Tag: trade-offs

Rules and Customs

The vehicle ahead of me was nothing special. An SUV with Texas plates adorned with Bernie for President and Beto for Senate stickers.

OK, maybe that was a bit unusual. It’s rare to see support for Democratic political candidates in Texas, although that’s been changing a bit recently.

I had plenty of time to think about all this because the SUV was moving slower than molasses.

As I crawled along behind it, my blood boiling, I started to consider the motivations of the driver. For someone seeking to break the political mold in my state, they seemed eager to stick to the rules of the road — particularly when it came to the speed limit.

This prudence might have seemed noble to some. But not me.

I had things to do and places to be. And staying below the posted speed wasn’t helping matters at all.

Did this driver not have the same obligations? Was there no urgency built into their day?

It was hard to tell.

After a few frustrating moments, the road widened. I veered my SUV into the open lane and hit the gas, leaving the liberal-loving driver in the dust.

Adios, I thought. May our paths not cross again.

I should have let this moment go. And yet, I dwelled on it for days.

What was it that so agitated me?

It wasn’t the driver’s politics. As a centrist, I tend not to let that sway me.

It wasn’t even the driver’s behavior. They weren’t swerving or brake-checking me.

No, it was the implication of what the driver was doing that got my goose. It was the notion of the rules reigning supreme that seemed so off-putting.

For while this driver was out there earning their imaginary gold star, I was at risk of getting to my destination late.

And that outcome seemed costlier than a speeding ticket would have been.

Follow the rules.

From our earliest days, we absorb this mantra.

We hear stories about the bad guys who broke the law and ended up in jail. We adhere to warnings not to cheat on board games. We discover that disobeying our parents can send us straight to timeout.

Rule adherence is a central tenet of our society. It stabilizes us. It protects us. It galvanizes us.

The rules have meaning. But they’re not all-encompassing.

Indeed, much of what we adhere to can’t be found in a rule book. Much of what we believe in isn’t within a formal code of law.

Punctuality, respect, and integrity are paramount in our culture. We might not get put in handcuffs for breaking with them. But they still matter.

These concepts are deemed customs. They’re behavioral constructs that we agree to abide by.

Customs and rules generally live in their own bubbles. But occasionally those bubbles overlap.

What happens then? And how do we choose what to follow?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a great man.

And yet, he was also a criminal. Or at least, that’s what the record says.

In 1960, Dr. King was convicted of driving without a license in Georgia. A judge then gave him a four-year prison sentence, to be served maximum-security prison.

Dr. King only served a few days of that sentence. And yet, he would find himself behind bars 28 more times in his abbreviated life.

Dr. King clearly wasn’t proficient at following the rules. And yet, he’s still celebrated for that fact.

You see, the rules Dr. King broke were impractical. They were laws designed to insulate the few, rather than protect the many.

Following those rules might have given Dr. King a clean rap sheet. It might have kept the FBI from ever tailing him. It might have even kept him from getting assassinated.

But adhering to the rules would have denied Black people of their dignity. It would have deprived them of opportunity. It would have barred them from their fair share.

These rights are the markers of common decency and the cornerstones of our democracy. They’ve long been customary among those with a paler skin complexion. And yet, they were systematically kept from Black people for centuries.

So, when it came time for Dr. King to choose between rules and customs, he didn’t flinch. He disobeyed with purpose, in hopes of giving his community the future it deserved.

Fellow Civil Rights activist — and eventual U.S. Congressman — John Lewis called this willful disobedience Good trouble. And Dr. King was a master at it.

Lewis’ description hits on a key point. When rules come into conflict with customs, the customs often win.

This isn’t always the case. We don’t adhere to the Mayan rituals of human sacrifice, for instance.

But when the code of law and the code of society enter the ring, it’s our customs that generally land the knockout blow.

First-world problems.

That’s the derisive term for minor issues we raise a big fuss about.

Dr. King wasn’t dealing with first-world problems when he engaged in the civil rights movement. He was combatting something far more substantial.

But my frustrating journey behind the SUV with the Bernie and Beto stickers? That was first-world problems to the max.

There is no real comparison between Dr. King’s tribulations and my moment of inconvenience. Dr. King was changing the world. I was just trying to get to a destination on time.

But in both cases, customs superseded rules. Following the letter of the law was less important than adhering to broader principles.

In my case, that meant upholding the promise of punctuality. Going a few miles over the speed limit would be a calculated gamble — one that might burn me. But showing up late was a less forgivable outcome.

So, once the road widened and my vehicle accelerated, I became an outlaw of sorts. I defied one edict to uphold another.

My experience is not unique. Many of us have made similar tradeoffs from time to time.

We tend not to speak of these exploits. For it shatters our preferred narrative — the one where we always do the right thing.

But perhaps it’s time to lift the veil. Perhaps it’s time we make peace with our momentary naughtiness.

For ultimately, rules and customs are hollow shells. They hold the shape of ideals. But they lack the ballast.

