Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

A simple question can start a meaningful conversation that prevents bad things from happening.

As I write this post, our elected representatives ended a partial shutdown of our Federal government a couple of days ago. Such shutdown set some type of record and brought lots of grief to thousands of people. I know this involves politics and as such raises blood pressures and the volume of speech but keep reading as the solution is applicable to many different situations.

Before such a standoff occurs, gather the folks in a room and ask, “What do you want?”

Answer honestly and candidly.

“Well, we have certain constraints here, what can we eliminate so that you have what you want?”

Further honest and candid conversation as both sides say what they want with brevity and clarity.

No on belittles what the other wants.

Note: if what you want is to embarrass the other party, say so. Honesty and candor are essential.

Oh, you want to embarrass me? Okay, I can take some ribbing and be the butt of your jokes. What else?

I can picture our current elected representatives engaging in such. Perhaps I am silly, but I can picture this. I can also picture the needless loss suffered by thousands of innocent bystanders.

Move to my regular day-to-day job. Same question applies. Same honesty and candor applies. Same conversation applies. We can do better with simple questions like, “What do you want?”