PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE:  This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that it what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions like.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

[Note:  This a going to be as lengthy blog because, given current event, the subject deserves full exploration.]

 To state the obvious, I am not sitting at the negotiating table as Members of Congress and the Trump Administration try to hammer out a deal on the next of virus relief, if, in fact, they are still negotiating.

I write the word “try.”

Because they have failed.

So, Trump has signed executive orders extending unemployment benefits, stalling evictions and, on top of both, stopping payroll taxes from being placed on employees.  All of the actions may not be legal.

Perhaps taking unilateral executive action was what he wanted to do all along so he could try to get credit.  He wasn’t at the negotiating table, leaving the task to his staff.  And there is little doubt but that he will turn a deaf ear to pleas from organizations such as the Washington Post to avoid just settling for his executive actions.

Who knows what will happen next, even as the Post’s economic columnist Robert Samuelson says, “admit it, we are in a pandemic depression?”

At the same time and over time, Trump has depicted himself as a supreme negotiator, which, in his lexicon, if he has one, is that he always gets his way in what he calls “the art of the deal.”

Given the public policy negotiations I went through during my experience in and around Oregon state government for more than 40 years – including, for example, when I spoke for state management during two state employee strikes – several key credentials in negotiating stand out to me.  I list them in this blog.

First, however, I asked a business consultant friend of mine about the principles he would advise in negotiations.  On the fly one morning, he provided this solid list:

• A WILLINGNESS to reach a decision that satisfies both your needs AND the needs of the other party. Call it a compromise.
• SEEK TO UNDERSTAND the real needs of the other party.
• LETTING GO – are you willing to create the negotiating “starting point” with the other party without just asserting your own perspective above all else?
• ESTABLISH COMMON GROUND early so you can focus on areas of disagreement.
• EXHIBIT AUTHENTICITY – be willing to back up and admit uncertainties over arguments you may not understand.
• PROVIDE THE “WHY” OF YOUR PERSPECTIVE, NOT JUST THE “WHAT”
• BE READY TO DISAGREE without putting the other side down.

To this, I would add:

• Bring credible relationships to negotiations, which assumes you have such relationships.
• Operate with an ethic that “your word is your bond,” and, during negotiations, because you no doubt will have to change your position, take initiative to explain that change because doing so will add to your credibility.
• If winning is setting out to denigrate the other side, then that is not real negotiating.
  
• Giving and getting is part of the process, so work hard to find what I call the “smart middle,” which means be open to compromise.

Let me cite just one example of how negotiations worked well in my past service as a lobbyist.

In 1997, voters passed an initiative at the polls, making Oregon the first state in the country to allow assisted suicide.  That was a problem for my firm’s client, Providence Health & Services, the state’s largest health care provider which was affiliated with the Catholic Church.

As Providence’s lobbyist, following up on instructions from my client, I set out to advocate for a “conscience clause” to enable Providence to avoid having to engage in a practice it considered unethical.

That set up a negotiation over such a clause with various interests at the table, including me for Providence and a representative of Oregon Right to Die, the prime advocate for assisted suicide.

Through often intense negotiations, Providence and other religiously-affiliated organizations won the right to prevent assisted suicide from being performed (1) on their grounds, (2) by their employees or (3) by contractors within the course and scope of their contracts.

In return, Providence had to agree to refer patients who wanted assisted suicide services out to an accredited provider.  I put the word “refer” in bold fafce because it was a deal that went down hard.

To a Catholic, “agentry” (in this case, referral) is just as bad as the deed itself.  So, the Catholic Conference opposed the compromise.  Providence, as a health care system affiliated with, but not owned by, the Catholic Church advocated for the deal, and it was approved.

The result was a solid negotiation that produced an agreement no one viewed as perfect, but which was an acceptable addition to Oregon law.

One hopes parties in the Nation’s Capitol would find the same kind of wherewithal as they deal with the pandemic crisis.