Ron Owens:
Ron Owens KGO radio. We’ve got a guest in the studio. I’m gonna throw him a curve in a second. He is William Ury, and this is a guy who co-founded Harvard University’s program on negotiation pretty pretty pretty good on that. He’s the author getting to yes negotiating Agreement without giving in top negotiator. You’re the guy who can put people together. I’m gonna throw this curve I said I actually have a couple one is a broad one can’t answer that for the other one you might We just spent the last hour talking about What happened with the Jordanian pilot the way that he was burned to death the brutality of Isis. What do you do in a situation where the other side just won’t negotiate?
William Ury:
Well to me the first thing is you go to the balcony and what I mean by that is you imagine you’re negotiating on the stage and part of your mind goes to a mental and emotional balcony where you can it’s a place of clarity and perspective because we human beings are reaction machines and when we see Someone being burned or someone being beheaded Instantly we feel you know a huge emotional surge right and like hey, we’re gonna nail them We’re gonna destroy them, and that’s exactly what terrorists are trying to provoke they’re trying to provoke fear and for us to act in ways that often are you know you know like like Embro Spears once said when angry you will make the best speech you’ll ever regret and and by Overreacting like for example by overreacting in 9/11 you go into Iraq, then we got the concert.
Ron Owens:
I agree, and I understand what you’re saying, but we’re dealing with somebody who just won’t talk I mean they’re not gonna talk.
William Ury:
Well actually they’re not gonna sit down and negotiate And I don’t think we should we should think that we’re gonna negotiate with them right now So what but what we do need to know is we didn’t know who we’re dealing with who are they who are their supporters? Why are they successful as they are how did they get to be where they are? Because the thing is if we just react and just say okay, we got to destroy them you can’t destroy something.
Ron Owens:
You don’t know so let’s say we understand who they are we understand that these are people who are not just Muslims they are radical Islamic Horrible people we know that we understand why they can have all kinds of reasons u.s. Presence in the Middle East Israel Whatever they’re great where their Greece are Sunni Shiite whatever so we understand it, but it’s not gonna change the situation.
William Ury:
Well I ask you she’s a first step because the thing is in the long run. Let me just say this There’s no way we’re gonna negotiate with them right now right and but we do need to know how to fight them And we need to fight them intelligently. Let’s bring this one home though.
Ron Owens:
I mean in terms of let’s say business for example sure is what do you do with a company or a union that simply says? We’re not gonna. Talk. Just not gonna. Talk. I mean now. We’re not talking taking of lives We’re doing these these people are just absolutely obstinate in their belief well believe me.
William Ury:
Ron I mean ever since Raja fish, and I wrote this book you know 30 33 years ago getting yes You know I’ve I’ve kind of special people said yeah But how do you negotiate with people who don’t want to get yes, you know and so you know I’ve worked in labor strikes Boardroom battles family feud civil wars different parts of the world and the thing is is it takes a long time It takes persistence, but I’ve seen so many situations where people said it’s impossible the other side won’t talk and eventually Things do get resolved now not always But but enough times that you you figure you don’t give up you don’t give up But there is a way of kind of approaching it to trying to first of all make sure you don’t overreact make sure you’re clear about what your objectives are make sure you’re clear about understanding what theirs are and Looking for it’s not just a them there because there’s many different actors out there And you’ve got to know how to split them apart from each other you know how to like with Isis We have to build a winning coalition against Isis How are we going to do that by understanding the environment of how they came about figuring out? They’re gonna. You know they’re their own worst enemies by burning that Jordanian pilot. Oh, yeah, it may backfire Oh absolutely because the thing is they want support They want to move into Jordan, and they were trying to kind of get Jordan to back out of the coalition But what they’ve done is the exact opposite effect.
Ron Owens:
They’ve unified all Jordanians against them if we turn around though and make it. Let’s say business for example I think the third item that you mentioned is the most important I mean it’s something that I try and do if I’m in an argument with somebody I try and see can I take the other Side and argue their side and maybe that way understand it more. That’s it.
William Ury:
I mean, that’s that’s to me. You know the you know the first principle in negotiation is is You know negotiations and exercise and influence you’re trying to change the other side’s mind the first thing you need to know is where their mind is.
Ron Owens:
Now let’s talk about another current one this one is much harder Tom vacar channel to superb consumer reporter Regular reporter he was on yesterday, and we were talking about half half of the time We were talking about the Oakland port strike I don’t presume you know about that But you’ve got the longshoremen on one side And you’ve got the actual port on the other side they haven’t moved for eight months and meanwhile There’s a quarter of a million oranges that are rotting in there There was something like 28 million quarks because they’re supposed to go to what what do you do if neither side will sit down at?
