Negotiating the Manager as Negotiator

Negotiating

The Manager as Negotiator -- creating artistic and financial value in commercial arts negotiations

According to the guidebook The Manager as Negotiator, the very essence of negotiation is creating and claiming value. Every person in a negotiation strives to advance his or her interests and maximize his or her advantages. The goal of the process is ultimately to attempt to bridge the gap, ideally, between two different points-of-view by creating a more equitable solution that improves upon either party's narrowly advanced interests.

David Lax's and James Sebenius' illustration of this principle is that of bartering. For example, two persons with different material goods, such as bananas and pears, are able to come to an better agreement if they can arrive at a fair price, than they would be had they refused to trade at all, as both will have more variety of foodstuffs in the long run. However, this example can prove difficult when one party attempts to transpose this assumption onto the field of the arts. In business negotiations, finances tend to dominate. No matter how divided the two parties are in terms of how they see an issue, usually the crucial matter involves dollars and cents. Likewise, in a divorce settlement, emotions and the welfare of the children often dominate the proceedings, even though finances are also an issue. Regardless, both parties tend to view the proceeding from the same paradigm -- either primarily from a professional or a personal standpoint.

However, when negotiating between artists and management, quite often the issues of professionalism and personal integrity become intermixed. Also, the two parties involved, labor and management, often come from very different worlds. While 'the money' or the producers may look first and foremost at the bottom line, artists frequently view their work's artistic integrity as the main issue at stake in any negotiation.

For example, in 2003 Broadway musicians went on strike when the League of Broadway producers deemed that it was financially necessary to do away with requiring that a minimum number of musicians be mandated to staff most Broadway shows. Musicians regarded this as an example of a lack of consideration for the value the musicians brought to the shows, as well as a threat to their livelihood. They saw this as example of how producers undervalued their contribution to the quality of Broadway theater. The producers not only saw this as a cost-saving measure, given Broadway's declining financial health. The producers believed it was necessary for this venue of employment to continue to exist at all for musicians. Some productions, the producers argued, should be allowed to use taped music, if it was financially necessary as well as in keeping with the spirit of the show. Also, the number of musicians should be more under the control of the producers, who presumably had a better idea of how many employees could be afforded by a particular show, as opposed to the Musician's Union, which would only have one narrow interested party in mind, namely the musician's collective welfare. (Hostetter, 2003)

Who owns the final product -- the artist or the person funding the art? Neither can make art 'happen' without the other, yet both parties view art in very different terms. Creating value for both parties requires that the commercial theater on Broadway continue in a state of financial health -- a view that seems to favor the producer's point-of-view. The musicians had a point that, if the quality of music slowly declined on Broadway, this would have a long-term deleterious effect upon the quality of attendance in the long run. Using taped music rather than live musicians, a crucial element of the debate, would do away with one of the reasons people go to live theater in the first place.