مسائل عمومی

15

Public Issues

Public issues, almost by definition, represent the failure of negotiation. So often because of conflicts or poor processes, a problem becomes so large, costly, or worrisome that it involves a lot of people. Even if it’s a natural disaster, like a hurricane or a tsunami, the matter becomes a public issue only when people get in harm’s way.

Wars, abortion, global warming, energy, health care, the local school controversy—one can trace each of these issues to the failure of people or governments to solve their problems effectively. Hurricane Katrina’s damage was greatly magnified by poor planning and follow-up, and by conflicts among various constituencies. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, killing more than 250,000 people, was greatly worsened by the lack of an adequate warning system: essentially a communication and planning issue.

Getting More is essentially a book for individuals. I’ve included a chapter on public issues because they are individual issues writ large. When people’s children die in wars, that’s an issue that affects individuals, isn’t it? So is tax money that is being used to fund an activity that provides little value, when the funds could be freed for something more worthwhile, whether education or health care.

When terrorism worldwide causes someone to try to blow up a bomb in the middle of Times Square, that’s an issue that affects individuals. As a result, the government has to spend money on police and security instead of business tax credits or subsidized housing.

And when the possible extinction of the human race becomes an ordinary conversation topic and the subject of many TV documentaries, it is probably time for ordinary individuals to take stock of what’s going on. Are we using the most effective processes to avoid calamity? Do we even have the right people negotiating on our behalf?

By better understanding the people or process failures that cause public issues, we are better prepared to do something more about it, with our votes, in our daily conversations, and in countless other ways through which a change in a collective psyche can affect business and political leaders. This same sentiment helped to end the Vietnam War, prompted the civil rights movement, and helped to overcome gender discrimination. At a certain point, when a lot of people won’t tolerate the status quo, it changes.

Even when better negotiation would not completely solve a problem, better processes can lessen the negative impact of many public issues.

Remember, less than 10 percent of the reason agreements occur or fail has to do with the substance of the matter. More than 90 percent has to do with the people and the process. As such, public problems can be lessened through the use of better people skills—trust, valuing others, understanding their perceptions, forming relationships. They can be further lessened by using better communication, uncovering needs, standards, trading items of unequal value, framing, and commitments.

It is my intention in this chapter to look at public issues through the lens of how successful the participants are in solving that 90 percent of a problem—the part that involves people and process. I do not address every public issue or intend to propose a specific solution to any specific problem. But I believe this chapter can create a template for examining any public issue. It will enable you to assess how well the parties are doing in trying to solve an issue that has become large enough, costly enough, or worrisome enough to affect you.

I’m going to use the Middle East (Israel, Palestine, Iran, Iraq) as a proxy for public issues, since it’s almost become synonymous with unresolvable conflict. I’ll mention some other issues, too, including North Korea, piracy, race, and abortion. Clearly, public issues are much more complex than, say, negotiating over a ruined shirt at the dry cleaner or negotiating for a job: there are more constituencies, more people, more emotions. But they are still amenable to analysis with the same people and process tools.

Lest you think this is a pipe dream, these tools have already begun to be used successfully. For example, Jim Vopelius, a former Wharton student who later became chief engineer on a nuclear submarine, said he taught the tools from my course to some of his military colleagues who went to Afghanistan. Today they are making personal connections and trading items of unequal value to gain support of local tribal leaders against the Taliban. Instead of using the traditional threats, he said, the Americans have started to observe the ceremonial fasts with the tribal leaders. The soldiers also give notebooks and pens to the tribal children.

“Even in difficult military operations, they can form an organizing principle to achieve your goals,” he said.

He also used course tools to resolve conflicts among Navy SEALS and submarine command on training exercises. Quickly finding out the pictures in people’s heads has proved essential in military situations where internal conflict must be quickly fixed, he told me. Clearly, issues in the military qualify as a public issue, since poor military processes reduce the effectiveness of our troops.

An Israeli who was vice president of strategy for Merck, the pharmaceutical firm, told me that he and a team went to Saudi Arabia and negotiated a pharmaceutical deal with the Saudis. It didn’t matter to the Saudis that he was Israeli and Jewish. The deal he struck was an important economic agreement that benefited everyone. As such, there is a precedent for trading items of unequal value between Arabs and Jews in significant deals in the Middle East.

There are a significant number of joint businesses and peace groups among Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. And in Somalia, community leaders have begun finding legitimate jobs for pirate crews as an alternative to hijacking.

The Parents Circle is composed of several hundred Israelis and Palestinians who have lost loved ones in the conflict and share one another’s pain. Combatants for Peace contends that violence is not an acceptable way to resolve the conflict. Israeli and Palestinian Bereaved Families proclaims that “under our feet is an ever-growing kingdom of dead children.” Joint Arab-Jewish groups have included sports clubs, language instruction, theater, and even a circus.

The real question to be confronted now, of course, is scalability. How do we get more people to use these tools so that eventually there will be a critical mass? One way is to teach people, to publicize these tools, and to show where they have worked.

So, here are some of the major questions that you should be asking when evaulating how well people are doing in solving a public issue—whether on the local planning board or halfway around the world. The answers will tell you whether you have the right people and the right process.

How effective is the communication between parties? Does it exist at all? Do the parties find, understand, and consider one another’s perceptions? Is the attitude one of forcing the other party’s will or of collaboration? Do the parties blame others for yesterday, or value them for tomorrow? Who is the right negotiator to convey this message? Are the respective needs of each party uncovered and traded? Is the action incremental, or do parties try to do everything at once? Are the parties taking actions that meet their goals? How high is the emotional level? Do the parties try to be dispassionate? Do the parties use one another’s standards in reaching a decision? Is there a problem-solving process in which differences are valued?

COMMUNICATION

A major theme of Getting More is that if the parties don’t talk effectively to each other, a sustainable agreement is not possible. A lack of communication means the parties don’t value each other enough to chat. Poor communication risks misperception and can result in no deal. So, the first question to ask is, Are the parties talking? If they are not and it’s a local issue, push to start a dialogue. Anyone who won’t do so should be replaced, as they are more interested in inflicting pain than creating opportunity.

