Possible, p.12
Possible, page 12
In the face of such challenges, it would be easy to lower our sights. But in transforming difficult conflicts, the lesson I have learned is to be audacious. If we are missing our target, it is not because we have been aiming too high but rather because we have been aiming too low. We need to up our game. We need to build not only a bridge but a golden bridge.
If we are to succeed, we need to unlock the full potential that exists between the parties. A golden bridge is far more than a mere compromise. At Camp David, a compromise US proposal might have divided the difference between the initial Israeli and Egyptian positions, leaving both sides deeply dissatisfied. A golden bridge is an integral outcome that meets the essential needs of all parties. Because each side was satisfied, the agreement proved to be far more sustainable than a weak compromise would have been.
Counterintuitive as it may seem, my experience has shown me that a golden bridge is often more achievable and more robust than an ordinary bridge.
A golden bridge goes well beyond a classic win-win agreement. It aims to transform the relationship. The Camp David Accords were not just an agreement to resolve an outstanding dispute; they brought about a remarkable transformation of the relationship between Egypt and Israel. The two adversaries did not become close friends, far from it, but they ceased to be mortal enemies. They became peaceful neighbors, cooperating to assure their mutual security.
If our goal is more audacious, so, too, must be our means. This brings me to a key lesson of this book. When I think back to passing under the Golden Gate Bridge as a boy, I have an unforgettable memory of the two huge towers supporting it on each side of the wide entrance to the bay. Similarly, a golden bridge needs to be supported by two giant pillars: the balcony and the third side. All three structural elements are needed to bridge the enormous gap that often exists between the parties.
In the story of Egyptian-Israeli peace, the balcony was the natural retreat of Camp David, about as far away from the Middle East as one could possibly imagine. The setting was Rosalynn Carter’s inspired idea. A month earlier, she and her husband had spent a relaxing weekend alone at Camp David. She shared her husband’s dream of making peace in the Middle East and knew of his frustration. She proposed to him that he give it one last try. She suggested that perhaps a simple, rustic, and bucolic place such as Camp David, isolated from the world’s limelight, could help provide the right atmosphere within which the parties might achieve a breakthrough. And she was right.
Just as important as the balcony was the third side. Without a determined, skilled, and influential third party such as Jimmy Carter, the two leaders, Sadat and Begin, would almost certainly never have been able to come to terms.
Here is the paradoxical lesson I have learned about how to build a bridge across a great chasm: If you want to make it easier, start by making it harder. Aim for an audacious outcome, and use equally audacious means. We are often capable of achieving far more than we think possible. Don’t just build a bridge; build a golden bridge. Support the bridge with the balcony and the third side. It is the synergy of all three that makes the seemingly impossible possible.
UNLOCK THE POTENTIAL BETWEEN
We build a golden bridge by deploying three natural powers. Each power is an innate human capacity, something we may already know how to do but simply need to develop and strengthen.
The first is the power to listen deeply: to hear what those on the other side really want. Leave where your mind is and start the conversation where their minds are. Seek to understand their needs. At Camp David, Carter and his team listened carefully for thirteen days to understand the deeper needs of the parties for sovereignty and security. Listening conveys respect and builds trust.
The second is the power to create: to invent options for mutual gain. Once you understand the other’s perceptions and needs, begin to craft creative ways to bridge the gap. At Camp David, Carter and his team developed the creative, mutually satisfying solution of a demilitarized Sinai.
The third is the power to attract: to make it easy for them to say yes. Creating good options is usually not enough to persuade people. Obstacles often stand in the way. At Camp David, the parties hit a hard impasse and were about to leave. Carter used the one-text process to break the impasse by simplifying the decision-making process and increasing the parties’ buy-in.
The three powers have a logical sequence. Listening focuses on the people; it produces a propitious psychological atmosphere for creating options, which focuses on the problem. Attracting then makes it easier for the parties to accept the options; it focuses on the process. Once we activate a power, we continue to use it. We continually listen, create, and attract as needed.
All three powers combine to transform inflexible opposed positions into creative possibilities. Deployed together, they enable us to build a golden bridge that unlocks the full potential between the parties.
The bridge is our second victory on the path to possible.
Chapter 6
Listen
From Your Shoes to Theirs
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each one’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Bad day, man. Bad day!” Dennis Rodman growled into the phone at me.
“I’d like to ask you about Kim Jong Un,” I told him. “You’re the only American who seems to know him.”
“What do you want, anyway?”
“I’m really worried about the situation with North Korea. I believe your insights could help prevent a catastrophic war.”
“I got it handled.”
He sounded irritated and hung up.
I sighed. It had been a long day, and I began to feel as though I were on a fool’s errand. A friend of Rodman’s had arranged to introduce us over dinner at his house in Los Angeles, where Rodman was a guest. I had flown in for the dinner, but Rodman hadn’t shown up. Hence the phone call.
