I was out to get Richard Fowler.
Richard is a media personality and analyst. Like me, he’s also young and black and on Fox News. But unlike me, he’s a liberal, and he’d been on the network for years before I got there. I knew, however, that it was only a matter of time before we crossed paths.
The first day we were scheduled to debate some issue together on camera, I walked up to introduce myself. I didn’t care that he was a Democrat. He was a colleague in the media and another guy working hard at his career. “Just wanted to say hello,” I said, shaking his hand. “Looking forward to being on air with you.”
He looked bored. Dismissive. Right away, he struck me as…well, as if he thought I was beneath him. Maybe, I figured, he was just annoyed Fox News had brought on another young guest to debate. Fair enough.
“Where are you from?” I asked, hoping to break the ice.
“Chicago,” he said.
“Really?” Cool, I thought. Maybe that could bridge this gap between us. “Which part?” I asked.
“Evanston,” he said.
Evanston is a suburb twenty miles outside of Chicago.
I might have laughed.
“That isn’t Chicago,” I said.
“Fuck you,” he said, and walked away to the makeup room.
Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have dissed Evanston, but I’m not sure his response was necessary either. It got worse on set. Richard was notorious for running over people on air, just barreling over them, but some of his data was questionable, so at several points I stopped his monologue and challenged him on it. “What facts do you have to back that up?” I kept saying.
Eventually, he snapped. “I got them from the newspaper. Do you even read those?”
Ouch. After that, it was gloves off. Every time we went on air, I was gunning for him, and vice versa. It was, I admit, personal. It also made for good TV, so the network loved it and kept inviting us to appear together. Months into this relationship, he eventually called me to offer a truce. “Listen,” he said, “we’re the only two young black men on the network. Let’s not do this black-on-black crime on air anymore. Let’s call a truce and move on.”
I agreed. Weeks later, we were back on air together. I let him talk before saying my piece. Then he did it again. Broke all the rules. Talked over me, interrupted me, hogged the whole “conversation,” and basically ran out the clock while saying I didn’t know what I was talking about.
I was ten feet off the set when someone said, “Gianno, you have a call.”
It was a producer from another show. “I just saw you,” he said. “That was brutal. Don’t let Richard do that to you again.”
I tracked down Richard a minute later. “I thought we made a deal to be respectful and let each other get our points across?”
He just laughed. “You know how it is, Gianno. Ha, ha.”
“You know I got you next time,” I warned.
The next few times we were on together, I kept baiting him. “Richard doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” I’d say, trying to get a reaction. Nothing.
One day, Fox News host Ed Henry and I were having lunch together. He told me he was hosting Fox & Friends Weekend and invited me to come on. I didn’t know what the topic would be until the morning of the show. Turns out we would be discussing the violence in Chicago. I was really looking forward to having that discussion.
I was waiting in the greenroom when someone popped their head in.
“Is Richard here yet?” they asked.
“Um…Richard…who?” I asked.
It was Fowler, of course. He was going to be on with me. For about ten seconds, I was annoyed, then I realized that the opportunity I’d been waiting months for had finally arrived. The day’s topic was Chicago, specifically. I had him. As we walked down the hall toward the studio, I’d already started producing the entire segment in my head. This time, I knew, Richard would take the bait.
The segment began. After arguing for a bit, I tossed out my lure. “Unlike Richard,” I said, “I didn’t read about the news in Chicago. I lived it.”
Richard couldn’t resist. He stepped right into it. “What the home audience doesn’t know is that I’m from Chicago. I work in Chicago….And if you talk with the people in Chicago—”
“Bruh…” I called him out, continuing despite his rambling. “Bruh, you’re from Evanston, Richard. In order for you to know what the weather’s like in Chicago, you’d have to read the newspaper. You’re not from Chicago, bruh. You don’t know the environment, you didn’t live there.”
Richard’s face collapsed on national television.
By the time I stepped out of the studio, I’d already been hit with an avalanche of tweets and texts. “You got him!” “Too many bruhs for me.” “Hilarious!” “312!”
Meanwhile, Fox News didn’t post the segment on its website that day or put it out on Twitter. I finally realized I’d said “bruh” about six too many times and figured they’d never invite me back. Still, the Washington Examiner—which I was writing for at the time—pulled some strings and got the clip so I could put it on my personal Facebook page that Monday.
