Episode 91: The Lost Art of Compromise - Making Bad Situations Better

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall", your weekly podcast making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and Founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

Thank you again for joining me here, Randall, on "Around with Randall." Today our conversation takes us into inner workings of relationships and this is in particularly important nonprofits because we have a great number of people moving around and sometimes that movement, as we've discussed in the employment survey that Hallett Philanthropy did, or for other reasons in the great resignation or reshuffling, which we've talked about happens because of disconnects in our relationships in the office with the supervisor, with the CEO, with a board. And the less we have of that the better off we're going to be. And so what we get to is this conversation that I was fascinated by, was this art of compromise.

Michael Dowling who is the VEO of Northwell Health, which is in the New York City, New York area, wrote a little piece in Becker's about the lost art of compromise, and it really got me thinking about gosh that's a really good subject because so often in today's world we think our opinion is the right one, and that our perspective is the right one. And we live in echo chambers for those who don't follow kind of this thought process. We tend to get our news, our information only from sources that agree with us. We associate with those that only agree with us because in some ways we've lost the art of compromise, the ability for two people or a group of people to come to a common goal that elevates the organization or the group or the situation to a higher plane towards a direction that everyone can live with. And in doing so, we see a breaking apart of more interpersonal relationships. So today I want to spend a few minutes talking about this art of compromise and what are some of the things you can do, and maybe the philosophy when you disagree with someone.

It's okay to disagree. I think that's the first premise of this whole discussion. Never in life should it be so easy that you only are around people who agree with you. I would find that distressing, to be quite candid. Even in my, and I've talked about my wife on various podcasts or if you work with me you know me, I talk about my family a lot. We don't always agree. We have a phenomenal marriage. We have a phenomenal relationship, but I can tell you she doesn't agree with me all the time and that's okay. Sometimes someone's disagreement, their perspective that's different can be very valuable because it may lend itself to a blind spot that you might have. And so we need to be more open to this art of compromise and so the first step is realizing that if you're only hearing from people that agree with you, I would really question whether that's long-term healthy.

Number two is is that a, and then we'll get into really some real strong tactical things, you're not gonna get everything you want in life. And I think that's really what Michael Dowling was talking about in his article about this idea that we have perspectives. People have perspectives that I should get everything I want exactly the way I want it. I have two small children. Less small than they were a while ago but we talk about this a lot. Like wait a minute there are four people in this family. We all have to operate together or they're in their classrooms and there's other authority figures. I think that's part of the challenge is with technology and with the issues involving social media, which we've done a couple podcasts on. There's this thought process that yeah oh I'm just going to vent to the world and I get my way and that's really not the way life is. The ability to compromise makes life more - it makes it easier to traverse. It's tough enough as it is.

So what are some of the things that we can think about when we think about compromise? So before I do that let me say, this could be with your boss and you are trying to figure out how to do your metrics or you're trying to figure out what your objectives are for the year and you have one perspective and your boss has another. Or this could be interpersonal relationships, i.e just working in an office and working with people that don't have the same perspective as you do. It could be maybe some value here. And I'm not going to get into the personal but maybe in relationships at home or with friends or family that sometimes are a little bit challenging. We all have those. How do you work through them? I think the key here is is taking some of these steps and realizing that they can be useful in application, tactically, to better a lot of different situations.

So let's start at the top. When conflict occurs, and that's really what we're talking about in compromise because you don't need to compromise if everyone's in agreement, we just talked about the fact that if everyone's in agreement it's probably a little odd. That it's understanding what's at stake. I truly believe that a lot of times the consternation in relationships or the troubling issues that we have with our supervisors or our teammates or whomever is is that they don't see the problem the same way we do. Maybe we see it three levels deeper. It's more personal where they just see it as a, well this is just a, you know, a very basic issue that we can disagree upon. One of the first things to do when you have to work in a scenario or situation is to know what is really at stake, and most importantly the people that you're dealing with. What's at stake for them is this a core ethical, moral dilemma. Even if you don't see it that way, knowing that can be critically important. Or is this being pressured from somewhere else and there's very little room for them to negotiate.

