Navigating Negotiations

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Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.
Today we explore the application of motivational interviewing in union strike negotiations and emphasize the significance of aligning behavior with values and delve into the challenges of compensation disparities.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Application of motivational interviewing in union strike negotiations
• Importance of aligning behavior with values
• Addressing compensation disparities, including CEO salaries
• Role of empathy in reducing resistance and discord in negotiations
• Bridging visionary organizations and effective communication through MI
• Contemplating the impact of AI on negotiations and human connections

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Thank you for listening to the Communication Solution Podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is all about you. If you have questions, thoughts, topic suggestions, or ideas, please send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. For more resources, feel free to check out ifioc.com.

Want a transcript? See below!

 Hello, and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Canton. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions, and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve.

Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world. Hi, I’m Danielle Canton, and I am here with Casey Jackson for the communication solution podcast. Hey, Casey. How are you? Good. Awesome. We are here to talk about everything motivational interviewing and how it applies to the world. And I’m very excited about today’s topic because there are so many union strike negotiations happening.

So what comes to mind for me is,  obviously Michigan. So that’s my hometown, Detroit. So what happens in the automotive world, what happens is a trickle down effect from that.  And then of course, California, the writers. So I think it’s kind of a rich topic to talk about,  motivational interviewing. So I think I’ll kick it over to you.

It is a fascinating topic. You know, my brain is always trying to run things through the MI lens first. And what I always think of fundamentally is, is your behavior in line with your values. And I think what’s interesting from, you know, not being overly versed,  in those two current union strikes that are happening, but I was watching one of the interviews where the CEO makes 29 million and got a substantial bonus.

And they’re saying, they’re just talking about what’s a livable wage and how to raise a livable wage and how do you argue against that? And it’s interesting because the CEO wouldn’t really answer that question because. It’s almost impossible to compare apples to apples when you’re talking that kind of dollar amount and different in, in wage,  what people are making, but what I always think of is how do we peel back and go, is my behavior in line with my values?

And so when I think of union workers. When they look at, you know, espousing family values, like from an organizational perspective or for  corporate perspective, you know, we’re into family values and we support our workers. And I think there’s a fundamental push to go, well, then put your money where your mouth is.

And, and so I think that generates that is the corporation’s behavior in alignment to what it espouses its values to be. This is something we’ve talked about so many times in motivation going with organizational change. I always think is the organization’s behavior in alignment with its own vision, mission.

Value statement or guiding principles and most all talk about, to some extent, not only wanting to improve outcomes or quality of life for people, but many reference their workforce and what they want to do to support their workforce as well, too. You know, we support our families. We support our workforce.

We support these things. And I think when that gets repeated or messaged enough times, I think then the workforce genuinely is like, well, wait a second. It seems like you value, you know, people at the top way more than you value people at the bottom. At least the, when we look at our, you know, Living paycheck to paycheck or, you know, busting our bodies up, you know, for the sake of producing something or intellectual rights because of, you know, a writer who’s like, nobody can create this exactly where I can create it.

There is innate value to that. So when people feel. Not valued. It starts to feel like is my behavior in line with my values. And then when that starts to percolate, then you want to look at, you know, at leadership and go, well, is your behavior in line with what you espouse to the public?  So, so again, it’s for me, it’s not a matter of right or wrong.

But when you peel back those layers from motivational interviewing, those are the things that kind of. Percolate my brain in terms of, you know, so many people are scrambling. It goes, is my behavior line with my values. And, and that’s why I think circling back around that,  that,  CEO salary, that’s, that’s a, that’s a rough one to justify,  you know, to, because most people can’t comprehend that dollar amount.

I think it was like $29 million.  It’s just so hard that an individual can earn that much money for a position that they’re in when somebody else may be making minimum wage or. You know,  what looks like fair market wage. And so I think that’s going to generate all sorts of blame outside the self and all sorts of ambivalence.

Yeah, it’s fascinating when you, you, I just love the way you look at any topic through the lens. And what struck me about what you just described was. The multitude of conversations happening in people’s heads. So you’ve got the workers, the workforce who are saying, wait a minute, you mentioned the writer, you know, it’s just like, wait a minute.

Are my behaviors aligned with my values? And then a conversation with the organization leaders saying, well, we’re touting this. Do we really believe it? Is that all aligned? Do we really want to support the workers? How does this work? And then, I don’t know, I feel like there’s a third of,  probably the, the society in general,  and how that interplays.