It’s on us to fill them with weight. It’s on us to determine what matters and when.

It’s our obligation to decide all this. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

On Negotiation

Winning isn’t everything. It’s the only thing.

Surely, you’ve heard this phrase before.

After all, it seems to be the ethos of life.

Our culture is captivated by winning. We’re entranced by it. And we’re obsessed with it.

Whether we’re backing down defenders in a pickup basketball game or gunning for that prime parking spot outside the grocery store, coming in first is all that matters.

This fixation gives us an edge. It can provide us the impetus to drive ourselves to greatness.

But that edge cuts both ways.

Much of our lives involve negotiation. Negotiation is the process of giving something up to get something in return.

It all sounds a bit cold and transactional. But that’s precisely the point.

For life is full of conflicting interests.

Sometimes all parties involved are going after the same resource — like the last croissant on the breakfast spread. Other times, their objectives might be different than ours — as is the case during a salary deliberation.

In either case, trade-offs are essential to finding a productive middle ground. And trade-offs get hashed out through negotiation.

The art of negotiation is an increasingly important concept. One that has come to govern the world in recent generations.

This is the case because of the rise of economics. Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776. In the centuries since then, economists have come to view societies as markets constrained by scarce resources.

In plain English, this means that modern economics is based upon the concept of trade-offs. On giving up something to get something else.

By nature, these trade-offs necessitate negotiation— between owners and employees, between government and its constituents and between nations themselves. And so, these discussions have become a hallmark of our society.

Yes, it’s hard to get too much done without negotiation these days.

So, why are we so terrible at it?

You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, well, you just might find you get what you need.

These lines come from an eponymous 1969 Rolling Stones song. While the full set of lyrics from this song carry an ironic tone, the message from these lines rings true.

Or at least it used to.

My first memory was listening to this song in the back of my parents’ car. Nearly two decades had passed since it first hit the airwaves at that point, and I was too young to know what the words meant. But I distinctly remember hearing them.

Not long after that moment, the Berlin Wall fell — and with it, the Iron Curtain. Apartheid was abolished in South Africa. A military dictatorship ended in Chile. New trade agreements appeared between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The world was evolving at a breakneck pace. And for the most part, it was doing so peacefully.

This was an extraordinary development after decades of divisiveness and armed conflict. And it spoke to the power of negotiation.

In most of these cases, representatives didn’t gather around a table to hash out their differences. But they still engaged in a series of significant trade-offs.

It was a great moment for the principle of negotiation. But that moment has faded.

Today, the world looks much different. Our perspectives are colored by the long shadows of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the global financial crisis. Trust is waning.

Meanwhile, the rapid rise of technology behemoths like Facebook and Twitter — both founded by college dropouts — has conveyed the message that the old rules don’t apply. That you can get what you want and what you feel you need. All without compromising along the way.

Negotiations these days no longer seem like trade-offs. They’re standoffs.

This is a full-fledged breakdown of an essential skill.

And while this breakdown is not solely responsible for the divisiveness of our society, it’s certainly helping to fan the flames.

Many people view negotiation as a Battle Royale these days. As a test of mettle or resolve.

I’m not one of them.

Instead, my negotiating philosophy is straightforward.

  1. Help others get what they want.
  2. Accomplish this without causing myself irreparable harm.

If I can achieve these objectives, I move forward. If I can’t, I walk away.

Yet, I rarely find myself abandoning the negotiation.

There’s a simple reason for this. It draws from my first principle of negotiation.

By looking to help others first, I flip the script. I approach the deliberation asking What can I give? instead of What can I get?

This tends to have a bit of a disarming effect on the people I’m negotiating with. Instead of declaring a competing objective, I’m offering to help them achieve theirs.

My negotiation partners are often eager to accept my assistance. Doing so can mark a significant victory for them and their objectives. Plus, in a moment where tensions are heightened, it provides them a path of least resistance.

But invariably, their conscience will get the better of them. Whether under the guise of fairness, respect or politeness, the satisfied negotiation partner will ask me what I am looking for out of the deliberation. And when I state my objectives, they often feel an obligation to help me achieve them.

This is the ideal way my negotiations play out. But in practice, it doesn’t always go like this.

Indeed, there are some who go into a negotiation looking for a free ride. There are some who see my accommodation as an invitation for their indulgence.

This is why I have the second principle in place. It’s why I have the fortitude to draw a line in the sand and the gumption to give up on the proceedings altogether if need be.

When push comes to shove, I will protect myself with all my might.

But I treat that situation as a possibility, not an inevitability.

Winning matters. It’s been this way for centuries, and will likely be this way for centuries to come.

But the way we perceive winning can evolve. And indeed it must.

Our world is more connected than ever before. That means we must work together more often.

There is no room for winner-take-all. Our patience for zero-sum standoffs is waning.

It’s time for us to approach negotiation with an infinite mindset. It’s time for us to focus on what we can give over what we stand to get. It’s time for us to consider what we can achieve together.

That is where true power lies. And that is what winning is all about.