The table and this is not Isis.
William Ury:
We’re talking about typical union versus management yeah, I mean it’s you know the thing is I’ve been dealing with us You know there’s this kind of win-lose adversarial mindset that we get into and the result is both sides lose And actually the third side loses is the community in this case. You know the consumers and so on so In a situation like that again you have to kind of like step back analyze Both sides their interests and what we call negotiation And this is key what we call their BATNA BATNA is a Acronym that Roger Fischer and our coin back and getting yes for your best alternative to a negotiated agreement in other words What’s your best course of action for pursuing your interests if for some reason you’re not able to reach agreement now in this case for? Example that you’re mentioning you know for the longshoremen. It’s a strike. That’s their BATNA That’s what they’re trying to do is to Educate You know the other side the Oakland Port Authority that you know nobody wants to be educated.
Ron Owens:
I know no one wants to be educated if that word is something that always turns me off.
William Ury:
Because it implies. I know everything you don’t oh yeah, you’re right exactly. It’s it’s a it can be condescending right yes absolutely So so it’s not about that, but essentially you need we what we need to do is the reason what we negotiate is to do Better than our BATNA and so but there are going to be better ways than just this kind of costly destructive exercise, and it’s about sitting down Understanding each other’s interests. You know there’s gonna be a media mediation for example This is where you bring in third parties And you bring in you know federal mediators or mediators who are trusted by both sides who can sometimes if I’ve been in like my first major Kind of union management situation was when I was young I was looking for any kind of opportunity I got involved in a coal mine Dispute where management and Union would not sit down with each other. I mean it was inflamed they had You know they were going on constant wildcat strikes. There was violence There’s bomb threats, but we shuttled my colleague Steve Goldberg And I shuttled back and forth for about six weeks until they saw that there was a glimmer of light Then they sat down together at a table all 20 of them.
Ron Owens:
And we were able they were able to figure out that like Oakland and the Middle East situation Yeah, it works sometimes 80808 10 if you’d like to join us I’m I’m throwing these curves at him, but this guy can handle him after all he is the guy who helped create Hi, and you co-founded it not just helped Harvard’s program on negotiation Harvard alone is enough, and I by the way applaud you you’ve been on with me what nine minutes I have this whole thing that anybody went to Harvard lets you know in the last Probably the first 30 seconds you haven’t done that when we come back though. I’m gonna bring it back home What if you want to get a raise and the boss doesn’t want to give it? We’ll talk about that and more 80808 10 is the number getting to yes is the book. I’m Ron Owens, and this is KGO Ron Owens KGO radio bill URI is here William URI’s book is called getting to you getting to yes with myself We’re gonna touch on that in a moment to getting to yes with myself I got to bounce one thing off of you I have always been a huge fan of what I guess colloquially is called baseball arbitration you got two sides they got things they want each side gives the best offer they can possibly live with and Then one or the other gets chosen no changes is that a good idea, and if so why or why not?
William Ury:
I think it’s a really good idea It’s a we call it last best offer you know each side makes their last best offer and then the other and it really means last Best yeah, yeah, and I think it’s a really innovative and useful way It’s not the only way, but there’s what it’s one way to settle disputes in a quick expeditious and fair way.
Ron Owens:
But why do you have to go through all the process why isn’t every negotiation like that each side wants something yeah you figure out How much do you want it? What are you willing to give up for it you put the two sides down and let somebody say okay one or the other?
William Ury:
Well, that’s I mean that’s the usefulness of arbitration And we also but I mean oftentimes the thing is sometimes for example another alternative is mediation where the person you each side makes Their best offers and but you know the mediator sits down and lets the two of them come closer and assist the negotiation And so in other words we have a variety of tools and the key thing is that Why are we fighting all the time when we’ve got ingenious ways to try and resolve disputes like like that one you mentioned all right now?
Ron Owens:
Your new book is Getting to Yes with Yourself. I mean it’s with yourself. Yeah, exactly Yeah, are you know getting one of us with yourself right getting getting to yes with one of us something like that, okay? What does that mean? I mean? I understand the business in the negotiator. I got a problem with me.
