Conflict is a growth industry, as a glance at the daily paper or the
nightly news tells us. Trade wars, global warming, ethnic strife,
refugee crises - as the world draws closer together on a thousand
fronts, trouble erupts, clashes occur, and new problems arise. What's
wrong, and what can be done about it? This cogent book offers a clear
approach for dealing with conflicting interests of any kind. Roger
Fisher, the world-renowned master of negotiation, with two of his
leading colleagues - Elizabeth Kopelman and Andrea Kupfer Schneider -
provides a step-by-step process for dealing with the persistent and
complex disputes that mark our changing, often dangerous world. Instead
of simply asking why things work - or don't - the authors ask: how can
we affect the way things work? They break conflicts into manageable
components and advance a process for problem-solving. Arguing that we
need to move beyond one-shot "solutions" toward a constructive way of
dealing with differences, they lay out tools for conflict analysis and
practical applications for those tools in the international arena. The
authors also show that tactics which successfully influence an adversary
are equally applicable to the task of persuading an employer, a
community official, or a business associate. Originally drafted as a
handbook for the diplomats and senior officials advised by Fisher and
his colleagues, this succinct, lucid, and effective book is the primer
about the new paradigm in conflict management.