Let’s look at some very public issues and see how the parties are doing. As a negotiation expert, I find that the lack of communication, and the poor communication, among people in charge of solving public issues worldwide is shameful. It causes conflicts and costs lives.

In the Israel-Palestine conflict, the parties have not talked directly for years. In Israel, individual Israelis and Palestinians have millions of conversations daily with each other on the street, but the leaders who represent them can’t bring it upon themselves to meet face-to-face. Don’t they eat lunch? Could they not start by talking about sports or children? Formality is not necessary. Without communication, persuasion cannot occur. As this book went to press, the parties were considering restarting negotiations. That doesn’t inspire confidence. It should be a no-brainer.

As noted earlier, establishing preconditions to negotiating just adds a layer of debate that thwarts the process. The parties seem to think that when they meet, they have to discuss substantive issues right away. But substantive issues should come at the end of the process, after the parties begin to establish trust and develop a way to talk to each other. Whatever side one is on, whatever their position on any individual issue, a failure to talk is self-defeating, unless one welcomes war.

As a result of terrorist killings of tourists in Mumbai (Bombay) in November 2008 by some Pakistanis, the Indians broke off peace talks with the Pakistani government. Why? The terror in Mumbai should have been a reason to start talking, not to stop talking! They didn’t decide to resume official talks until February 2010, fifteen months later. There is some indication that some informal private talks were held before then, but not announced because each side didn’t want to further inflame their constituents.

If true, this is another example of poor communication by the respective governments. If millions of people think communication with the other side is bad, the government should be trying to change that perception. The governments should find a way to frame the issue more cleverly. For example, “Whatever we think about the other side, it is in our interests to know what they are thinking. So we are going to hear what they have to say and ask them questions.” This is what the United States should have done with Saddam Hussein before invading Iraq. One doesn’t have to legitimize the other side by collecting information. If the other side is extreme, quote them verbatim; it will help to build a coalition against them.

If a country rebuffs our overtures to talk, we should keep trying, and publicize that we are trying. Countries that don’t talk will appear unreasonable. Let them make themselves the issue. It is skill in framing the issues that makes one appear strong.

For example: “We have contacted Iran every day for a hundred days to talk, and they have turned down a hundred such requests. They are really not interested in peace, just in making excuses.” Contrary to being weak, it is aggressive in a positive way. “We are aggressive for peace.” Again, if a party demands concessions as a condition to talk, we should say it’s a subject for the negotiating table. This keeps the focus entirely on opening communication.

In 2010 there were allegations by South Korea and others that North Korea blew up a South Korean military ship. North Korea has denied this. There was tough talk about war and sanctions. Why didn’t the parties immediately start talking about this face-to-face? Instead of threats and accusations, the only refrain should have been, “When do we talk?” For more than eight years, North Korea’s president has said how interested his country is in joining the international trade community. He almost came right out and said he’d trade his nuclear program if he could join international trade groups. Not only did we not trade him, we wouldn’t even hold direct talks.

Of course, North Korea did go back on its pledge to permit international inspectors to see its nuclear facilities. Recall my discussion of commitments from Chapter 3. Korea’s commitment wasn’t based on mutual respect. It wasn’t the result of a relationship. North Korea very likely didn’t consider its pledge binding. We needed to get a commitment from Korea in the way that they make commitments: with relationships, not contracts. Indeed, in many Korean circles a contract is considered a nonbinding memo of understanding, to become a commitment only through work together.

And yet, the president of North Korea, Kim Jong-il, released two journalists after former president Bill Clinton came over and had his picture taken with him, showing the Korean president respect. North Korea again allowed the restart of reunions with family members in South Korea. North Korea paid its respects, in person, after the death of former South Korean president Kim Dae Jung in 2009. Year after year, North Korea has asked for bilateral talks with the United States, but the United States has insisted on multination talks. Whatever one’s position on North Korea, it is not defensible, from a process viewpoint, to refuse to talk.

In 2009, the head of Hamas said his group was ready to talk to the United States. We or our allies should take them up on it, even if it means sitting in silence or listening to speeches or accusations. If they say something more collaborative, we can use it in negotiations with them. If they say something extreme, public opinion will turn against them. If they refuse to talk without concessions, they can be portrayed as not being serious about peace.

This also means engaging in talks with terrorist sympathizers. Except for the few terrorists who want to kill for its own sake, most terrorist sympathizers appear to go along because of the lack of meaningful alternatives. It’s clear, however, that such groups are not monolithic. Many mothers of Arabs don’t want their children to blow themselves up. There are a lot of moderates who have been willing to listen to talk of détente, or who could be persuaded.

There is a precedent for this. In Sri Lanka, the government defeated the Tamil rebels by first offering blanket amnesty. Many rebels laid down their arms and came back into the fold. Some of these people then told the government where the other, extremist rebels were so that the government could go after them.

It was proclaimed a military victory by some. But it was really the result of a negotiation with moderates who had sympathized with terrorists but then converted. One of them, leader Karuna Amman, the second most powerful figure of the rebel Tamil Tigers, actually was permitted to join Sri Lanka’s government. The government had offered amnesty and job training to any rebel who came back to the fold. It was a great example of looking forward and improving the future.

Something similar occurred with M-19, a rebel group in Colombia, in the 1980s. So many people came back to the fold that there was no M-19 organization left to go after, according to Agustin Velez, a government consultant retained to find economic opportunities, including jobs, for those who returned.

Of course, an important element here is part of the communication tool kit: not fighting over yesterday, not getting involved in the assignment of blame. It takes discipline to do this. And leadership. And a focus on goals.

What it also means is that if alliances are forged with moderates, they will become allies against extremists. It requires understanding that the parties are not monolithic. And it requires effective communication with moderates: to value them and create a vision they can buy into.

