Negotiation guru brings some fresh ideas to the table

Published on Sunday 31 May 2009 22:13

READING William Ury's CV, it is hard to pick out one highlight – because there is too much to choose from.

Where do you start? How about founding an international negotiation network with former US president Jimmy Carter, or helping the US and Soviet governments create crisis centres to stop accidental nuclear strikes?

What about being the co-founder of Harvard University's negotiation programme, and the man behind the Abraham Path initiative, an ambitious attempt to bring together Christians, Jews, Muslims and others through a shared admiration of the titular biblical figure.

Or should we begin with his achievements as a multi-million best-selling author or his status as one of the most in-demand negotiation consultants on Earth?

Whatever you choose, it's an impressive list, and one he will discuss in more detail as he arrives in Scotland next month to speak at an event organised by Core Solutions Group, designed to further its efforts to bring alternative dispute resolution into the mainstream.

"I think the negotiation revolution is in full sway," explains Dr Ury when asked about the changes to dispute techniques. "Every country I have gone to in the last 30 years faces the problem that they have all these conflicts and differences and all of these deals to be made. To get what you need or want, you are compelled to negotiate."

It is this increasingly complex landscape that, Dr Ury contends, is sweeping away traditional ways of reaching agreements, and forcing lawyers and dealmakers of all kinds to change their confrontational approach: "I think there is a general, slow realisation that the traditional methods of positional bargaining and 'I win, you lose' increasingly, in today's interdependent world, leads to outcomes in which both sides lose," he says. "You saw it in Northern Ireland - it was a win-lose battle until they realised that everyone was losing and maybe negotiation might be a better way to handle their differences than through armed struggle."

The Northern Irish peace process is a favourite topic of Dr Ury, presumably because it provides a tangible result of what can be done through negotiation.

"It is one of the most difficult parts of the job, but reality is the best teacher," he says when asked how hard it is to persuade long-standing enemies to sit around the table. "There comes a point at which they realise this is going nowhere. You can certainly make the other side lose, but you can't win what you most need except by sitting down with your adversaries. No-one would have imagined you would have Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley working together."

Dr Ury's calm and convincing authority on the subject is borne of living at the forefront of negotiation strategy for the best part of 30 years. Born into a post-war USA before being brought up - appropriately - in Switzerland, he studied anthropology and developed an interest in human conflict. After graduation, he practised mediation strategy by asking a local judge if he could mediate small claims, before moving on to help in a bitter coal mine dispute in Kentucky.

In 1981, he and fellow Harvard academic Roger Fisher wrote Getting to Yes - a book that was to become the seminal work on the topic. Dr Ury says the target audience of mediators was small, but after selling more than five million copies in 20 languages, it is clear the objective philosophy of the book met untapped need in all walks of life: "The book hit a chord that I have come to understand over the last 30 years as a revolution in decision making," Dr Ury explains.

Dr Ury contends so-called alternative mediation and settlement techniques are already becoming an accepted part of the legal landscape: "There will never be a time when we don't needs courts," he says. "In some senses, the word 'alternative' is misleading because it is actually a complement."

He says that, as court caseloads grow, it will becoming increasingly in judges' and solicitors' interests to embrace these techniques. But he disagrees that emphasis on such methods will erode the precedent of case law.

"In the overwhelming majority, people are much more satisfied with this form of dispute resolution. The court system is best used as a last resort."

&#149 www.williamury.com

&#149 William Ury will appear at a dinner on 18 June and then speak at the Hub in Edinburgh on 19 June. Contact Core at 0131-221 2520. www.core-solutions.com