449-4885 And we’ll take your call, but I I from your book I remember The the very difficult negotiations that some of the you cataloged the law of the sea the you have a good memory the There were wars in the 80s of the Northern Ireland. Yeah, there was apartheid going on and one by one these long processes took shape We I’d love to hear more about you know, any ringside Report from those leading up to another question Sure tell us a little bit about when I started working Joe and working with Roger Fisher working at At Harvard back in studying the issue of war and peace in the in the mid 70s in the late 70s You know the major conflicts that we were looking at were the Cold War which most people At that time thought was going to go on forever Berlin Wall was always going to be there South Africa people were gonna slaughter each other the blacks and whites for as long as you could see Northern Ireland Catholics and Protestants. This has gone on for centuries. It was religious you know, this is being passed on from generation to generation and I have to say that I Watched and in fact, I went to each one of these places and I worked very I was very much involved in u.s. Soviet relationships trying to Look at the question of how do you reduce the risk of an accidental nuclear war? I was a consultant to the White House and made many many trips to Moscow to see if we could reduce the risk of nuclear war and and I have to say that it was quite amazing for me to watch as things Situations that were previously considered to be impossible or intractable give way to persistent strategic Negotiation that involved having to put yourself in your adversaries shoes Having to understand their interests and trying to find a way forward in in all of those situations. So I mean the the one that was most marking to me was was the one actually that had brought me into the field of Negotiation which was the Cold War because I when I was growing up as a kid, I could never figure out Why at any moment, you know someone in the White House or in Moscow could just press the button And that would be the end of our future and I could never understand Why was it worth putting The entire human experiment all life on earth really at risk for what there must be a better way Are we do we feel more safe now William now that you’re grown up? Well, you know, interestingly I know things seem very unsafe right now and But I believe actually objectively if you were to really make an objective search we were probably It was even more dangerous during the peak of the Cold War One of the things I did was I studied all the all the close calls that we weren’t even aware of We were extremely lucky I at one point I was part of a project that brought together the surviving participants of the Cuban Missile Crisis in Moscow in In the then Soviet Union and we had Robert McNamara McGeorge Bundy Ted Sorensen John Scali and then their Soviet counterparts Anatoly Dobrynin Andre Gromyko Khrushchev son Castro sent over his chief of staff and we sat around a room in Moscow for for for a couple days Asking what really happened and the thing that really just shocked me was how close we came through misunderstanding miscalculation Accidents Murphy’s Law that we’re lucky that we we survived the Cold War Yeah, one mistranslated word can result in the destruction of an entire world That’s from the Talmud. Uh-huh but I have a small collection of mistranslations in world history Things like the difference between a treaty and an agreement right here. We need two-thirds majority to get treaties Hence we have a slew of agreements now in very few treaties. Uh-huh. Do you follow that? Around you know around the world. Does that become an issue to getting something passed? Sure. I’m sure it does well one thing I mean just in Colombia just we’re talking about Colombia was the was How much of this was an agreement between the government and the FARC and how much of this I mean because there’s a whole question Once you have an agreement, that’s not the end of the process That’s the midpoint of the process because there’s a whole process of implementation and many agreements are not fulfilled many ceasefire agreements break down many agreements, so So one of the key things was how what could you embed in the Constitution? Which is takes a much larger vote, you know to embed in the Constitution so that this thing is sustainable So that it it’s it’s it’s a process It’s gonna take a generation to fully move from the end of a 52-year war the healing of the wounds and everything It’s gonna take a long time and it takes that steady Persistent work in which the negotiation actually continues there needs to be just as much negotiation now I’m just going back to Colombia in a couple weeks to work on this to between the FARC and the government but not just the FARC and the government, but the civil society the the business sector has to produce jobs the The churches the in other words there needs to be a kind of a an unparalleled level of collaboration Among parties who have not collaborated in the past and who deeply distrust each other in order to make this a success fascinating of the this the treaties and the agreements I know this anecdote from when NAFTA was agreed upon The negotiators in Spanish called it un tratado and throughout diplomatic circles un tratado only the Americans called it an Agreement. I kind of like there was an interesting telling mistranslation that really did affect history very interesting the other really a shocking one was the Japanese response to the threat of getting bombed with a nuclear bombs in 1945 their response in Japanese I understand was moku Satsu Moku Satsu is sort of like no comment. We withhold comment. Mm-hmm, but the translation was something like no way and The bombers set off. Yeah, there’s these