PERCEPTIONS

Once communication starts, one has to understand the other side’s perceptions. Unless you understand the pictures in their heads, you don’t know where to start to persuade them. I have stressed this point throughout Getting More. Whether their perceptions are accurate or not, we have to understand and deal with them if we want to meet our goals.

In other words, the other side has to want to reach an agreement. And that will happen only if they feel understood. That means that in any public issue, the extent to which another party wants to understand your viewpoint actually is a measure of your persuasiveness.

So the key questions are: Do we understand the other side’s perceptions? Can we articulate them? Have we discussed them with the other side? If not, you will not get more.

This is a particular problem for the United States in a post-9/11 world. There is substantial residual resentment against the United States in much of the developing world for perceived market and economic exploitation, toxic-substance proliferation, internal interference in other nations, and a general arrogant attitude. Fair or not, it is important to understand the basis for some of these perceptions as a precursor for gaining the support of much of the world’s population in combating the United States’ dispersed enemies.

For example: in December 1984, an estimated 3,000 people were killed in Bhopal, India, from a chemical leak at a factory designed by Union Carbide, a U.S.-based chemical firm. Thousands more died from after-effects. An investigation I did with another New York Times reporter found a dozen violations of the company’s own manual by the company’s factory workers there. The company had known about the violations and did little of consequence. Its chairman has declined to ever come to India to face the country’s legal system.

The number of people who died at Bhopal exceeds the 2,985 people killed by terrorists on September 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center and other U.S. locations. Much of the developing world sees no material difference between Bhopal and the World Trade Center. One was a deliberate act of terrorism. The other was what India believed were deliberate decisions to leave a lethal process in place.

Unless and until the United States and other developed countries understand such perceptions, they will never be able to achieve rapprochement with much of the world. This means it will continue to be difficult to gain broader cooperation against those who try to develop weapons of mass destruction. “Each time we fail to live up to our values,” said a critique in 2009 by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.” Much has been written about the United States’ reputation as an arrogant country. Incidents like the mistreatment of prisoners of war in Iraq have long-term negative implications for our ability to persuade others. This does not for a moment excuse violence against Americans. But if we want to reduce violent efforts against us, we need more support.

Not all of the grievances by others are preposterous, just as not all of our demands are realistic. We need to hear all of them. Then we need to articulate them, discuss them, and find something mutually beneficial. The easiest ones we should fix quickly. The hard ones we should consider and work on. The preposterous ones we should publicize to isolate extremists.

Such a process became a basis for the 1998 peace settlement between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Once the two sides finally sat down and started talking with one another, they shared their perceptions. They realized that most people didn’t want to keep fighting, that they had a lot of the same values, and that they could all do better independent of British rule, noted Dr. Teo Dagi, a former student who is now a Harvard Medical School lecturer and has been involved in the peace process as chair of a medical advisory panel. Although at times the peace has been uneasy, he said, the open lines of communication and the frank discussions of perceptions have been a safety valve against continued war.

In the Middle East, research shows that many on each side have no clue of the other side’s perceptions. Daniel Lubetzky, an entrepreneur who has started various businesses employing both Arabs and Jews since 1993, more recently gauged how the perceptions of each side differed. He figured that if each side understood the other side better, there would be a better basis for peace and, as such, economic prosperity.

He collected 150,000 questionnaires of ordinary people and found diametrically opposed perceptions on the two biggest issues: the use of Jerusalem and the return of refugees. Both sides claimed that their possession of East Jerusalem was nonnegotiable. Palestinian refugees wanted their specific lands back, even if they had already been converted to other uses.

Lubetzky, the founder of PeaceWorks, said he has begun to show each side’s perceptions to the other side—and they were astonished. “Unless each side is flexible, no agreement would ever be possible,” he said. He said that this perception is helping each side be more creative in developing solutions: for example, Palestinians having a part of Jerusalem for their capital, and refugees getting land for themselves, even if it is not the exact same land they once had.

Kenji Price was a military officer in Iraq before attending the University of Pennsylvania Law School and becoming editor of the law review. Had he taken the negotiation course before his tour of duty in Iraq, he said, he would have considered the perceptions of the locals much more. “It is easy to dismiss the local police as corrupt or uneducated,” he said. “But they really know the country. They could have made our job easier.” In general, he added, whether in the United States or abroad, military and police often get into an “enforcement mentality.” They are so busy trying to keep the peace that they don’t listen enough and miss key signals that could resolve a situation. He mentioned the national uproar regarding black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., arrested by a white police officer as Gates was trying to break into his own house after losing his keys. It was a perception and communication issue: easily fixed with effective focus on communication and perception.

ATTITUDE

I have repeatedly emphasized in Getting More that if you come to a negotiation with a confrontational attitude, you will get less: in fact, 75 percent less over the long-term. So the next questions are: How do the parties treat each other? Do they blame each other? Do they threaten each other? Do they try to hurt each other? Or do they try to work collaboratively toward a solution that meets the needs of all?

If your needs are not met, you will not give things to the other side. This is a fact of human nature. Usually, if someone tries to hurt you, you will try to hurt them back.

Part of the problem in too many public issues is that there is not a collaborative process. Instead, it’s winner takes all. This is the first of four definitions of negotiation presented in Chapter 1—getting the other party to do what you will them to do. It is the most expensive and least effective form of negotiation.

For the parties to have a sustainable agreement, they have to want to meet each other’s needs. At least, they have to try hard to meet each other’s needs.

Let’s measure this against some public issues of recent years. Former U.S. president George W. Bush called North Korea part of an “axis of evil” in 2002. And he said the United States would feel free to attack any country that the United States perceived as threatening us. Then the United States attacked Iraq, part of the same “axis of evil” as North Korea.

If you were the North Korean president, what would you do? You’d try to develop nuclear weapons to protect your country. Essentially, the negotiation strategy of the United States encouraged North Korea to continue developing a program of nuclear weapons. When people feel threatened, they fight back.

