Bruce Patton is deputy director of the Harvard Negotiation Project , which he cofounded with Roger Fisher and William Ury in 1979, and a founder and director of Vantage Partners, LLC., a consulting firm that helps organizations manage critical negotiations and relationships. From 1985 through 1999 Patton was Thaddeus R. Beal Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, where he continues to teach part-time. Patton’s experience includes training the white cabinet and the A.N.C. Negotiating Committee in South Africa before the constitutional talks that ended apartheid, mediating at the behest of both governments in the 1980 U.S.-Iranian hostage conflict, and working with Oscar Arias on Central American peace. His clients are among the world’s best-known corporations. Patton is coauthor with Fisher and Ury of Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (2nd ed., 1991) and with Stone and Heen of Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (1999).