Negociation

The Boomerang by Tiberius Brastaviceanu is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at Multitude Project.

Things to consider before you engage your opponent

What you've lost and what you can gain?

You must realize what you've already lost: your job, your reputation, your friends, etc. The importance you associate with the thing(s) you've lost will determine what you'll ask for. The ratio between your losses and your potential gains will determine the magnitude of your efforts and the resources you will allocate for the conflict.

What is the damage you can inflict on your opponent and what can he/she potentially gain?

It is crucial to understand your opponent's motivation(s). Any conflict demands energy and allocation of resources. Understanding what drives your opponent will give you a better idea about how far he/she is prepared to go .

Concentrate on interests!

Most individuals approach the conflict from a normative point of view, they spend a lot of energy to demonstrate the wrongdoing of the opponent, neglecting the underlying motivations. This reaction is conditioned by the most predominant conflict resolution mechanism in our society, the justice system. In a court of law, the judge decides between guilty and non-guilty by butting in the balance the arguments of the defender and of the accuser, against official social norms. The process becomes very technical, the discussions concentrate on facts, and the judgment tends to be more formal. In mediation however, the goal is not to cut between guilty and non-guilty, but to reach a compromise. This mechanism of conflict resolution takes more into consideration the motivations of the two parties. In our situation, when you threaten to appeal to the court of public opinion, the interests of your opponent become even more important, and must be elevated to the first rang. The fundamental difference here is that there is no third party, you deal directly with your opponent. There is no external authority to recognize guilt and to impose a proportional reparation. Your employer will never admit guilt in this situation, but nonetheless he will be able to judge how damaging your actions could be, if you were to go public with the story in a smart way, and he is ready to give something away in order to avoid these problems. It is crucial for you to objectively estimate the potential consequences of going public, how much damage you can inflict, in order to know how much you can ask for.

But remember, the primary goal of our technique is to get a fair reparation from your opponent, not to expose the conflict to the public. You only broadcast your employment horror story if the negotiation breaks down. In order to convince your opponent to give something, to reach a compromise, you need to address directly/explicitly his concerns.

Tactic

If you have a very simple case to prove a lawyer will probably accept to take it on a contingency basis. If this is your case, you might still consider using the legal channel. Your employer might also offer you mediation. Usually, this process is biased in his favor, because the mediator is a service provider getting payed by your employer. If you sense any conflict of interest it is your call to go through the mediation process or to opt for the Boomerang. Let's suppose that you decide to go with our method.

Engage your employer and get in control of the process.

• Send a written note to your employer asking for a reparation you consider just, and informing him about your intent to bring your case to the court of public opinion, if you are not given a sense of justice (a template letter will be available soon). The goal of this letter is to lead your opponent to the conclusion that it is in his best interest to agree with your demands. Be reasonable, show determination, and don't mix your emotions to this process.

  • Make sure that your employer understands the damaging potential of the Boomerang (of going public with your employment horror story in a very well planed way).

    • Sent a link to the Improve employment conditions! section of this website. This will tell your employer that your actions will be well planned and potentially very damaging. You will also save a few words in your letter in linking to this website.

  • Let him know very briefly WHAT you are going to expose, including events, names, your opinion about the intent behind their actions against you, etc. Everything MUST be related to the mistreatment you've received, otherwise you can be accused of blackmailing them. You have the right to talk about your own experiences as long as you don't expose company's secrets, for which you've most probably signed a nondisclosure agreement.

  • Keep most of the cards for yourself, don't disclose too much information, don't expose all your tactics. Give your employer the opportunity to imagine worst-case scenarios.

  • Set a deadline, after which you will carry out your actions according to the Boomerang technique.

  • Be firm, inspire determination, YOU ARE IN TOTAL CONTROL.

• Make sure your employer knows that you are well armed. If he smells weakness you will not get anything from him.

  • You need to have written documents, E-mail communications, recorded conversations, testimonies, etc. These elements are very important, if you don't have them make sure you get at least something that supports your story.

    • Make copies of all your E-mails from the company, if you still have access to the network

    • Ask your friends inside the company to send you information, record their testimony, or make them write something to you. Most of your good colleagues will abandon you when they'll smell trouble, and they will be very careful in talking to you. You can always use disguised digital media recorders during casual off-work conversations to get something from them. Don't use this information without their permission, but this can become valuable in case the company decides to sue you for libeling them.

    • Another tactic is to provoke members of the administration to respond in writing. It is hard to get something out of them during the dispute, but sometimes they make mistakes. Target technical people, they tend to be less concerned with legal aspects than business people.

    • Record your conversations with the HR, probably your only direct official line of communication with the company during the dispute, and ask them many questions, and repeat some of these questions a few days later. They will eventually make some mistakes. Prefer verbal communication, in-person or over the phone. People tend to be very careful/rational in writing, you have a better chance of getting something otherwise.

    • You need to write down on a piece of paper all the important events in details, past and present.

  • Make sure your employer understands that you have at your disposal very sophisticated means to deliver your story to entities that matter a lot for his business/reputation. A link to the Improve employment conditions! section of this website will help him understand what you are talking about. Read the section The power of our new tactics.

  • Make sure that your employer understands that if the negotiation for a fair reparation deal breaks down you WILL carry out the actions as prescribed by the Boomerang technique. If you are just bluffing your employer can sense that. Give him reasons why you will carry out these actions, don't give him the chance to formulate other ideas and suppose that you will shy away from it.

• Don't victimize yourself, spin your personal tragedy into a problem of your employer. This is important! In fact, if you actually were wrongfully discharged, someone in that company screwed up. Usually this cases are a consequence of irrational decision making, exposing the company to damaging lawsuits and other dire consequences. You can refer to greed, unlawful competition, management problems, etc. You need to frame your story into something that would affect the company, that would resonate within its ecosystem. Something that would move your employer's competitors, suppliers, customers, etc. Unfortunately, in this society nobody cares about your situation, you are not going to get any attention by telling strangers how much you suffer. But you will get their attention if you are telling them something that they can use to improve their economical situation, to take advantage over your employer. Take this under consideration and use the proper language when approaching your employer. Make him understand that all this is bout HIM, NOT you.

• Destabilize your opponent by implicitly suggesting to him that you have other tricks under your sleeve. For example make him understand that you still have some allies within the company, people that trusted you and with whom you will continue to stay in touch, without providing names to expose them to any danger. Vaguely hint to other tactics you might use. Stress on the fact that your actions of going public, using the powerful methods designed by the Multitude Group, are very POTENT, IRREVERSIBLE, and PERMANENT. Let your opponent understand that your actions will be TOTALLY UNDER YOUR CONTROL, and that he will be powerless to oppose your actions or to repair the damage. You decide what to publish and who you contact. Give your employer the opportunity to imagine worst-case scenarios. Avoid a threatening or blackmailing language. Speak about justice, and about the right of others to know who your employer really is.

These are only loose recommendation based on our experience and to the best of our knowledge. We are not responsible of any unwanted effect resulting from your actions, based on these recommendation.

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