William Ury:
What’s you know yeah, well the thing I’ve discovered is you know I’ve been in this business for over 30 years And I’ve been working on helping people deal with difficult people. You know difficult situations It’s always how do I influence the person on the other side of the table, but then I realized wait a minute Oftentimes the biggest obstacle in us getting what we really want in a negotiation is not the other side however difficult They are it’s ourselves. It’s a person on this side of the table. It’s the person we look at in the mirror in the morning It’s our natural human tendency to react to act without thinking and Negotiate supposed to be goal-oriented behavior, but we often behave in ways that go exactly contrary to our own interests We let our emotions rule. Yeah, we let our exactly out of fear we give in out of anger We react we destroy the relationship. You know because you know you for example. You’re sitting at your desk there You got an email Irritates you because you got left out you think you got left out of an important decision So you immediately compose a reply and you get that instant satisfaction of hitting the reply button except you hit the reply all button And it goes out to the whole organization you see conflicts escalate Well, there’s a button on that screen, which I think of as the balcony button Which is that save as draft you know you save it as a draft Then you go for a walk around the block you go out for a coffee with a friend whatever you take a moment to think About you come back you look at it You say is that really gonna advance my interest and you hit the delete button you pick up the phone call the person one.
Ron Owens:
I always think of a negotiation is you got to go into it and say what do I absolutely want very often? Let’s go into a confrontation or negotiation and you kind of clear on what you want, but you don’t know I always think what are you gonna get out of it? What is it that you really want and then how do you get it?
William Ury:
That’s what getting to yes with yourself’s about it because I would have thought I don’t have to get the book Yeah, you know you don’t have to it’s what but you know what’s interesting is You know I’ve been coaching people on you got to put yourself in the other person’s shoes What you’re saying before you know if you’re gonna negotiate you got to listen to them But it’s very hard for us to listen to people in a conflict because our minds are so full of thoughts and feelings and emotions And so on and what I found is we got to put ourselves in our own shoes figure out what we want.
Ron Owens:
Listen to ourselves before we listen to the other and why don’t we do that is it just because we’re too involved in it or?
William Ury:
Yeah, we’re there’s so many Emotions that get involved so many reactions and particularly in this day and age are so much stress and pressure that We don’t take that moment You know take a moment before you go into a difficult meeting or a difficult phone call just take a moment Just to kind of quiet your mind just focus on what is it that you really want in that situation? Because so often you know you were talking about No husband or wife you know you know you get into a point scoring You know with another person, but you know there’s an old saying about you know either You can be happy in a marriage, or you can be right, but you can’t be both. How do you redeem those points?
Ron Owens:
That’s the thing so you’re right. What do you do with it? That’s it you talk about what is it I think positional Bargaining a positional negotiation, and that’s like haggling over so over the price of something.
William Ury:
Yeah, that’s this typical way in which we often approach negotiation. You know I wanted this price you wanted that price you know and we kind of haggle and What is much more effective is to look behind the positions for? What do people really want you know and try to get at that for example?
You mentioned a raise you know you’re going for a raise And you’ve got your position you want a 15% raise and they say there’s no money in the budget You know or of course that’s what they say Right, but you’ve got to understand. What are the underlying interests in other words? What do you really want is it just the raise or you want the recognition you want the chance to promote? Do you want the money for a certain reason to sit and send your kid to college or whatever I want the money You want the money, but why do you want the money?
Ron Owens:
Why do I want to send my kids to college well?
William Ury:
So maybe who knows maybe that make why I want because Maybe you can’t get the full raise that you want, but maybe there’s a I don’t know Tuition loan program that can help you and you can get part of the raise or maybe you can get the raise you know in other words if you can solve the problem if there in fact there’s very little money in the budget, but You can figure out a way to bring in extra income. You know or you can flex time I mean, there’s so many rich possibilities if you can actually Figure out what you really want and figure out what the boss’s real problem is.
Ron Owens:
But how do you know if let’s say the boss really doesn’t have the money to spend. How do you know that? I mean, that’s private information. How do you get that well for one thing you?
William Ury:
Preparation – doing your homework. Just like you know in anything really helps So you you sleuth around you figure out you study the books you try to talk to people you try and figure out you may Not have the perfect answer But you’ve got a much better idea and the other thing is when you sit down with your boss help me understand They say there’s no money in the budget. Well. Help me understand a little bit just in other words ask questions not just.
Ron Owens:
Give statements does gender come into it at all and the reason I asked that question is guys tend to me Give me from a to B. Get me there in two seconds and Gals tend more to be let me consider all things they’re much more open and interested in every side the guy just wants the results Does it make a difference in terms of negotiating and this is whether it’s business or countries that you’ve been involved in things like that.
