Roger Fisher honored at American Academy of Arts and Sciences

By Eileen K. McCluskey

Special to the Gazette

On a late-October evening, a cold, cutting rain sent pedestrians scurrying down slick sidewalks.

But inside the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, at a panel discussion convened to honor Roger Fisher, author of the best-selling Getting to Yes and an internationally acclaimed negotiator and peacemaker, the atmosphere was filled with warmth, admiration, and wit.

The six panelists -- ambassadors, scholars, negotiators, and authors -- recognized Fisher's contributions to the art of negotiation. Fisher is the Samuel Williston Professor of Law Emeritus.

They gathered "to elucidate the gift of this unusual individual," said moderator William Ury, an international negotiation expert and co-author of Getting to Yes. "We came within a hair's breadth of losing Roger [to a heart attack] about a year ago," Ury recalled, emphasizing the group's good fortune in getting a chance to speak to Fisher of his accomplishments, rather than only about him and his work.

Ivonne A-Baki, consul general of Ecuador and artist-in-residence at Dudley House, shared the story of her experiences in negotiation: a flight, with Fisher, to Ecuador, to help settle 50-year-old border disputes with Peru. A-Baki said she had "been taught to hate Peruvians as a kid in Ecuador." Yet there she sat in a Fisher-designed negotiation session, shoulder-to-shoulder with Peruvians at a horseshoe-shaped table. Fisher asked each person to "talk with our neighbor, and then present that person's perspectives" to the group, A-Baki said. The result of the exercise was that everyone "spoke of the human side" of their neighbor, she said, "even high officials."

Howard Raiffa, the Frank Plumpton Ramsey Professor of Managerial Economics Emeritus and an internationally known negotiator, was in Ecuador and Peru after the meeting described by A-Baki. "Has anything changed?" he posited. "To a person, it has changed for the better. There are two Peruvians from that group now writing a [peace-oriented] book called Regional Opportunities."

Rusudan Gorgiladze, chief state adviser to President Shevardnadze of Georgia, commented, "Roger's main gift is to create opportunities." Gorgiladze joked that Fisher is "the most sophisticated murderer I know," referring to Fisher's habit of working his disciples around the clock for days on end, a schedule by which Fisher himself lives.

Ambassador Ricardo G. Castaneda, El Salvadoran representative to the United Nations, told of how he "ran into" Fisher's Getting to Yes after striving for peace in Central America for a decade. Fisher was brought in to run a seminar in El Salvador, which, reports Castaneda, "had a terrific impact that lasted through the whole [negotiation] process."

Jerome Kagan, child psychologist and Harvard's Daniel and Amy Starch Professor of Psychology, opined that Fisher possesses three "rare talents: moral authority," the ability "to anticipate and infer what the other person is thinking and what their needs are," and an attitude of "I can be potent here." Kagan believes that unless an individual possesses all three rare qualities, they cannot be considered the "unique animal" that Fisher is. "Unless you marry the three characteristics," says Kagan, "you don't get a Roger Fisher."

Antonia Chayes, a board member of Conflict Management Group (founded by Fisher), the group that planned the tribute to Fisher, said, "Roger is unique, but what's remarkable is that his ideas are powerful and replicable." Citing successful negotiation work performed by Fisher's pupils, from Springfield, Mass., to Africa and Asia, Chayes pointed out that by teaching Fisher's ideas, his work is "being applied by ordinary people."

Gorgiladze shifted the focus, speaking of the "terrible obstacle of distrust." From within this mindset, she said, "you don't even think [that those on the other side] are human beings -- they're the enemy and that's it." But through Fisher's teachings, she said, "we've realized there are hundreds of choices. 'You' and 'them' are just 'we.'

"Roger influences decisionmakers. And we're coming up with concrete solutions [in Georgia]," Gorgiladze said. "There are four new villages today which are alive. . . . This is not abstract. These are human lives," directly affected by Fisher's teachings.

Cameron Hume, U.S. Ambassador-designate to Algeria, posed the question, "Do we need Roger present [for a successful mediation]? You need people present," he says. "The ideas in themselves are

incredibly powerful."

Audience members had their say, too. Among those offering tributes, Bruce Patton told the audience he has worked with Fisher since 1977. He characterized Fisher as "the most energetic person in the office." He praised Fisher's "ability to . . . see into the heart" of a situation, and his "incredible sense of childlike openness to the world."

Ury invited the panel members to contribute a one-image wrap-up.

Castaneda said Fisher is "a peacemaker."

A-Baki noted, "For Roger, love is on the global level. Keep the child inside you."

Gorgiladze offered the image of a symphony, saying Fisher is "a wonderful conductor in conflict," creating "symphonies of joy and peace. I love you for this."

Finally, Fisher himself offered a distillation of his ideas. "We all operate on the basis of assumptions," he said. "I cannot choose to have no assumptions, but on the other hand, I can choose which assumptions I want to have . . . . The easiest way to change other people's behavior is to change my own. . . . You learn by doing things you're not very good at. . . ."