Let’s look at sanctions, which are, essentially, threats of economic harm. It’s a perennial negotiation strategy for public issues. In principle, sanctions are designed to break a government’s resolve to continue its current behavior.

A legion of studies shows that, historically, sanctions have not worked well. They tend to unite a country against the nations trying to force their will. They cause the target to be inventive in building its own coalitions or trying to find ways around sanctions. It’s hard to hold a coalition of nations together in imposing sanctions for very long. Sanctions are hard to enforce. The black market is inventive.

At best, sanctions are a long and arduous road. They haven’t worked with Cuba in fifty years. The people largely hurt from embargoes are already victims, those at the bottom of the economic scale. The leaders of all countries live well.

Sanctions work best when the target has few other options (Yugoslavia), when there is powerful internal dissent (South Africa, Rhodesia), or when the relief sought is limited (Libya in the return of two terrorists).

Iran, with its big nuclear program and lots of oil, strong military dictatorship, and multiple allies, doesn’t fit these conditions very well. North Korea, more economically disadvantaged and politically isolated, fits them somewhat more and occasionally shows some response to sanctions.

It is estimated that sanctions cost the United States up to $20 billion a year in lost exports. Even if you can make an argument for their use, there are usually better negotiation options using the kinds of tools I have discussed in this book.

Let’s look at some. First, the opposite of sanctions: flooding the market. One reason the former Soviet Union fell was the increasing internal demand for foreign culture, representing a better life. From blue jeans to computers, movies to magazines, Western goods and services have proven to be a powerful door opener. They are harder to resist.

Lifting the trade embargo to Cuba would expose the country to the kind of capitalism—such as teenage culture—that extreme societies would find it difficult to combat. Indeed, hip-hop and rap, the U.S. music inventions, are spreading messages of individuality to teenagers worldwide. It’s not fancy, but it’s more of a foreign policy opportunity than many people realize. It is a communication opener. Similarly, promoting the Internet is a strong negotiation strategy.

Why equivocate about whether Cuba should join the Organization of American States? Invite them to join everything! It’s not a reward. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It will make it harder for Cuban political leaders to maintain the status quo, and it opens communication. It makes the other party more persuadable.

In 2008, Iran bought wheat from the United States for the first time in twenty-seven years. The more than a million tons of winter wheat are a basis for economic cooperation. The best way to persuade people to do something for you is to provide benefits, not to threaten them. China is making money exporting goods to Iran. Why isn’t the United States, with its cash-strapped economy, doing the same? Iran imported about $57 billion in goods and services in 2009. In other words, the maxim “Hold your friends close and your enemies closer” is good advice for persuasion. Holding them closer means getting more information and having more influence. It may seem counterintuitive to many people, but it is far more effective in meeting goals.

“If there was more communication with Iran, the United States would know more about the Iranians as people and would have a better idea of how to persuade the leaders to keep their treaties,” said Asa Mohammadi, an Iranian attorney and a graduate of Penn Law School. She said that many Americans, after meeting her, said they didn’t like Iranians until they met her. She also said she was usually the first Iranian they had met.

YESTERDAY VERSUS TOMORROW: THE RIGHT NEGOTIATORS

This was mentioned above, but is worth giving it its own category because it is a major criteria of successful versus unsuccessful negotiations.

The questions to ask are: Are the parties fighting over yesterday? Are the parties blaming each other for yesterday? Or are they focused on improving tomorrow? If a local town council or school board candidate is more interested in casting blame than creating opportunity, it is a big clue that they are less interested in adding value, the key to successful negotiations.

In the Middle East, the parties seem mostly to be fighting over yesterday. No matter how many treaties and envoys there are, someone will always try to take revenge on someone else for something that happened yesterday. Peace is not possible under those circumstances; the process is poor.

It also raises the question of who the right negotiating parties should be. If the process is poor because the people can’t get past yesterday, then the individuals involved are the wrong negotiators. So the style and identity of the negotiators are key.

For example, the mere presence of the United States is a radicalizing influence in much of the world. As such, a reduced overt presence by the U.S. would not only be cheaper and safer; it would be more effective in negotiation. Again, the U.S. military forming an alliance with tribal leaders is a highly effective negotiation strategy.

Various reports indicate that the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 was spearheaded on the ground by, at most, a few dozen U.S. special forces operatives who trained many local tribespeople. The tribespeople knew the countryside, where the Taliban were, and how to recruit their own fighters. This is clearly an effective way to achieve our goals: persuading the locals to fight their own war.

Within each public issue, the clearest division is between moderates and extremists. As such, the right third parties in a negotiation are moderates. They, more than extremists, are focused on building a better way of life (tomorrow), whereas most extremists are focused on tearing things down as a penalty for yesterday.

That means, in the Middle East, the right people to go after Jewish extremists are Jewish moderates. The right people to go after Arab extremists are Arab moderates. Why look for terrorists ourselves when others are better equipped to do so? In all public issues, the choice of negotiator is key.

UNCOVERING AND TRADING NEEDS

Ultimately, to be successful at negotiating, you need to meet the needs of the other party. Communicating effectively, understanding their perceptions, having the right attitude, and having the right negotiators just bring you to the place where you are ready to talk effectively. Now you need to determine what needs of each party can be met and how they can be traded. This is the currency of the negotiation.

This currency for most people in the world is basic human needs. Whether a negotiation involves the victims of Hurricane Katrina or Palestinian refugees, addressing the basic necessities of life is a starting point. So, negotiating for a solution to public issues has to begin with those needs.

In that context, psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a good basis for the negotiation of major public issues.

People’s most basic needs involve food, water, stability, security, employment, the safety of their families, health, and property, as well as various bodily functions. They need enough to eat, clean drinking water, shelter, and freedom from bodily harm.

Notwithstanding this, issues and things that are less important to most of humanity occupy much of the time of the media and politicians in major public issues: morality, prejudice, politics, achievement. In many big disputes around the world, policy makers start from the top: peace, democracy, various ideals.