new the language that’s developed around the table or Getting people to understand and speak the same language in these situations seems really challenging very true And and it’s not just language but different mindsets different I mean cultures are kind of communication systems But but there’s there’s so many ways in which we we talk past each other. We miss each other We’re taking calls if anyone is interested with a Burning international question call 303 four four nine four eight eight five. You’re listening to hemispheres I’m Joe Ritchie, and I’m speaking this evening with William Urie William I would just want to say thanks again for coming down to the station and everything You’re a local Boulder resident now, I am I’m I love the mountains and Mountains are and and Boulder is my kind of Refuge I go out in the world, but but Boulder is my my home base Currently you’re going back to Colombia to Participate in further negotiations in implementing the peace accord There’s also you know, you know, I mean we sometimes we don’t pay attention to this But there’s a there’s another smaller guerrilla group called the ELN, which is Driven by an ideology like liberation theology. It’s a it’s a Catholic Marxist group. They’re smaller, but We have to get those negotiations going now, but so much depends upon land reform I understand huge amount does and for those groups are there concessions from the peace accord that could mollify their Militancy for sure for sure. No, they would they want to come into I mean there’s there’s talks going on and you just have to get a few hostages released and Just some prisoners released to kind of create the right atmosphere to get the negotiations moving Well, good luck with that That sounds very ambitious But it seems also like fertile ground there in Colombia with the national Sentiment now with the Nobel Prize president and the momentum from the accord What are some other obstacles though? What needs to be ironed out going forward? Well, there’s Columbia’s just about to enter into a political electional process in 2018 2018 will be election but the electoral calendar starts in this year in 2017 and You know, they’re they’re large sectors of society that Voted no that for a variety of different reasons, I mean Some reasons were pretty amazing But like the the accord had language in there that talked about its aspiration for an inclusive Colombia that would include all groups including Afro-colombians people of all races LGBTI everybody well Columbia is a rather conservative country and the inclusion of LGBTI That was that was a kind of a red flag for some and so they campaigned against it a lot of the churches campaigned against it saying this was gonna you know, we’re gonna have a country in which feminists and and gays are gonna take over our school, so there’s there’s a lot to be done in terms of Just as we have to do here in this country of bringing in people Of all different opinions of having national dialogue of sitting down and working through what are our common interests So there’s there’s a huge amount of work still to be done in Colombia and a lot of research into the national Referendum of what October 2nd. It seemed like it was a perfect storm of an election day Hurricane Matthew or I think came through and wiped out parts of the rural areas voter turnout. There was a big Vote not no, not yes, if you don’t know enough about this referendum Don’t vote vote No, say vote no say I don’t know. There was a media campaign around that There was the scare tactics from the conservative Catholics and then this hairline of a victory with a few hundred Tens of thousands of votes was the difference it was and it might have the difference might have been made by that hurricane because the hurricane Suppressed votes precisely in the areas where there the yes vote was larger you know there was a map published the day after the plebiscite which showed where the yes votes were concentrated and they were Concentrated largely around the periphery of the country exactly where the conflict was taking place In other words the people who were bearing the brunt of the conflict Voted yes, and the people who were removed more removed from the conflict could say well, I don’t know, you know, the Farks getting off too easy and so on and They they tended to vote no and the paradoxical thing is that that no vote and the subsequent dialogue that took place Actually brought the country a little bit closer together and it and the the agreement was modified to dry and deal with some of the basic concerns of the no voters so in a paradoxical way The no vote might have strengthened the possibility for this agreement to succeed Mm-hmm. It seems still like a very polarized place At least electorally. This should be a very interesting race coming up in 2018 Could be a very close one. It could be. Yeah, no one knows actually who’s gonna win in 2018. No one really has an idea They don’t have two-year campaigns like we do I suppose No, but they have they have longer campaigns and they have for example in the United Kingdom where it’s like three weeks Yeah, we’re talking about how the Columbia Peace Accord and any treaty or agreement really does need to be massaged and Sustained just like when you pass a bill in Congress. It usually takes decades of work by other groups defending it Are there some I? Know like the law of the sea is now really being whittled away at there’s some conflict in the South China Sea over the seabed minerals and Can you give us an account of how? some of these long-term agreements wind up coming to the fore in a And and begin breaking up Well for sure the I mean the law of the sea was a huge accomplishment. I mean you can imagine there was nearly like 200 countries agreeing On a regime that covers like two-thirds of the world’s surface. I