Originally from Dispute Resolution Journal

Q: What interested you in conflict resolution and brought you to the field?

Roger Fisher: As a young lawyer I worked in the Solicitor General’s office and argued cases before the Supreme Court. It concerned me that there was so much litigation—that people didn’t deal better with their differences. I wondered why more cases were not settled. “Getting to Yes” really acknowledged that people need advice, and it offered up the best advice I could give both parties to a negotiation—how to listen, how to generate positive ideas, how to move forward, how to generate options.

Daniel Shapiro: I’ve been interested in conflict resolution for as long as I can remember. In the early 1990s, I had friends in eastern and central Europe, and as the wall was tumbling down in that part of the world, I was asking myself what I could do to be helpful in the transition from a closed to an open society. With funding from the Soros Foundation, I developed a conflict management program that would give some practical, common-sense skills to the people in that part of the world to deal with the differences that would come up in an open society. That program is used in at least 25 countries across the region and has reached more than a million people. According to research, a person can see another’s perspective starting at the age of 10, so the program is focused on students, who are not yet stuck in their ways.