Using transcripts from the Program on Negotiation’s Great Negotiator Award seminars, as well as teaching cases based on the work of the Great Negotiators, this article analyzes how several of these Great Negotiators worked to make connections and establish good working relationships with their negotiating counterparts. Connection requires taking on a stance of curiosity about one's counterparts, cultivating good relationships as a way to learn about them and their priorities, using moves that facilitate their ability and willingness to negotiate, and helping them save face in front of their key constituencies. Making connected moves at the moment can lead to turning points in a negotiation.

I attended the first seminar on critical moments held in 2004. Following the seminar, I wrote “Staying in the Game or Changing It: An Analysis of Moves and Turns in Negotiation,” focused on what I labeled social positioning in negotiation (Kolb 2004a). Based on my work on gender, I was primarily concerned with how negotiators use “turns” to create or restore some form of equity in a negotiation. The idea is that negotiators often make moves to gain advantage and these moves can put the other person on the defensive. There are ways to use what I called restorative turns to establish one’s sense of agency; these methods include asking questions, making corrections, role reversal, and silence. But also, in that article, I discussed the notion of participative turns meant to connect with the other party. It is this notion of connection that I want to pursue in this article.

In the 2019 incarnation of the seminar on critical moments, Professor James Sebenius showed a selection of videos from both the Harvard Program on Negotiation’s Great Negotiator seminars and Harvard’s project on American Secretaries of State. Watching these videos, I was struck, and surprised, by the examples of connection—moves to create a good relationship at the interpersonal level. And these connecting moves seemed to occur both at the outset of the negotiation (that is they were planned) and in the moment—in response to some difficult situations. Intrigued, I felt challenged to analyze the Great Negotiator videos and transcripts to see what we could learn about connection, both planned and spontaneous.

Connection is not a new topic for me. My book (with Judith Williams) The Shadow Negotiation (2000) focused on what we called advocacy and connection, the parallel dynamics we observed as parties negotiate over issues. Based on our work studying women across a range of negotiating situations, we focused especially on “power moves,” those actions taken to bring reluctant parties to the table. The tactics of connection, which we called “appreciative moves,” were intended to create a positive position for the other party. We outlined ways that one party would recognize and appreciate the value of the other, give them space and opportunity to talk about themselves, who they were, what they wanted, and why they wanted it. We described these moves as some of the invisible work of trust and relationship building (Fletcher 1999; Kolb and Williams 2001; Kolb 2004b). Good relationships don’t just happen—they need to be cultivated. And if we know that good relationships lead to better outcomes (Druckman, Olekalns, and Smith 2009), then it is important to understand some of the ways that these relationships are built. Connecting moves, I want to suggest, is one of those ways.

In 2000, the Program on Negotiation (PON) at Harvard Law School launched the Great Negotiator Award. The award has been presented to twelve individuals whose achievements in negotiation and dispute resolution have had a significant impact on society (See Table One for list of the Great Negotiator Award recipients). The Award not only honors the recipients’ accomplishments; it also provides an opportunity for learning about the ways in which great negotiators work. This occurs in several ways. First, students—with faculty support—create a draft teaching case (based on interviews with the recipient as well as other publicly available documents) that PON faculty members use to draw up a set of discussion topics. The Program holds seminars open to the wider PON community. In the seminar, PON faculty members lead a conversation with the award recipient and then open up the discussion for questions and comments from students and other attendees. In the evening, at a dinner honoring the Great Negotiator and attended by invited guests, the award is given, and the recipient has an opportunity to make remarks. The seminar discussions and the dinner remarks are taped. Most, but not all, of the tapes are transcribed, and the transcriptions have been used to generate teaching cases on some but not all of the recipients.1 I had access to the existing teaching cases and the transcripts on which they were based.

