Incorporating Problem Causers Into Solutions

“I learned that you must rely on people who might very well have caused the problem. You need to try to incorporate them into the solution. You need to find common ground with people of different philosophies and different views—despite your own earnest beliefs. I learned that you need to accept with some equanimity that solutions are never neat or even final. You need to be prepared to engage in negotiations that are messy and drawn out and seem perpetually to become undone. And I learned that the media are an inevitable—and even necessary—part of the process. You must be truthful. Candor will breed less panic than evasion.”