It was May 2017. As I previously recounted, the United States and North Korea were on a collision course. The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, was testing nuclear missiles with the capacity to reach the United States, and President Donald Trump was determined to stop him. No one knew how the crisis would end. The question in the air was: Who will back down? Experts estimated the chances of war as high as fifty-fifty.
Much was known about Trump but almost nothing about Kim, who had been portrayed in the American press as “irrational,” “ruthless,” and “paranoid.” Surfing the web for clues a few weeks earlier, I had found one tantalizing detail. There was one person who had gotten to know Kim: the retired basketball player Dennis Rodman.
A star of the world champion Chicago Bulls team in the mid-1990s, Rodman had traveled to North Korea four times and had struck up an unlikely friendship with Kim, who had turned out to be a passionate basketball fan, with a boyhood admiration for the Bulls. Despite heavy criticism and ridicule in the press, Rodman had seemingly defended his connection with Kim.
What were Kim’s intentions? I wondered. What did he really want? What would it take for him to stop the extremely dangerous course he was on? I thought that if I had a chance to meet with Rodman and listen to his stories about Kim, maybe I could peer into Kim’s mind and get a clue for how that nuclear crisis might be defused.
The first step in building a bridge across the chasm of conflict is to listen.
THE COURAGE TO LISTEN
Listening is the most basic act of human connection. We associate negotiation with talking. We tend to think of an effective negotiator as a persuasive talker. In my experience, however, effective negotiation is far more about listening than talking. Effective negotiators are persuasive listeners. They listen more than they talk.
If I had to pick one human ability essential to building a golden bridge, it would be empathy—the ability to leave our shoes for a moment and put ourselves in their shoes. Listening enables us to empathize and understand the other side—their wants and needs, dreams and fears. What does the world look like through their eyes? What does it feel like to be them? If we had lived their life, how would we act and react? Of course, we may never wholly understand them, but it never ceases to surprise me just how powerful this exercise can be if we simply deploy our innate capacity for empathy.
Empathy is often confused with sympathy, but it is different. Sympathy means to “feel with.” It means to feel sorry for a person’s predicament but without necessarily understanding it. Empathy, in contrast, means to “feel into.” It means to understand what it is like to be in that situation.
If empathy seems like a lot to swallow in an adversarial situation, you can choose to think of it as strategic empathy: understanding the other so that you can better advance your own interests.
In today’s polarized times, listening may be the last thing we feel like doing. It means listening to people we may not like and listening to things we may not want to hear. It requires patience and self-restraint to control our natural reactions.
Other people on your side may criticize you just for listening to the other side.
“Why should we listen to them?” you may hear. “They don’t listen to us!”
But how can we expect them to listen to us if we do not listen to them? Someone needs to start.
Listening may not be easy, but in my experience, it can make all the difference. We are trying to change the minds of others, but how can we change their minds—and hearts—if we don’t know where they are? Even if you consider the other to be your mortal enemy, remember that the first rule of warfare is to know your enemy.
When Nelson Mandela was in prison, one of the first subjects he studied was Afrikaans, the language of his enemy. It was surprising, even shocking, to his comrades in prison, but he studied the language intensively—and he encouraged others to do the same.
He then proceeded to delve into the history of the Afrikaner people and their traumas during the Boer War, when thousands of their children, women, and elders had been imprisoned in British concentration camps. In the process, he developed a deep respect for their spirit of independence, their religious devotion, and their courage in battle. That understanding proved to be of enormous help later when it came to persuading his political adversaries to agree to end the cruel and unjust system of apartheid.
What we need today is precisely the kind of courageous listening that Mandela modeled. As he showed, listening has immense power to change hearts and minds. There is no more important practice if we are to transform the destructive conflicts that threaten our families, our workplaces, our communities, and our world.
Listening is the golden key that opens the door to human relationship, available to us at any time. Yet in our daily lives, we often forget to use this precious faculty. I recall how humbling it was to practice listening at work, only to come home sometimes and hear my daughter say, “Papi, you are not listening to me!” It was an incredibly valuable reminder that listening is a lifelong practice.
Listening is what I set out to do with Dennis Rodman. Through listening to him, I hoped to listen to the mind of Kim Jong Un.
LISTEN FOR THEIR DREAM
It wasn’t easy to reach Rodman. When I realized that he was the only American who knew Kim, I asked around among my friends to see if anyone had any ideas. One friend knew someone who had met Phil Jackson, the former coach of the Chicago Bulls. But that attempt went nowhere.
Then one day, while I was taking a walk in the mountains, I suddenly remembered that my ninety-year-old uncle Burt in Chicago had an old business association with the Bulls. I called Burt, and he suggested that I speak with my cousin Karen, who, it turned out, had once met one of Rodman’s friends, a coin collector in Los Angeles named Dwight, at a party. With an introduction from Karen, I called Dwight and explained my request and the urgency of the situation. He generously agreed to help:
“Dennis sometimes visits LA and stays with me. He will be coming next month. Why don’t you come have dinner with us?”