Yet few people are interested in even listening to an appeal to their ideals before their basic needs are met. Right now, people who need basic things like enough food are being radicalized daily for lack of them.

Ideology is not the only reason that extremist groups like Hamas have so many supporters, although the Hamas political line says so. Hamas feeds Arabs without enough to eat. Hamas also provides medical services and even matchmaking services. People whose basic needs are met are more apt to repeat the organization’s party line.

Conversely, there is much evidence that hunger begets violence and social unrest: we have seen that in Egypt, Haiti, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Malaysia, Thailand, Mexico, Uzbekistan, and other places. “If you’re hungry you get angry quicker,” said Arif Husain, deputy chief of food security at the World Food Program. Studies show this is even more pronounced with children, and can cause severe emotional problems. The cycle of violence starts young.

If the United States and other countries want to win the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of people, something similar must occur to what the United States did with the former Soviet Union in the arms race: bankrupt the other side. If Hamas provides bread, the United States, the U.N., or other allies should provide bread and meat. If Hamas provides 1,000 calories a day, the people wanting to stop Hamas should provide 2,000 calories a day.

As such, if Israel wants to start building a coalition with Arabs, it needs to start providing basic needs for more people. By and large, Israel has not done that. Sending missiles to blow up things in Gaza just creates more Hamas sympathizers. Instead, the Israelis should be throwing food at them. “Israel bombed Gaza today with fifty tons of bread and meat!” Some people will ridicule this. Hungry people won’t.

After that, provide the moderates with something they won’t want to lose—food, housing, education, medical care, health care, security. The moderates will then find the extremists and turn them in—or eliminate them. It is a basic human principle: bread works better than bombs at long-term persuasion. Building on the existing Arab-Israeli peace groups is a negotiation process that would add moderates.

If you are skeptical, try living in the desert for six months without much food, water, medical care, education, air conditioning, or the other niceties of life. Then get fed by some people who say your misery was caused by the United States. See how you feel. You will agree with much of what your providers tell you. In other words, we must provide terrorist sympathizers with a meaningful choice for a better life in order to persuade them to follow a different path.

Some policy experts claim that the notion of terrorism arising from poverty has been disproved. They point to a few rich people financing or carrying out terrorism. True, there are a few rich ideologues. But they derive much of their power and support from the tens of millions of the destitute. This is about persuasion of those who are persuadable.

I came upon this subject in 1981, after Israel bombed and destroyed a nuclear power plant being built in Iraq. As a journalist, I was doing a story on the technology to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Israel thought Iraq was trying to gather material for bombs from the reactor. So I called all of the scientists I could find who had worked on the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb for the United States during World War II.

Most of them were in their eighties and retired from places like MIT, Caltech, and other of the best engineering schools in the country. I asked each of them the same question: what technologies existed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons?

Unprompted, they all gave me almost exactly the same answer. Each said something like, “Wrong question. If you want to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, feed people, give them medical care, clothing, education, shelter, and jobs.” An Arab businessman once told me about which side he thought had the best arguments. He said, “I’m on the ‘I feed my family’ side. I’m on the ‘Good medical care’ side.” It is about Maslow’s needs pyramid first. And after that, it is about prosperity.

In Syria, even businesspeople without any love for Israel think economic cooperation is a good idea. It would help Syria’s economy. In Lebanon, dialogues are occurring at the community level between Western and Islamic professionals. It is the basis for joint business.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine, at the request of the United States, sent its nuclear warheads to Moscow. In return, Ukraine got various economic benefits. There is a precedent for trading economic benefits for a nuclear program.

North Korea has had to ration food. Food-growing technology as well as food itself could be provided to North Korea in exchange for nuclear forbearance. This is not intended to provide a specific solution for North Korea. It is intended to show there is a road not taken here, one that taps into fundamental human needs.

This is not to say that politics has no importance in resolving public issues. But government can be used to support the economic growth that provides for basic needs. The negotiation reason for doing so is that when people are deprived, they are emotional. When they are emotional, they are less persuadable; they respond to the people who provide them with emotional payments: that is, the basic necessities of life.

This negotiation strategy has not been pursued as vigorously as it could be. In fact, the history of the Middle East peace process has been a quest for ceremonial peace—pronouncements by envoys, and formal treaties. Instead, to gain supporters, one needs operational peace. That is, peace on the ground, where people live.

Instead of operational peace, the United States has also pursued technological peace: increasingly sophisticated technology and expensive infrastructure to contain terrorism. I am not suggesting we stop this; however, ultimately, we will not be able to stop terrorism this way. As Albert Einstein said after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, “There is no secret, and there is no defense.” Every time we find a solution to a terrorist action, terrorists will find a new method. After 9/11, there was a shoe bomb on a plane. After shoes were checked, there were plastic explosives in someone’s underwear. After men were profiled and separated, young women started blowing up themselves and others.

U.S. intelligence agencies have been criticized for not “connecting the dots” with the hundreds of bits of information buried among trillions that would show terrorism in planning. But there are different dots each time. The human mind is inventive. Human institutions will never be able to cull the constantly changing pieces of information from smart people bent on hiding things—as Einstein said. The logical extreme is nuclear and chemical terrorism weapons in cities. If the United States and other countries want to succeed at stopping mass terror, we should start providing food, clothing, jobs, housing, and medical care to the people who can find the terrorists. In other words, many more people on the other side have to want to stop the path we are on. We can’t make them.

Some years ago in South Africa, oceanographers found a dead whale on the beach outside Cape Town. They towed it out to Seal Island, a famous habitat of great white sharks that sometimes leap from the water in snagging birds and seals. For hours the sharks gorged themselves on the whale, so much so that they could hardly move. They just floated in the water as if drunk.

Divers went into the cages, right next to the sharks. Instead of the usual attacking and bumping, the sharks had no interest in the divers. This is a great analogy: when people get their needs met, they are generally much less interested in fighting.

