Unit Two Blog- Forget Agreeing, Let's Just Lock Everyone Out.

     The new buzzword of the past few months is the dreaded "Lockout". Prior to being used to describe the finality of a disagreement by major corporations, huge revenue generating professional sport leagues and the United States Congress , a lockout to me was saying something stupid to my wife and having to sleep out on the couch for a night because of my "wise" choice of words in a disagreement between the two of us. To me a  "lockout" is the end result of a disagreement gone bad along with two groups of people quitting on finding a resolution and one or both parties making a bold statement with actions not words.  In my opinion, the purpose of  a lockout is not to solve a problem but rather to prove a selfish point of superiority over someone and/or a group of people. It is very immature, irresponsible and takes time away from finding a resolution to the issue on hand. I will use my exile to the living room couch as an analogy to what a lockout does to a disagreement between two groups of people.

     My wife and I got into an argument about whose parents were better. In comparison, corporations, high revenue generating sport leagues and Congress have disagreements over the bottom-line of where finances should be allocated. What started out as a friendly, humorous comparison of parenting soon became mean spirited and spiteful between the two of us and we both started taking the others points personal. Likewise, after being polite to each other in the beginning of negotiations, corporations lose their patience and someone or a group of people within a party feel challenging their opposition will get them to their desired end goal in a quicker manner not realizing they have now caused the complete opposite of their intent . The argument between my wife and I was conducted towards the end of the day and was not scheduled with proper parameters of what could and could not be said to each other. Now in the financial world, the two major groups have timelines and parameters that are known months in advance, but for some reason both parties wait until they get close to the deadline to actually sit down and discuss terms to a resolution, thus using the timeline as negotiating leverage. Similarly, my wife saw and took advantage of an opportunity against me watching a game on television that was on late at night. Corporations and their opponents in the negotiation talks usually put issues such as Soldier pay, athletes contract extensions and workers benefits as leverage points. My wife used cooking and my quality of sleep against me as negotiating leverage. My wife then gave me the false sense of victory when she stopped talking  and went to the room to sleep. A few hours later, after feeling "victorious" I went to the bedroom and noticed the door was locked! I knocked on the door for a few minutes and realized very quickly that I not only "lost" the argument, but I was now going to suffer the consequences of questioning the parents of my intelligent wife by sleeping on the couch and having to think for the rest of the night how foolish it was for me to get into a petty argument with her in the first place. At this point both parties in the business world realize that they are going to compromise but are too proud to say that since they feel they would lose respect amongst their peers, so pride forces them to lockout even with the knowledge that this does more damage than good to their desired goals in the negotiation. Back to the argument between my wife and I , the next morning after having the evening apart, we put our egos aside, talked and settled our differences in a span of 10 minutes and we were back to being a happy couple again. Business parties on the other hand,  take weeks and in some cases months from each other and realize that they weren't trying to find a compromise, but that they were trying to get a reaction from their counterparts and settle their differences within an average of one week after going back to the negotiating table.

     Here is the catch about this repetitive cycle. My wife and I dealt with this argument once when we were just married and in our early twenties while these business men and women who are in their forties and higher, still act like children in high school where reputation is more important than common sense. My wife and I learned after our one argument how to communicate better so that we don't waste valuable time from each other. You would think people in these negotiations and in high positions, would learn from past lockouts and avoid them, but unfortunately no one does in the business world and the cycle repeats itself with the same tactics and issues, but with different names. Both parties end up looking foolish and greedy. Until the threat of the next lockout (I am talking to you, the National Basketball Association in the Summer of 2011), my message to the business world is simple, let's keep it professional and act like mature adults with proper time management and multi-tasking skills.