ABSTRACT
This chapter describes an 18 month period in which I led the team negotiating a labor agreement for a large group of services companies (25,000) employees. I explore the formation of the negotiation team, internal relations within the team and relations with union leaders, managers, and board members, as well as the politics and other developments that led to the final agreement. The narrative explores the way in which global patterns of interaction continuously emerged in local interactions as I experimented with approaches to leadership with the intention of securing acceptable results. Conflict, or in some cases the avoidance of conflict, played an important role in organizational life, including the negotiation of a labor agreement. I consider how conflict might be thought about, how it is explained by different authors, how it connects to negotiation processes and how global patterns emerge in the local interactions of negotiation. I make a link to the unpredictability of strategic processes and the effect this has on the negotiations.