There is nothing intrinsic about Arabs and Jews that causes them to be enemies. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs live in Israel; surveys show most are happy with their environment. A basis for successful negotiation is a coalition of diverse people built around collective interests: the necessities of life.

This is not intended to provide a substantive answer to the Middle East or any other public controversy. How settlements and refugees are located, the precise location of land uses, these can all be figured out by experts. The point of this chapter is how to use better negotiation tools so that agreements are possible.

BEING INCREMENTAL

Throughout Getting More, one theme I’ve repeated is to be incremental in bridging large differences between parties. In public issues, where differences are often the largest, the parties are often the least incremental. Trying to move from complete disagreement to complete agreement in one step rarely if ever works.

All of the processes noted in this chapter depend on incremental action. It is not necessary to fix everything at once. It is only necessary to start somewhere. Smaller steps mean less perceived risk. More people will go along with them.

Are the parties involved moving incrementally toward agreement? Or is one party demanding everything at once? If so, they are the wrong people to be negotiating on their party’s behalf. In most public issues, there are too many constituencies, there is too much money, and there are too many conflicts to solve everything at one time.

Starting somewhere and achieving a success gives people a model, the confidence to go on, more trust, and a more collaborative working relationship. A small, scalable project is better than a grand effort that is difficult to achieve.

So let’s look at the Middle East again as an example, particularly Israel-Palestine. What have the parties been trying to do for decades? Solve everything at once. It’s no wonder there’s no deal. Instead, let me pose a hypothetical idea, not a specific proposal, but an example of what being incremental looks like.

Let’s say you start with one small factory, somewhere on the West Bank. Half the workers would be Israelis, the other half Palestinians, both previously unemployed or underemployed. Financed with government or World Bank funds, perhaps private equity. You would need at most a few hundred workers.

The factory would do something that already works in the region. A good possibility is pharmaceuticals. There are already some pharma factories in Jordan. And Israeli companies are geniuses at making and selling generic drugs.

The factory would support nearby housing, medical care, a school, and a supermarket. The workers would be required to live together. Each would get profit sharing, equity, and a better life for themselves and their families.

You would get someone to publicize it, so that everyone could see that it works. Pretty soon, the workers would be saying, “Hey, I’m feeding, clothing, and sheltering my family. We have education, health care, and good food. How about that?” The Palestinian workers would have more in common with the Israeli workers—schools, neighborhoods, standard of living, etc.—than with extremists in Hamas, and the Israeli workers would also more closely associate with their neighbors than with extremists in Israel. They would build a sense of combined purpose and fraternity among former combatants that would serve as a model for other conflict areas.

Scaling up, it could take a generation, twenty years, to reach a self-sustaining critical mass. People will hear this and say, “That’s too long!” I first proposed this in 1981, twenty-eight years ago. I proposed it again nine years ago, on September 23, 2001, twelve days after the World Trade Center destruction, in an article that appeared in The Philadelphia Inquirer and elsewhere. The article spelled out the basic principles of this chapter. I repeated it in more detail the following year, and again in 2006. The point is, we have to get under way sometime—why not now?

Besides pharmaceuticals, one could easily see businesses centered around agricultural products, using Israeli low-water-use technology. Or mining minerals from the Dead Sea.

The development of a new State of Palestine could, incrementally, become a proving ground for entrepreneurs to try new ventures. One could envision alternative energy development: solar, biomass, and wind, both for power and for desalinating plants to provide drinking or crop water. And there is almost a clean slate for creating new housing and infrastructure.

The Saudis and Kuwaitis are clearly interested in regional peace. One could see them investing in Palestinian projects in return for equity. Many well-to-do Arabs and Jews living outside the Middle East are itching to help achieve peace. They might buy stock in bona fide projects to promote peace. Projects could qualify for pro bono work for associates at law firms to set up the deal structures.

Instead of building West Bank settlements only for Israelis, Israel could start giving away settlement residences to Arabs in return for work and support. I think there would be some takers. And it would be a model for others.

The more that Israel gives Palestinian moderates, the more likely Israel will gain supporters. For example, Israel has declined to permit more cell-phone networks in Palestinian areas it controls and has made access to capital difficult. Israel says that it won’t change this policy until it is confident of its own security. But by declining to provide the incentives needed to make itself more secure, Israel is actually preventing its security from being enhanced. In other words, helping Palestinians economically would promote Israeli security by collecting more friends among those with more to lose.

What does this have to do with negotiation? You are persuading people to do things differently, to perceive things differently, in order to meet their goals. You are persuading them to deal in a better way with those who are different. You are showing them how to solve public issues. The extent to which government and private enterprise gets behind this would affect the time it takes to implement.

Another global issue that would benefit from supporting incremental steps is climate change. There is much controversy over the right steps to reduce carbon dioxide pollution, which leads to global warming. Some parties want incremental action; others want global consensus. Much time is taken debating individual plans, such as a consumer tax based on pollution, or the trading by companies of the right to pollute.

Instead of searching for the one right answer, from a negotiation viewpoint it would be more effective to embrace incremental steps whenever we can. If someone can reduce net pollution, why not do so? We should do the best we can with the people and the process we can muster at the moment.

And while people are selling or taxing pollution and helping to slow global warming, governments should be actively working to find better processes. When we find one, we will be farther down the path to solving the problem.

The subtle but important difference would be a change in attitude from conflict over the “right” method to incremental action with all methods as an interim step. It would be useful to view the many methods being employed as a laboratory for study of the most effective methods. Governments could support objective studies to continually contrast, compare, and suggest better incremental steps. Protests at international climate meetings are a symptom of the problem. Idea generation, as noted throughout this book, is more effective when it’s inclusive, not exclusive.

GOALS

As I’ve noted often in Getting More, the more important a negotiation is to the parties, the more emotional it becomes, the more irrationality comes into play—and the harder it is to meet one’s goals. Another key question to ask in public issues is, Are our actions meeting our goals?

