https://swimmingintheflood.libsyn.com/101-inflate-your-contract
Have you ever been locked in a mausoleum? Inside the musty vault with dank smells, eerie lighting, a broad sarcophagus, unlit torches, locks, and maps. Have you? How would your body react? At what point would you start scraping against the walls and slamming your shoulder against the door trying to get out? Imagine that you have three of your friends in the mausoleum with you. Does that make getting out easier or harder?
What if you only had one hour to get out before something terrible would happen to you? Being locked in a mausoleum for eternity. Would that make you more agitated or more focused? What if I told you that I was in that exact same situation. In a mausoleum with three friends. Trapped. With only an hour to get out. And…. we each paid $30 for the privilege.
You may think it’s crazy to allow yourself to be trapped in a room and pay for the privilege. That’s also what happened last week when I was in a general liability mediation. We were locked in a room with only an hour to get out. And…somebody was going to pay.
Welcome to Swimming in the Flood; a podcast where we develop the resilient leader’s mindset by navigating difficult currents in business. My name is Trent Theroux.
My mausoleum description is a newish fad in experiential entertainment. They are called escape rooms. It’s a game. And the object of the game is to solve a series of riddles and puzzles that will lead you and your team to unsealing the door before time runs out.
A game master escorts you into a room and describes the rules to the team. Right after the game master left the room, a large digital clock mounted on the wall started ticking down. Silently ticking away our time.
Within the first few minutes, we found several clues, but were unsure how they fit into the puzzle. Most of the problems need to be solved in order. You may be given clues early that have to be held for a puzzle that will appear further down the sequence.
In what felt like only a minute, I glanced at the clock and noticed that a quarter hour had elapsed. I announced it to the team and one person replied, “Hurry. We must move faster.” I find it interesting to see how people react to time pressures. In my mind, I was measuring the progress we made and estimated what was left. In my teammates mind, the clock was ticking, and we needed to read faster or turn dials faster to slow down the hands of time.
A study performed by Ohio State University that revealed when people are under a time crunch, they most often resort to learned behaviors. This means that when people feel there is a time pressure to complete a project most often they will repeat an action they used in the past. Here’s another way to think about this. Because people revert to learned actions under time pressure, they will become less creative. Which is exactly what we need to get out of a mausoleum in an hour – creativity!
The mediation did not work the same way. Yes, we were locked in a room. Yes, the mediator gave us the rules and set out a timeline for the day. Then, the mediator left us to our own devices to solve the puzzle. In this case, we needed to figure out what was the intersection between the lowest number they were willing to accept and the highest number we were willing to pay. I should set the record straight. We had some culpability. We were going to write a check. It was a matter of how much.
In his paper Time Pressure and Strategic Choice in Mediation, P.J. Carnevale writes, as a deadline neared, mediators increased their use of pressing and compensating, and decreased their use of integrating. In addition, the manipulations of time pressure and mediator estimate of likely agreement interacted to produce an increase in pressing over time.
Mediators understand that introducing the pressure of a deadline imposes an invisible weight to complete a project at higher costs than one might expect at the onset of the mediation. Simply, the mediator knows that nobody budges in the first few minutes, but they expect major concessions as the deadline nears.
It’s hard to describe the pressure applied by the mediator every time she comes in the room and demands an offer to go back to the other side. The pressure of not knowing what the other side is thinking or planning can strain even the calmest of people.
The mediator, her job was to listen to us, but also explain the very clear facts and costs associated with going to trial versus settling right here right now. What is your offer?
How can we withstand the strain and demands of the mediator, avoid going to trial and find the right number to satisfy the other side?
I am now going to give you my unscientific, non-peer reviewed, resilient leader theory on managing time pressures. Are you ready? Got your pencils out? Here’s it is. Lie In a Coffin. You heard it. Lie In a Coffin. The theory is simple. Here’s how it works.
One of the most unique clues and problems to solve in the mausoleum was that one of our team had to get inside the coffin and close the lid. First, there was a skeleton in the coffin. We had to take him, I think it was him, out. I climbed the stairs, laid down and we closed the lid. Inside was where one of our clues were being transcribed. Think of the Rosetta Stone for geeks. The team outside was calling out symbols that they needed translated to me in the coffin. Reading in black light, I was able to call back the codes we needed to open the lock.
While I was lying in the coffin, the quiet allowed me to revisit another problem that our team couldn’t solve. We were turning the dials too fast and spinning the spinner too fast because time was ticking down. Now, in the quiet, I could see the answer in my mind. It was simple, just not clear during the hubbub. I left the coffin, went to the other side of the room, and organized the pins exactly as I saw it in my mind and opened the lock.
Inside the mediation room, I was ready to do the same thing. My lawyer was reaffirming the mediator’s stance about the costs of trial. My co-defendant was lamenting about how they didn’t have the cash to make a payment and how their line of credit was over extended. There was a fire truck outside dashing off to a rescue. The noise and my patience reached a cacophony. What is your revised offer?
I stood up and walked to a corner of the conference room along side some law book. I grabbed the chair, turned it away from the table and my negotiating team and faced the wall. Slowly, I closed my eyes and let my mind be washed over in black. The noises dimmed. The distractions faded. I was lying in a coffin and letting my mind find a way out.
I don’t remember how long I was in the corner before my eyes opened with the answer. Second, minutes, I truthfully couldn’t tell you. But I opened my eyes and it was clear. The key to the lock was right in front of me. My codefendant had more responsibility for this problem than me. The issue was I had more money than him. We could flip that switch. I could front him the money and allow him to pay it back by deducting some from every invoice over the next few years, including interest. I grabbed my iPhone and did some simple math.
“How would you like to walk out of this room right now without having to pay any more money today?” I asked him. The codefendant, his lawyer and my lawyer looked at me quizzically. The question stands. How would you like to walk out of this room right now without having to pay any more money today? The codefendant nodded his head and said sure. This guy looked like he’d already gone a full round with an MMA fighter two weight classes heavier. I suspect he would agree to anything.
I estimate that we need an additional $20,000 to resolve this case. Let’s make the offer. I’ll pay the extra. You sign an agreement with me that you will take 5% off your invoices for the next two years to cover my payment and interest. And that you sign a personal guarantee. How does that sound?
The codefendant agreed. The plaintiff agreed and the last lock was opened. We could leave the room. Taking a step away from a problem is quite often the best way to solve a problem. Try lying in your own coffin. You may find the codes have always been there for you.
Folks, thank you for listening to Swimming in the Flood. Resilient leaders face challenging currents, and it is tough navigating, but with one tack or another we can get there together.