William Ury:
It does make a difference. I think women focus a little more on the relationship men are focused more like on the transaction you know and and the result is Women fall sometimes into the trap of they want to be soft on the person and they end up being soft on the problem They end up just conceding men fall into the opposite trap, which is they want to be hard on the problem They want the result and they ignore the person and the personal feelings and they get into this ego battle.
Ron Owens:
8080 a 10 tell you what say one more segment if you don’t mind for sure you’re out of here at 1045 But a little more I want to talk to you about he is William URI and his book is called getting to yes with yourself Thank you. 8080 a 10. That’s the number. I’m Ron Owens, and this is KG I didn’t know you sing Bill bill URI is in the studio. This is a guy who actually co-founded Harvard University’s program on negotiation Understands how to deal with issues back and forth and back and forth. I mentioned we did the show Well, I guess about a month ago from Washington DC in my lifetime. I’ve never seen two sides Democrat Republican as Far apart as they are today Is there any solution there when you’ve got the Tea Party on one side and the ultra liberals on the other side and they’re really? Controlling that everything in the middle gets short shrift as does this.
William Ury:
Bottle that I just dropped. Yes. Go ahead. So yeah, it’s a real challenge, but I think there is a way I mean, I’ve dealt with you know brought Democrats and Republicans together and when you can get them in a room You can get them away from Washington even and sit down and talk about what the issues are You know, you can turn it from a face-to-face confrontation into you know, side-by-side Let’s solve a problem because it’s not just about by but it’s not just you know Compromises become a dirty word in Washington and to me negotiation isn’t just about compromise It’s not just about splitting the difference between the two positions It’s about finding a genuine solution that meets, you know that works for all sides You know, you know and looking for where the common ground is You know, everyone wants to see a better educational system in this country. Everyone wants more infrastructure We’ve got a strength in the country. And so I haven’t given up yet And I think one of the main problems is they’re not talking with each other.
Ron Owens:
And Ted Cruz won’t I mean if you have people like that who just will not yeah will not yield and will not listen.
William Ury:
You just give up. No, I don’t think so because Ted Cruz is not the only the only person in town And that’s the thing is that they’re all the attention goes to the you know, the 10% or 20% on the extreme, right? There’s a 60% in the middle That we have to we have to build a coalition of the middle. We have to build a winning coalition of the middle and And you know, then you can bring in the extremes but essentially that’s what there’s a silent majority here That actually is sensible and wants to work things out and we need to animate that.
Ron Owens:
Silent majority what I’ve always said is it’s real easy to get people who are just absolutely on one side of the other and they Rally people their cause it’s pretty tough to get let’s hear it for the middle. It just doesn’t seem to work like that.
William Ury:
Well, it’s true, but you know, there’s a lot of things, you know, I used to have a friend who say what exists is possible You know you there are examples I mean This is the guy like the 50th anniversary or they’re almost a little more than 50 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act Take a look at that. You know, that was like a situation which people thought was absolutely impossible It was always fill every time there’s a civil rights bill is gonna be filibustered but Democrats and Republicans got together Everett Dirksen who is you know Republican and and and William McCullough You know, they proposed the deal to the Kennedy and said look, let’s share the credit Let’s work this out and they were able to break that that ice jam.
Ron Owens:
But you get a John Boehner and allegedly even Mitch McConnell willing to negotiate right now Yeah, but the problem is they’re being pulled by the extremists in their own party.
William Ury:
That’s true. Because the thing is in any negotiation there are not just the negotiation between the Democrats and Republicans There’s a negotiation within the Democrats and within the Republicans and that is what often the problem is Not just at the table. The problem is that the people who are not at the table and those those those those You know more extreme elements and so but I think you know to me The the biggest lack is people are not, you know, I are not getting together They’re not actually I mean, you know if Obama and another Boehner But just their chiefs of staff at the working level for people to get together and say, okay Look, we just we’re gonna let’s agree to disagree on a lot of elements. Where do we agree? Where can we work together that can actually move the country forward?
Ron Owens:
Well Boehner’s actually been able to do a bit of that with the president and then it gets rejected by his own party.
William Ury:
Yeah, well, that’s that’s the negotiation challenge or for that matter go back to the Middle East talks.
Ron Owens:
Which you’re very aware of and you had a situation where President Clinton was able to work with Yasser Arafat and I reflect I like 97% of what he wanted. He was thrilled. He went home. No, we want a hundred percent, right?
William Ury:
Yeah, you know, it’s I’m just going to the Middle East myself in about three weeks to Israel and Palestine Jordan and the the it’s yeah, it’s a tough tough situation All I can say is that when I started to work in this field People said the United States and the Soviet Union will never reach agreement on anything Cold War will go on forever South Africa Blacks and whites will be fighting forever Northern Ireland Catholics and Protestants have been fighting for centuries. It’s religious. I’m never gonna get along. So we have examples where Situations that were previously thought to be impossible have yielded to patient persistent negotiation and we can’t give up.