By Tuesday, it was everywhere. The clip was being passed all over Chicago and then nationally, making it onto large urban platforms like The Shade Room, one of urban America’s most followed websites. The TSA agent at the airport was yelling “Bruh!” at me. People all over the country were talking about it. Someone even made a rap mixtape with my face on it, titled “Bruh, You’re from Evanston.” The local press jumped all over the debate about whether Evanston should be considered part of Chicago or not. A local politician from Evanston adopted the slogan “Bruh, I’m from Evanston,” and he ended up being elected mayor.
When the segment went viral, I texted Richard: You good, bro? He came back with: Hey, I’m good.
Still, I kind of felt bad for him. Everybody and their mama was making fun of him. I’d been looking to take him down a peg, sure, but this “victory” felt as hollow as it should have. It’s not why I’d gotten involved in politics or television. We’d been talking about very serious issues in Chicago, issues of life and death. And I’d used my position and opportunity selfishly, carelessly.
I called my trusted ally and peer mentor, Eboni K. Williams, at the time a colleague at Fox News, who’s like a sister to me.
“Hey,” I said. “This thing with Richard has gone crazy viral. There’s got to be something we can do for the people of Chicago.” My thought was that we could speak at local schools about our unique journeys into the media and how we’d grown personally to reach that point. I wanted to provide role models for the youth of Chicago, hopefully to inspire those in despair. And we obviously had to include Richard. We called him, and I said, “Richard, uh, this is me and Eboni on.”
“Okay, great,” he said. He didn’t seem happy to hear from me. Understandably so.
But I kept going. “Listen,” I said. “We had this moment. It’s become a very big thing for a bit. So let’s do something with it. Let’s meet in Chicago—you, me, and Eboni—and go speak to the youth. About guns, gangs, schooling, mentors. You know? We both know the town in our way. The three of us could really do something impactful. Let’s do this.”
Richard was silent.
“Richard?” I prompted.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
I called a number of schools to set up meetings for talks. Some were receptive, while others quickly said no thanks when they heard “Fox News.” One principal said she was all in, but the day before we were scheduled to appear, she called me. “We can’t do it,” she told me. “We’ve got to cancel. The parent-teacher board doesn’t like the fact that you guys appear on Fox News. They don’t like Republicans. So we can’t do it. I’m sorry.”
That was shocking to me. Our talk could literally change lives. I was disappointed that this school would miss the opportunity to hear from us due to the Fox News and Republican connection.
Still, we had four events scheduled over the course of two days. Out of our own pockets, we paid for our airfare, hotel, and car rental. We visited some of the most poverty-stricken areas in the city, where the schools needed the most attention. Most of the students were already familiar with the clip of Richard and me from Fox & Friends Weekend, but they weren’t privy to the backstories of how we had ended up in front of the camera. The sight of three young, black, successful TV professionals, well dressed and articulate, but also able to speak in familiar cultural colloquialisms, proved a shock for many. To see that we—not rappers, athletes, or drug dealers—had made it out of the hood was eye-opening for these young people.
One of our events was at Emil G. Hirsch Metropolitan High School, just several blocks from the first house my family lived in after my grandmother’s home was foreclosed on. The things the school officials shared with us about the student population were heartbreaking—even for me, a guy who’d come up in that community. Stories of recent student murders near the school, the fear students experienced walking through numerous gang territories to get to school, the daily anxiety of perhaps dying while simply trying to get an education. They brought the entire student body into the auditorium to hear us speak. One student we met had a girlfriend and child with whom he lived, and the girl’s mother told him he had to go to school every morning and he had to take the child with him. Every day, this student brought his child to school, and an administrator took care of the baby while he went to class.
Looking these young people in the eye and telling them about my background—the fact that I understood what it felt like to grow up in extreme poverty right down the street from their high school—and seeing myself as a kid in them had a big impact on me. When I told them that, like some of their parents, my mother had been addicted to crack cocaine, you could see the shock on their faces. After the event, several students came up to tell us their stories, to exchange email addresses with us, and to take photos.
After speaking at the four schools, I toured Chicago’s hardest-hit areas with Eboni, giving her a firsthand view of a city we speak so much about on air. We recorded footage for my Instagram page that got picked up by the national media. Vacant lots and boarded-up houses. Drug deals and gang activity. It remained the way of life for the people living here.
That week, we also did a press tour with local and national media, which we hoped would encourage others to find their own ways to make a difference.
Here’s my point in sharing this story: Far too often, we demonize the other side and forget that they’re usually trying to solve the same problems we are…just in different ways. That’s true whether it’s your old college friends on Facebook (I’ll block any supporter of X!) or all those people drawn to the promise of what could get done on Capitol Hill.
