Learning from Roger Fisher

James K. Sebenius

Article | Harvard Law Review | February 2013

Learning from Roger Fisher

Abstract

Roger Fisher's career and writings not only offer lessons about negotiation but also about how an academic, especially in a professional school such as law or business, can make an important, positive difference in the world. By his relentless engagement in vexing disputes—whether in South Africa, at Camp David, on the Peruvian-Ecuadorian border, or elsewhere—Fisher gained a firsthand sense of the issues as negotiators actually experienced them. This enabled him to ask better questions and to formulate more valuable answers. Fisher collaborated across academic disciplines and wrote a series of books, mostly coauthored with junior colleagues, that are best understood as project around an evolving theme—an interest-based, problem-solving conception of negotiation—rather than as a series of one-off products. His commitment to expressing powerful insights simply, concisely, and memorably led to the remarkable influence of Getting to Yes, which has sold over eight million copies and has spawned endless academic and popular offshoots. While the most familiar form of intellectual capital in the social sciences is the deductive proposition, supported by experimental and observational evidence, other forms of knowledge can be both valid and useful. In particular, Fisher and his colleagues constructed frameworks of prescriptions that, on average, respond to widely felt practitioner needs and systematically direct the focus of negotiators to aspects of the situation that generate helpful insights.

Keywords: Roger Fisher; negotiation; dispute resolution; bargaining; Negotiation;

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Citation:

Sebenius, James K. "Learning from Roger Fisher." Harvard Law Review 126, no. 4 (February 2013): 893–898.

In 1976, a growing crisis in Southern Africa drew the attention of United States Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. White Rhodesian leader Ian Smith's refusal to accede to black majority rule threatened to widen into a regional conflict involving apartheid South Africa and newly independent leftist African states. Kissinger and others feared that the region was on the brink of becoming a new battleground in the Cold War. In light of these developments Kissinger decided to intervene, seeking a negotiated solution that might bring about a peaceful end to minority rule. The account in this case carefully describes—but does not analyze nor draw lessons from—these challenging circumstances.

In 1976, United States Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger conducted a series of intricate, multiparty negotiations in Southern Africa to persuade white Rhodesian leader Ian Smith to accede to black majority rule. Conducted near the end of President Gerald Ford’s term in office and against substantial U.S. domestic opposition, Kissinger’s efforts culminated in Smith’s public announcement that he would accept majority rule within two years. This set the stage for the later Lancaster House negotiations that resulted in the actual transition to black majority rule. The account in this case carefully describes—but does not analyze nor draw lessons from—these challenging negotiations.

A remarkable 1993 negotiation rocked the world of American football with aftershocks that have directly shaped today’s entertainment and media landscapes and even our polarized politics. In December of that year, Rupert Murdoch’s fledgling Fox Network unexpectedly displaced longtime incumbent CBS as the host of the National Football League’s flagship programming. Fox’s negotiating success seemed most unlikely given that CBS had regularly renewed these NFL rights since 1956, enjoyed a good relationship with the NFL, sported an acclaimed broadcast unit, and had affiliates in virtually all important U.S. markets. Yet acquisition of these NFL rights directly enabled the expansion of Fox, then a minor broadcaster, into the media behemoth of today. For many observers, Fox’s NFL “heist” looked like the result of a simple move: Fox offered more money than CBS. A closer analysis, however, suggests a far more complex reality with ten broader lessons for negotiators facing challenging situations.

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Learning from Roger Fisher

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