Last week, I had the immense privilege of interviewing Paul Fisher, who leads the Oxford Programme on Negotiation.

Without further ado, here are his insights on negotiation. Enjoy !

The Road to Oxford

Paul, you run the negotiation programme at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Was this always the plan, or did life have other ideas?

I'd say it's probably a happy accident. I studied politics and international relations, did some postgraduate work in the US, and then ran my own company for many years, working with a wide variety of clients, public and private sector, including international organisations like the United Nations. I learned to negotiate as many people do, through experience.

My first formal link with negotiation was in the early 2000s. With a couple of colleagues, we noticed there was nothing comparable to the Harvard programme in Europe. So we set up a standalone programme at Oxford. The head of executive education at Saïd Business School liked the negotiation elements, and at the time they didn't have negotiation in their portfolio. So the programme got absorbed into the business school, and I took over as director in 2018.

After all these years, what still fascinates you about negotiation?

Everything. It's always evolving. AI is playing a growing role in preparation, strategizing, managing data, structuring scenarios, though it's not quite there yet in terms of negotiating on your behalf.

But in the majority of cases, negotiation is still between human beings. And human beings are not always that predictable. The psychological aspects remain fascinating. And we see negotiation playing out in geopolitics all the time, Brexit ended up being a case study on how not to negotiate, and then there's Trump, taking what he learned in real estate and trying to apply it in high-stakes geopolitics.

It doesn't always transfer that easily.

You're also writing a book this year.

Yes, with Baroness Cathy Ashton, who was the chief negotiator of the first Iran nuclear deal in 2015. We're taking her stories from diplomacy and seeing how they apply in the world of business. I think there's a lot we can learn. Leaders in big organisations are essentially diplomats too, how you manage pressure, multiple stakeholders, how you bring your team with you.

Inside the Programme

How would you describe the Oxford Negotiation Programme to someone considering it?

I'd say there are four things that really set it apart.

First, we have a really wide faculty, and we focus deeply on the nuances of negotiation. We start with fundamental principles and then we add different layers.

How you claim value, but also how you create value, so both parties are better off.

We look at negotiation as something that often starts with yourself, that internal negotiation. So we focus on your styles, how you manage emotions, your authentic self. So much of negotiation is about self-awareness, about emotional intelligence.

Then we layer in culture, complex multi-issue and multi-party negotiations, biases, the psychology of how information is presented and interpreted.

Second, we bring in exceptional outside speakers. Sue Williams, one of the world's leading hostage negotiators, she was the chief UK hostage negotiator, advising the Prime Minister when British citizens were taken captive abroad. Baroness Cathy Ashton, on the Iran deal and negotiating with Putin. Very different environments, but the tools and methodologies are remarkably similar.

Third, the tutors. These are experienced negotiation practitioners from a real diversity of cultures. They observe you throughout the week and give you real-time feedback. One of the challenges for most of us is that we rarely get feedback on how we come across when we negotiate. Everyone has two one-on-one sessions with their tutor. It really personalises the learning.

And fourth: learning while doing. About 60% of the week is spent in simulations. We start simple, one-on-one, two or three issues, and gradually make them more complex. By the end of the week, you're doing messy, multi-party negotiations where you have to build coalitions and someone might just not want the deal to happen at all. It's a safe space to try things out.

It's a one-week programme. Sunday to Friday?

That's right. Everyone arrives on Sunday afternoon and leaves Friday afternoon.

Who comes to the programme? What kind of profiles?

Our participants often come with ten or more years of negotiation experience, from a wide range of industries, business, non-profit, public sector. These are not beginners. They've been doing this for a long time.

These are people who already know how to negotiate — or think they do. So what are they really looking for?

That's exactly the point. The programme shows you where you actually are. It's about self-awareness. You may think you're good, or you may think you're not, either way, the programme helps you understand yourself better. The tutors observe participants throughout the entire week, what they say, how they say it, how they interact with others. There is a very strong focus on the person. We all tend to be egocentric, so this process helps eliminate certain biases and break down limiting beliefs. The best mindset to arrive with is "I don't know" rather than a bag full of certainties. You have to be humble.

What beliefs do they walk in with that you need to deconstruct?

One of the big ones is about power.

But that's often a mental construction. The other side is just as nervous, just as stressed, just as blind as you are. And you generally have far more resources at your disposal than you think.

How would you assess the maturity of organisations when it comes to negotiation?

There are real limits. Take procurement, for example. People can become trapped by process. They focus enormously on metrics, and those metrics end up guiding the buyers, but in doing so, they often forget or sacrifice the relationship, and they lose sight of fairness. That's a significant limitation. What we teach is to invest in the relationship, to understand that a deal needs a dimension of fairness for the other party, not just "is this good for me?", and that's what enables something more long-term and sustainable.

What are the biggest gaps you observe?

Preparation ! It's remarkably weak across the board. People tend to focus almost exclusively on the issue itself, but without truly preparing in depth. They put some thought into the relationship, though not nearly enough. And they almost completely neglect the "how", the process. That's a major gap. We have a lot to learn from diplomatic negotiations in that respect.

Anything else?

Listening. Most people come into a negotiation focused on what they're going to say, how they're going to make their case. But the real skill is the opposite: seek to understand before being understood. It sounds simple. In practice, it's one of the hardest things to do.

Have negotiation practices genuinely evolved, or are we still recycling the same methods?

They have evolved. The famous book Getting to Yes, truly one of the best, argued that you should separate the people from the problem. But that's somewhat illusory. It's actually quite impossible to do in practice.

When your participants leave the programme, what have they actually learned?

They've learned, truly in practice, not in theory, to listen. They've learned to prepare better. And they've learned to know themselves better.

Paul Fisher is Programme Director of the Oxford Negotiation Programme at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

Philippe Roy is the founder of Red Yucca, a global negotiation advisory firm, and keynote speaker — "Negotiation Unfiltered."