Compromise is when a dispute is settled or an agreement is made when each side makes concessions. Usually this is done through negotiations. It looks sort of like — if you do this, then I’ll do that and we’ll both agree to settle. The reason a compromise is needed is because both sides want something that cannot work out. Right now in my province the Elementary Teachers are about to strike, just before back to school in the Fall. The government is saying they won’t budge on their side of the contract, and the teachers are saying it isn’t a fair deal. At some point, over the period of negotiations, they will come to a compromise that works for both sides, and the teachers will go back to the classroom and school will resume.

On the surface, the idea that “when you compromise, no one wins” seems pretty straight forward. Neither side is getting exactly what they want. But the truth here is, neither side COULD get what they wanted, either. Things came to a halt, like in my example above, with a strike. The government wasn’t meeting the teacher’s expectations, and the teachers weren’t bowing to the government’s low standards. Nothing was happening and so negotiations were entered into.

Once a compromise was struck — both sides didn’t get what they wanted originally, this is true — but now work could resume. Now both sides had won. Both sides were back to the work that needed to be done, both sides once more carried out their end of the deal. Without compromise they would have been at a stalemate.

Sometimes you have to give to get, or give-up to get. It’s like a Chinese-finger-trap puzzle. When you stick a finger in each side and pull, you are stuck. But if you push in, the opposite of what you’d expect to get out of the situation, then you are able to extricate your fingers. If you kept pulling on both sides, you’d never get out.

Sometimes in our lives we have to compromise. We have to make concessions at work, or at home, or with our social lives. The standard if you do this, then I’ll do that and we’ll both agree to settle. And sometimes we have to compromise our values in order to save the peace. This might look like, if you value comfort, but your partner wants to do something that falls outside your comfort zone — wanting to experience new things with your partner, you may choose to do the new activity, even though it makes you uncomfortable. And you partner agrees that the next activity shared can be something of your choosing, so it can be within your comfort. This is a compromise.

There are certain places where compromise just won’t work. When it comes to safety standards, it has been decided that there is too much at risk to give up on the measures required to keep people safe. If your place of business asks you to compromise your safety, you are within your rights to say no, and there is law in place to support you, should you require it.

Negotiations around compromise can be heated, when both parties want their own way. But this goes back to my original thought — if no one compromises, no one wins. When we can find a way to agree where both parties benefit from the results, then a compromise can be a win-win situation. When entering in to these sort of negotiations, it is best to leave ego at the door. Use facts to help you sort through what works best for each side. And remember to always be kind.

If you are struggling to make a compromise somewhere in your life right now, I’d love to be the voice of reason for you. Reach out for a free 30 minute discovery call, and lets see if we’re a good fit.