Table One

Great Negotiator Award Recipients1

2000: George Mitchell, former United States senator from Maine 
2001: Charlene Barshefsky, United States trade representative 
2002: Lakhdar Brahimi, Algerian United Nations diplomat 
2003: Stuart Eizenstat, former United States ambassador to the European Union 
2004: Richard Holbrooke, American diplomat 
2005: Sadako Ogata, Japanese diplomat 
2007: Bruce Wasserstein, American investment banker, businessman, and writer 
2008: Christo and Jeanne‐Claude, environmental artists 
2010: Martti Ahtisaari, former president of Finland 
2012: James A. Baker, former United States secretary of state 
2014: Tommy Koh, former United Nations representative for Singapore 
2017: Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Colombia 
2000: George Mitchell, former United States senator from Maine 
2001: Charlene Barshefsky, United States trade representative 
2002: Lakhdar Brahimi, Algerian United Nations diplomat 
2003: Stuart Eizenstat, former United States ambassador to the European Union 
2004: Richard Holbrooke, American diplomat 
2005: Sadako Ogata, Japanese diplomat 
2007: Bruce Wasserstein, American investment banker, businessman, and writer 
2008: Christo and Jeanne‐Claude, environmental artists 
2010: Martti Ahtisaari, former president of Finland 
2012: James A. Baker, former United States secretary of state 
2014: Tommy Koh, former United Nations representative for Singapore 
2017: Juan Manuel Santos, former President of Colombia 

In some years the award was not given.

Notwithstanding the recognition of award recipients as Great Negotiators, most awardees were honored and celebrated for their work as great mediators. That is, the negotiations that exemplified their work were ones in which they helped other parties negotiate an agreement, for example:

  • George Mitchell was honored for his work in Northern Ireland;

  • Stuart Eizenstadt was honored for his work on Holocaust Asset Restitution;

  • Martti Ahtisaari was honored for his work on the Helsinki accords between the Free Aceh Movement and the Indonesian government;

  • Tommy Koh was honored for his work in many disputes including the Singapore Free Trade Agreement and the Law of the Sea; and

  • Lakshmi Brahimi was honored for the multiple dispute resolution roles he has played in Afghanistan.

While the cases listed above contain many useful insights, the roles that the negotiators played in them makes it difficult to see the negotiators’ connecting moves. My focus, therefore, is on the great negotiators who were parties to the negotiations for which they were honored. This group of negotiators includes:

  • Charlene Barshefsky, U.S. trade representative during the Clinton Administration in the 1990s;

  • Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1999 to 2001;

  • Sadako Ogata, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1991 to 20002;

  • James Baker, the United States Secretary of State during the unification of Germany;

  • Jeanne‐Claude and Christo for their work with multiple parties, particularly farmers, during their negotiations over the construction of the “Running Fence” in 1976;

  • Tommy Koh in his role as Chief Negotiator for Singapore in trade negotiations with the U.S. (2000–2003) and for his earlier work on the Law of the Sea; and

  • Juan Manuel Santos for his role in negotiations between the Columbian government and the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia).3

The insights about the connection discussed below come primarily from these cases and transcripts.

Connection is a process of dialogue and inquiry intended to foster mutual engagement and relationship building. The invisible work of connection involves having a stance of curiosity and using appreciative moves to give people the space to tell their stories, to help them save face, and to keep the dialogue going (Kolb and Bartunek 1992; Kolb and Williams 2001). Several of the Great Negotiators talked about the importance of connection. James Baker, for example, at his Award Dinner Speech, asserted that building trust through personal relationships and reciprocal confidence building were key to many of his negotiations.

When both sides trust each other in their personal relationships, even the most contentious talks can succeed because that permits you to then explore territory outside of your formal negotiating positions. You’re more relaxed. You’re willing to open up and they’re willing to open up. You can talk about your assumptions and your strategies and even your fears without fear that it’s going to prejudice your position. It doesn’t guarantee success, but it sure as hell improves the odds.

While he spoke about this, he did not provide specific examples of how he accomplished “trust building.”4

Charlene Barshefsky and Face Saving

When Charlene Barshefsky was appointed the United States Trade Representative in 1997, she had a reputation of approaching problems with the patience and precision of a safecracker. In my interview with Barshefsky in 2001, she said that “there are 2000 ways to get what you need. But you need to play out the scenarios. What are you going to say when they say x and then what are they going to do when you say that…? It is a helpful exercise because it helps you fine‐tune what you need to do.”

Barshefsky also talked about the invisible work she did to build relationships. For example, she described how in negotiations with Japan—her first challenge as Trade Representative—she built a personal relationship with her Japanese counterpart, Sozaburo Okamatsu. Although the negotiations were tough, when not negotiating the two met and shared stories about their daughters and exchanged gifts that each gave to the other’s daughters.

Barshefsky also referenced two important moves she made to build trust in the U.S—China negotiations. In the set‐up to the negotiations, she needed to reassure the Chinese that “they were not going to be sucker‐punched a second time,” and that a deal was possible. By enlisting the attendance of Gene Sperling—a major advisor to President Clinton—she signaled that there was no longer any debate among the president’s advisors. Sperling’s attendance symbolically showed that notwithstanding the nastiness of the past, the team was authorized to do the deal. And in her rejection of an offer from Chinese President Jiang Zemin to meet during negotiations, Barshefsky showed that she was sensitive to his possible humiliation if negotiations broke down.