And what struck me when you’re describing this is. Who’s facilitating that conversation? Because they’re all having separate conversations! Yes. So how, no wonder it’s such a stressful time and feels like this moment of will we ever get through this because everybody’s in their own head. That’s exactly it.

And when you come to a table for negotiation, we can talk about win win as much as we wanted to in terms of negotiation, but there’s always that perception that somebody is going to have to give up or lose something. So I know that the, you know, the art of negotiation is to go in that with a win, win mindset.

But when you go into that individual mindset, it’s like, well, so I’m not going to get what I deserve. Or am I going to get what I deserve out of this? And I think it’s that, I mean, in a, we’re in a capitalistic society and a capitalistic society. It’s like, well, where is who’s going to get what dollars for what product?

So a writer looks at that and thinks, well, you couldn’t even have these products if I didn’t. Generate a script,  especially if I’ve generated a script that’s generated, you know, millions, multi millions of dollars and, and what I got in relationship to that really is not much. And now to have that being taken away, like I know in the, with the, the writer strike and,  some of the other strikes going on in Hollywood has to do with the, you know, the proliferation of AI right now, because, well, you’re going to use me once and pay me once and then you’re going to use my likeness.

You know, at Infini and it’s just like that, that’s not fair. That’s you’re making money off of me. And that’s a whole mindset of it. It’s profit driven. And, and this is, I know partially where the auto workers were frustrated is because it’s been some of the greatest profit margins in recent history for the automobile industry.

And they’re like, well, we’re the ones that are busting our humps every single day. And all of a sudden you’re handing over these massive amounts of bonuses. And we’re the ones that are in the field doing the work. We’re the ones in the factories. We’re the ones doing these things to actually produce. And if we didn’t do it, you’re not going to get those great big.

Bonuses, so where is the, where is the equity and sharing, which is just an ironic construct for some things fundamentally in a capitalist society that it’s like, you know, to others, unions, unionization, which is ironic because then some people talk about the whole thing about is a union, more of a socialist perspective or a communist perspective versus, you know, capitalism, which is, you know, we’ll just pay somebody else to do it, which is why there’s so many use union vesting.

You know,  mindsets out there as well, too. So it’s just fascinating. And then it, for me, the easiest way to start to sort it out is just go back to square one and go fundamentally people are determining is my behavior in alignment with my values and then values have to do with, am I getting compensated a fair wage?

And then on the flip side, what would I be doing if I wasn’t doing this? So if I wasn’t, you know, putting in this extreme amount of. effort and labor in a factory and getting compensated at this level, what would I do instead? And this gets back into my behavior in line with my values. Am I doing it for a paycheck?

Is, am I doing it for the love of the, what I do?  Am I trying to make a difference in the world or am I just wanting to put food on the table for my family? Wow. Do you think Do you think there is a possibility to help people sort through that from an MI perspective from just looking into the future of negotiations in general, right?

It’s just like, where do we need to go as a society, whether it’s a big scale strike negotiation, or to your point, just a conversation between two individuals. That are looking for the quote unquote, win win, I think the challenge will always be that you’re going to have conflicting values at the top of like, when we talk about focus mountain, you know, that the values up there, there’s going to be conflicting values for any given individual.

And then we were having an individual within a system or an organization that can be. You know, values that are aligned and values that are in conflict,  from a negotiation perspective or how these, how these conversations play out is people do get nervous about what they have to give up. And am I sacrificing to some extent,  for the greater good and when a greater good is.

Dollar amounts, then I think that just generates a whole lot of emotional reaction for people.  Those are conversations you and I have had, you know, that it just, it just generates a lot of emotion because people get very attached to that because that is what is so much value in our, in our society has to do with the almighty dollar.

So I think in the future of negotiations, I think helping people get clear about their own values. I think, you know, even prior to that, I think just being able to articulate clearly what are our vision? What is our, what. What is our vision? What is our mission? What are our values? And mission is done by your missionaries.

I mean, it’s, it’s done by your workforce. And what do you believe in terms of supporting your workforce? I think that’s part of those conversations that could happen in negotiations, but those are not the kind of negotiations that happen when you’re talking about, you know, healthcare benefits. And are you going to pay for dental in my glasses or not?