mean, that’s I mean is an amazing negotiation feed over many many many years and And you’re right. It’s now being challenged in places like the South China Sea and one of the real to me one of the real Danger dangers in the in the future is going to be you know, u.s. Chinese relations because you have The two most powerful nations in the world if you look at history There’s something called the Thucydides trap about Athens and Sparta But if you have an ascendant power and a status quo power The likelihood that they end up in a war is quite high if you look historically So one of the questions to me is going to be how is the United States as the status quo power? Going to deal with the ascendancy of China in a way That doesn’t end up in a war between the United States and China, which would be absolutely catastrophic So that to me is something That is should be a top priority for for for any American president President Trump or whoever in the case of the South China Sea and this I’ve only read the there’s territorial claims by a number of countries Have you been following this one? I have because I’ve had in mind I look for like where the flashpoints, you know Where you know, one of the things you’re talking about miscommunication, you know If you look at so much of our history is determined by you know The Cold War which was in many ways a result of the Second World War Which was a result of the First World War a hundred years ago and a hundred years ago We were in the midst of the First World War and the First World War started off very much this way by kind of misreading It was August people were away from their ministries an archduke was assassinated No one thought this was going to lead to a to a pan-european war a world war and yet through a series of miscalculations I mean the the train railway schedules of the of the German military people just misreading things The the Kaiser went around with the idea that you know This thing could be solved by mediation because after all it had been practically solved I mean it was on the verge of being practically solved and then it fell into a war that Participated a war where tens of millions have died and then precipitated World War two then the Cold War So so we need to look at these flashpoints and the South China Sea is one of those places in the world Where it may seem like this is an atoll here, but but it’s right there at a very sensitive place where Where could it could trigger an escalation an unwanted escalation? And we need to we need a we need to learn as a as a world how to prevent these things how to deescalate them how to make sure that you don’t end up with We almost had that in the Cuban Missile Crisis as I mentioned It would would have been very easy for the Cuban Missile Crisis to have led to World War three And we need to put into place systems safety systems global safety systems crisis control systems to to make sure that Small incidents that take place don’t trigger wars now more than ever safeguards We’re speaking with William Ury. I’m Joe Ritchie. You’re listening to another episode another edition of Hemispheres, this is KG and you 88.5 FM 1390 a.m. Boulder Denver and Fort Collins William I wondered about some of these other flashpoints you mentioned u.s. Chinese relations being one Are there others that are on your monitor for sure? I mean one is Ukraine where As you know, you know Russia invaded part of Ukraine or or at least you know, there was the Crimea and then there’s eastern Ukraine and that suddenly created a lot of instability between Europe and and and Russia there’s the Persian Gulf where you have Iran the US Navy the Russians the Brits in a very tiny little sea where Much of the world’s oil and shipping goes through and they’re playing games with each other. We need one of the things I think we could use and I’m going to do a little bit of work on that is an incidence at sea agreement that could kind of separate the forces have better communication to make sure that an incident there doesn’t start a conflagration So there there are a number of these places around the world. There’s You know, there’s u.s. Russian relations We’re speaking with William Urie, and I wondered also some of these some of the positive signs, I mean there’s new agreements between Iran and the over their nuclear payloads and our uranium production and there’s Putin President Putin and President Trump seem to be in accord in some way to prevent an outbreak of more more violence out occurring in the Ukraine and So there are some these flashpoints you mentioned have some working relationships They do need those working relationships and you know, the Iran deal is one where that that is a potential flashpoint I mean, I’ve seen if we you know, one of the options which we’ve always had is an option of going to war the United States going to war with Iran to Suppress its nuclear capability, but I’ve seen the military simulations of that and it’s not pretty and it’s very easy for a war like that to get out of control and to Escalate into a regional war even something with global dimensions. So it would be hugely Tragic and so we that’s why you know, I believe you know We need and the Iran deal right now has been questioned by President Trump has been Questioned by a lot of people so we need to think how do we how do we keep things stable? Syria is another place where huge tragedy is probably the largest you know war tragedy going on the face of the planet just incredible humanitarian costs, but also incredible destabilization of the region destabilization of Europe, I mean of the world and it’s a lesson to me of These wars are preventable in the last analysis These wars are preventable that we can see them coming and we can take measures to prevent and the world humanity needs to learn What we’re now doing with