Conflict is a growth industry. From Washington politics to school board meetings to the Middle East, you see people attacking others instead of tackling problems. Everyone seems to be busy getting to no. Why aren’t we getting to yes?
Ask the guy who literally wrote the book, one of the world’s most influential experts and the co-author of the world’s bestselling negotiation title, Getting to Yes (over 11 million copies sold.)
When caught in opposition, we point fingers. Now, in his new book Getting To Yes With Yourself (And Other Worthy Opponents) (HarperOne; January 20, 2015; $26.00), Harvard negotiation authority Bill Ury suggests a radically different approach: start by looking in the mirror.
In his 35 years of mediating in some of the world’s most daunting conflicts—from civil wars to labor strikes, boardroom battles, and family feuds—Ury has found that the biggest obstacle to agreement is us: our all-too-human tendency to react in ways that do not serve our true interests. Ury proposes that we take the transforming lead by going to the “balcony”—a place of mental and emotional perspective where we can keep our eyes on the prize. From the balcony, we can change the game from lose-lose confrontation to problem solving for mutual gain. In Getting To Yes With Yourself, he describes a six-step method for creating opportunities even in the toughest circumstances, with common sense uncommonly applied. And while it takes two to tangle, it takes only one to change the way we deal with differences.
ABOUT BILL URY
Bill Ury, cofounder of Harvard’s Program on Negotiation, is one of the world’s best-known and most influential experts on negotiation. He has consulted for dozens of Fortune 500 companies, and has served as a consultant to the White House. Ury is the coauthor of Getting to Yes, the best-selling negotiation book in the world, and seven other books, including the New York Times bestsellers Getting Past No and The Power of a Positive No. He lives in Boulder, CO.
Getting To Yes With Yourself is the prequel to Getting to Yes, the prerequisite course we can all benefit from to reach agreement and get along with others – whether at work with a difficult client, at home with a resistant teen, or in the community with a political adversary. Bill Ury’s six-step method will dramatically improve your ability to negotiate with others, develop healthy relationships, make work more productive, and live a more satisfying life.
Getting to yes, it turns out, is an inside job; the first radical step is getting to yes with ourselves.