It's Not Luck - Eliyahu M. Goldratt [3]
Julie makes sure that I’ll continue to be involved in running our family. That’s okay with me, especially when most of the burden is on her shoulders. But I don’t like it when I’m called in to be the bad guy. Julie should have known I wouldn’t allow Sharon to come home late.
“So, let me check. At seven o’clock I turn the oven on to 350 degrees, and after ten minutes I put in the lasagna.”
“Yes, darling,” Julie confirms. “Everything okay?”
“Not exactly. I’m afraid that Sharon will not be joining us for dinner tonight.”
“Uh-oh. That means you refused her point-blank.”
“Point-blank,” I firmly say. “What did you expect?”
“I expected that you would use the negotiation technique that Jonah taught us.”
“I’m not negotiating with my daughter,” I say, irritated.
“Your prerogative,” Julie says calmly. “You can dictate the answer, but be ready to suffer the consequences. Until at least Saturday, don’t expect to be popular with your little darling.”
When I don’t answer, she continues, “Alex, will you please reconsider? It is a typical case of negotiating. Just use the technique, write the cloud.”
I return to the TV to watch the news. Nothing new. Negotiations. The Serbs and the Muslims, the Israelis and the Arabs, another kidnapping. Everywhere you turn it’s negotiations.
At work, I had too many “opportunities” to negotiate with stubborn, obnoxious, illogical people. It was not fun. No wonder I refused to believe Jonah when he claimed that it’s not personalities to be blamed, but the situation. The situation where what you want and what the other party wants seem to be mutually exclusive; there is no acceptable compromise.
I agreed that such situations are tough, but insisted that the other person’s nasty personality had a lot to do with it. Then Jonah suggested I check to see that if when I start to feel that the other person is obstinate and illogical, the other person is developing exactly the same opinion of me.
I did check. Since then, in all my work negotiations, when things start to get rough, I use his technique. But at home? With Sharon?
Julie is right. Sharon and I were negotiating, and we did reach the point where each of us thinks that the other is illogical. If I don’t want to see a frowning face, I’d better follow Jonah’s guidelines.
“Whenever you identify that you are in a negotiation situation that doesn’t have an acceptable compromise, take the first step: immediately stop the dialogue.” I can hear Jonah’s words.
Sharon has already stopped the dialogue (if you can call two monologues going at the same time a dialogue).
I’m now on the second step, setting the right frame of mind; recognizing that in spite of how emotional it seems, it is not the other party who should be blamed for the situation, but rather that we are both captured in a conflict that does not have an amicable compromise.
This is not easy. I wasn’t the one who created the problem. But I guess that it’s ridiculous to blame Sharon for wanting to go to the party.
Maybe we can compromise? There is nothing holy in the number ten, I can go as far as allowing her to come home at ten-thirty. But that won’t be sufficient for her. And midnight is totally out of the question.
I’d better move to the next step, to write the cloud precisely. I go to the study to find the detailed instructions.
I can’t find them, but it really doesn’t matter—I remember them by heart. Taking a piece of paper and a pen, I start to reconstruct. The first question is: what do I want? In the upper right-hand corner I write, “Sharon home before ten o’clock.” Below it I write the answer to the question: what does she want? “Sharon home around twelve.” No way!
Okay, I calm myself down. Back to the technique. To satisfy what need, do I insist on what I want? “To protect the reputation of my daughter.” Come on, Alex, I say to myself, what harm is there in letting her go to the kids’ party? And what will the