What’s up with Jack? First let me assure you, Jack is not my name.
Nor is this a Jack series of postings about people named Jack.
However, when I was in high school, my freshman english teacher began calling me Jack because there was another student named John and she didn’t want to get confused. So my name WAS changed for that one year, in that one class.
But back to this post.
One time I received a call from a coworker, one who worked with a different state agency, and she asked me if my name was Jack. I told her that, well, we had worked together for a number of years, she had always called me John. Why would she think my name was now Jack? She seemed embarrassed so I didn’t follow up with additional questions.
I now call those mix ups “connie mistakes.”
The explanation was simple, another coworker told me. I had recently met with a group of agency representatives and gone over contract proposals with them. After I went through and reviewed all the Employer proposals, I presented the “Jack” proposals. The proposals designed to “jack” with the other side. The person who had called to ask my real name was confused after I had introduced the “jack” proposals. She had thought since they were “my” proposals then my name must have been “Jack.”
Hey, Jack! my co worker began to call me.
“Jack off” was my response!
At that time, whenever my office would prepare for a round of negotiations we would send a proposal form to all of the team caucus members to get their input on what we wanted to get from our negotiations.
On the form was a ranking system of
1 Must have;
2 Like to Have;
3 Housekeeping and;
4 Throwaway.
Pretty simple.
The intent was to see what team members thought of their own proposal. Must haves were fought for to the end. Like to haves were fought for but in all likelihood probably would not make it into the final agreement.
Housekeeping items were usually used to correct misspellings, typos and other grammatical errors.
And then, there was category #4. I never liked category 4, The Throwaway.
If your proposal fell in this pile, you might as well forget it. No One would take those proposals seriously. We would propose them but would take them off the table pretty quickly. We’d say we’d use them for leverage but you won’t get much leverage if you withdraw them within the first couple sessions.
So, going forward in all my negotiations I used a different term. The “Jack proposal”. I didn’t use throwaways.
No sir, I used jack proposals.
You need to understand that if a team member gave me a proposal I used it. No throwaways.
I presented all of their proposals. Now before you ask “All of them?”
Yes, all of them as long as they were defensible and supported our side.
But the “Jack” proposal?
It was meant to play with the other side. It was meant to “jack” with them. I would use one and then wait for the other side’s reaction. Usually they would get upset, even angry over what ever Jack proposal I offered.
Once I proposed to reduce vacation days and other benefits and the reaction was immediate and angry. It showed me what tripped their trigger.
What got them angry. And the worse the proposal was to them the more angry they got and the harder they worked to get our side to withdraw it.
Which meant of course that they would be willing to bargain with us to get us to withdraw the”Jack” proposal.
Smart you say? No Jackgenious!
Why do this? Why be so mean?
Well, if my side claims to be out of money, nothing in the bank, well then you better have proposals to support your claim. And also simply put, if the other side’s initial proposals were extreme then you had better insure your proposals also reflect that very position.
And besides, if you propose something “out there” then the other side has to spend energy getting you back to center.
And to be sure, the other side uses “Jack” proposals all the time.
They just call them “reasonable and responsible proposals designed to promote the common welfare.”
Let me introduce you to my friend Jack.
JT
here is some Jack back at you…
click the link for some more jack understanding!