medicine is, you know, first we were just dealing with curative medicine Now we’re moving to the focus on preventive medicine. We need to do the same thing with diplomacy Hey, I want to learn a little bit about the Harvard negotiation project and What the state of this field is now? Well, we my colleagues and I Roger Fisher and and other professors at Harvard and so on Began the Harvard negotiation project in about 1979 so and that at that time there were almost no courses given on negotiation And now, you know 30 35 years later there’s There’s no university around the world that doesn’t have hardly any that it doesn’t have courses on negotiation or law school No business school, no school of government Most major companies even nonprofits, you know realize that negotiation is a core skill core competence So the field of negotiation has begun I’ve watched it from its kind of nascency and I still feel that we’re still in our If not in our infancy at least in our in our youth as a field. There’s still so much room So much need in the world to learn to me this is the great challenge facing humanity at all levels from the family to business to Work to communities and neighborhoods all the way up to the world, which is how are we gonna deal with our most difficult differences? How are we gonna how we gonna learn to live together in a constructive way? how are we gonna solve our problems in a joint way and to me that’s what negotiation is all about and so there’s a There’s a lot more room for innovation and creativity and using the new forms of social technology of How do we do that in a globalized world? And to me right now, you know We’ve had the computation revolution, which has given birth to the communication revolution And now we need the cooperation or the collaboration revolution. We need that third C Of which negotiation could be a good part And One of the projects I don’t maybe it’s different the Harvard negotiation project. Does that include the path of Abraham that you’ve started in 2007 Yes the the Abraham path as a project is incubated under the auspices of of the Harvard negotiation project and basically that was It was kind of born an idea actually here in Boulder actually Just in the wake of the of the Iraq War and there’s some friends of some friends and I were kind of gathered around for in August under the under the under the night stars to have a conversation about the Middle East and what could be done and and this idea was born which was You know so much of the Middle East which is widely regarded as the most intractable dangerous conflict on the face of the planet so much of it has to do with Identity and story So why not look into? The story of us, you know a story that is kind of the source code of the entire Middle East Which is a story of the journey of Abraham to whom you know Over over half of humanity kind of feels like it’s part of that story and really Reenact that story by retracing the footsteps of Abraham across the Middle East I really want to hear more about this, but I think we do have another caller. Let’s see Hello, this is KGNU. Are you there? Hi Jim, hi appreciate the Conversations and all that KGNU brings to us in this regard I guess my question or it’s more of a comment and an engagement going further on this negotiation Talked about the you know, we need to cooperate and You know many years ago We formed the United Nations as as an attempt to get the world to play by a collective set of rules that we all agreed to It’s it’s become you know very polarized and politicized and I’m just wondering What what you think about, you know, how can we move towards this one world? Sort of Governance and I’m not saying that dictator control, you know But but we need to be cooperating at a nation-state level with each other much greater fashion and the UN Is you know, is that the solution? can we improve the UN or do we need to work from outside and actually do something different and I mean for for climate change for nuclear annihilation for You know Zika virus for you know the coming the coming challenges that are facing this very small finite planet that we continue to To really push the limits of it if we haven’t pushed them already too far. That’s a great question Jim the whether the UN is the vehicle to deliver this the governance Yeah, what what how can we how can we move things towards? Towards this cooperative model, you know And if the UN the vehicle we should be investing in or is it something else and I think your guest has you know There’s global insight and maybe have some some thoughts on that though. That would be illuminating sure. It’s a really good question I’ve asked myself that question many times the I mean if you think of it We were just talking about World War one a hundred years ago out of World War one came the League of Nations that could be considered like Global system 1.0 Then that didn’t work So well, the United States didn’t join the league even though it had been founded but with a visionary leadership of an American president Woodrow Wilson then after World War two They said oh this can’t happen again. So they Formed you know the the UN and it got formed out of that war and it has still that many of the structures of Security Council and so on I think now we’re faced with a challenge of how do we give birth to global systems? 