Roger Fisher

Yeah.

And we had the privilege of being lectured by Roger Fisher.

Yeah.

Who wrote the book, Getting to Yes.

And he had come down to meet some of the Maori tribes with a view to establishing the first casino in New Zealand.

Brileys by that time kind of had the jump and they ended up getting the Sky City Casino license and Trump was unsuccessful so he disappeared back to the States.

Right, but coming back to Harvard with Roger Fisher, are there skills that you got from him that have served you well then?

Yeah, I think so.

And I've sort of become fascinated by this idea of thought experiments that do something to us.

And Roger Fisher, the guy who came up with it, was a Harvard law professor and a negotiation theorist.

And during the Cold War, he proposed an intentionally horrifying thought experiment in order to invoke a moment of humanity that might change the mind of the person pushing the button to launch nuclear missiles.

And the Fisher Protocol, as it became known, was this, that the nuclear launch codes had to be put inside a capsule and implanted next to the heart of a volunteer.

I remember reading the book, Getting to Yes.

Roger Fisher, wow, it's a blast from the past.

But I love that you talk about how AI empowers and in a way empowers is a tool for better negotiation outcomes.

I understand that this challenge took the entire office and frankly, an entire day, Arna.

The third thing is know your BATNA.

A guy named Roger Fisher wrote a book called Getting to Yes, incredible book on negotiation, and he talks about a BATNA, your best alternative to negotiated agreement.

Before you get into any negotiation, you need to sit down with your team, with yourself, reflect, and say, hey, what's our BATNA? What's the number, what's the lowest number we're willing to accept to make this deal happen? And with that, what are the terms that we should look at or review to ensure that we're on the same page? But having that BATNA will help you decide what's the number that you may go back and kind of counter with, or what are some of the terms that are gonna be involved? Whatever it is, understanding your best alternative to negotiate agreement when you're gonna walk away is a critical step.

It's really the third in the five strategies.

And to really wrap our heads around this danger, we need to look at a foundational principle of negotiation.

There is this famous book by Roger Fisher and William Urie called Getting to Yes.

Oh, a classic.

Yeah, absolute classic.

Tyrants will always act like tyrants.

I don't know how many of you might remember the name Roger Fisher, but back in the 1980s, Harvard professor, he did this little thought experiment that, you know, the president always carries with him the nuclear codes in case they're needed.

what roger fisher said is those codes should not be kept in a suitcase they should be put inside of a capsule and implanted next to a volunteers heart so that if the president ever needed to launch a nuclear strike First, he would have to take the life of that volunteer in front of him.

That's a really cool thought experiment until you're the guy, right? And the astrologers, this was them.

I mean, that panic, right? And that was just a thought experiment that was never officially considered, but it takes it from being just a military question to being a moral question, right? Here, Nebuchadnezzar seems to have no moral filter because he can't remember this dream.

So the term was actually introduced to the world back in 1981.

It was Roger Fisher and William Ury in their landmark book getting to.

Yes.

Oh, right.

He is one of my favorite authors, William Ury.

He co-writ- he co-authored Getting to Yes with Roger Fisher, Getting Past No. Pos- my favorite book of his is the book Possible that he wrote just two years ago.

You studied with him for a couple of years.

Uh, that, that's somewhat like going to the mountain.

Possible by William Ury, with that nine-point program he has.

Negotiating the Nonnegotiable by Dan Shapiro out of, uh, the Harvard Project on negotiation.

Beyond Reason by Roger Fisher, which was his final work before he passed away.

Magnificent book that really gets to your comment of what we feel, we feel before we think.