But one of the most cited examples of face‐saving and staying cool under pressure is Barshefsky’s response to a threat from her counterpart during U.S.– China trade negotiations. According to the case, the following occurred:

During one particularly arduous negotiating session, the Chinese insisted they had gone as far as they could go on an important intellectual property market access issue. In making this point, the Chinese negotiator … menacingly, leaned far forward across the table towards Barshefsky and said flatly, “it’s take it or leave it.” Barshefsky, taken aback by his harsh tone, surprised her counterpart by sitting quietly (in her account, she was stunned and possibly frightened). She waited 30–40 seconds—an eternity during a negotiation, especially for an American—and came back with a measured reply: “If the choice is take it or leave it, of course I’ll leave it. But I can’t imagine that’s what you meant. I think what you meant is that you’d like me to think over your last offer and that we can continue tomorrow. But I hope you understand that what you’re putting on the table is inadequate, but I am going to be thinking tonight about what you suggested.”

It is not clear exactly what Barshefsky was thinking when she said what she said. Was she shocked and somewhat frightened? Had she expected something like this to occur? Whatever the motivation—maybe it was one of the 2,000 ways she thought the process would play out—it seems to be in keeping with the way that connection in the form of face‐saving played into her negotiation strategy in the moment. And it created a turning point in the negotiations. When the two sides met the following morning, a compromise ensued (Sebenius and Hulse 2001).

Richard Holbrooke and A Broad Strategy of Connection to Negotiate U.S. Dues to the United Nations

Richard Holbrooke was celebrated as a great negotiator for his leadership in bringing about the Dayton Peace Accords5 and for surmounting the stalemate over the payment of U.S. dues to the United Nations. These negotiations were obviously quite different. Holbrooke’s challenge as UN Ambassador, a post he took up in 1999, was to negotiate an agreement that resulted in a reduction in the amount of dues owed by the U.S. to the UN, and a willingness by the U.S. to pay the reduced amount. To do so would require some adjustments in the dues that other countries paid. Holbrook’s negotiation strategy involved an elaborate coalition‐building campaign (Sebenius 2010). In reviewing the details of the strategy, we gain important insights into how connections over time and in the moment were significant parts of that campaign. There were three major occasions where Holbrooke used connection—with the U.S. Congress, with UN members, and in the end to get an agreement.

When Holbrooke took over as UN Ambassador, the U.S. was about $1.5 billion in arrears to the UN and was in danger of losing its General Assembly vote. A major stumbling block to working out an agreement was the proposed Helms‐Biden Amendment that put overall limits on the U.S. contribution and prohibited the use of the contribution for family planning programs. It seemed possible that a White House‐supported modified bill would pass in the Senate, but there was pushback in the House. Holbrooke set about connecting with as many House members as possible.

He buttonholed individual members of Congress, sometimes dozens in a day—not just those in leadership positions, but rank‐and‐file members, many of whom had never been sought out by a UN ambassador. He made an impression just by taking the trouble to visit. He also carefully crafted his message for his audience.… “It’s about national security,” he would say.

The Helms‐Biden amendment passed, which gave the go‐ahead for Holbrooke’s work with the UN.

As he did with members of the U.S. Congress, Holbrooke approached his work with UN member countries at a personal level—meeting with individual diplomats, listening to them, and appreciating their concerns. He needed to persuade the member states to accept some measure of reform, including adjusting the scales of assessment in a way that was favorable to the United States. He described the way he approached the challenge through connected moves:

I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours getting to know the ambassadors, the foreign ministers, their wives, and the issues facing each country, so they knew I took them seriously. I spent time with ambassadors from countries like Fiji and Chad—the smallest countries. I called on them in their missions, which made a big impact on them. Many said they’d never had an American ambassador visit them before, and they took photographs of the event…. The Caribbean group—we gave special dinners and asked Harry Belafonte to be the guest—to show them respect…. With the Chinese Ambassador I worked overtime…. We just kept looking for openings.

Finally, Holbrooke had to go back to Congress to persuade its members to accept a deal that failed to meet all the benchmarks of the Helms‐Biden Amendment. He used his connections to do so at a critical turning point. Holbrooke brought Senator Helms to New York to address the Security Council, something that Helms long had wanted to do. In response, Helms, through Holbrooke, invited diplomats from fifteen UN member states (including the Chinese) to Washington and gave a lunch for the entire Senate. “In the end, Helms got the reform package and a standing ovation.”