I quickly agreed and made arrangements to fly to LA for the appointed evening.
When I arrived at Dwight’s house, a Hollywood-style mansion in the hills with iron gates, I was buzzed in by Blanca, a kind housekeeper. Neither Dwight nor Dennis was there. Dwight’s collection of movie posters from the silent movie era occupied almost every chair and sofa, leaving little room to sit. Fox News was blaring on the enormous TV screen.
Dwight showed up a half hour later, bearing pizzas.
“Dennis not here? Well, he’s not the most reliable person. He goes out to the bars and often doesn’t come back until late.”
Dwight called Rodman to remind him that he had a guest.
“Maybe he’ll come back, let’s see,” Dwight said with a note of uncertainty.
He disappeared. After a while, Blanca asked me:
“Why don’t you eat some pizza?”
“It’s okay. I’ll wait for Dwight.”
“Oh, he prefers to eat alone upstairs.”
“Oh.”
After a while, Blanca decided to call Dennis to remind him of his visitor. She put me on the line. That was when I spoke to him, and he hung up on me.
I was beginning to feel I had reached a dead end. I was thinking about returning to the airport hotel to catch an early flight back home when Dwight suddenly reappeared. I briefed him about my phone conversation—or non-conversation—with Rodman. He said:
“Well, why don’t you stay the night? I can give you the room right above him. Sometimes he comes back at three or four in the morning. Maybe you could catch him and speak to him then?”
It didn’t seem very promising, but the stakes were high. I sighed and accepted Dwight’s kind offer, called the hotel, changed my flight, and canceled my appointments back home for the next day.
I had trouble sleeping. I kept an ear out to hear if Rodman had returned but heard nothing. I finally fell asleep, only to wake up around six to the sound of a car leaving.
“Drat, I missed my chance.”
But when I entered the main house, Blanca said:
“That was Dwight leaving. You’re in luck. Dennis must have come in last night because his car is here. The problem is, he often sleeps in for two or three days.”
As that piece of information settled in, she saw the look of disappointment on my face and asked:
“Would you like me to wake him up?”
I hesitated, remembered the previous evening’s irritable conversation, but reminded myself again of the stakes.
“I guess so. Yes. Thank you.”
She disappeared and came back a few minutes later.
“He says he will come out.”
Then she went off to a doctor’s appointment, leaving me alone to wait.
Forty-five minutes later, the front door swung open. In lumbered Dennis Rodman, six feet seven inches tall, his arms and legs covered with tattoos, rings in his ears and nose, repeating his phrase from the previous night:
“Bad day, man.”
“I know. Listen, sorry to bother you like this, but there’s a lot at stake. If we’re going to avoid a nuclear war, it’s critical we understand Kim’s psychology. You are the only one who seems to know him. I’d love to hear your insights.”
Rodman grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and we sat outside by the pool.
He began to describe his first visit to North Korea. He told me how surprised he had been to find Kim suddenly sitting by his side at a basketball game and how they had gone out to dinner that night and then drinking. That was how they had first gotten close.
“Kim took me home one time, and I held his baby,” Rodman said with emotion in his voice.
Rodman promised Kim that he would come back to Korea for Kim’s birthday and bring some basketball stars with him. When Rodman fulfilled his promise, Kim told him:
“You’re the only person who has ever kept his promise to me. You’re a friend for life.”
“No one else may believe this,” Rodman said, “but Kim told me he doesn’t want war. I believe he is serious when he says he wants peace.”
I was impressed by Rodman’s conviction as he spoke. He continued:
“Kim once told me his dream. His dream is to walk down Fifth Avenue, go to Madison Square Garden, and watch the Bulls play the Knicks, sitting on the floor with me. Can you believe it?”
That little gold nugget about Kim’s dream was worth the entire trip. A tiny bell went off for me, like the one I heard when my Brazilian friend Abilio, whose story I recounted earlier, told me about his dream of freedom. I got a little glimpse into the human being behind the caricature, the avid boyhood fan of the Bulls. In a wild flight of imagination, I wondered what it might take to make Kim’s dream come true.
Why not find out? With the negative possibilities so dark, we needed to look for any thread of positive possibility. Rodman’s conversations with Kim raised the faint chance that Kim just might be open to engaging with the United States and the West. If he and Trump could meet—which seemed highly improbable at the time—maybe, just maybe, the immediate crisis could be de-escalated and nuclear war averted.
While I was listening to Rodman, it occurred to me that one possible reason he had developed such personal chemistry with Kim was that they appeared to share the same feeling of “me against the world.” They both seemed to feel misunderstood, underestimated, stigmatized, and treated like outsiders. They were rebels out to prove their detractors wrong.
From what I knew about Donald Trump, he shared some of the same personality characteristics. Like both Kim and Rodman, he took great pleasure in proving the world wrong. In a psychological sense, the three of them were akin.