3.0 which will include the UN build on the UN but needs to go a lot further and it has to deal with those challenges of How do we how do we as a world of seven billion people and growing? How do we learn to take the same principles that we apply? We learned in this country around democracy that we’re still learning. We’re still in the process of learning how this works How do we how do we how do we take global democracy? How does how do we all work together as a world the challenges are great, but the opportunities are also huge we never before had the chance through the communications revolution to all be in touch with each other and I think the the the room for innovation for creativity for If you think of a kind of a Venn diagram where there’s a three circles and there’s the intersection of that circle if you look at one of those circles is There are all these new methodologies of which negotiation is one the negotiation field. There’s deliberative democracy There’s all kinds of new ideas new forms new experimentation If you marry that with social technologies with the Internet with social media and so on and look and see how can we harness them? to really allow for global participatory decision-making and then if you harness it with a third, which is a kind of a systems view of looking at understanding the whole and Trying to serve the whole and what are the systemic challenges like the ones you mentioned around the environment climate change or nuclear war? How can we do that in that sweet spot? I think there’s so much room for innovation there’s so much room for creativity and that’s that’s the challenge right now because You’re right. We’re kind of balanced on a razor’s edge here It could go in a very bad direction for humanity or it could go in a constructive direction And it will depend on us and our ability to be creative to be innovative to to to to seize the moment and that’s that’s I think the challenge that we’re facing and We’re speaking with William Urey. You’re welcome to call. We are at 303 449 4885 That last caller brought to mind well on the way in here I heard the BBC Report and they had an interview with Reverend Cornel West who was sort of taking Obama to task for his domestic economic policies and some of the you know, the African American community that’s really suffered under Obama’s during his tenure, but Cornell Reverend Cornel West brought up that There was selective enforcement from the administration in that there were some great Crimes committed to really almost undermine our economy and everybody walked but yet the jails are still full of African Americans and they still have 35% unemployment and He brought up also how the United States has behaved internationally in places like Pakistan and elsewhere where we’re sort of the thug on the block where we are international thugs in some views Someone’s view and I wondered when negotiating with a new president like Trump Who does have like you said a frame or a mindset of? Winner take all I don’t know if you’ve read the art of the deal his ghost written book But in negotiating with someone like him and in a country like ours with our reputation What sort of? negotiating Strategies or judo do you recommend? Well first I recommend my first recommendation in any situation particularly in difficult situations is I Use the metaphor of going to the balcony Which is imagine that you’re negotiating on a stage with the other side or the other players. You’re all actors on the stage part of you goes to a mental and emotional balcony Which is a place overlooking the stage a place of perspective a place of clarity of calm of self-control So you’re not reactive because if you just get into a reactive mode Then it’s an eye for an eye and we all go blind So that’s the first thing is from the balcony perspective. We need to ask. What are our true interests here? What do we really want to see it? What do we really want to achieve and then the second move is to put yourself in the other person’s shoes Put yourself in even your adversary shoes put yourself in the person. You don’t want to put yourself in their shoes You know, let’s imagine it would be you know, President Trump, for example put yourself in his shoes put yourself in the shoes of the people who elected him understand them and Then understand what’s driving them. What are their needs and so on and then And then you have to you also have to know your sources of power in negotiation because there’s a whole sense of power The key to power in negotiation is something we call your BATNA your best alternative to a negotiated agreement Knowing what you’re going to do if for some reason you’re not able to reach a deal You’re not able to reach agreement with them. What is your what are you going to do to satisfy your interests all of those things together? Allow you to deal with someone even someone very difficult in a way that has the highest chances of arriving at a At a satisfactory solution rather than a destructive one. Well with some luck and some work we can maybe hope for some upcoming BATNA as you say, hey, we have another caller. Are you there? I’m here. Hi, this is Jane Boulder Hi, thank you very much for this interview. And here’s my question for William I’m curious on an ongoing basis. What are your main sources of news or information? That’s a really good question I’m asking myself that too, which is because it’s so important to get different sources. So what I do is you know, I I Scan some of the newspapers like the New York Times or the Washington Post I like to read the Economist too because it gives a kind of a global view But I really like to also read You know just listen to what other people are listening to whether even like tune into Fox for a moment and just understand what what what’s being What people are are are hearing but the other thing I like to do is not get sucked into the news I mean, it’s so easy for us to get like, you know reactive with the news and and to kind of Think because the news is so often event oriented rather than trend oriented to really go back to the balcony as it were and ask Myself, what are the long-term trends and see if I can even read some scholarship or some things about that For example on war, you know You would think right now from reading the news that there are more wars