Ron Owens:
Got about four minutes left. So let’s go back to your book getting to yes To yourself, right? What is the one thing that we do? That’s the worst thing. How do we how do we in essence block ourselves?
William Ury:
We were our own worst enemy as you said, well, yeah, we react basically We’re human beings were reaction machines out of fear out of anger. We make decisions we we lash out or we give in and What I find the most important thing to do is to take us learn to take a step back from the situation Take a pause hit the pause button In whatever form that takes, you know say look Let me talk to you about it tomorrow morning Give yourself a chance to go what I call to the balcony Which is take just a step back from situation look at it figure out what you really want Think about what they really want then you go back in calmly and clearly and you can often make much more progress.
Ron Owens:
But if you do it dealing with yourself and let’s say business, which is a day-to-day thing or in a relationship, which is immediate People want immediate reactions. They do want immediate reactions. And this is why this is where we you know, you could say look.
William Ury:
Let me go to the bathroom I’ll come back just even going to the bathroom for a second You know grab a cup of coffee giving yourself, you know, even you know I think was Thomas Jefferson when the Constitution was being negotiated the tempers were really hot and you know Philadelphia in the middle of the summer without air conditioning and you know, it’s small states big say they didn’t have air conditioning He used to say, you know You know when angry count to ten if very angry a hundred simply letting a few seconds go by Taking a deep breath. You can get some clarity So you don’t you know, it doesn’t have to take very long. You take a few seconds, but you’re gonna act with more clarity You’re not gonna make the mistakes that trip you up.
Ron Owens:
Before it’s it’s what is it that you really want to accomplish and how does whatever you’ve agreed to get you to that point?
William Ury:
That’s it. That’s it. You know, I just helped a Businessman in Brazil who was involved in a gigantic dispute was two and a half years It was called the largest cross-continental boardroom showdown in recent history. I sat down with him and He didn’t know really what he wanted, you know, he was in this big fight for two and a half years and I said, what do you want? He says well, I want the stock at a certain price I want the end of the non-compete clause. I want you know, they gave me a whole list I said, but what do you really want? When I probed he said I want freedom and once I heard that freedom then in four short days We’re able to resolve this to his satisfaction freedom from free He wanted freedom to pursue his business deals freedom to spend time with his family. He was stuck He was a hostage of this dispute, even though he was in charge, even though he was in charge and that’s it We are we are we think we’re hostages of the other side, you know, if only they would do this We engage in the blame game, you know, it’s all that’s like what she did You know, we all blame game if you take some responsibility figure out what you really want.
Ron Owens:
You can often resolve the situation. There is a guy. I used to love him Herb Cohen. You can negotiate anything Yeah, I was a friend love that guy. Yeah, and you know, he says you go into Macy’s you can make a deal How realistic is that it’s fun to kid around but he said there isn’t anything that you buy that you can’t negotiate.
William Ury:
Uh, well, he had a point. I think he had a point. I mean he had a point I mean he was trying to say look don’t we always assume that oh, I can’t negotiate this. This can’t be negotiated He’s saying test that assumption and maybe maybe it’s not a hundred percent, right?
But it’s gonna be right a lot of times when you think it was wrong If you don’t test it, how are you gonna know? Is it is it good?
Ron Owens:
A little life like that. You can’t even buy a pack of gum.
William Ury:
You know, it’s great and the thing is is to me, you know Negotiations become a fact of life these days nowadays in order to get anything in life, you know We have to negotiate in other words reach agreement with somebody or with our spouse with our coworker with our boss You know when I ask people in that broad sense of the term you’re negotiating. It’s not just a deal at Macy’s It’s 50% of our time we’re engaged in this act of back-and-forth communication trying to reach agreement.
Ron Owens:
All right, watch this transition when you’re done with this, which is in about 20 seconds Are you gonna stay in the Bay Area or you’re gonna go somewhere? I’m gonna stay in the Bay Area for a little bit see then you blew it because I was gonna say you probably we’re gonna Fly somewhere you go to the airport and that’s what we’re gonna be talking about when we get back.
William Ury:
I have so I am going to the airport. Well, then Oakland Airport out too late.
Ron Owens:
The name of the book is Getting to Yes with Yourself. Okay, Bill Ury. Thanks for coming out a real pleasure Ron Owens KGO radio.