Ep. 5 - The Third Side: How We Learn to Live Together w/William Ury
TRANSCRIPT:
Susan: [00:00:00] Hey, everybody. I'm so excited to bring you my next guest, William Ury. William has been such a big inspiration to me over the years as he has been to so many other people. He's one of the world's leading experts on negotiation and conflict resolution. He co-founded the Program on Negotiation at Harvard and co-authored Getting to Yes, which was a huge bestseller and game changer around the world.
Also has written many books, one of them, Getting to Peace, which isn't as well known, but totally inspired me and inspired my first podcast, the Peacebuilding Podcast. His most recent book is called Possible: How We Survive and Thrive in an Age of Conflict. He's written a lot of other books, done a lot of podcasts, conversations, talks.
He's really a very prolific person. And most importantly, he spent more than 40 years mediating and serving as an advisor to the most difficult conflicts all around the world. As you know, in season one of the [00:01:00] Collaborative Hardball podcast, what I'm doing is, um, each podcast episode is corresponding to a chapter of my book, Collaborative Hardball, and this episode will correspond very loosely to, uh, chapter four of my book, which is called Speak the Powerful Language of Needs and Interests, because that was a fundamental message of Getting to Yes.
But William and I went way deeper with this conversation because, uh, it feels warranted with this razor's edge that we seem to be walking on our planet today with AI, a rapidly warming planet, and all the other polycrises we're grappling with. So we called this episode The Third Side: How We Learn to Live Together.
We're gonna cover a lot of topics which are very dear to my heart, and many of which were introduced to me by William. The first is that in spite of the conventional wisdom, humans are way more collaborative than we are adversarial. And there's tons of evidence that supports this, [00:02:00] that our ancestors, and William is trained as an anthropologist, would tell us just that, as well as advise us to slow down and listen.
Um, we talked about the power of the circle, creating containers to cook conflict well and think systemically, what William likes to call the third side, the surrounding community that stands up for peaceful transformation of conflict. As he says, it takes, uh, two sides to fight, but a third side to stop Which brings us to women and the special role that I believe, uh, women, uh, as half of humanity can play in moving us toward a more peaceful and sustainable planet.
William would agree that women are the preeminent third siders, and he has lots of anecdotes to support that conclusion, um, that he'll share in this episode. Uh, how each negotiation or each conflict [00:03:00] communication in which we engage is a cultural act and a manifestation of the choices we are making about the world we want to create, and so much more.
William is a great storyteller. This episode is full of stories, and I know you're gonna really enjoy it, so I bring you William Ury.
So anyway, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. As I've told you and have put in my book, what an inspiration. You c- created such a guiding path for me, for so many people, and so appreciative of that, and very also appreciative of the blurb that you gave me for my book. That was really helpful.
Thank you so much. And, um- You're so
William Ury: welcome ... yeah You're so welcome. You're doing such great work.
Susan: Thank you. Thank you. You know, trying. It's, uh, always interesting to think how can one contribute, make a difference with one's presence. So, [00:04:00] um, so anyway, you know, y- you have been... I mean, I, I s- said, gave you the license to talk w- uh, whatever you wanted to talk about, but I also have some questions, so I'll guess maybe I'll start there and- Sure,
William Ury: definitely
Susan: you know, you fill in as you want to. But you obviously are known, very well known around the world as somebody who's masterful with negotiation, with the book Getting to Yes, and that you wrote with Roger Fisher and had that whole movement that has made such a difference around the world. And, you know, I think, I, I guess I wonder, uh, it, it's been such a, uh, so exciting for me, and I wonder how things have changed for you in 50 years.
You know, I think one of the things that has interested me about your work is that it hasn't just been about resolving conflict, although, of course, negotiation is, I guess in my mind, the preeminent way of doing that. But, I mean, your thinking has seemed to be much more about how do hu- how do we, how are we gonna live [00:05:00] together on the planet?
And that's what's excited me most. I mean, ever since you wrote that book, Getting to Peace, which I, you know, whatever, that was a long time ago, but it really made a difference to me. I really appreciated that book.
William Ury: Um, that touches me 'cause, uh, 'cause Getting to Peace was a real labor of love and over about a decade.
And,
Susan: and,
William Ury: uh- What, what do you
Susan: mean
William Ury: by
Susan: that, William? Uh, that it was a labor of
William Ury: love It was, it was kind of something dear to my heart. It wasn't something the publisher or anybody else really wanted. You know, anybody else. And so, and it was a... It was kind of born out of this, that question you just asked, which is how do, how do, how do we humans live together?
And particularly at this time when our technologies, our ability to kind of create these amazing technologies, including technologies for destruction, seems to be going at such a rapid pace, and our abilities to, you know, our social, emotional, moral, cultural, psychological abilities to [00:06:00] actually coexist and live together and deal with our differences are being challenged.
Because if we don't actually- crack the code on this, which is a code that's been in us for, you know, millions of years, and learn how to coexist with these technologies, there's a very real risk that the technologies will put an end to human existence. And this is kind of- The code,
Susan: the code being
William Ury: the- Of how do, how, how do we cooperate?
Mm-hmm. You know, how do we collaborate, as you, as you put it in your book? How do we collaborate with all of our deepest and darkest and most profound differences? And how do we learn to celebrate those differences instead of turning the differences always into, into, uh, issues of contention? So that book was, was a kind of a deep dive to look...
I was curious as, as an anthropologist, 'cause that was my original training, was to- I know ... to really, what do our ancestors have to say to us ? Mm. And, uh, and what have we learned? 'Cause we're so, we're mostly kind of oblivious of our [00:07:00] ancestors, of where we come from. But everything, our bodies, our, the way we think, the way we act, the way we communicate, everything has been shaped by thousands of generations of our ancestors, uh, to whom we give very little thought and very little gratitude for everything.
Our language, our ability to communicate like this, I mean, this evolved over, over so long. And, you know, the mystery of being human right now on the planet at this particular moment in life, you know, at this particular moment in, in the human story, is what's always sort of fascinated me, and, and within that, our ability to, uh, collaborate.
You know, if I was a Sometimes I like to imagine, like, I'm a Martian anthropologist. I'm an anthropologist from Mars. Maybe
Susan: you are.
William Ury: I could be. It might just be. And, uh, and just looking at, you know, studying the human tribe, you know, right now, humanity with all of its beauties and sorrows [00:08:00] and griefs and joys and, and successes and failures, and traumas, and, you know, I'd say, "Wow, what strikes me is, you know, we have in us the ability to collaborate.
We have the ability, we, we have such creativity. We, we..." There, there's actually no problem in the world right now of all the major problems that face us that we can't address effectively if only we can tap into our innate ability to cooperate.
Susan: Hmm.
