Interests, Not Positions
One of the things you learn in law school is the negotiation adage: negotiate from interests, not from positions. When you stake out an inflexible position, you start a fight. When you try to meet your interests instead, you might find that you and your "opponent" have quite a few interests in common, and your sparring partner might become your best collaborator.
Stern has been writing about and working on overcoming positions to form unlikely coalitions and partnerships: public employees and the state of Arizona; child care providers and child care advocates; heck, the whole ragtag group of progressive forces he calls Team USA. And it makes sense that he should. After all, few understand coming together despite differences better than a union leader.
Like Stern points out in his book, it takes leadership to bring seemingly diverse groups together. Any big enough negotiation needs a mediator, and a national negotiation needs a damn good one.
But it also takes humility. Positions don't just melt away at no cost to egos. This means whoever takes the reins of leadership needs to give us something in exchange for giving up our positions -- showing us they know our interests as well or even better than we do, and inspiring hope that those interests are within our grasp.
Barack Obama fits this role of leadership, his track record is one of mediation and negotiation. He strives to build consensus. His entire life story is one of finding common interest among diverse groups in order to make sense of his own world, as an indvidual. His heirtage meant he could not take positions but had to consisentently figure out common interests to build relationships in his life and meld his private world.
October 21, 2006 7:03 AM | Reply | Permalink