Fast Company Brasil:

Let’s talk here about, I think, the technology that is the most important technology of our era, that is conflict mediation. How do we thrive and survive in the age of conflict?

William Ury:

Well, conflict is everywhere, but I’m an anthropologist by training. Conflict is part of life. It’s natural. It could even be healthy, because we want to be able to disagree, have diverse perspectives.

That’s what makes for the best decisions. That’s what makes for a vibrant democracy in a marketplace. And the question is, do we end conflict? We can’t end conflict, but we can transform it. We don’t have to fight each other.

We can talk, we can dialogue, we can listen, we can negotiate. And that’s the key choice, is to transform conflict.

Fast Company Brasil:

And how do you negotiate in this digital era, where everything seems so polarized?

William Ury:

It’s not easy. This is some of the hardest work we can do, but it’s human.

The first thing we have to do is we have to negotiate with ourselves. Negotiation, it turns out, is an inside game. You start here, because the biggest obstacle to us getting what we want is not the other person. It’s right here. It’s ourselves. It’s our human tendency to react.

To act without thinking, to act out of anger. You know, when angry, you will make the best speech you will ever regret. You will send the best email you will ever regret. We need to learn to go to the balcony, which is like a place… It’s like we’re negotiating on a stage.

Part of you goes to a mental and emotional balcony, a place of perspective, of calm, inner calm, where you can keep your eyes on the prize. What is most important to you? That’s the foundation of successful communication, successful negotiation. It’s inside, right here.

Fast Company Brasil:

And this happens. It can happen not only in big businesses or big politicians.

It happens in our everyday lives. How to manage conflict in our everyday lives? Give me a tip. Give me some examples, please.

William Ury:

Well, we’re negotiating all the time. You know, when I ask people how often do they negotiate, in the broader sense of the term, back and forth communication, 50% of our time we’re negotiating with our children, our spouses, our partners, our co-workers, our colleagues, our customers, our suppliers.

We’re negotiating with everyone. And the biggest thing is we think of negotiation as talking, but actually negotiation is much more about listening. It’s about listening. We have two ears and one mouth for a reason, which is to listen twice as much as we talk, and to listen not just listening here, thinking, okay, I’m going to reply to you. No, listen by putting myself in your shoes.

Empathy. Trying to understand how you see things, how you feel things. Because if I’m able to understand you, I’ll be able to influence you better.

Fast Company Brasil:

And how dealing with conflicts is connected with diversity and the diversity in the companies. When you say this is a conversation that a lot of companies are having and how we raise our diversity here, how can we listen to more voices?

How can conflict or mediating conflict connect with that?

William Ury:

It’s absolutely central. The negotiation is a key human competence that we need to develop. We all know how to do it. Children know how to do it.

They do it from the very beginning, right? But then how do you negotiate in a way that’s constructive, that’s creative? How do we bring our natural human curiosity, our natural human creativity and our natural human ability to collaborate to these difficult conflicts? So instead of avoiding conflicts, turn towards them, welcome them, embrace them and transform them into things that can actually, in companies with diversity, for example, listen to the different voices because then you often get a better perspective. If everyone agrees, then you only need one person.

Right? But it’s the diversity of perspective that allows for the richness of the best decisions that a company can make.

Fast Company Brasil:

In your new book, you talk about the possibilists. What is a possibilist? How is that not an optimist and a pessimist?

How is this the third way?

William Ury:

I’ve been working for 40 years in some of the world’s toughest conflicts, from civil wars, wars in the Middle East to conflicts like in Brazil between Abelio Diniz and Jean-Charles Nauri. And what I’ve found is that people ask me, are you an optimist or are you a pessimist? And I say, actually, I’m a possibilist, which is I believe in human possibility. Because I’ve seen with my own eyes how conflict can sometimes bring out the worst in people, but sometimes it can bring out the best in people.

I’ve seen, for example, in South Africa, between blacks and whites, they transformed their conflict. In Northern Ireland, between Catholics and Protestants, they transformed their conflict. I saw Abelio and Jean-Charles Nauri, they became friends in the end. So it’s possible. It’s possible for human beings to transform their conflicts.

And if we can transform our conflicts, we can transform our workplaces, our companies, we can transform the world.

Fast Company Brasil:

And why is it important for us to talk about being possibilistic in the age of AI and all this technology that we’ve seen?

William Ury:

In this world right now, AI is going to take over content. AI will know everything. But what they can’t know is what it means to be a human being.

And to be a human being means to be able to understand each other, to be able to communicate, to be able to negotiate. And essentially, to be a possibilist means to enhance our own human potential, to navigate, to surf these waves. There’s more and more conflict in the world, more and more polarization. We’re not going to change that right now, but what we can do is learn to surf it, learn to navigate it. And that’s the way of possibilism.

Fast Company Brasil:

And how can we be possibilists in our lives? Examples, again. Oh, examples. Factual examples.

William Ury:

One example.

You’re negotiating, right? You want a raise, for example, in your office, right? Yes. So you go and you say, I want the raise. There’s no money in the budget.

To be a possibilist means, no, let’s look for possibilities here. Why do I want the raise? It’s not just money. I have a particular need, or I want recognition, I want acknowledgement. Well, maybe I can get a new title.

Maybe I can get a promise of a raise next week. Maybe if I think about, if I bring in more sales, I can get a raise. So just think creatively. Don’t just take it as a fixed pie. Expand the pie.

Use creativity. Use curiosity. Use collaboration.

Fast Company Brasil:

You said in the pre-interview that your heart is Brazilian.

Why do you say that? And if you want to say something in Portuguese, because we know you’re good in Portuguese.

William Ury:

My heart is Brazilian. I’m American. My heart is Brazilian.

I think that the Brazilian spirit of coexistence is very important for all of humanity. That’s the spirit of possibility.