William Ury: To get to yes, as it were. And the only thing that seems to be in our way is this kind of, we fall into these traps, you know, of, of the kind of the win-lose trap of, okay, who's gonna win?
Who's gonna lose? And, and let- let's fight about it. And if we can crack that, if we can crack the code on that, then, you know, we can create an incredible world because we're... I was thinking about it, you know. People ask me if I'm a optimist or a pessimist after all these years of working in worlds, war zones, and in war zones big and small, and I like to say, "Well, actually, I [00:09:00] don't have a crystal ball, so I don't know exactly what the future brings.
But I'm a possibilist, you know, because I believe in human possibility, and, and I believe humanity, human beings... I mean, I was just thinking about this before our call, but we're, we may not be Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens means the wise one. Mm-hmm. In fact, we call ourselves Homo sapiens sapiens, which is a little bit of a leap given- Hmm
you know, we're, we're the, we're the intelligent intelligent, wise wise creatures, you know?
Susan: That- That's the official name, Homo sapiens sapiens?
William Ury: Yeah, Homo sapiens sapiens is the name of our sh- that we've given ourselves.
Susan: Hmm.
William Ury: So maybe that's an aspiration.
Susan: Hmm. Okay.
William Ury: And, you know, but we're actually fundamentally Homo possibilis, you know?
We are, we, we- I like it ... have in- incredible possibilities, and some of them right now could be very negative possibilities, and some of them could be very positive possibilities. And guess what? We get to choose, and we're in that generation, in that era right now where we're walking a kind of razor's edge, and we get to choose [00:10:00] what life we wanna create on this planet.
Susan: It does feel like we're on some kind of a brink to me, I think to probably to so many of us. And I wonder if, if you, uh, if our ancestors that you know of were talking to us, would they, what would they say to us?
William Ury: Hmm, that's a really good question. I would say the first thing that comes to, to mind is slow down.
Mm. Pause. Breathe. Look around you. Listen. Listen to what's happening. Listening to... Just see, just look around you and see for a moment, just close your eyes for a moment and just imagine all eight billion of us on this planet right now breathing, some of them getting up, some of them going to work, some of them going to sleep, whatever.
You know, they're loving, fighting, cooperating. Actually, if you, if you just took a, like a little, like a, an interior photograph of [00:11:00] this, of everything that's happening on the planet right now, you'd probably see that probably more than 90%, I would say more than 95% of that behavior is actually cooperative.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: People, mothers sending their kids to school, people working, working together in teams, working together in the household, in the community, mixing, watching World Cup matches, whatever. You know, it's like a very small percentage of it would fall into the category of what we think of as fighting.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: And yet, you know, our ancestors would say, "Wake up and see that." You know, it's not... Somehow in our minds we imagine, okay, we're the fighting species, we're the warring species. It's in our nature, it's in our genes. Uh, that, that's, that's who we are. Is it really? Mm-hmm. Take a look.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: Take a look at humanity, but really honestly.
No rosy-colored glasses or anything, but just honestly and just realize, you know, it's not of a question [00:12:00] of going from zero to 100 to actually get to peace.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: It's actually more like going from 90 to 100.
Susan: Hmm. Wow, that's a lovely thought. That's a lovely thought. Yeah. So they would be saying to us, "Pay attention.
Pay attention- Yeah ... to just how much cooperation is actually happening on this planet, and how maybe that's more of our DNA than the very small percentage that is really about coercion, about fighting, about dominate, the, the need to dominate."
William Ury: It's true. Uh, I, I think that's indisputably true. I mean, if anyone just took a really look at what's going on, just look around you, just walk down the street, see, see.
What do you see? Human beings. They're c- we're cooperating, we're communicating. I mean, now we have the internet where you're like, we're just like a li- we're, we're the creature born to love, to communicate, to be connected. And we have language. Language was designed to cooperate. It w- why, why did language [00:13:00] arise?
It was, is a tool for, for, to cooperate, to kinda create mutual gain.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: Mm-hmm. We, we are the mutual gain creatures per par excellence, and, and we don't see it, and our ancestors would just kind of, like, tell us to kind of take off the blinders 'cause we, we're blinding ourselves right now with our image of ourself.
We have a pretty negative image of ourself as a species- Mm ... and as a thing. And just, like, see the wonder, the wonder of humanity. And then within that context, welcome. Welcome all... I mean, that's another thing, is take off your blinders and welcome all the dark side. You know, welcome all the conflicts, all the traumas, all...
You know, bring it all up to the surface even, but welcome it. Embrace it. Don't blind yourself to it, but welcome it. And then ask, okay, within that larger embrace of cooperation or whatever, how do we slowly begin to transform, to heal these things? Because they're all... [00:14:00] I, I mean, in my life, it's now been a, a, it's a half century this, this, this year that I've been engaged in this kind of professional quest around this question of how can we human beings deal with our deepest differences?
How can we live together? And, and I've traveled far reaches of the world into the, into the darkest, you know, hotspots and war zones. And I have to say, so it's like, you know, you can see humanity at all its worst, but you can see humanity at all its best in those zones actually too. Mm. That's another thing.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: We imagine, like, you know, the Middle East, you know. I've spent quite a bit of time in the Middle East 'cause the Middle East is, like, it's kind of widely regarded as the iconic most, most difficult place, the most conflictual place. But, but it's, uh... You know, and it has its conflicts. It has its wars.
It has everything. You've gotta keep your eyes open to that. The same time, it has the most hospitable people-
Susan: Yeah, the famous-
William Ury: Far and [00:15:00] none on the planet.
Susan: Yeah, the famous Arab hospitality, yeah, for sure.
William Ury: Yeah. And it's like, it's astonishing how kind people are to each... Mm-hmm. Just perfect strangers. Mm-hmm.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: And it always astonishes us. And so it's just like see reality in its full complexity, and I think that's what, that's what we're being invited to do right now. You know, I'm looking, I don't know, I'm kind of a spin here, but I'm looking at the, the, the, the photograph behind you there of- Mm-hmm. Our ancestors would be saying, "Hey- This is, look at the planet.
Look how beautiful it is.
Susan: Right
William Ury: You know, these astronauts who just went up there, for example, and took another picture on the other side of the moon-
Susan: Right ...
William Ury: and they came back wowed. I mean, like stunned.
Susan: Right.
William Ury: Stunned, just to kind of that perspective, that orbital perspective of that kind of, I would call it a giant balcony.
You know? Giant bal- that big perspective of looking at it. And Christina [00:16:00] Koch, the, uh, Koch, I th- I don't know how to, her, her, her, how she pronounces her last name. Yeah, the,
Susan: the one of the astronauts, yeah.
William Ury: Yeah. She, she, uh, she, she goes by her, by her code name on, on Instagram, Astro Christina. Oh, yeah. Anyway, she wa- she's a, she's astonishing.
