I’m sitting across the table from a union that was negotiating their first contract with my employer. They expected I would agree to all of their demands because they were taken from a different union contract that my employer had previously agreed to. A contract that was over 30 years seasoned, if you will. That’s just a high sounding term that means the contract had been negotiated, and was in existence, for over 30 years. Their rationale? We had already agreed to these proposals so we were “obligated” to give them the same items!

They had expected that I would agree to all of it by day #2 of our sessions, while we were still discussing initial proposals!
Not very realistic.

Did I? No!
Were they upset?
Uh…ANGRY was more accurate.
They even called my supervisor to complain about me. Something about not negotiating in good faith.

I had tried nicely to tell them that there was no way I was going to agree to items in their first contract that the other union had to wait decades to get. They just weren’t going to get the same terms without going through the process. Nothing was automatic!

Why did I do this? After all, we had already agreed to these very same proposals in other contracts. So why take a hard stance?

To be honest, as this was their first contract, I had to dampen their expectations a bit. They had to work to get these proposals! Why? Because there were items I needed to get and I needed them to feel giving me what I needed for my side was worth what they were going to get back!

Even on my side, I’ve had members of the team flat out say “we are not going to give that up!” “Never, Never, Never!!”
OK, well sooner or later you’ll still have to give something in order to get something.

To reach any resolution, if we are expecting to “get” something, we need to be prepared to give something up in return. I’ve found this to be true in negotiations and in life. If we don’t choose to give something up, well then maybe what we thought we wanted wasn’t that valuable after all.

So what are you prepared to give up?

JT

click the link below to see what Rick Astley thinks..