Thursday, August 12: Day 19

Leadership in Crisis
   Rudy Guilani

Instructor:  Hannah Riley Bowles

Key Take Aways: 

• Direct Effects of Acute Stress:  1.  Decreased ability/time to collect info.  (Result:  Narrowed attention to possibilities.)  2.  Interferes with our "inner speech".  (Result:  Reduced working memory.)  3.  Distraction by physical stress.  (Result:  Reduced working memory.)
• What can we do to help people perform better under stress:  Reliance on pattern recognition.  Practice drills/table tops. 
• Communication in crisis. 
• People are:  Experiencing fear.  Seek truth and meaning.  Sink into despair.  Reflect on better times.  Feel helplessness.  Fell alone.
• Communicate to:  Inspire.  Acknowledge gravity.  Be optimistic with a forward vision.  Share examples of other harder times.  Call people to duty.  Create a sense of unity towards and overarching objective. 
• Green Grass/Brown Grass Approach.  In good times people want to hear about the green grass (good times).  In crisis, people want to hear about where it was worse.  At 911, Rudy Guilani compared NYC to London being bombed in WWII. 

Negotiations IV
  Deeport I

Negotiations V
  Deeport II

Instructor:  Guhan Subramanian.  We did a mock negotiation, Deeport. 

Key Takeaways...
1.  Build a winning coalition.  Identify likely and possible allies and potential blockers.  Don't assume that everyone wants the deal to happen.  2.  Maintain a blocking coalition.  Determine who can block the deal.  Work to devise commitments.  3.  In general, process matters!  Note timing, caucusing and sequencing shape substance.  A big room is a dangerous place; don't go there too early.  Finally, "Think strategically but act opportunistically."  Expect to be surprised and to have to modify you initial approach.

Suggested Reading: 
On complex, multi-party deal making: New Deal making Strategies for a Competitive Marketplace.
On deal setup:  3D Negotiation
On persuasion strategies:  Negotiation Genius
On Interpersonal Tactics:  Difficult Conversation
On negotiation across cultures:  The Global Negotiator

How do you think this negotiation went based upon this letter....

Dear President of American Airlines, Eastern Airlines, American Export Airlines, Colonial Airlines, Transcontinental, and United Airlines: 


This is the last call on the matter of the runway layout at the new airport.

Thursday, February 3rd, 1944, at my office, City Hall, at 2:30 p.m. o’clock, come prepared to make any suggestion or forever hold your peace. I have heard some grousing about the present layout which I know is not justified. If you have any cockeyed ideas on tangent runways that have not been tried out, save them for some other time.

I am willing to hear constructive criticism and to receive helpful suggestions. I cannot compete against white tablecloths and soft pencils. Everyone who gets two drinks under his belt is now designing runway layouts on restaurant tables.

We will have a map here, our consulting engineer will be here, and I expect to have the matter finally, completely and definitely settled.

You may bring anyone you desire from your engineering, technical and piloting staff. Lawyers cannot contribute anything. This is not a legal matter.

Very truly yours,


F. H. LaGuardia, Mayor



Farewell Dinner @ Harvard's Faculty Club