And so she, she was asked at a press conference or some kind of meeting like, "What, what was it like up there?" And, you know, 'cause all the astronauts were talking, and she said something like, it was so touching, she said, "You know, people have always been asking me as an astronaut, you know, w- w- what's a crew?
You know, how's a crew differ from a team?" And she said, "I gave lots of answers, but, you know, I have to tell you, the answers were pretty useless. But when I got up there, I realized what a crew is, you know? A crew, you know, w- we all l- live together, breathe together. We you know, it's like we're, we're rowing together.
We're, we're, we're a crew, and we're... And, and, you know, it's not that we have, we have differences." And they all acknowledged that, you know, it's not so easy to be cooped up there in that little spaceship. Yeah, really. So they had their differences and human differences, but they were able to- [00:17:00] Particularly when the toilet-
they
Susan: talked about that ... doesn't function.
William Ury: What's... Yeah. Exactly. You can imagine.
Susan: Oh, my God, you know? Oh, my God.
William Ury: And she said something like, "You know, we had our differences. We wor- " You know, and they, they all talked about how they worked through their differences. They cre- they c- became a third, what I call, you know, a third side- Mm-hmm
that actually... But, but a whole, they were a whole. And, and then she said something- What do
Susan: you mean by a third side, 'cause I'm not sure everybody knows
William Ury: that Oh, a third side is, is just the name I give for, you know, there's always, in conflicts, we always imagine there are two sides. There's Arabs and Israelis, and there's, uh, labor and management, and all of that.
But what, what we can learn from our ancestors is that they always knew there was a third side, which is the third side is the larger community. Mm-hmm. It's the larger whole-
Susan: Mm-hmm ...
William Ury: surrounding the two sides, of which the two sides form a part.
Susan: Hmm.
William Ury: And actually, the most, our birthright as human beings in every indigenous culture, and in even every culture, there, the, the principal way of dealing with conflict wasn't just, you know, [00:18:00] two sides trying to fight, you know, negotiate or fight it out, but actually it all takes place within a larger context.
It might be the work team. Hmm. It might be the family. Hmm. It might be the community. It might be the world. Whatever it is, there is this larger whole. I mean, this, something I noticed when, uh, when I first went to Africa to- work on the situation of apartheid, huge injustice in the, in the '80s in South Africa.
I'd always wanted to go visit the people who are popularly known as the, the Bushmen, but they, you know, they're called the San and the . They give their, themselves their own name somehow. They, and who are the kind of the aboriginal indigenous population peoples of, of Africa, and particularly of Southern Africa.
And, uh, there were still... And they, until recently, lived pretty much like our ancestors lived for 99% of our time on the planet, which was hunting and gathering and [00:19:00] that kind of lifestyle. And they lived, they live in sort of small groups of about, you know, 25 or so, and then within networks of about 500, and they roam.
They're nomadic. And so I went to visit two groups of them, one in Botswana and one in Namibia, and just stayed with them and just, I was just curious and asking the elders how do they deal with conflict. And I was able also to witness it. And the way they deal with conflict is, and they have a problem. It was interesting because I had just come from a, a meeting in Moscow in the, in, when, in the days of communism about the Cuban Missile Crisis and, and, and it was with Soviets and Americans and the survivors of the Cuban Missile Crisis and, and it seemed like, wow, we were very lucky not to have gone to nuclear war then.
We wouldn't be around. We wouldn't be having this conversation. And so I was really questioning that. And then, and then in a small scale society here in Southern Africa They have the same problem actually, because [00:20:00] the men hunt with... They use a kind of a poison that they get from the dung of a, of a beetle to basically stun the animal, and that- that's how they hunt.
But that poison is fatal to human beings as well. So they all have these arrows and this poison around them. So you're in a group of 25 and someone gets angry, and all they have to do is, it's like an injection, pick up an arrow with the poison and- That's the end of you ... inject someone, and that's the end of you.
So you can imagine, so they're, a, a small scale society, they're all living with nuclear bombs.
Susan: Right. I
William Ury: mean, things that can destroy the whole society.
Susan: Right.
William Ury: And they all are human, so, you know, they have emotions, and they get jealous, and they get this and whatever. So my question was, so how do, if that's how our ancestors lived, how, how did we survive?
And the thing is, the thing about the poison too is it takes about three days to work fully.
Susan: Oh, lovely.
William Ury: So that person has the time to pick up another arrow-
Susan: Ah ... and shoot someone else.
William Ury: And then within, you know, like within a couple of minutes, you've [00:21:00] got, you know, you, you know, y- y- you've lost 40, 60% of your hunting capacity and you're like...
You know, as a group, how do, how do you deal with that? How do you live with that knowledge? Which is the problem we're facing today, is how do we live with the knowledge of how to destroy everyone at, at scales, you know, beyond our imagination. And what they do is they, they listen. They all listen and, you know, they hear someone starting to argue.
They, they listen emotionally. They're emotionally intelligent, so they, they listen. And when voices start to rise or when they know someone's, you know, kind of angry and they... You know, they feel each other's emotions. Someone goes and hides the poison arrows out in the desert.
Susan: That's a good idea.
William Ury: And then- That's
Susan: a good
William Ury: idea
all the f- family and friends of the parties, the, the disputing parties, "Hey, we're gonna sit down," and we sit down around the campfire. So they all sit around in a circle around the campfire. We're talking about the women, the men, the children, everybody talking, and sometimes they're talking all at once.
And they listen to each [00:22:00] other, and the stories are told. Mm. You know, and the elders listen. And they take as long as they need. They'll take one day, two days, three days, whatever it is. And at night what they do is they, um, they do a kind of a trance dancing around the fire-
Susan: Wow ...
William Ury: where through rhythmic beating, they, they kind of go into a kind of a trance state- Yeah
and then ask the ancestors and ask- Wow ... the gods, you know. Yeah,
Susan: yeah.
William Ury: Like for wisdom, you know? Yeah. Uh, and then they come back and communicate that to the group.
Susan: Yeah. "
William Ury: How should we do this?" So they use all the human modalities.
Susan: Wow.
William Ury: You know, the social, the- Yeah ... emotional, the spiritual modalities-
Susan: Yeah ...
William Ury: to try to, like, how do we deal with this?
And then it may be, often it takes like three, four days, and then, and then a kind of consensus emerges that's often voiced by the elders. And it's not like it, they don't rest with, "Okay, this is how it's gonna be resolved. Okay, this is the resolution." There's that too, but there has to be a repair of the relationship.
Susan: Mm. '
William Ury: Cause they all have to live together.
Susan: Right.
William Ury: And so there has to be some reconciliation, and sometimes people aren't ready [00:23:00] to reconcile- Yeah ... like we all are, right?
Susan: Yeah.