That, that becomes, you know, what chips are on the table. And I think people get so invested in that it’s harder to make it about, you know, ambivalence and is my behavior in line with my values. And that’s where it starts to get more, you know, convoluted. I’m going to make a bold assessment here. When I met you and was exposed to motivational interviewing.

It was pretty dramatic, my reaction,  in terms of the power of this work and the way that you train, you explain it, you invite people into a way of being. It’s not strictly a communication solution. It’s not a thing that you do. It’s. It’s a way of being, and I think that’s the incredible invitation. I see it as, and there’s so many organizations that you train that embrace MI that, and then more and more newer industries are saying, Oh, I see how this applies to us,  you know, from nonprofit to for profit are seeing the incredible results because it is so evidence based.

So as you’re talking and I’m listening, going, I went into this conversation going, how do we help make negotiations? More honorable, more successful. And then as you just finished up Casey, I’m like, Oh my God, if every organization implemented, am I training? There wouldn’t be a need for negotiations. Am I crazy for thinking that?

I don’t think it’s crazy at all. I think what it is is that anybody that believes in a lean process or a continuous quality improvement process, it really was, then you’ll, you’ll keep looking at rewriting or clarifying or fine tuning again, your vision, what. What is, how is the world different? Because we exist the mission in terms of how are we going to get that done?

You know, the values in terms of how are we going to march together? You know, what are we kind of pinky swearing on or handshaking on that? This is who we, these are the kind of the parameters that our values were operating from. I think of that as clear in any organization and how to communicate that consistently.

You’re going to have less fundamentally, I mean, the research shows is you’re going to have less discord. There should be less miscommunication and part of the foundation foundational piece of motivational learning and the research. I mean, this is the, it’s just looking at the latest research around.

This is the profound nature of how impactful accurate empathy really is on data, whether you’re talking,  yeah. Litigation against physicians, you know, with attorney, it doesn’t matter what the profession is, is what they’re seeing. The data shows is that high accurate empathy will keep risk resistance and discord to a minimum.

Well, what happens when you’re talking negotiation is people tend to want to go into their own corners and then either come out swinging or hiding things, you know, behind their back because they don’t want certain things taken away. So it’s like, where do I, where do I slide this under the, the. Rug so people don’t see it.

So that doesn’t become part of what’s on the table to negotiate. Like it just becomes this whole game process when you get into negotiation, which starts from the absence of trust and the absence of empathy.  And mostly what people tend to want to do when they’re on the defensive is justify their behavior, which is where resistance comes from and which starts to increase, you know, that tension and discord more profoundly.

Yeah. I think that there’s an incredible opportunity. How do you, how do you see. When we talk about union strikes and negotiations,  we’ve done another podcast and you’re invited to help hostage negotiation task forces as well. Do you see a similarity in there? Definitely. I think the difference is you’re talking about usually with hostage negotiation, you’re in an end of one, you know, maybe an end of.

Two or three or four, but more often than not, it’s an end of one. And when you’re talking about negotiations on behalf of the union, you’re talking about it, you know, like the auto union or something. I mean, you’re talking about tens of thousands of people. And I think that becomes difficult because how do you represent the collective ambivalence?

And I think that’s where skilled, skilled,  union reps. They’re very skilled at being able to kind of consolidate where is our core ambivalence and to be able to draw from the collective brain and come to where the core ambivalence is. And then M. I. is just exceptionally good at helping people navigate through ambivalence to get behavior aligned with value.

So the basic construct of it is going to be. Similar if you’re thinking, am I the thing that I’ll say as well, too, is when we’re talking fidelity based motivational interviewing, you’re also looking at fundamentally behavior change. Are you trying to affect long term sustained behavior change? So that’s why for me, it’s I can’t separate out the vision statement, mission statement of value statement.

When you’re looking at workers who are disgruntled from that process of motivation, it’s always is your behavior line with your values and does your behavior represent that? Or is this an opportunity if you, if you try to peel back the emotional reaction from it, what it comes down to is. Any feedback like this from a union or from your workforce is an opportunity for continuous quality improvement.

I mean, that is the basis of good quality management is, is there something that gets kicked up in our system or some part of the assembly line that starts to break down where somebody can raise their hand and say, there’s a problem here? And then can we come up with a process to improve that? So for me thinking, I mean, when you’re asking, you know, can you see motivation wing in this, in this way, or the application that’s on a corporate or business level, it’s just like, it’s hard for my bias to tease that out.