Holbrooke said that his negotiation approach derived from his Wall Street experience.

He described two kinds of bankers—transaction bankers and relationship bankers. He saw himself as more on the relationship side of the ledger—the relationship banker who understands the company, its culture, and its leadership, and who shows loyalty and commitment to his clients. But you need both.

[A]t the same time, I studied the numbers, and I knew more about the contributions to the U.N. and the per capita GDP of many of these countries than the ambassadors themselves…. You have to do both sides of the equation. If you just rely on schmoozing and personality, you may end up giving something away or missing something; and if you only focus on the details, without having a feeling for the politics and the culture, you may never get there.

Roger Fisher put it well at the seminar in 2004, citing the power of positive rapport building, trust building, and connection with people as an enormous plus. It was Holbrook’s approach, perhaps by both necessity and style. When asked to contrast negotiating the UN dues with his work at Dayton, he said—“Yeah, we couldn’t bomb them,” and then he highlighted first, the difference in the parties he was dealing with.

[In Dayton], they were genocidal murderers. They were racists. They were rapists. They were criminals. And we decided to delegitimize them when I came into the negotiation.

Jeanne‐Claude and Christo

In 2008, Jeanne‐Claude and Christo—known for their public art, notably wrapping the Reichstag in Berlin and the Pont‐Neuf in Paris and erecting the Central Park Gates in New York—received the Great Negotiator Award at a seminar that was appropriately held at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston. The seminar focused on the negotiations they carried out in Sonoma and Marin counties to build the “Running Fence,” on which Jeanne‐Claude and Christo worked from 1972 until its completion in 1976. As is true in all of their projects, Jeanne‐Claude and Christo’s work on the Running Fence involved creating artworks to fund the project and obtaining the support of key constituencies, which at times included the mayor of Paris and the President of the Parliament in Berlin. The key constituency with whom Jeanne‐Claude and Christo needed to negotiate in order to construct the Running Fence were the ranchers whose land the fence would traverse. With several important “blockers” threatening the project’s success—most notably, the local artists—the support of the ranchers was critical. And that relationship building fell primarily to Jeanne‐Claude.

Jeanne‐Claude had a clear stance of curiosity. Coming from New York City, she first had to learn about the hours the ranchers kept. Arriving at their homes at 7:30 PM to meet them for the first time, she was surprised to find that they were already in bed for the night. Then there were all the terms that she didn’t understand—what was a heifer field, she wondered. But she knew that she had to connect with the ranchers (and their wives) and so she did.

I had to try to understand the ranchers because if I don’t know anything about their lives they had no reason to work with us…. I had at least 50 cups of coffee every day at the kitchen table talking to the wives of the ranchers…, we became friends and I kept going back and talking (and learning)…. I became a leading expert in how to pasteurize the milk and how artificial insemination of the cows was done…. It was important they could see that I cared. Ranchers are very pragmatic people … they are hard workers and they understood that we are hard workers.

The works of Jeanne‐Claude and Christo have been captured by Albert and David Mayles, well‐known documentary filmmakers; excerpts of their video about the Running Fence were shown in the seminar at which Jeanne‐Claude and Christo were honored. The excerpts showed them meeting and talking with the ranchers and seeing their animals. Jeanne‐Claude and Christo talked about watching the ranchers perform at rodeos. “We did all the things the ranchers did.” They mention many of them by name. In these video clips, it seems to me that when Christo speaks to the ranchers, he talks about the art and what building the fence will entail—the kind of fabric, for instance. Jeanne Claude, on the other hand, seems to be connecting with the ranchers about what they are doing, for example, herding goats and geese.

There is a wonderful clip of Jeanne‐Claude telling a story about connecting with one of the ranchers in the moment, a connection that became a turning point in the negotiations:

One day I had just finished a cup another cup of coffee with Mr. and Mrs. Brun in the kitchen. Well I don’t know, he says—when is your husband coming? He was walking me to the door and outside of the door, I had an idea because inside the kitchen, he had told me—what good is that fence? What does it do? I say it is joy and beauty and for the pleasure … there at the door, I see something I pretend I don’t recognize. What will come out of those leaves—radishes? potatoes? Oh no, no he says—these are flowers. Flowers I say what are they for? He says, “Honey, I got the message.”