William Ury: So they, then the elders will say, "Hey, why don't you, uh, go and..." One of them, "Why don't you go and visit, or both of you, why don't you go and visit relatives at a neighboring water hole for, for a few months?"
Cool down for a
Susan: while. And there's a kind of- Cool down ...
William Ury: a
Susan: cooling
William Ury: off period. Exactly. What, what I'd experienced when I worked in the coal mines, you know, you have cooling off periods, right? Yeah, yeah. It's the same thing, time out, you know? They have a whole system, basically, a system for dispute resolution and for, for relationship reconciliation.
Susan: Yeah.
William Ury: And then it, it dawned on, and dawned on me, what is that mechanism? It's the third side. It's the involvement of the community. Right. It's not just neutrals. It's like the friends and the family. Right. Everyone has a stake.
Susan: It's
William Ury: a much- And even the part- ...
Susan: more systemic approach, like I
William Ury: think. Yeah.
Susan: Yeah.
William Ury: And even the parties themselves- Yeah ... are part of the third side because- Yeah ... everyone's part.
Susan: Yeah.
William Ury: And so it's like what's best just not only for the parties, but what's best for the whole and that the whole, you know, together any [00:24:00] one person may only have some amount influence, but all people together searching for what's, what's the right path forward, that cr- There's an incredible power there, and it suddenly dawned on me that that's maybe why we're all here because we survived with the same situation of how to live with technology that can be immensely destructive, but we learned by harnessing the power of the community, and that's our birthright.
That's our heritage.
Susan: Yeah.
William Ury: And our great challenge today is to reinvent that in ways that serve our world today.
Susan: Well, AI, which you mentioned, and climate situation is clearly putting on the pressure on us - Definitely ... to get, to get it together. And then it seems to me, I was just listening to Pat McCabe, I don't know if you know her, she's with the Dine and the Lakota, but she had gone to a conference where she was talking about, I guess there were...
It was, had to do with [00:25:00] money, and there were tech bros there. And there were a lot of different people there about money, but, you know, some of the messaging amongst some of them was, you know, we just need to actually extract what we need from the planet and go to a different planet, and we don't mind if we actually get rid of a bunch of humanity in the process.
And that's very dark and, but it's something that I think we're living with is, is that it does seem like there's some people who are fine with- Not looking at humanity as a whole, but actually some people being way more important than others. And how do we, how do we invoke this cir- Because the imagery you just painted is so beautiful, and it feels to me like the circle is so much the original form of healing and community.
And, and in my own life as a mediator and somebody that's done a lot of this kind of work, I always feel like when you're able to get the whole system in the room and actually have a conversation, you've gone a long [00:26:00] way to actually being able to do something about it.
William Ury: But- That's when the magic happens
Susan: so but to do that, I don't know. Yeah, any thoughts about, like, how- At this moment in time, I mean, we have... I, I got trained as a lawyer. I think you did- no, you didn't get trained as a lawyer. You didn't get trained as a lawyer. I-
William Ury: most people think I am a lawyer- Yeah, I know. I get it ... because I was in law. I was a- Right
I'm still associated with Harvard Law School.
Susan: Right,
William Ury: right,
Susan: right,
William Ury: right, right. But, uh, and I actually almost became a lawyer. I, I, you know, I was... I got into Harvard Law School and then I kept on postponing it until, uh- Yeah ... until I, I didn't, I ultimately didn't go, but, uh,
but I feel
Susan: like a
William Ury: lawyer. But William, our,
Susan: our legal system is the adversary sy- Yeah ... the American legal system- Yeah ... is the adversary system. It is win, lose, it is, you know, it is rights-based Yeah ... and it is not about getting into a circle. And we need to get into, I don't know, uh, it, it strikes me that we need to be getting into circles, and I don't know what your thoughts are about how to, how to create that kind of cultural shift.
William Ury: You know, it's so [00:27:00] interesting. Uh, uh, you're right. That's the great challenge. And the third side is a circle.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: It's a circle. It's a circle around us all, right?
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: Of which we're a part.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: And what's so fascinating about a circle is there's no head of the circle, right?
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: And everyone is kind of equal and an equal point around the circle.
It's a, there's a beautiful- Mm ... and the circle is the original convening, as we s- our ancestors all sat around the campfire- Mm ... in a circle.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: And we circle around, you know? And that's the challenge in today's world, which is how do we create those circles, those circles of influence?
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: The circles of, um...
it's almost like an, an image, you know, conflict, you know, as, as you and I would agree, conflict is something natural, right? It's, it's, you know, actually in some sense we need, actually the world needs more conflict, not less conflict, in a sense. I
Susan: loved your comment, the world... you know, to need to make the world safe for conflict.
That was such a great-
William Ury: Right, definitely ... you know, comment. We do. We do because [00:28:00] conflict is how we, how change happens. It's how we address injustice and inequities and all of that.
Susan: Right.
William Ury: You know, you, we need to engage it, so we actually need more conflict. At the same time, we need to create the containers for conflict.
Susan: Right.
William Ury: And what you were talking about when you get the whole system in the room, that's a container. Becomes a container. We need those containers which are like, like crucibles within which the conflict can be cooked, you know, slowly and transformed. You know, cooking is the ancient art of transformation and you transform something that can't, is indigestible to something that's digestible.
Mm. We have to do, we have to learn to cook our conflicts, right? And, and sometimes- I like it ... you have to cook them for a long time. Yeah. But that's okay. You know, patience is part of the success and, uh, and I think so- In today's world, we're, we're learning that. You know, like after World War II, uh, after World War I, you know, there, there was the kind of like a we need to do something about
We'll create the League, and then that didn't quite work, and then after World War II they created the UN. The UN is kind of, you know, even the Security [00:29:00] Council sits in a circle. You know, there's ... You know, i- interesting, e- even in, um, I'm just reminded of the conversations around the global environment that take place every year, the COP.
That was, when it came to Durban, I can't remember, that was maybe back in, uh, trying to year what it was. But, um, it w- it, you know, it moves to a different city every year, but it was in Durban in the early 2000s. And the South, the South Africans took their traditional way of dealing with conflict, which is to sit in council, a circle, they called it indaba.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: And which is, it's the same thing as the, the Bushmen sitting around their circles- Yeah ... around the campfire. And they brought that, they introduced that as a kind of a modality into the modern kind of like, you know, UN, we're all sitting facing the speaker, and then one speaker after another and, you know, that, that, that setup.
And they brought that in, and it actually, it was very useful. And so useful that when it came to the Paris one, which was, [00:30:00] uh, in 2015, I believe, uh, the meeting in Paris-
Susan: That's right ...