Let me give you an example. In the kind of the nonprofit fundraising perspective your boss comes to you it's beginning of your end. You're doing your planning and all of a sudden they drop on you you gotta raise three million dollars next year and you're like where did this come from? That's two and two times more than I've raised ever. Before you might view it as, well, this is unfair because it puts me in a bad situation from an appointment perspective, maybe bonus situation. I'm not, it's not, it makes me feel as if I'm not appreciated in the value that I bring in terms of planning. They don't listen to me. That's certainly valuable and certainly appropriate. But your boss may be in a situation where their boss or the board or whomever says we need more revenue. We need it tomorrow. Well, understanding where somebody's coming from and understanding what's at stake for them creates a different level of conversation because you might begin to position it more in their terms rather than just yours.

So the first is understanding what's at stake. Number two is, and this comes from I've talked about this a little bit before about this idea of of backing your way out of scenarios or situations, is determining possible outcomes. First and foremost, can you find a mutual goal or understand that there can be a mutual goal. Let's go back to our scenario between a gift officer and a supervisor asking for that three million dollars. The goal at an incredibly low tactical level is for three million dollars. But if you can elevate that conversation and say tell me more about why this is coming into a conversation, why is this important, the common goal is we need to raise more money because of the economic issues on the expenditure side that are requiring us to generate more income. Well, I don't think any fundraiser would say well I don't want to raise more money. So what are the mutual, go, the the baseline mutual goal that you can build from there? And then you build backwards. And this is what I learned, I think most importantly from law school is you you have a position and you're backing your way out from the worst outcome so you don't have to deal with it. In this case the worst outcome is we don't raise enough money. Okay. We need to raise more money. How do we do that? Well there are options. We could do, we need to do a campaign, a very short driven campaign to generate more revenue. That's an option. Let's talk about how that would look. We need to find new donors, new pipeline, new opportunities. How would we do that with our board, with our current donors? What about the idea of applying for different kinds of grants? You're backing your way out of the net the worst case scenario, as I like to call it, so that you can have options on the table. Well that only comes if you have a mutually identifiable goal. Well we want to raise more money. Now it becomes an issue of, well, how do we do that?

So start from a position of figuring out where is there some common ground between the two of us. Let me go back in history because that'll come up at the very end. If we go back to the constitution, constitutional convention that was started in 1870, 1877, 1787 excuse me the articles of confederation in the United States wasn't working in the first kind of draft of a document that would govern our country, and there were huge disagreements. But there was a commonality of goal, is we need to find a way to govern and we'll kind of use this example. The two at you know the office, and three million dollar goal, and then the kind of the history of the constitution as opportunities to talk about the different steps, the eventual outcome, the mutual goal was, well number one we don't go back to England, and be a a subsidiary number two we've gotta find a way to work together, and number three we probably gotta strengthen our central government in a way that makes sense. Well then it becomes a matter of tax tactics, of how to do that. It's the same general issue as trying to figure out that three million dollar goal, and where that came from, and what we're really talking about. So determine potential outcomes, come up with scenarios, back your way out of the worst case scenario to create the various strategies that can be effective for you.

What you'll find in the compromise piece is somebody's going to appreciate a different perspective and different opportunities, different options. Number three is knowing what's worth compromising on. And I think this is important because there are certain principles that we probably never want to negotiate on your ethics and morals, the values that you hold most dear. There's a great exercise that's pretty commonly known in compromise situations of drawing two circles - an inner circle and an outer circle, and the inner circle is the really the non-negotiable value-driven issues that you know are core to who you are as a person. The outer ones are maybe important but they're not as important as those value-driven ones. So if we're talking about our three million dollar scenario as an example it might be well, we need to push donors to places that they don't want to go. Wait a minute. I am a donor-centered fundraiser. I'm certainly willing to entertain and bring up funding options to anyone, but at the end of the day they need, I'm going to support what they want. That's a value-driven conversation and maybe something that's not worth compromising on. If we go back to the constitutional convention is that there was obviously no conversation about going back. We're not going to go back and be a subsidiary of Britain even though we got issues here, we're going to figure it out. Here. What is it that you are truly morally opposed to what is there no negotiation from?

Number four is trying to figure out how or what is your person's true needs. What is it that's driving them, and this takes some discipline because it's removing emotion and becoming logical to figure out where someone else is at. I think this is one of the great lessons I learned in law school through negotiation is that if you remove the emotion and you actively listen in this process, if you if you genuinely listen and that's a key component of discovering your opponent's true need is that listening component. It gives you an understanding of where they're at. We kind of talked about this in the in the three million dollar situation with the gift officer. What are we really talking about here? Well that takes a lot of discipline to pull back from your emotional state, say well this is unfair, I can't do this. You're putting my job in jeopardy. I need to look for another job. No, wait a minute. Let's have the conversation. What's what's prompting this? Tell me more about what your challenge is. How can I be helpful in solving your problem? I'm not saying you give in, but it gives you that understanding of where they're coming from. So discovering, and listening, and genuinely listening to your opponent or your opponent your other side or the other side's true issues and needs and where they stand.