Some of the ranchers spoke up at the hearings. One woman reinforced the notion of temporal art by talking about how sometimes her cooking is a work of art; it gets eaten and is gone. All the ranchers supported the Running Fence and insisted they had the right to do what they wanted with their land; moreover, they were being compensated for allowing the fence to go across their property.

In this rather untraditional negotiation case, in which Jeanne‐Claude and Christo needed the support of key players before they could construct their fence, we have some wonderful examples of how one creates connection. Jeanne‐Claude seemed genuinely curious about the ranchers and their lives. She wanted to get to know them, to create relationships—indeed maybe even friendships. And she did the invisible work to build the relationships—spending time with the ranchers, getting to know their work and their culture. Jeanne‐Claude, in the seminar at the ICA, alluded to the fact that what she learned and did in Sonoma and Marin counties would not count for very much when dealing with the German Parliament. And that is part of the lesson from this case. Although relationship building can be observed in multiple cases, the particular forms that connection takes will be unique to the demands of a specific situation.

Tommy Koh

Tommy Koh was honored in 2014 for the many negotiation/mediation roles he had played over the course of his career in Singapore and in the United Nations, in particular, his role at the Law of the Sea conference from 1978 to 1982 and at the Earth Summit in Rio (1990–1992). However, it is in his role as Singapore’s Trade Representative (2000–2003) where we see the ways he used connection, indeed, his connections, to bring about an agreement in challenging circumstances.

Toward the end of the Clinton Administration, at the Asia‐Pacific Economic Cooperation conference meeting, the Prime Minister of Singapore proposed to President Clinton (at a midnight golf game) that Singapore be the first in Asia to negotiate a free trade agreement with the U.S. Clinton agreed and Koh accepted the role of chief negotiator for Singapore (Green and Sebenius 2014). Koh had a good understanding of the challenges of the role as he had served as Ambassador to the U.S. from 1984 to 1990. He described these challenges in the Great Negotiator seminar (2014):

My nightmare scenario was that if organized labor (AFL‐CIO), the human rights lobby, and the green movement were to join hands, it would be a very serious obstacle to overcome…. My main problem was the AFL‐CIO because as a matter of ideology, they are protectionist and anti‐free trade and as a matter of principle they opposed all free trade agreements.

Koh described a number of moves he made to connect with this critical constituency. From his time in Washington, he had a good relationship with Lane Kirkland, the President of the AFL‐CIO and Koh reached out to him. He convinced Kirkland to send a fact‐finding mission to Singapore to see that workers were well treated, allowed to unionize, and paid fair wages. The mission came back with a positive report. His reaching out to connect with the AFL‐CIO resulted in a “gentleman’s agreement” in which the unions, despite their general opposition to free trade agreements, agreed that they would not campaign against the deal, nor lobby Congress to vote against it. Although Koh connected with many parties—Congress, members of the business community, the incoming Republican Administration, he saw his connections with the unions as a critical moment for the negotiations to go forward.

Critical moments in negotiation imply that something important happens that shapes the trajectory of the negotiation (Druckman 2019). In this article, I try to show some of the ways Great Negotiators made use of connected moves as a significant part of their strategy and how these moves led to agreements. Each negotiator started, to some degree, with empathy for the parties or what we have called a stance of curiosity, that is, they were genuinely interested in understanding and appreciating the situation from the perspective of those with whom they negotiated (Mnookin, Peppet, and Tulumello 1996; Kolb and Porter 2015). We see this most clearly in Jeanne‐Claude and Christo’s interactions with the ranchers, and with Holbrooke’s dealings with members of Congress and especially with the smaller nations, about which he did not know much and whose diplomats had never been visited by a U.S ambassador. Holbrooke gave them opportunities to talk about themselves, to tell their stories.

Jeanne‐Claude, Christo, and Holbrooke also showed ways that they appreciated the “face” (Goffman 1967) that the parties presented. But perhaps the clearest example of face‐saving is found in the actions that Barshefsky took to prevent embarrassment to her Chinese counterparts—both over the course of the negotiations and in the moment when she is threatened. So too, Jeanne‐Claude described the moves she made to learn about the culture of the ranchers with whom she dealt, highlighting the many mistakes she made. We see how she gives the relationships time to develop. With Holbrooke, especially in his dealings with Senator Jesse Helms and other members of Congress, who were not interested in the UN, we see him acknowledging the positions with which he disagreed. Holbrooke gave them opportunities to talk about themselves. Tommy Koh appreciated the challenge a free trade agreement would pose to Lane Kirkland in his position as a union leader, and so helped him by arranging for his members to learn about the good working conditions in Singapore. All of these moves helped to keep the dialogue going.