Because I think that is just good business because when you have a happy workforce that feels that they’re compensated and there’s people that value your product, how can that not be a healthy, thriving business?  That, so again, it’s almost an ivory tower concept, but I think that’s the blessings that I get is I get to work in some of these real world examples and try to, to bridge, you know, ivory tower down to, you know, a house on main street.

I love it. I love the journey I go on in a short podcast with you. It feels a little dramatic to me, but I’m like, I start with this pie in the sky. I’m like, what if we create a world where there’s no need for union negotiations all the way to wait? They can be a beautiful representation of growth and an opportunity, especially if you handle it with, with the empathy, with accurate empathy through something like motivational interviewing.

Oh, this is a great, fascinating topic. I think this is, I think it, it sparks me the desire to talk more about, you know, we’re talking about, I think because of the writer’s strike and the artificial intelligence and how that’s, it’s just being shoved into the forefront of our. You know, our social vernacular right now, because it is just, it’s looming there.

That is a, it is an opposable force that is moving forward,  in our, in our cultures. And so I think of that from an MI perspective as well too. So not, not only from, I get the writer strike side of it, that it’s just like, you’re, you’re just going to, you know, try to make more money by opting me outta the equation and just taking basically who I am and then giving it to.

A computer and having the computer be me now for you forever, I’d make money off of that. That does that just the absence of empathy in that construct alone is mind boggling. So, and this is the same thing that’s starting to bridge into motivational interviewing. You know, there’s, there’s,  Several software apps out there that are AI driven and motivational or parallel to motivation learning where they’re doing coding in real time.

So literally, as you talk, AI is coding your conversations for empathy and all sorts of other metrics to find out so you don’t have to do like the coding and coaching we do more and more people are pushing AI. And now that they’re pushing AI for the coding and coaching, the AI is learning how to do.

Motivational interviewing. So then it’s like,  again, what are those core components that can be outsourced from an, an AI perspective? And at what point do we lose that human connection? And if we’re going to stick with research, what does the research show? And the research shows to some extent that some of the AI applications can be more effective than humans, which is just a extremely jagged pill to swallow extremely to think that, you know, a computer could outdo our humanity.

That’s just, that is. I think there’s going to be a lot of, you know, some emotional revolt against that.  And this is why I think it becomes complex with evidence based practices and, and, and looking at these things about, you know, where’s the source of conflict coming from? Is there a solution or resolution?

And what if it doesn’t involve a,  you know, human entity to do that resolution or negotiation? I mean, that’s what you think from that perspective. And will AI be better at negotiation than humans doing negotiation?  Like that, it sounds so science fiction. I know it sounds so science fiction, but you know, we’re literally on the precipice of that.

 So, and again, is that going to make a difference for, I keep going back to that writer, to that actor, to that auto worker, to that teacher,  you know, of going, where do I, where do I fit in this mix? And am I not only dispensable, but does anybody really care, you know, if I can make my house payment or my car payment or feed my kids because my business.

You know, leadership espouses that they do, but on a day to day living, it doesn’t feel like many people care about that for as much as they espouse it. And I think this is where you’re going to get that disgruntled, where you’re going to see behavior, not in line with values. And then you end up with these, you know, significant conflicts that will have an impact on individuals and economies.

Wow. Incredible. God, thank God for your brain and your way of communicating. Like somebody that like me can understand you is. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good. Cause I, I’m, yeah. Cause I don’t listen to what I say half the time, but I know what makes sense in my brain as I kind of laid these applications for the top of each other.

Yeah. You have a gift I think.  For sure. And thank you for setting up another podcast for us because motivational interviewing and AI. Holy smokes. Let’s let’s unpack that one. I think my eyes are going to start to twitch on that one. So we’ll see how that goes. Awesome. Thank you so much, Casey.  And everybody, thanks so much for joining us.

We’ll see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. As always, this podcast is about empowering you on your journey to change the world. So if you have questions, suggestions, or ideas, send them our way at Casey @IFIOC.com. That’s CASEY at I F I O C dot com. For more information or to schedule a training, visit IFIOC.com. Until our next communication solution podcast, keep changing the world.