You have to humanise the other side of the argument, negotiator Stuart Diamond tells RICHARD GILLIS

STUART DIAMOND is sitting where he has spent much of the last 25 years, on the other side of a table. "Of course I'm a pain in the ass," he says, "I was a journalist for Christ's sake, what do you expect?"

Diamond's reputation is that of "the world's best negotiator", and the conversation has jumped from the professional (dealing with terrorists, running an airline, doing deals) to the personal.

Negotiating is what he does, he says, laughing (he laughs a lot). This means "intervening" to question the behaviour or decisions of others, "whether it is the painters in the house or my son's teacher, or a client who is giving my secretary a bad time. I'm forever asking questions, challenging people in a non-threatening way as to why they're doing what they're doing."

Then, for a brief moment, the amiable persona drops its guard: "What I don't do is let unfairness go by."

This all gives the impression of Diamond as a hard-nosed lawyer type. He isn't. Rather, he is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist turned Wharton business school professor whose reputation is built on some serious third-party endorsement.

His lectures at Wharton and Penn law school have been among the most popular on the US university circuit for the past decade or more. Then, one Tuesday afternoon, Diamond got famous. Or, at least, his profile was raised among a small group of Hollywood executives and agents which, given their promotional clout, is effectively the same thing.

Ari Emanuel is Hollywood's most notorious talent agent, brother of Rahm Emanuel, who until last month served as Barack Obama's chief of staff in the White House. Ari himself is the model for Ari Gold of the HBO hit series Entourage, arguably the sharpest portrayal of life inside the dream factory to have aired over the past decade.

A third Emanuel brother, Zeke, had attended Diamond's Wharton school seminars and suggested the professor "had some tools he could use" in the protracted and very expensive feud between the Writers' Guild of America and the Hollywood studios.

From November 2007 into late 2008, the guild went on strike over unpaid residuals, effectively shutting down most of the television and film output for that period. The cost is estimated to have been $733 million (€523 million) to the LA film business, with the wider economy losing about $1.3 billion.

Diamond was put on a trunk call with John Bowman, the chief negotiator for the Writers' Guild, and the script quickly raced toward a happy ending.

Two days later Bowman was due to meet representatives from the heads of the studios, the latest in a series of such talks that had become stuck in a classic stalemate.

Diamond gave Bowman "a silver bullet" that ended the strike. "John Bowman wanted to talk about the substantive issues - royalties, basic compensation issues, etc - but I told him, 'Put aside these issues, for now at least'," says Diamond. "I told him to go to the studios and ask how they feel: are they happy? Then I said to ask them if they are making money."

The answer to both questions was a resounding "No". But the act of building empathy and trust, central to Diamond's philosophy, was the key to unlock the stalemate.

"It was important to commiserate with the studios, and to ask the question, 'If you had to do this over again, how would you do it?' It took 30 minutes to restart the negotiation and two days to get both parties to an agreement in principle."

Another concession was to remove two "New York Garment District lawyers" (shorthand for aggressive transactional attorneys) who had been "driving the Hollywood people crazy".

Sounds easy doesn't it? Well, says Diamond, it is. "The lesson is that these tools are not rocket science, but unless you know them, they're completely invisible."

"Not every negotiation can get to a resolution so quickly, but quite often, as soon as you find the right lever, it is done, - no matter how many years you've been fighting with them."

The phrase "win-win" hangs over any discussion on negotiation; the received wisdom offered by virtually every text book.

Intriguingly, Diamond doesn't buy it: "I think win-win is an overused and often forced concept," he says. "First, the world is an irrational place. And the more important the negotiations - world peace, the billion-dollar deal, brush your teeth before bedtime - the less rational people are. I need to give emotional payments to get them to listen to me.

"When I am irrational I don't want to hear about win-win . . . All I want is for you to make me feel better.

"Meeting your goals is what it's about. It may mean that you might have to lose today to get more tomorrow, and win-win misses the point. It's the sort of thing that works in the classroom but it doesn't work in the real world."

The real world is where Diamond has cultivated the 12 rules of negotiation that form the basis of his book, Getting More. The guiding principle - "People Are (Almost) Everything" - focuses on the need to humanise those on the other side of the argument, whether they are terrorists or bankers.

"I'm convinced that the president of North Korea wants love," he says. "We don't talk to him, we sanction him. That's not the way to win friends and influence people. Your mother was right: you catch more flies with honey than vinegar."

The financial crisis has turned bankers into "the new lawyers", an understandable reaction, but one that is unhelpful to finding a way forward.

"At one end of the spectrum we have bigotry, where we ascribe an individual face to entire groups. But what I say is that all negotiation needs to be situational, and you have to ascribe individual traits to individuals. That makes every negotiation more precise and more effective."

To ascribe negative characteristics to all bankers is not fair or helpful, says Diamond. "The other thing you need to do is set standards. What is the criteria in terms of how people should act? If banks were bailed out, yet still give themselves bonuses, why didn't the government two years ago say you can't have 'X' amount until you pay back the money we lent you?

"Why blame it on the bankers when it was a lack of foresight in the original negotiation?"

Any time a negotiation fails it is always my fault, he says. "I'm the one I can control and I'm the one I can make better."

The political reality is "politicians hate to take the blame for anything because it may mean votes. On the other hand, people like it when people are straight."

He believes George W Bush was elected in 2004 because he told Americans: "You might not agree with what I stand for but at least you know where I stand.

"People know other people are not perfect. What they don't want is to be trifled with, lied to and have the facts covered up."

Then, as the interview ends, the self-confessed "pain in the ass" hands me his business card. On the back it has a diagram, with his own patented Getting Morerules. Always negotiating, I say. "Right," says Diamond, shaking hands, "it opens doors every day".

STUART DIAMOND WHAT HE SAYS

"The more important the negotiations - world peace, the billion-dollar deal, brush your teeth before bed - the less rational people are

"I'm convinced that the president of North Korea wants love.

"Why blame it on the bankers when it was lack of foresight in the original negotiation?

"I think win-win is an overused and often forced concept.

Stuart Diamond will lecture at UCD on Thursday, October 21st at 6.30pm. Admission is free but tickets must be booked via johnhumeinstitute@ucd.ie