School District

For the school district negotiation, I was a superintendent who was routinely bored by these meetings but also wanted to show that I could use new techniques to make these meetings more effecient. This negotiation was somewhat stressful for me, but not because of the topics or the setting. It was was stressful because I was the "leader" of this negotiation, yet I knew that my counterparts had views and issues that they would try to make as "top priority" - and I had to let them feel that way to be seen as "keeping up to date" instead of just taking charge. This made for an environment of "1-up ness" and argumentation ... which I had to control using new techniques. I tried my best, and was sometimes succesful. But then again, at times, I just couldn't get people to shut up. I think overall, however, the meeting went pretty well ... and I'm sure not everyone could actually see how flustered I was getting while issues were being discussed over and over without meaningful resolution.