How do you persuade a president, negotiate with Russia, and build a coalition when change seems impossible?
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and USAID Administrator Samantha Power joins Stan Christensen for a candid conversation about diplomacy, negotiation, and leading through crisis. Power, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Problem from Hell and The Education of an Idealist, shares how she talked her way into covering the war in Bosnia, what she learned negotiating the removal of Syria's chemical weapons, and why Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin was the best negotiator she ever faced.
They also discuss how to raise human rights issues without sounding moralistic, what really worked in persuading President Obama, the Ebola response, the dismantling of USAID and its human cost, and the lessons from her Harvard course on making change when change is hard, including why every coalition needs both "Baptists and bootleggers."
0:00 Samantha Power and The Education of an Idealist
0:30 The audiobook and a letter to her son
2:15 How a failed negotiation made her a war correspondent
4:05 Writing her own press badge
4:45 Why you have to get close to the issue
6:50 Negotiation lessons: leave it all on the field
9:30 Leading USAID
11:15 How USAID was dismantled
15:10 Why Congress didn't push back
24:20 How to persuade President Obama
27:40 Raising human rights in policy debates
33:25 Syria, chemical weapons, and the red line
41:30 Negotiating with Russia's Vitaly Churkin
45:35 Lessons from the Ebola response
51:15 Teaching social change at Harvard
52:25 Shrink the change
53:30 Find your Baptists and bootleggers
SAMANTHA POWER
Harvard Kennedy School faculty page
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/samantha-power
BOOKS BY SAMANTHA POWER
The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-education-of-an-idealist-samantha-power
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (2003 Pulitzer Prize)
https://www.amazon.com/Problem-Hell-America-Age-Genocide/dp/0465061516
Chasing the Flame: One Man's Fight to Save the World
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/300934/chasing-the-flame-by-samantha-power/
HER HARVARD COURSE WITH CASS SUNSTEIN
Making Change When Change Is Hard: The Law, Politics, and Policy of Social Change
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/courses/making-change-when-change-hard-law-politics-and-policy-social-change
BOOKS DISCUSSED
Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/77696/switch-by-chip-heath-and-dan-heath/
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Team-of-Rivals/Doris-Kearns-Goodwin/9780743270755
LISTEN TO ALL THINGS NEGOTIATION
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/all-things-negotiation/id1769229339
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AllThingsNegotiation
Host Stan Christensen has spent his career as a professional negotiator and teaches negotiation at Stanford. On All Things Negotiation, he talks with leaders, diplomats, and thinkers about how persuasion and influence work in the real world.
#SamanthaPower #Negotiation #Diplomacy #USAID #AllThingsNegotiation
