Today we witnessed a lose/lose situation as the US congress committee failed to agree to a deficit reduction plan in time to be passed by Wednesday.  What happened?  While I have no inside knowledge of the proceedings, based on newspaper accounts, it appears that both sides adopted a “competitive” style of conflict resolution. They were concerned about meeting their own goals no matter what.  Winning was everything.  As a result they lost big time.  In my book Don’t Carve the Turkey with a Chainsaw: Resolving Family Conflict, I state that competitive people typically ask for more than they expect to get, exaggerate the value of an concessions they make, while minimizing the value of concession conceded by their opponent.  Most competitive people do not experience their behavior as aggressive, coercive, or offensive.  Rather, they believe they are upholding their standards or protecting others.  Does this sound familiar?

Wow, what a ride the stock market has taken lately.  The Wall Street Journal reports that we just experienced one of the more volatile weeks in history.  Why?  While I was not invited to participate in any of the discussions, it appears clear that the politicians were unable to resolve their conflict over the budget deficits in the US and Europe.  Looking in from outside the beltway, part of the problem appears to be that some people became focused on their position and became inflexible.  It was my way or the highway.  They probably became even more demanding because of pledges they had made to their constituent groups.  As we saw, this created problems.