Number five is that there is the idea of giving suggestions, and you're going to have to give something up, and this is the most challenging because we all want what we want. We all want to know that what we're doing and getting and being a part of is what we are okay with. And it's tough to give up on stuff. It is. I think about early on in my own marriage where you have two young people trying to figure out you know we've been dating for a couple years so we knew each other fairly well, but in as I look back at the 25 years we've been together there are things I've had to give up on because they weren't that important to me at a core. But they were really important to my wife, and in the end that's part of this process. Compromise is the ability to find common ground where both sides probably are giving up stuff to create a better sense of direction for the team, the relationship, the organization.

Back to our 3 million situation, you know, giving up the the adage of well this is unfair to me. May be very important and putting it in the perspective of, and maybe they need to give up. Well, you alone can't raise three million dollars so how do we find middle ground for the organization to meet its needs because the other day we want that to be successful. Back to our constitutional situation. People started giving up on all kinds of things. Some of them were bad. You look at the issues of slavery. I mean it wasn't right in 18, 1787. It isn't right today. But they came to a compromise to get the constitution done. Wasn't a good answer but it was compromise. They compromised to get to the Bill of Rights. That some group of people, one of these individual, the first ten amendments, but they put the constitution together and then followed it up immediately with the ten bill of rights to protect individual liberties. Compromise. All of these things are examples of what you've got to be willing to do, and that's back to those two circles. There are going to be a couple things that are morally entrenched in, you probably, not worthy of of negotiating. But most things fall outside that moral compass and they're worthy of conversation about, am I willing to give up all or some of these issues to get us to a common ground?

The last is that normally, maybe in individual relationships, marriages and things of that nature it's not as much true, but most of the time this isn't personal and trying to find a way to stay calm and to stay logical and not emotional and not say and do things that could be harmful to the long-term relationship is really hard. And it's been made incredibly much harder with social media. There's a reason I don't have Twitter and Facebook and and Instagram. I make jokes about the Hulu and all that. I know all of those things. The reason is that human nature is as we have opinions and we want to shout them from the mountaintop, the difference between between now and prior to social media is we'd shout them and nobody was listening because nobody could hear it. Now you put it out on social media and everybody reads it and it's there forever. Being able to be professional, to keep calm, to be logical, to not take things personally, is a tremendous advantage in compromise and be willing to know that I'm gonna have to give something up to get something. And that's hard. It's not easy. I think that's one of the other great things I learned from law school is things seem to get more animated. I seem to get quieter. I don't want my emotions to dictate behaviors that I can't back away from.

Understand what's at stake. Determine those outcomes. What's the mutual goal you're both trying to get to? Know what's worth compromising on. Really build on this idea of understanding your your, the other side's perspective. Actively listen. Genuinely listen. Make those suggestions. Create options to be considered. Give something in those options that you give away. You're not gonna get and be professional. Be less emotional, if possible. All of these things will guide you towards compromise in a meaningful way.

Don't forget to check out the blogs at hallettphilanthropy.com. Two or three a week, 90 second reads. Posted some interesting stuff just going on in the world in terms of leadership and non-profit. And of course if you want to communicate with me send me an email at podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. Matter do you have a - you'd like to talk about, let me know. And if you're downloading this on Downcast or Apple or iheartradio or Spotify, wherever, or watching on YouTube, leave me a leave a comment, share it with a friend. Maybe some of this can be helpful to them. Always end in the same way. Don't forget what you're doing is important. Non-profit work is going to be part of our future in helping people in ways we don't even understand, and what you're doing today is laying the groundwork to make the world, your little part of it, or bigger, a better place. You're helping people, which brings me to my all-time favorite saying, some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. We're people in nonprofit world who make things happen for the things, the people that are wondering what happened. And I don't know a better way to serve a professional career, to serve my community, to serve society. I hope you feel the same. I look forward to seeing you next time right back here on "Around with Randall" and don't forget make it a great day.