“You have to be able to write the victory speech for the other side,” said Bruce Allyn, Senior Fellow and Affiliated Faculty at the Harvard Negotiation Project, Harvard Law School. Allyn, together with Cynthia Lazaroff, presented a workshop last week on negotiation techniques in the context of U.S.-Russian relations and track II diplomacy. Perhaps the most important lesson they have taught to the fellows is the ability to put oneself in the shoes of the other side, and then become the “third side.”
“The third side,” Allyn said in his first talk, “can be a mediator. It can be a bridge builder. It can be people playing any of ten roles using the power of peer pressure and persuasion to prevent and resolve conflict.” The key to most tense mediations is to become that third side in the conversation, to find common ground and bring people together.” Lazaroff later spoke at length about the third side during the 1980s. The third side can be played by politicians, but more often by mediators and doctors and artists and everyday human beings. It’s bridge building that they say is sorely needed, but sadly lacking today between the United States and Russian Federation.
The other big tip that Allyn had for our fellows was to be unflappable, to develop the ability to remain unphased by a challenging moment. It’s being proactive in a given situation, and not reactive. He and Lazaroff emphasized during a coffee break that during negotiations, your opponent can switch from pleasantry to verbal aggression with absolutely no warning, but that a negotiator cannot flinch. Being unflappable is even beyond the old idiom of, “never let them see you sweat.” More than that, being unflappable means training yourself not to sweat.
During their last talk, they tested our Fellows’ negotiation skills, tried to make them flinch. Negotiating can be a delicate dance, and one has to control the narrative. Reframe attacks as friendly, seeking always to maintain perspective. View the conflict, Allyn advised, above the fray as if you, “go to the balcony.” Allyn focused on humanizing the other side, noting that in many cases, it’s the informal, personal connection that will seal the deal. These were only a few pieces of professional advice the Fellows heard. Suffice it to say that by the end of the week, the Fellows were ready for mediation with Castro himself.
Not all matters of bilateral relations require negotiations, though. “Today we’d really like you to think with us,” said Lazaroff at the beginning of her lecture on Thursday afternoon. As she reviewed a period of souring bilateral relations in the 1980s, very much mirrored, she said, in the 2010s, thinking together is a practice which helps bridge the gap during negotiations. Lazaroff first began this practice when she was teaching at Moscow School №45 in 1980. During her first experience as a, “citizen diplomat,” Lazaroff cultivated contacts officially and unofficially with ordinary people in Russia with the vision of planting the seeds of cooperation. In Soviet Russia, this took the form of teaching often for more than six hours per day on matters of American culture, including shopping, fashion, music, slang, etc. The exchange wasn’t just for Soviet children, though.
Lazaroff remembers fondly being asked who her favorite author was, and she answered that it was Pasternak. One of her teenage students replied that she knew the family and would Lazaroff like to meet them? Well, of course she did. Suffice it to say, after a visit with Pasternak’s family in Peredelkino, the evening ended standing over the grave of a legend with her students reciting his poetry by candlelight. Cultural exchange. “Individuals make a difference.”
Bruce Allyn has a great expanse of mediating and negotiating experience under his belt, not the least of which has been a director position of the Harvard-Soviet Joint Study on Nuclear Crisis Prevention, and current work in the Harvard-Russian Working Group on the Future of US-Russian Relations.
Cynthia Lazaroff co-founded the US-USSR Youth Exchange Program and catalyzed exchanges in art, literature, theater, education, film, wilderness adventures, urban leadership and environmental service. From rich mediation experience and a long career in cultural exchange, this week’s module has been quite a success.