William Ury: the UN Special Envoy is a amazing woman mediator by the name of Christiana Figueres decided, they decided to adopt that.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: So they would have a room there in Paris where, you know, the usual room where, you know, the world leaders s- has, has them in front and everyone's taking notes or, no, or not even taking notes or not even talking, not even listening hardly, and people are rambling on. And then in a separate room, they had a circle where you could fit I think it was, like, 250 people around a circle, and then another layer of 250.
Or it was a huge room where-
Susan: Mm ...
William Ury: where everyone was equal.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: There was no hierarchy.
Susan: Right
William Ury: And that was a room in which, like the smaller states, like s- some of the states, you know, they're, you know, the, I know the island states, for example, where climate change now is meaning that, that- Right ... they're losing their homes because the- Right
water is rising over their homes. And e- everyone could speak. You know, the [00:31:00] developing countries could speak. Everyone could speak what was on their heart, what was on their mind, what was keeping them. And the Paris 2015 was, by all agreements, the most successful- Right ... the most impactful- Right ... COP there ever was.
Susan: Right
William Ury: In good measure by harnessing-
Susan: Right ...
William Ury: the power of the circle to allow... It's exactly, you know, like, like our, like our ancestors sitting around the campfire. Speak-
Susan: I can't tell you how many... I've done a lot of work with the UN, and how many times I have come in, you know, with different ki- you know, the idea is trying to get to people work together, and I've come in and the room has been set up in this very hierarchical way, and I've come in and moved it all around, and everybody's freaking out, you know?
But then we're sitting in a circle, and people, lo and behold, they come up with good agreements, you know? Because- That's it ... we got rid of the podium, got rid of, you know, all of the fixed structures, and actually people could all sit in a circle. They could actually see each other.
William Ury: Um- You don't have a [00:32:00] table separating you.
You don't. So you're kind of like your whole- Yeah ... your, your, you know, your body, your being. You know, e- everyone's kind of vulnerable, a little bit vulnerable, and y- you know, y- y- your mask has to kind of fall a little bit.
Susan: Yeah. Yeah. So William, you know, my work, I, I've been trying to put an address on some of what I've been doing and speak directly to, to women, potentially as a third side.
I mean, it's whatever. It's not like we have research that say that, oh, women are more collaborative than men. I don't know if we know that. But, but certainly there's some pointers that suggest that we have more inclination towards that, or maybe, again, as Pat McCabe said, women haven't been living inside men's nation, so they...
What she calls men's nation, so we haven't had to adopt some of the, uh, behaviors that haven't always been helpful. I, I wonder if you have any comments to say or anything that would be directed more to people that identify as women about what role they could play at [00:33:00] this point in time. Do we have a role that is, that you'd put their ad- you'd, you'd address it to them?
And what might that be? For sure.
William Ury: What I've noticed in all the conflicts I've been in, the- And that's women are preeminent third siders. Not that men can't be third siders, everyone is a third sider. But there's something about the relational power that women bring, and the relational wisdom that women bring.
And again, I'm just- I'm speaking generally, but it's like... Let me just give you just one, one example. Like, when I was a graduate student, we were looking at the world's difficult conflicts or whatever, and the Middle East was one, and the Cold War and whatever. But one of them was the conflict in Northern Ireland between ostensibly the Catholics and the Protestants, right?
And that was kind of considered to be just a sectarian conflict. It was, um, people me- thought that it had some kind of religious coloration to it and, and it was just like... [00:34:00] And, and people, people were saying, "That's, that's an impossible conflict." I mean, ki- kids drink that, you know, the animosity with their mother's milk.
It's gone back hundreds of years. Uh, it's just-
Susan: You'll never solve it.
William Ury: You'll never solve it, right? And what was so interesting to watch and to observe, and I went to Northern Ireland a number of times, was the role of women. Uh, it started with, you know, you have two sides. You don't have association with each other 'cause you're like...
But mothers from both sides who had lost their... In the, in the troubles, they were called the troubles with all, all the violence going on. They'd lost their brothers, their fathers, even, I mean, women too, but, but they, they lo- lo- lost the, they'd lost people. Catholic and Protestant, they started to meet across that line.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: And, you know, first they were kind of considered traitors, but it's a little hard, you know, to, to kind of like... It's, it's a mother who's grieving her, her [00:35:00] lost one. They were able to make that first tenuous bridge. That created a certain permission, just created a little bit of space. And then it took a few years, and then the people of faith on both sides, like the priests and the ministers and so on, you know, maybe the
w- maybe Jesus wasn't in favor of Elizabeth or whatever. Maybe he was the prince of peace. Okay, th- they're, they're allowed a certain permission. And so they stepped in and had the, to, to reach across the, the divide. And then they opened up more space. And then the business people said, "Wait a minute, this conflict's bad for business."
You know, we've got a big unemployment problem or whatever. And they started to reach out, and then the last were the politicians. And, and I'm not saying it was perfectly like that, but there was a sequence-
Susan: Mm ...
William Ury: where the door was opened up by courageous women. And I've seen [00:36:00] that happen in conflict after conflict after conflict, in West Africa, in other places.
Susan: Women often- Where the door is opened up by courageous women.
William Ury: It is.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: It is, as third sidors. Mm. Standing for the whole, 'cause they're basically people who, as women Remind people of the larger community, of the fact that we're all human beings, we're all this, we're all that, you know, the, we live in a community, and that we all have children.
And, and that, that tie somehow-
Susan: Mm-hmm ...
William Ury: is often the beginning tone that opens up the space for collaboration when the animosity's so high, and when anyone who- Mm-hmm ... dares to talk with the other side is, is branded a traitor.
Susan: So of course it's a scary, it can be a scary world out there. And I don't know if you have any thoughts or, uh, for women about how to turn the dial up on this, because I, you know, and I agree with you, I think there are a lot of women that can s- [00:37:00] really step into their leadership through negoti- wh- what, uh, through, into their leadership, and if you have any thoughts in terms of how that dial can be turned up.
William Ury: Well, I mean, one thing, I mean, I know of the, l- lot of efforts, for example, in, in the field of negotiation in the UN particular to make sure that women are at the table. I'll give you, just give you an example from some work I did. Uh, I worked for about six or seven years as a senior advisor to the president of Colombia when he- I remember
Susan: you telling, talking about that work, yeah.
William Ury: You know, when I first went to see him, he'd asked me to come see him in 2011, and I went to see him. Colombia had been experiencing this war with the principal and largest guerrilla group in the hemisphere called the FARC. With
Susan: the FARC, mm-hmm.
William Ury: And there were literally hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: I mean, somehow in, in the States we kind of, I don't know what happens, but the, we kind of have to have amnesia when it comes to Latin America. Right. Americans d- don't know. There are hundreds of thousands of people who died in a war, many more than died right now, you [00:38:00] know, like in the Middle East or whatever.
Yeah. But hundreds of thousands in Colombia- Right ... and millions and millions of victims.
Susan: Right.
William Ury: Like, eight million registered victims.
