A quick word first
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First, a tip of my hat to those of you who do know of Lakhdar Brahimi’s admirable career, seeking to bring peace in some of the world’s most violent trouble spots, among them Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Haiti (where he narrowly missed assassination). There’s much to learn from his efforts, sometimes successful, sometimes not.
Twenty years ago, he was honored as a Great Negotiator by the Program on Negotiation. (PON is a consortium of Harvard, MIT, and Tufts faculty). A series of seminars and a public presentation filled a full day, and yielded teaching cases and videos that still are in wide use.
I have no experience in diplomacy myself, but have learned much from Brahimi that has shaped my understanding of the negotiation process more broadly. Here are three key insights—mostly in his own words—that have stuck with me to this day.
Navigating by sight
Brahimi courteously acknowledged the work done by PON-affiliated faculty but expressed polite skepticism about rigid strategy. It’s fine, he said, to chart a provisional course, but the map you draw is bound to be incomplete.
As he put it, there will be at least “one little rock somewhere on the sea you will be navigating in. And to spot that rock, you have got to use your eyes. That’s the only instrument that will show you because the map contains all the ocean—everything, except that little rock.” Striking that single rock can sink the boat you’re steering. As he explained:
“That is really another way of saying keep an open mind and be ready to change and adapt to the situation. Don’t ask reality to conform to your blueprint but transform your blueprint to adapt to the reality.”
Triage
On the other hand, Brahimi didn’t discount the importance of knowing as much as possible about the territory he would traverse. He was always observant even when he wasn’t mediating or negotiating. When he was just starting out, an old British diplomat had told him:
“You go somewhere and you try and understand that country because one day you may need to negotiate with that country. And you have got to divide as it were the area of negotiations in three zones. One zone up there that is not negotiable. Then down there, there is an area where you can get whatever you like free of charge. And in the middle, there is that area, which is open to negotiations.”
Those three zones may expand, contract, or vanish over time or during a negotiation, as well. But Brahimi’s watchword was: “Don’t lose your time asking for the impossible. Don’t waste your resources paying for what is free. And concentrate on that area where give and take is possible.”
The right kind of arrogance
Brahimi concluded his final session by stressing the importance of deep, unbiased understanding whenever you’re dealing with other people. “Don’t go thinking that you know, and others don’t,” he said. “That even applies when with dealing people who are seen as stupid killers, bandits, and so on. Perhaps they are bad, but perhaps they have been led into the situation because of circumstances.”
Brahimi then added this wisdom, which may at first seem contradictory:
“You need, I think, to be at the same time arrogant, because you want to solve problems that look insolvable, but you need also to be very, very humble. These are contradictory things, but I think if you look closely, you will see that it’s not that much of a contradiction. You need to have determination, you want to do it, you think it is doable, even if everybody else says it isn’t. That is the arrogance part – but I think you need to be modest, don’t play God. You are not God. And accept failure like it is part of the job. And see how much luck you can have and take along with you.”
Housekeeping
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