going on than ever before and in fact Over the you know, there are many fewer wars and many fewer people are dying in wars Then we’re done then, you know when I started in this field 30 40 years ago So you wouldn’t know that from reading the news so you need to pay attention to those those longer-term trends So I try not just to read the news but to read, you know Books or articles that really that are more thoughtful and trend trend oriented I do I mean be I mean the Economist obviously is an international source, but it’s it’s I you know, I sometimes look at other newspapers like like the French, you know, Le Monde for example, or Al Jazeera, for example, or just just to just to listen to see what how how different news is being presented and How differently perceive things, you know, one good example for me was during our election We hardly pay attention, but I was paying attention to Russian news For example, and in Russian news during the fall there was a huge fear Being purveyed in Russian news that that we were they were on the brink of a nuclear war with us And we had no idea of this but you know Mainstream Russian newsmakers were saying get get your shovels out build your basements there’s you know, we’re on the brink of a war there was I think President Putin ordered the the children of Who were in schools foreign schools of his government officials to come back home? There was a whole war scare and we knew nothing about it because we’re just paying attention to our own news I know the Kremlin has the Kremlin website is Translates everything. Hey, thanks for your call Jane. Thanks. Yeah. Thank you It’s instantly translated. I found when when President Putin gave his State of the Union within hours It was there in English. There are places I guess you for sure. Mm-hmm This has been a wonderful hour with William URI author of getting to yes and most recently Getting to yes with yourself and other worthy opponents 2015 I could see how you’ve taken the sort of diplomatic work to a personal level to in Negotiating with yourself your family it sounds like a very large field, but is that common in in the field the academic field of negotiation to Include all these other areas Well, I wouldn’t say it’s common. I’m you know, I was really trained as an anthropologist Which is a student of human beings and so as an anthropologist you you roam across all kind of disciplinary boundaries I did you know my work in medical anthropology legal anthropology philosophical anthropology So for me, I’m I’m broadly interested in humanity and human beings And so so for me, yes And what I found actually interestingly is I you know after getting to yes That may be the most frequent question I got was okay But how do I get to yes with someone who doesn’t want to get to yes, you know, there’s difficult people I mean who attack you who don’t want to get to yes who stonewall who use dirty tricks? So I did a whole bunch of work on that and wrote a book called getting past No, you know negotiating with difficult people But then over the years it dawned on me actually the most difficult person I ever have to deal with anyone has to deal with Is actually not the person on the other side of the table. It’s ourselves. It’s our we get in our own way it’s our own natural tendency to react to act without thinking and as Ambrose Beerus once put it when angry you will make the best speech you will ever regret and That happens more often than not. So that’s why I wrote getting to yes with yourself, which is Understanding that if we can’t get to yes with ourselves deal with our own internal conflicts It’s going to be very difficult to deal with the others and to the extent that we’re able to get to yes with ourselves We’re going to be much more successful in getting to yes with others around us I’ll get on that right away, William It’s the person you look at in the mirror every morning that’s the person who’s the real problem. Yeah, that’s where we start. Yeah Well again, thank you for your so much for your time. What’s next for you? What’s so what’s on the is this an academic year off or what’s next? Well, I’m going I’m going down to Colombia as I mentioned for the Nobel Peace Prize laureates summit and to work on the implementation and on the ELN and then and now I’ll go to the Middle East to walk the Abraham path and in Palestine and How long of a track is that well, it’s uh, you can walk we’ve mapped out 2,000 kilometers of path Last year, I walked in the Sinai in Egypt up to the top of Mount Sinai, but there’s path in Jordan in Palestine in Israel in Turkey and in Egypt and so the path is like a it’s like a thread that connects the entire Middle East and it’s a thread that reminds everyone of hospitality, which is the value they most prize in the Middle East oddly enough is is actually I mean is is that the Incredible hospitality they show to perfect strangers How can we find out more and how can I go on the Abraham path? Well, if you look at our website, which is www.abrahampath.org You have information it’s an online guidebook and you can Show you what trips you can join or if you want to go independent Where you can stay because we have home stays all along the way so you stay it’s not just a walk But it’s really an encounter with the other where you stay in people’s homes along the way and you really get to it brings perspective it brings empathy and it brings a whole new frame of Of how you see the Middle East how you see yourself and how you see the world. Thank you so much William We’ve been with William Ury author of getting to yes and getting to yes with yourself He’s come into the studio for a whole hour to be with us. I want to thank you once again It’s been my real pleasure Joe and I want to wish all of your listeners much success in getting to yes with others and with yourself.