Susan: Right.
William Ury: And it was, the United States was deeply involved in it. It wasn't just like, like, we were deeply involved from the inception of it. Everyone, you know, if you ask people in Colombia, everyone's for peace, but no one thinks it's possible.
Susan: Right.
William Ury: And because there'd never b- no one could even remember a time when there had been peace. Well, there'd
Susan: been the La Violencia in Colombia had gone way back. Right. I mean, it's
William Ury: been so not peaceful. La Vio- well, it start- it started with La Violencia- Yeah ... and then, then the guerrilla thing. Yeah. So between those two, you know, you've got about 60, 70 years.
I mean, it's like- Right ... it wa- it was a long period of time. So it's the longest running war. And what was interesting about it, um, just to focus in, was there was a time, you know, it took a, took a long time, but it was a time in the negotiation when the question was: What do we do with the victims? Right.
Eight million victims. [00:39:00] Yeah. You know, usually, oftentimes, the, you know, the i- idea was, uh... And, and, and President Santos, to his credit, decided to You know, sometimes you say, "Well, let's just settle the conflict, and then we'll deal with the victims, and we'll have some kind of truth reconciliation process."
But he decided to innovate, and basically asked the UN and the local universities to assemble representative groups of victims to go to the negotiations which were taking place in Havana-
Susan: Mm-hmm ...
William Ury: in Cuba, and actually testify to the negotiators while the negotiations were going on.
Susan: Wow.
William Ury: As a way of kind of like, let's- A kind of truth and reconciliation
get the victims' voices- Mm-hmm ... at the table.
Susan: Wow. Mm-hmm.
William Ury: And the majority of these delegations were women.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: Often women of color.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: And there was a lot [00:40:00] of resistance to this idea, because it was like, first of all, it's gonna be a lot of time, a lot of things, but also they're so deep in their trauma, they're gonna ask for vengeance, and whatever.
They're gonna come and they're gonna be opposed, this whole idea of sitting down with the other side.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: The opposite turned out, and they were all... This was all on national television, so the whole country engaged in hearing their stories, right? Mm-hmm. In the great majority of cases, they issued st- joint statements, and they encouraged the negotiators to go f- you know, to, to go deeper.
Susan: Right.
William Ury: To actually conclude the deal.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: They... So it actually had the reverse effect of what people had feared it would have.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: And again, it was the voice of women was very, very prominent.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: I'll give you just one story- Mm ... from one of these women, uh, which really was just as an ex- There was a, a woman who told this story.
Her name, if I'm not mistaken, was Pastora Mina, and she told the president this story. She [00:41:00] was living in, in a, in a little village there in the interior of Colombia, and a young man came to her door. He was wounded, and he asked for help, and he was really badly injured. And she took him in, and she put him in her son's bedroom and took care of him for some months.
And then he healed, and as he was, uh, leaving, he came out into the parlor and he saw a picture of her with her son. And he said, "Is that your son?"
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: And she said, "Yes." And then he fell to the ground on his knees, and he begged for forgiveness. And she said, "What? What? What? What's going on?"
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: He said, "I was the one who killed and tortured your son."
Mm.
Susan: Oh, geez. Oh.
William Ury: And she said to him-
Susan: Oh my gosh ...
William Ury: she said to him, "Gracias. Thank you." And, a- a- and brought him to his feet, and she said, "Well, why, why are you thanking me?" 'Cause you've just spared me. the [00:42:00] burden of hating you for the rest of my life." Mm-hmm. And so that, those kind of stories, and again, it's a mother, but that's gonna...
And that so moved the president, too. 'Cause there were times in the conflict where a lot of people were saying, "Hey, forget the negotiation. It's going on too long. They're breaking the agreement." You, you hear all this, like, "You're breaking the agreements, like, killing," whatever. Just end with it, you know?
Like, like what's going on right now in the, be- you know, in, in the Gulf right now. But he stayed true to it, and partly because he was inspired by the courage of someone like Pastor Amina.
Susan: Amazing story. Oh, my gosh. Amazing story, and I don't know whether I would have it in me. I mean, I think as a mother of a son, you know?
But, uh, humans have a lot of po- uh, we have a lot of possibility a lot of courage. Well,
William Ury: I don't know. I, I could go on with stories. I mean, it's just like, I mean, one story after another. But even from Colombia, you know, like in the Middle East, I'll just give you one story. I don't know, this just came to mind.
There was, [00:43:00] during the time of ISIS.
Susan: That seems like a long time ago.
William Ury: It wasn't so long ago. I know. I know. And, and, you know, ISIS just kind of roared out of nowhere, and then, and, you know, the most unbelievable atrocities, including mass rapes and just awful things to the Yazidi people and so on. And, and one of the things they did very early on was they, they overran, in Iraq, there was a young cadets academy for Air Force.
I don't know what it was. And there were boys who were maybe, like, 16 or 17, like 1,500 of them, and they slaughtered them all.
Susan: Mm. Gosh.
William Ury: But I have a, um, a colleague, a, a l- l- part of a project to kind of create a long distance walking path in the Middle East.
Susan: I know. It's always so attractive to me. It's
William Ury: like a- For 20 years.
Anyway.
Susan: Yeah.
William Ury: One of the things we sponsored him was to, was to float down the Tigris. He was floating down the Tigris River in, from Turkey, Syria, Iraq. From the beginning, you know, from the origin to, to, to the- Mm-hmm ... to the source there in, [00:44:00] in the Gulf. And, uh, and he, uh, he was in this little raft or boat.
And, and every five kilometers, there's another group of Muslim going. Anyway, he, he's, he's, he had to stop for, you know, to camp or whatever, and he stopped at one point in a village, or a little village. And this w- old woman gave him shelter, you know, that amazing hospitality. You know, everyone wants to give hospitality.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: She gave him shelter, and she told him the story of how a couple years earlier, during the time of ISIS, 'cause her, her village was right across the river- From where that cadets academy had been.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: And she, she, she, no one knew what was happening, but she suddenly saw, she looked up one morning and she saw these young boys fleeing for their lives, you know, like, like 10 or 15 or 20 of them fleeing for their lives along the thing, g- getting really ex- you know, excited.
Just, I mean, just she didn't even know why they were fleeing for their lives. Mm. But she could see that they were really, [00:45:00] like, scared and running, you know, and ISIS was in, in, in, in pursuit of them. And so she didn't think anything of it. She just told her sons, she said, "Go get the boats and row across the river and bring them over."
