Q: Can you explain to me the concept of formula?

A: Yeah. I started out in the negotiation business by being trained in international relations. I was also trained in part and developed a specialty as an area specialist. The first books that I did were on international relations and area studies. I did a book on the international relations of Africa, which I thought was interesting because it showed that the concepts of international relations could be applied to a new developing area. Then somebody said in a review that this was all unimportant because the relations of Africa that were important were not among African nations, but between Africa and Europe. So I said, "Ok. Well, I'll do a book on that." So I did a book on commercial trade relations between Africa and Europe. In the process came the word negotiations and the politics of trade negotiations, and so I looked at all the theory of that time in the early 70s and mid-70s on the subject of negotiation. I found it unreal, because it assumed parties started in fixed positions and by concessions worked towards a particular outcome. I had found in reality that that's not what they did. They first started by scouting the terrain and then coming to a general notion of what they were going to agree on. A general notion in terms of trade, a common sense of justice or a definition of the problem and of its solution — and that's a formula. Once they had a formula, they could talk about details. I think that holds pretty well and if that's what people do then — if they don't do it to negotiate badly or like in trade negotiations — the formula is already established and then they negotiate with it within that definition.