Let’s look again at the war on terrorism. The primary response to terrorism by developed countries has been violence and threats of violence: in other words, an “in-kind” response. After 9/11, former U.S. defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the task the United States had with terrorists was “to find them and to capture them or kill them.” After the 2010 Moscow subway bombing, the Russian president said something similar. The “war on terror” continues to have violence at its core.

Violence has always been expensive and time-consuming as a persuasive device. But today there is increasing evidence that violence is working even less well in persuading others.

Historically, if you killed or threatened enough people, the target country or group would give up. Today, however, people—especially ideologues and those with little to lose—are not nearly as persuadable. Suicide bombers are not frightened by the threat of death.

To stop them, you would have to kill them all—a practical impossibility. And many military actions inevitably kill innocent people, whether by accident or not. Such actions create more terrorists and sympathizers. Moreover, the more we destroy people’s land and homes through war, the more people are left with little or nothing, making it easier for terrorist ideologues to recruit them, or at least get their acquiescence.

A few suicide bombers can kill a lot of people and cause millions or billions of dollars in damage. Not only are they not afraid of violence, they seem to embrace it. It is virtually impossible to win a war of violence against a group that welcomes death. And this has become a worldwide phenomenon.

Finally, cultural dispersion has made it much more difficult to find the enemy. The enemy doesn’t live in one place, have similar habits or looks, act the same, or speak the same language. That means broadscale attacks are apt to kill innocents and miss terrorists, thus helping to create more terrorists. The United States has found, to its frustration, that even home-grown residents can be terrorists.

Israeli officials were quoted as saying they wanted “to destroy the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas.” But it is impossible for Israelis to do this, because they will keep creating enemies as people are killed. It’s a goal that can never be achieved through violence, technology, organization, or infrastructure.

Every so often a terrorist leader is captured or killed. But there are hundreds of replacements. In Iraq, an eight-year-old Iraqi girl was killed by what the United States said was “an accidental discharge of a weapon.” In Gaza, a Palestinian doctor dedicated to peace, who worked with Israeli doctors, saw three of his daughters killed by Israeli fire outside a U.N. school. Each of those who died has a family, perhaps a large family. The result? Hundreds more people who hate the nation that did it and are willing to consider messages against that nation.

Focusing on meeting the needs of moderates, instead of finding and killing the extremists, is a negotiation strategy that appears cheaper, and with a higher chance of success.

Another public issue in which the parties appear not to have met their goals is abortion. After forty years, there is still a bitter struggle. Every once in a while, a doctor who performs abortions is killed. Sometimes, someone is arrested and goes to jail. Does this stop abortions? No. Does this stop the killing of abortion doctors? No. Protests occur, court cases are filed, laws are passed and repealed. And no one meets their goals.

This is clearly not a rational issue. Both sides have framed their arguments in terms that leave no room for negotiation: the killing of fetuses versus a woman’s right to choose. Most interesting, however, is that while this struggle continues, abortions continue by the millions. Even if abortions were banned in the United States, people would just find a way to go to other countries, or seek out a black market.

In terms of negotiation tools, therefore, one must look more deeply to find the underlying problem, and then change the goal. The real problem is that there are too many unwanted pregnancies. The second real problem is that each side sees this as all or nothing; neither side’s position provides for incremental improvement. The third problem is that the parties are not even talking much to each other about finding common ground and improving the situation.

To be more successful at finding a negotiated solution, I believe the choice should be reframed from right to life versus right to choose to more abortions versus fewer abortions. The current situation means more abortions. Focusing on incremental steps will lead to fewer abortions, something both sides would agree is a good thing.

Thousands of would-be U.S. parents travel the globe looking for babies to adopt. Hundreds of thousands of Americans say they would adopt if they could. A natural question that arises is what are the people on both sides of the abortion issue doing to match pregnant women who have unwanted fetuses with would-be parents who want to adopt? The answer is, clearly, not enough. At least some of the women who initially didn’t want their babies might have them to term instead of aborting them if there were more of a benefit for them, the baby, or both.

If the goal were to prevent unwanted pregnancies, then options such as birth control would become more prominent and supported, making the problem incrementally smaller.

Again, I do not mean to provide specific, substantive answers to the abortion issue. The point is, the process that currently exists does not meet either party’s goals.

Any solution needs to start with the notion that no solution is possible unless both parties agree. It begins with respecting each other’s perceptions and looking for workable solutions to make the problem smaller. We need calm, empathetic communications. As long as extreme positions dominate, the problem will go on indefinitely.

EMOTION

Both the abortion issue and the reliance on violence come from emotional responses. As a result, people don’t meet their goals. I am making the topic of emotion a separate section in this chapter because it is almost always a negotiation problem on its own.

To the extent that an issue becomes emotional, the parties are not listening to each other and effective negotiation is not occurring. In evaluating public issues, one should therefore ask if the parties are emotional or dispassionate.

To continue with our Middle East example, it’s not just the violence and the focus on yesterday that cause emotional distractions. Many other issues distract the parties from meeting their goals of peace and a better life.

One obvious distraction in the Middle East is the Israeli settlements being built on the West Bank. Absent emotion, this might be seen as a nonissue. Even though they house more than 300,000 Israelis, these settlements constitute about 5 percent of the land area of the West Bank. Arguing over them takes time away from discussing a new Palestinian state. Land swaps, land carve-outs, compensation, and other solutions are standard in real estate, are known to the parties, and could be approached in a straightforward way as part of a statehood discussion.

In fact, the Palestinian response to almost everything Israel does should be, “When do we talk about a Palestinian state?” This is also true with the debate over East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital. The Palestinians keep losing sight of their goals, because they get emotional about the settlements. This is a negotiation process failure.

And the Israelis are not offering compensating emotional payments to the Palestinians, such as offering some of the housing for Arabs, or making concessions elsewhere. The point is not whether they have to. The point is whether the Israelis want to reduce violence or not.