It didn’t take much for Richard and me to bury the hatchet and discuss our differences in a way that might do some good. Bipartisan politics on a small scale. But anything that works on a small scale can also work on a larger scale at the highest government and other levels in the land.
I will never forget the feeling of joining together with two people I respect for the betterment of the city. It was a blessing of the greatest proportions. We had an opportunity to turn a fun viral moment into something truly meaningful.
And you will be happy to know that Richard and I are now pals.
this kind of unlikely teamwork when I started working at the Illinois State Capitol. I lobbied the legislature, government officials, and consultants of all stripes and both parties. It was there that, for the first time, I began to be accepted by black people as a Republican.
Malcolm Weems, a ranking Democrat and a respected chief of staff for the governor’s budget office, was one of the first black senior bureaucrats who took me seriously. He pulled me aside shortly after I arrived in Springfield. “Listen,” he said. “I know you’re a Republican, but at the end of the day, you’re one of us. You actually care about the black community. I know because of what others have said and what I have observed. We got you.”
He didn’t care one iota that I was a Republican. Rather, he saw it as an advantage, because I’d become the black community’s representative in the GOP. It was exactly the kind of opportunity I’d been hoping for. Weems and others understood that I had a voice inside the other team and could maybe help people on both sides see things differently. He understood that we might do some good together. It was great to have someone like him advocate for me.
If you’re thinking I see how it is; you guys have this little club together…well, you’re right. Only 12 percent of the country is African American. We know that to get anything done, you sometimes need to sit down with the “enemy” and sort things out. The fact that nearly 40 percent of prison inmates are black men and that 40 percent of black children live in poverty only makes bipartisan efforts all the more important.
Such camaraderie continued when I arrived in D.C. I quickly learned that people on both sides of the aisle were working to cut deals and sometimes to help our bosses see the bigger picture and put politics and posturing aside. Bipartisanship is rare in D.C., but it does exist.
The bigger picture, it may surprise you, is actually remarkably clear.
Here are some specific plank points and goals declared at the national party convention in 2016:
Raising workers’ wages and supporting working families
Protecting workers’ fundamental rights
Expanding access to affordable housing and homeownership
Building twenty-first-century infrastructure
Fostering/returning U.S. manufacturing
Promoting innovation and entrepreneurship
Supporting America’s small businesses
Creating jobs for America’s young people
Reforming our criminal justice system
Fixing our broken immigration system
Investing in rural America
Providing quality and affordable education
Reducing prescription drug costs
Combating drug and alcohol addiction
Promoting public health
Ending violence against women
Preventing gun violence
Supporting a strong military
Confronting global threats
Being a world leader
I’m sure you’ll notice I didn’t say which party convention. That’s because these goals were touted as primary objectives at both the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia and the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
While we clearly disagree over how best to solve these problems—bigger government versus personal responsibility and self-determination—the desire to address these issues is indistinguishable.
Surely, partisan hostilities can be set aside for discussion, compromise, and tangible progress for the American people.
It has happened in recent memory.
During the Obama years, it took genuine bipartisan efforts to craft important free trade deals with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia; the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013; the Every Student Succeeds Act (No Child Left Behind 2.0); and the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015.
But, undeniably, it’s been a while.
In Arizona senator John McCain’s last official address to the Senate, though voting against the GOP’s half-hearted effort to repeal Obamacare, he specifically emphasized the need for bipartisanship and called upon “the necessity of compromise in order to make incremental progress on solving America’s problems.” McCain said: “I hope we can again rely on humility, on our need to cooperate, on our dependence on each other to learn how to trust each other again and by so doing better serve the people who elected us….Let’s trust each other. Let’s return to regular order. We’ve been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle.”
I felt the same frustration.
For months, I’d pretended to wonder why the Democratic Party, which receives such enormous support from African Americans, wasn’t more supportive of the criminal justice reform bill the White House was working on.
The answer, of course, was Trump.
This was the most comprehensive criminal justice reform bill in recent history—what would become the First Step Act. The measure was introduced in the Senate on November 15, 2018, by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and minority whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), among others. Intended to be a true bipartisan effort, this bill was also supported by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Fraternal Order of Police, the Koch brothers, and many evangelical Christian groups.
The goal for all was to reduce mandatory sentences for some drug-related felonies, make more low-level offenders eligible for early release, and provide more funding for anti-recidivism programs. If passed, the bill would reduce thousands of prison sentences, primarily in the African American community, and save the federal government millions of dollars in the process.