And so her sons Mm ... kind of got the boats, and other people in the village got the boats and rowed these, these boys over. And, uh, then ISIS showed up on the, on the bank with their AK-47s or whatever. And, you know, she's there, and all the villagers go to their hu- and they grab their, their little rifle and gun, and they all stand like a third side- Mm-hmm
in protection- Mm-hmm ... right there, and protected the boys, right? And so the ISIS didn't cross the river.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: And my friend asked her, "What did you do with the boys?" She said, "Well, I just went and gave them a hug." Oh. And I, I mean, that, those kind of stories- Yeah ... are like ... And again- It's the role of the woman, the role of the third side.[00:46:00]
You know, it's like to, to, a, a protective role in, in that situation ...
Susan: the amazing stories that you have, and, um, I don't, you know, uh, don't take too much of your time. I guess as we, you know, we're talking about it's such a dicey moment I think for so many people, and I have children. I don't know, you know, looking at the future for future generations if...
What are your thoughts about how to bring that kind of possibility, transparency, circles, hope? Sometimes I don't like the hope question, but honestly I think it, it's also a useful question. Yeah, what, what are your, what are your thoughts about that for- Well- ... all of our kids out there?
William Ury: I believe humanity right now, we're on a kind of razor's edge.
When I was young, used to climb, you know, with ropes that would climb up peaks and-
Susan: Yeah ...
William Ury: cliffs, and sometimes you're, you're walking on a ridge, right? And
Susan: you just- My son is a big mountain climber. I, I know.
William Ury: Oh, [00:47:00] is he?
Susan: Oh, yes.
William Ury: Oh, there you go. So
Susan: you know what? Actually, now he's para- now he's paragliding, which I'm not so happy- Oh,
William Ury: really?
Susan: Oh my
William Ury: God. Oh.
Susan: Anyway.
William Ury: Well, young people, you know, it's kind of like there's a kind of attraction to that kind of like you feel more alive somehow. But, you know, it's you, you're walking on a, on an edge, a razor's edge, right? An edge of a, of a ridge, right? And there's a chasm on one side and there's a chasm on the other, whatever.
But I feel like humanity, we're walking on a, on an edge right now.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: If you look down on one side, you can see enormous cause for despair. All the poly crisis, the climate , ev- just everything that's going on in the world, the wars, AI, the disruptive things of AI, on the one hand. And on the other hand, there's all the possibilities.
Mm-hmm. You know? Like AI's a good example. It's like, wow, it's revolutionizing people's lives. My like, you know, my, my sons are, they're, they're using it to transform their, you know, their businesses- Mm ... and their, their, their dreams and whatever, but at the same time... [00:48:00] So AI's a kind of a classic example.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: And we're on that razor's edge, and when you're on that razor's edge, it doesn't take that much to go one way rather than the other, right? Just a slight, you know, if you're walking, slight thing. So we have incredible ability right now at this particular moment in human evolution to kind of nudge our trajectory onto a survivable path, a thrivable path- Mm
of possibility. Avert the worst and realize the best. And there's never been a moment when there's been more capacity for agency right now in the world in this disruptive moment, because everything is up for grabs. So for young people-
Susan: Wait, what do you mean by, uh,
William Ury: capacity for... Or maybe you're Well, in other wo- in other words, there's, uh, right now we're much more powerful than we ever were, a- and any individual.
Mm. Partly because of, I mean, just AI would be an example. But you can do so much more-
Susan: Yeah ...
William Ury: than in a previous [00:49:00] generation or in the previous generations. You know, a, a, a person who holds a, a phone is holding more information and power than, than a king, the King Nebuchadnezzar or anyone else, you know? Or even, like, you know, 100 years ago.
It's like- Right ... it's astonishing. So we have potential, we have power, and the question is will we use our own internal capacities that we have received as our, from our ancestors for cooperation, for sitting in circles, for getting the whole system in the room as you like to do, for, you know, can we do that in our, you know, at, at small scale and can we do it at the largest scale, you know?
In our, I mean, we can do it, you know, in our families
Susan: and our- I might add, I don't know what you think about this, but I think sometimes how we negotiate even in the micro level is almost a cultural act in and of itself.
William Ury: And not almost, it is a
Susan: cultural act. Okay. Okay. It is. It's, and it's such a, a choice point right there about [00:50:00] how we're gonna- It is.
William Ury: Yeah, and everyone, every one of us every single day goes through a dozen, two dozen, I don't know how many dozens of negotiations, small and large. Mm. In everything that we do in our personal lives, in our professional lives, in our community lives, and we have that choice. And that, that's the thing is we have choice.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: We have the choice to say, "Hey, can we take even the, the most difficult situation and look for possibility there? Can we bring our natural human curiosity, our natural human creativity, and our natural human collaboration to bear even on things that are giving us real..." I mean, there are very real problems and very real issues.
And it's, it's like a choice. At any one moment we can choose to handle our conflicts destructively or constructively, and we're making that choice. It's always, it's like a sw- switch.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: It doesn't mean that it automatically brings you agreement. There's no automatic entitlement, but it does increase the odds-
Susan: Mm
William Ury: greatly. If you [00:51:00] approach the situation with a little more openness, realizing that in fact life is a positive sum game.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: Life is one in which it's just by its nature. What we think about- What do you mean
Susan: by positive sum? That's an interesting phrase, positive sum game. I don't-
William Ury: Well, you know, in game theory there's the kind of like things like, okay, there's scarcity.
Mm-hmm. It's like, it's zero sum. Yeah. I win, you lose, right? Yeah,
Susan: yeah, yeah, yeah.
William Ury: But relationships, in every negotiation there's a relationship. There's... In any, in any negotiation, there's always an ability for both sides to lose and both sides to benefit more than they would otherwise. Right. Which is, you know, call it a win-win.
But, but I think what we're called upon these days is to realize that win-win even isn't enough. We have to remember the third win.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: Which is a win for the whole. Could be for the family, for the relationship, for the marriage, for the business, for, for the community, for the world. But we need to remember that third, a win for the third side.
Susan: Uh, [00:52:00] the image is coming to me right now that you told of the bonobos when... A- because there are people that don't wanna do that, that are like getting out of control, if you ask me. And-
William Ury: Yeah ...
Susan: you had this great image of the bonobos when I guess some male bonobo would get out of line, the females would, would circle.
Uh, you tell the, I mean, right? It came out of your-
William Ury: No, that's, that's exactly it. Well, I mean, uh, it was actually, uh... But maybe the most well-known researcher of bonobos early on w- was a Dutchman by the name of Frans de Waal, and he was telling me, observing this. The bonobos, who are chimpanzees, but... And they're actually, there are two species of chimpanzees, the common chimp and the bonobos, and the bonobos, if anything, seem to be closer in many ways to human beings than, you know, in, in term- Mm.
They're our closest cousins.
