How do I approach conflict? I think the first thing that jumped into my mind was at the Orange County Transportation Authority. I was surprised to learn that I was going to be the lead negotiator for collective bargaining agreements with the Teamsters Union. And one of the first things we did, having had no experience with that at all, one of the first things we did is do some research on intraspace bargaining. And it was a shock to me to learn that really the essence of intraspace bargaining was being open and communicating, and not playing I've got a secret. And we went into the negotiations, sitting everybody down, both sides of the table and making sure that everybody understood that our intent was to not play hide the football. We were gonna be open, upfront, candid to the point of sometimes upsetting people. But we needed to be able to develop some measure of mutual respect and mutual trust. And the only way we could do that is to be completely open and honest. And it took awhile, because the Teamsters were not used to that type of open and honest relationship. Everybody comes in with their individual agendas, personal and collective. And it took quite a while to get over the hump where they realized that I was not gonna lie to them, that we were gonna be open and honest. And three years later, during the second round of labor negotiations with the Teamsters, it went considerably quicker. It went with a lot less pain. And everybody understood exactly what we could offer. We weren't holding anything back, and we got to a resolution very, very quickly. Yeah, there were times, probably, when my children were growing up, especially when they were both in college where especially my son would push me to the absolute limits. And at sometime or another I came to the realization that rather then let it escalate to where things get said that shouldn't be said, or things occur that shouldn't occur that probably it's a good thing just to go take a walk. So now, years later, looking at how both kids turned out, it's a testament to their mother, not me. But I think that we could have done irreparable damage had we just stumbled forward and let emotions take over rather than doing the right thing, and taking a clean break, and going someplace else for a few minutes. There really isn't anything different that we as a group, whether it was in the military or whether it was at OCTA, and even now as we're facing the potential downsizing in the current company I'm with. There really isn't anything that we could have done differently from those external conditions. We don't have control over those. What we did find that worked very well was again, being open and honest with the people that were probably going to affected by the downsizing. And then making sure that we approached every situation with compassion for the impact of the downsizing on they and their families. To lie to folks, to be disingenuous with folks, to misrepresent the truth or the facts, all that's gonna do is engender a great deal of hostility and make the entire process go sideways on everybody. It's uncomfortable. It's not something that anybody likes to do, to tell somebody that their livelihood is coming to an end, at least with the organization that they're involved with at that time. But, to be open and honest and compassionate about breaking the news to them and do everything that you possibly can to help them on the backside whether it's through networking or the like. That was the key. Historically within the military, it seems like it's a ten year cycle. After there's a conflict, everybody wants to downsize the military until the next conflict arises, and then we scramble to try to bring people back. And we've lost a great deal of talent, but it's a historical cycling. And if you'll take a look at budget cycles, I think they probably replicate that same sine wave. And so, unless a company is in such tall cotton that they're impervious to any type of budgetary fluctuations, then everybody's gonna be faced with these types of problems going forward. And the only way that I've been able to see a way through to making something as successful as it could possibly be with downsizing, is to be just open, honest, and compassionate with people. I'll go back to labor negotiations at OCTA. We would bring the labor team in, and they would go into a separate room. And we would bring the management team in, they would go to a different room. Before both of the large teams got together in one common room to work through the issues, the leadership of the union and myself and our labor relations department manager would sidebar. And it was a great opportunity for us to put all our cards out on the table. But very often, the Union wants to dominate the conversation. And we found that sometimes it's better just to shut up and listen, and let them talk themselves in a complete circle before engaging in trying to interject into a part of the conversation where they're not quite ready to be heard, to hear us, at that point. So what we found was, just let them talk, let them talk it out. They'll very often come to their own realization that the point that they're trying to make probably wasn't as important as initially thought it might have been. And then control the overreaction which was difficult at times for me to do because of my personality, but just count to ten, take a couple of deep breaths. Let them talk it out and then be able to address things in a more rational manner on the backside. So I think active listening at that point proved to be very, very successful, rather than trying to cut each other off, talk over each other, and dominate the conversation. At a point it might appear as though you're being conciliatory to the other side. And I know that especially in labor negotiations, a lot of people on both sides of the table keep score. And that's the wrong approach from my limited experience in negotiating six collective bargaining agrements. Just be gregarious, be open, be happy, be as upbeat and as positive as you can be and be honest at every turn.
