Stressful times spawn stressed-out people, and stressed-out people tend to lash out. Often the drama is played out in private. Sometimes it’s not; sometimes that conflict is played out for the entire world to see. Such is the case with today’s collapse of the National Basketball Association’s labor negotiation.
It is hard to debate that in a soft economy, short fuses and conflict are far more frequent than they were during the salad days of our nation’s boom-time economy. Longer and deeper are the roster of reasons why conflict is on the rise: worry, frustration, desperation, greed, selfish self-centeredness — the list is long as the band plays on.
I had lunch today with a longtime NBA veteran. He said simply, “I never thought it would get to this point.”
I could not argue. Both of us thought the owners and players would compromise in time to play a full season. Based on today’s collapse of negotiations, any season at all seems to be wishful thinking.
This year, all three major sports industries — the NFL, Major League Baseball, and the NBA — needed to negotiate new multi-year labor agreements between owners and players. The NFL, whose average team is worth more than a billion dollars, grunted, groaned, postured, and cut a win-win deal that let them start the season on time. It was business, never personal or disrespectful, and culminated accordingly.
Major League Baseball is close to doing the same. Baseball has nothing to argue about, knows it, and will soon announce its new deal, the last during Bud Selig’s checkered reign as owner lapdog and ineffective puppeteer. Baseball will change next year, when Selig retires and is replaced as commissioner. I am a baseball man and hope those changes will enable America’s pastime to shove itself back to the forefront of American sports consciousness.
But the NBA, whose owners have been easily outpointed by the players throughout the dozen years of their recently-expired labor agreement, seem to be out for more than a settlement. Here’s why:
Managing conflict, or in this case working through it to get to an amenable solution both sides can live with, hinges on three things:
- How insistent each participant is upon getting his or her own way.
- How willing each participant is to help the other satisfy his or her (different) wants and needs.
- How flexible each side is willing to be with regards to moving off his personal stance.
It is worth noting that labor agreements in sports are different than those in most other businesses due to the competitive nature of the combatants. The sports industry, by design, is populated with very competitive people. Their self-image, self-esteem, and perceived place in culture runs on competitive juice. Since negotiations are already stressful by their very nature — a high-stakes argument over money — ultra-competitive people who have been winners their entire lives do not sit comfortably on opposite sides of the table. To a competitor, it’s not always about the money; the ultimate goal is winning.
The NFL knew that and worked through it. Baseball isn’t as adrenaline dependent as football and worked around it. The NBA has a much bigger problem because the NBA is stuck in the crosshairs of its own machismo. Compounding the problem for the NBA is that half the owners in the game today were not in it when the previous deal was struck. They inherited a bad deal and lost hundreds of millions because of it.
Anyone involved in a dispute has four attitudes he or she can take. Two of those four pertain to satisfying themselves. The other two are tied to their willingness to satisfying others.
- Those interested in satisfying themselves have a range in which to do so, which spans from unassertive to very assertive.
- When it comes to a willingness to flex to the needs of others, people can range from uncooperative to accommodating.
The area between these extremes — between unassertive and assertive, and uncooperative and accommodating — is the room for compromise. It is here the NBA has tied its own shoelaces together and keeps falling down in its defiant rush to nowhere.
When a side with a selfish interest shows consistently assertive behaviors (i.e. NBA Commissioner David Stern), the other side (in this case the players) will be predictably uncooperative. They will fight or flee, seeking conflict or avoidance. When this happens (and it has) getting to Yes becomes extremely difficult. Today the players opted to disband their union and fight.
Now that talks have collapsed, Stern is willing to let his lawyers do his bullying for him. He can pause from kissing his mirror and issuing his irritating daily ultimatums and ponder, downstream, perhaps a more collaborative approach. If he eventually does so, he will find the players somewhat accommodating. And it is that range — between assertive collaboration and unassertive accommodation — that compromise can be reached.
The fix is cheaper than the price the players and owners will pay, so the real question is when both sides will decide to move closer together out of respect for the other’s fundamental protective needs. A new commissioner would help. So would a more solution-centric approach.
It is tough for fans, most of whom cannot afford a ticket — an average NBA ticket is $48 — but still loyally watch the NBA in record numbers on television (up 30 percent last year), to care about billionaires imparting their will upon millionaires.
It is a fool’s folly for the NBA to believe this public display of “negotiation” will not more deeply dent its already scratched and tarnished brand.
Stern does not seem to care. He appears hell-bent on breaking the union and winning the negotiation. This is his last labor deal; his ego is driving him to an impressively desperate march for a very personal win. Taking back $3 billion in union0-agreed concessions is not enough; Stern wants more. Much, much more.
The NBA brand has blown an ACL trying to take off its own warmups, and the sooner both sides decide to meet in the middle the better. Maybe that day is soon. But if not, we all know what must happen before tall acrobats can once again return to playing hoops: Eventually both sides need to respect each other as much or more than they respect themselves.
The question is when.