Another distraction from achieving goals in the Middle East is the continual war of words. Whether or not there was a Holocaust, whether someone should apologize for a given event, alleged corruption in one country or another: these are all important subjects, at least to those involved. But every time they are raised, hot buttons are pushed, and leaders and ordinary citizens get emotional. They stop focusing on peace and economic growth—issues that both sides say are important—and focus on yesterday.

Whatever the issue in whatever country, every time someone else tries to distract the other side with insults or other subjects, the response should be, “Okay, so when do we talk?” It takes discipline to do this. Leaders and media could assist in maintaining focus on goals by pointing out whenever the distractions occur.

Emotional payments reduce the intensity of emotions, and thus distractions. In war-torn areas, one important cause of intense emotion is an inability to fully grieve. The loss of a loved one at the hands of others almost always produces a desire for retribution.

Let’s look at the Middle East in this context. There is no effective system to assign and enforce blame on the perpetrators of violence. Often the individuals responsible can’t even be found. Without an outlet for grief, people resort to stereotyping. They seek retribution against anyone who seems similar to those behind the violence, even if they had nothing to do with the tragedy. And so the cycle repeats itself.

We’ve seen this in other countries, too, including the United States, when, for example, African Americans rioted in 1992 in Los Angeles after four police officers were acquitted in the merciless beating of Rodney King. Or retaliation and restrictive action against people from the Middle East living in the United States after the World Trade Center tragedy.

Emotional payments, which can help to avoid distraction from goals, include apologies—both in general and to specific, targeted groups and individuals—as well as respect for other parties and their pain and perceptions. Monuments erected to those who were killed can help surviving friends, family, and relatives to come to terms with their grief and their loss, and reduce emotion.

The Vietnam Memorial in Washington lists the name of every American soldier killed, offering a permanent record of those who died. It is the most visited monument in Washington, often attracting 15,000 visitors a day. It is considered an eloquent, emotional, and powerful source of comfort. It offers family, comrades, and friends an emotional payment by paying respect to those who gave their lives in the war.

There is no such major monument in the Middle East, although various minor monuments have been erected. In fact, there has been opposition by each side to monuments recognizing victims from the other side. Some of the monuments that do exist have been defaced. The lack of a proper monument postpones both sides’ ability to come to terms with their losses. It postpones an emotional payment and makes negotiation harder.

A combined Arab-Jewish Middle East memorial, listing all names from whatever date seems right, could convey a sense of common history, consistent with two of the meanings of monere, the Latin word for “monument”—“to remind” and “to instruct.” It would key on the negotiation tool of finding common enemies, in this case, war, as well as on bonds of similarity among those who have shared a tragic loss.

Similarly, multidenominational grieving centers, open to those who have lost loved ones, would promote common bonds as a common distaste for war. As long as people from all sides were permitted to grieve together (for example, wearing visible pictures of departed loved ones), this would offer both sides another large emotional payment. Without such emotional payments and a resulting drop in the emotional temperature, effective negotiation will continue to be very difficult.

STANDARDS

The concept of fairness is especially important in public issues, where the process and results are visible to a lot of people. From a negotiation standpoint, the best way to ensure the perception of fairness is to use standards that the parties can accept. So the first question to ask is, do the parties accept the notion of using standards? The second is, what standards have parties used in the past? Third is, what standards would the parties accept for this negotiation?

It is best to start with the most general or easily acceptable standards. As noted earlier, for the Middle East, it could be something like, “Do we want dead children?” Anyone who says yes would be perceived as extreme, so this is a good way to separate the bigger group of moderates from the smaller group of extremists. Another might be, “Should refugees eventually have a decent place to live?” Yet another might be, “Should we accept violence that kills civilians?” Or “Should people have enough to eat? Medical care when they’re sick? Clean drinking water?” At the local level, including the school board or planning board, one could ask: “Should government include key voter (or resident) groups before making a decision that affects them?” In all these cases, framing is key. The better or more prepared the party negotiating, the more persuasive the framing will be.

Eventually, standards can become more specific, as in, “Should a State of Palestine be created in exchange for nonviolence?” Or “Should police ask questions to determine if someone is truly threatening?” The questions themselves make the party asking them seem more persuasive. The more people who ask questions with standards embedded, the more persuasive your side will be in any public issue.

PROBLEM-SOLVING

In the 1960s and 1970s, the phrase “Think globally, act locally” became the watchword of the environmental movement. A generation believed that the way to solve the world’s problems was to start at the community level, with action by individuals. Somehow, this message got lost in the decades that followed.

Today, the idea is reemerging. It is one of the central ideas of Getting More. You, acting alone or with friends or colleagues, can make a substantial difference in the world, and in your life, by using the negotiation tools in this book. All you need to start is the right attitude and an organized process for dealing with others.

So it comes back to this: Ask, “What are my goals? Who are they (the other side)? What will it take to persuade them?” Use the supporting tools of perception, standards, framing, needs, incentives, trading items of unequal value, and losing the emotion. It’s not rocket science. It’s not perfect. But it will get you that one extra hit every nine games. It might get some people talking who are not now doing so. It might even solve some longstanding problems. The point is to ask whether the parties are interested in using a problem-solving model. A number of my former students are now working in areas of major public concern. They found that the tools have been working as just described.

Sachin Pilot is now the Minister of Telecommunications, Information Technology and Posts in India. He says that the tools of valuing differences have proved indispensable in getting agreements from constituencies in a country with hundreds of distinct cultures. It has been a significant cause of the recent improvements in telecommunications in India, he said.

Meredith Dalton is now the country head for the Peace Corps in Azerbaijan. She has to persuade highly educated Peace Corps volunteers that the right thing to do is learn to knit, learn to cook local dishes, just spend some time with the local people, and talk about their kids. A good grassroots model worthy of replication. The solution, she said, is to take very small steps, “one cup of tea at a time,” to paraphrase a popular book title.

Every public issue can be examined in these ten steps to determine whether a successful process is occurring, whether the right people are involved, and how to make things better. The result is not getting everything. But it will get more.