Half A Loaf

The definition of compromise is to, “make a deal between two different parties, where each party gives up a portion of their demand.” Sometimes, when people can’t agree, they will hire a neutral third party, a mediator, to referee the negotiations, and hopefully steer them toward a workable solution.

I have a friend, a professional mediator, who was called upon to help with a management/labor dispute. The people involved were shut into a windowless, smoke-filled room. Ashtrays filled up quickly as the arguments became more heated.

My friend, the mediator, started coughing and said, “I need a break. It’s too smoky in here. I can’t breathe. Could you please stop smoking for the rest of the meeting?” and he left the room. When he returned, the union leader said, “Mr. Mediator, while you were gone, we came to an agreement.” “That is so good to hear,” said my friend. “I knew that reasonable people could compromise. What did you agree upon?” “Well,” said the representative of management, “Since we are a tobacco company, we didn’t think you should tell us to stop smoking, so we agreed to let you go.”

“Sometimes you even have to compromise with yourself such as, “I’m on a diet, so I’ll only eat one Ding-Dong instead of three.” Making decisions (other than pronouncements by dictators) calls for some give and take, and if you are lucky, you’ll end up with a happy balance and not a grudge. Of course, the alternative to compromise is doing nothing. The 112^th U.S. Congress was especially gifted in this area.

Gerald F. Seib, wrote in the Wall Street Journal about a new model of compromise to get polarized politicians in Washington, D.C. beyond impasse. He wrote about a group called, “No Labels” consisting of Republicans, Democrats and Independents, who have formed to find the “new politics of problem solving.” They met in New York City on 1/14/2013 to build trust across the aisle. I assume they met, but I haven’t read anything about that gathering. Maybe they are still arguing about whether to turn the heat up or down in the meeting room.

If this group discovers a way to be conciliatory, the public might think them brilliant, rather than maybe they didn’t understand the depth of the problems to begin with. The good thing about compromise is that once you have agreed, you don’t have to think up any more stupid questions to delay the proceedings.

A compromising position is when a person is openly exposed doing something of which he or she is blatantly guilty, such as telling someone you baked a cake from scratch, and he finds the cake mix box in the garbage. It can be very embarrassing when a congressman falls into the Potomac River with his stripper girlfriend instead of being where he was supposed to be---a gathering of avid bird watchers.

A good compromise is when people come to a middle of the road agreement, and accept that they can’t have everything they want. The author, Christopher Myers put it best. “Compromise is when one person wants to rob a bank and the other person does not---so they compromise to rob a person outside the bank.”

Esther Blumenfeld (If you bend you won’t break, but you might have a very sore back.)