We also see examples of connections in the moment that might lead to “turning points.” That is, in the negotiators’ efforts to build trust and rapport, we see some interesting examples of making connected moves on the spot. Obviously, the clearest example of this is Barshefsky’s response to her counterpart’s threatening lunge. There are many responses we can imagine, but we should not be surprised that her move to pause and reframe this threat helped her counterpart save face, a connected move that led to a compromise the next day. With Jeanne‐Claude, we see a connected move at the moment, her inspiration to ask about the plant—was it a potato or radish?—in response to the rancher’s query about the purpose of art. Not only did she get the signature she sought, but that moment also enhanced the relationship; the rancher became a powerful supporter of the project. We also see it in several instances where Holbrooke makes connection at the moment, the most significant of which might be his sponsoring Helms’ trip to the UN. This seemed to be a major turning point in the support that Holbrooke could garner in Congress for his proposed agreement.

Using connection as a strategy is part of the invisible work of negotiation. We talk about trust and relationship building, rapport, and fostering interdependence, but with few exceptions (Walton and McKersie 1965; Graham 1995; Kolb and Williams 2000), we do not usually identify the moves that make these possible. Connection may be hard to detect in part because it requires going beyond what is said and what we are trained to notice. It may be in the nonverbal cues that we fail to observe—the specific ways we legitimate feelings, the encouragement we give to people to elaborate, the specific moves we make to keep the dialogue going, the ways we appreciate the needs of a party that may not be formally articulated. Indeed, invisible work is often “disappeared” because we fail to see the ways it can create critical moments that can lead to agreement making (Fletcher 1999). Our theories guide what we look for; this is plain in the ways that faculty direct their conversations with the Great Negotiators. With their focus on learning the specifics of how negotiators worked to get agreements, it is difficult to appreciate the less obvious connected moves that negotiators make. Maybe this will help.

1.

For some of the Great Negotiators, I had access to transcripts of their presentations. These include Richard Holbrooke and Tommy Koh. For Holbrooke, I also used Sebenius and Schneeman (2004). For Charlene Barshefsky, I relied on the written case (Sebenius, Hulse, and Mathews 2001). For Jeanne Claude and Christo, I was able to view the taped sessions of their seminar.

2.

Although it seemed to PON faculty that Ms. Ogata had many occasions to negotiate about refugees in her role as High Commissioner, we were challenged to get her to describe her negotiating strategies. Indeed, she could not recall instances when she had negotiated—she called it pressing, or pushing quietly, more than negotiating. As a result her case is not part of this paper.

3.

In the peace negotiations between FARC and Juan Manuel Santos, then President of Colombia, there is a nice example of connection that took place behind the scenes. In an effort to get regional support Santos sought out Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, whom he knew had some influence over the FARC, despite the strained relationship between the two leaders. When Santos reached out to Chavez to meet at a place that had meaning to Chavez, where Simon Bolivar had died, Chavez agreed to come. He arrived with a large entourage on Santos’ birthday. Chavez said, “I come on your birthday.” And Santos said, “Yes, but you said I was turning 48. I’m turning 58 and my wife is going to demand of me much more.” According to Santos, that gesture and his response broke the ice. Santos claimed that until the day that Chavez died, they had a very cordial and humorous relationship, which he said helped tremendously in the negotiations.

4.

We do not have much in the way of description of connection and trust building, in part because of the nature of the seminars and the negotiation principles that faculty try to elicit. Brahimi put it well in a story he told:

This is a story of an old British lady in India and she used to drive to Simla in those winding roads and when she arrived at this house of her friends, some people who drove with her complimented her. They said you are such a great driver, negotiating those hairpin curves like that, and you know changing gear at the right time, braking at the right time. And she said, “Who, me? I don’t do that at all.” They said but you drove extremely well. She said, “You know when I get to those curves, I just close my eyes and hope for the best.” So I thought that is what I have been doing these years, but apparently in Harvard you know better. So who am I to say that you are wrong? (Sebenius and Green 2011)

5.

During the lead up to the Dayton meetings, and indeed, during the sessions, we see some examples of Holbrooke bringing parties together. He brought together the foreign ministers of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia to get them to agree to respect the international boundaries of Bosnia. While these meetings were being held, the bombings continued—a fact that Holbrooke highlighted in his description of the Dayton negotiations. It would be hard to label these as connected moves.

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