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: And he would observe that, you know, that when a male bonobo was, like, pushing around a, a female bonobo, you know, the male bonobo's a little bit bigger than the female bonobo, what would happen? Four or [00:53:00] five female bonobos would get together and just almost like linebackers on a football field, line up shoulder to shoulder- Mm
and slowly back the aggressive male just to say, "Hey, hey, buddy. Hey, you may be more powerful than one of us, but you're not more powerful than five of us." Mm. And just, like, ease off there and just equalize the power. And that coalition power of alliances-
Susan: Mm ...
William Ury: you know, that's, that's, that's a key in, in any society, is always...
That's what, where the third side is. The third side is that coalition for peace, for safety, for belonging, for enough for everyone, really. Mm. And that's what happens, is when, when one tries a power move, the community around engages to, like, "Hey, no. This is a level playing field here. You're gonna have to treat people," you know.
You know, it, it, they didn't attack the other one. [00:54:00] They're just like send a signal like, "Hey,"
Susan: Mm.
William Ury: You know, "Back off."
Susan: So for future generations, that message is just the, the idea of choice, and the, the idea of choice, possibility, the fact that we are on this precipice, and what each of us does- Matters ... it really matters, and it can matter from the micro all the way up to the macro, and in the moment, we each have a choice about how are we gonna deal with this, and, uh-
William Ury: That's it
Susan: yeah.
William Ury: And we're all born, you know, I have a grandchi- uh, I have two grants- grand- grandchildren, grandsons. There's a, turns out one, o- one's one-and-a-half, and one's four. They're my bosses, but I w- I've been watching, like,
Susan: infants- They're your bosses? Is that what you said?
William Ury: They're my bosses. They are Yeah.
They're, they're my bosses. Exactly. Okay. Well, I, I'm working, I'm working for their generation, basically.
Susan: Yeah,
William Ury: yeah,
Susan: yeah. I, I hear, I hear you. At
William Ury: this point, it's like, I'd like to see your generation inherit a world that is [00:55:00] livable and- Yeah ... thrivable and possible, you
Susan: know? Right.
William Ury: And so, uh, yeah, I'm taking my ins- you know, on, on, on the first day of my, my first grand- uh, child was born, I just, you know, held this baby in my arms for about an hour.
Susan: Mm-hmm.
William Ury: And just the look in the eyes, and there's so much possibility. In every single infant, there's just so much possibility, and they love possibility. That's why they play, is all about possible. Right. So we're, we're born as possibilists. We're born as homo possibilists, right? Right.
Susan: Right.
William Ury: And we all have that inside of us, and that choice, that agency that you're speaking to is exactly we can cultivate these possibilities because we have, we have that power, and not to let anyone take, take away that power from us, and not, certainly not to let us, through despair, forget that we have a choice in every single moment.
Yeah. You know, and w- and we'll fall, we'll make mistakes. I'm the first one to do that all the time, and then you recover, you learn, and you make the choice again, and collectively, that makes a [00:56:00] huge difference. Mm. I've seen that change whole societies, you know? I s- I saw, you know, I was with a Bushman- Nelson Mandela was in jail.
It w- you know, people were thinking this race war will go on forever in South Africa. I came back to South Africa five years later, he was president. And the guy who had been president when I was first there was his vice president.
Susan: Right.
William Ury: And it's like, how did that happen? Wow.
Susan: Right. Wow. Yeah.
William Ury: I mean, how did that happen, really?
Yeah, yeah. And that happened not just through the amazing leadership of one person, but the whole society got engaged, the women, the men, the labor unions, the businesses, the faith, leaders of faith, the youth groups, everyone engaged. The whole society transformed itself.
Susan: Right. I just finished... I've, I, I read recently Long Walk to Freedom.
I'd, somehow I had never read the whole thing. It was so, it was such a great read. It was so moving to read the whole thing and yeah. So William, as always, you, you have a way of always e- uh, just feeling, giving me [00:57:00] a feeling of possibility, and I really appreciate that and really appreciate your time. And if people wanna f- follow, people who, I, I don't know if anybody doesn't know about you, but if somebody doesn't know about you and they're, uh, what would, how would they follow your work?
The best way to follow your work.
William Ury: Well, I don't know. I, I, I, I'm mildly engaged, not very much engaged in social media, but I do have a website, you know, www.williamury.com where you can find out a lot more information.
Susan: Yeah.
William Ury: There are books, there, there, but also there's like little audios, TED Talks. Um, you just put in my name, William Ury, and just see what piques your interest.
But I would just really encourage you to really activate your inner possibleist
Susan: Mm-hmm ...
William Ury: and realize that we have it in it. I've, I've seen it happen. I, you know, it's been 50 years, I've been, I've been seeking out the hardest, most difficult, you know, the most traumatic situations on the planet, and it's amazing to see even in the midst of all that- humanity shine up and shine [00:58:00] through.
Mm-hmm. And if, if they can do it, you know, if the Irish could do it, if the South Africans could do it, if, I mean, countless peoples could do it, certainly we can do it.
Susan: For sure. And it's a longer question to ask you why you did seek all this out, but, uh, maybe that's for another-
William Ury: Well, because I, you know, I'll tell you, I had a, when I was a boy, I was born in Chicago, but then somehow at six my mother brought us to Switzerland.
And I spent about half my childhood in Europe, and Europe was still, you could still feel the recovering from World War II. I mean- Yeah ... it wasn't that long.
Susan: Right.
William Ury: You know, just maybe 15 years a- afterwards, and it was like, and, and in World War I, the, all, all the graveyards, and it was just these- Yeah
incredible wars. And there was every expectation there'd be a World War III, and even like, you know, we used to ski and, uh, like the ski, in, in Switzerland, the, the, the place where you kept the skis was a nuclear bomb shelter. It
Susan: had a big- Yeah,
William Ury: yeah ... metal door. And it was like, I c- and I couldn't quite get, and then [00:59:00] Cuban Missile Crisis happened, and I couldn't quite get why we human beings, and I could see, I was with kids from all different cultures, different religions, and everything.
But like, we could get along, but why can't, why can't we all get along somehow? And particularly, you know, there was that question. And so that, that's why I had, I, that, that kind of wakened my curiosity of like, how do we deal with our differences- Mm ... in a constructive way that actually can make the world, the world that we want to live in?
Susan: Mm. Thank you so much. Really appreciate your time, and I will live with that question. I think so many of us live with that question. So thank you very much.
William Ury: Yeah. Great. And thank you for all your work, uh, Susan. I know you've put your, your li- this is your life's work as, as well. Mm-hmm. And it's just, it's beautiful to see, and it's, how many people that you've lit up with your, with your passion and curiosity and ideas, and so that's, that's how it happens.
Susan: Yeah. Thanks a lot.
William Ury: So thank you.
Susan: [01:00:00] Thanks for listening. If this moved you, please like and share, and you can subscribe to this series on Substack. It's free. Just search Collaborative Hardball, where you'll see every one of these episodes as soon as they're released, and my take on it. Hope to see you there, and see you again soon