You’d think Democrats would have come running to the White House for an opportunity to work with the administration on this bill. Fat chance. Instead, several high-profile Democrats soundly rejected the proposed legislation, from former attorney general Eric Holder to a coalition of leading Senate Democrats, including Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California. (Funny how many of these saboteurs would soon run for president.) In a joint letter, these senators claimed that the measure would be “a step backwards” and that prison reform would fail if Congress did not simultaneously completely overhaul the nation’s sentencing laws. Also signing the letter were Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Representative John Lewis of Georgia, the civil rights icon. More telling, Dick Durbin, the guy who’d originally sponsored the bill, now had a change of heart.
All this posturing once again proved the hypocrisy of the Democratic Party. Instead of working with the administration on a significant piece of legislation for the black community—which they claimed to represent—they instead obstructed and disingenuously asserted that it didn’t go far enough.
To be fair, some vocal Democrats were brave enough to challenge their party’s resistance to the bill. Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York scolded his party for what he called the “all-or-nothing approach” of the bill’s opponents. Jeffries warned his colleagues that they risked losing focus on the people who would most stand to benefit from even limited congressional action. “There are thousands of people who are incarcerated right now who will be helped immediately if the First Step Act becomes law,” Jeffries said. “They don’t care about politics. They need the help, and they need the help now.” And well-known former Obama administration official Van Jones tweeted: “Give the man his due: @realDonaldTrump is on his way to becoming the uniter-in-Chief on an issue that has divided America for generations.”
Both Jones and Jeffries are African American. But denying Trump a victory clearly superseded common sense and the desire to serve their most loyal constituents. With so much on the line, both parties—especially the Democrats—needed to work with the administration to get this legislation passed and turn the tide of American justice. Meanwhile, the people who could truly benefit from the legislation remained in prison.
Even more damning for Democrats was that they had been the ones who’d made the epic error of supporting and pushing through Bill Clinton’s 1994 crime bill. That bill—which I like to call the “modern-day slavery bill”—led directly and rapidly to the overcriminalization of African Americans throughout the country. For petty crimes like smoking or selling insignificant amounts of weed—crimes that some states have eliminated altogether and many local governments now give minor fines for, almost like a parking ticket. Thanks to Clinton’s bill (and, previously, Reagan’s “war on drugs”), the grim reality is that, statistically, almost every black person in America has had some interaction with the criminal justice system—either personally or through a family member.
Worst of all was when Clinton later praised the “successes” of the crime bill. During a 2016 presidential campaign event for his wife, Hillary, he claimed, “Because of that bill, we had a 25-year low in crime, a 33-year low in the murder rate.” The event and his speech were soon interrupted by a Black Lives Matter group—and for good reason. Independent analysis has found that the bill had a “modest” effect on crime rates, at best. Democrats often claim they gave the black community the 1994 crime bill because “they asked for it,” when, in fact, Jesse Jackson, the most prominent leader of the black community at that time, spoke before Congress warning of the dangers of the bill. In the end, the Democrats passed the bill with the majority of the Republicans voting against it.
By 2014, African Americans constituted 2.3 million, or 37 percent, of the 6.8 million Americans who were incarcerated. Since the United States has the largest corrections population in the world, this literally translates to African Americans being the most incarcerated group of people on earth. A very sad reality. And sad for me personally, considering I have close family members who’ve been, shall we say, “impacted” by this legislation. I am not alone, of course. Millions of others in the black community can say the same.
I saw the First Step Act as a clear opportunity to right this wrong, but the left did not want to see the legislation succeed, and the press hardly covered the issue or the possibility that the bill might pass. It became obvious that many Democrats would rather see black people stay in jail than give President Trump any credit for supporting this significant legislation. (It didn’t help, I suspect, that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was a major force behind the push to pass it.)
While we waited for something both parties had claimed to want before Trump’s election to become law, the U.S. Sentencing Commission estimated that roughly 2,250 inmates per year would have their sentences reduced under the new legislation. And an additional 3,000 inmates could serve shorter sentences under the retroactive application of the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act. Both bills addressed mostly low-level offenses. If the First Step Act passed, judges would have greater flexibility in sentencing versus being forced to implement the mandatory minimum sentences required by Clinton’s 1994 law. Although the legislation applied only to federal prisons, the bill would likely inspire, according to many studies, legislation that would impact local prison populations as well.
The GOP was in a perfect position to set things back in the right direction. During the summer of 2018, however, everything flip-flopped.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was suddenly not committed to bringing the First Step Act to the floor. I’d been told by sources on the Hill that McConnell felt the bill was causing too many intra-caucus squabbles and was no longer “worth” the potential political fallout. He was worried that those like Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who’d led a misinformation campaign for months in an effort to kill the bill, would make statements alleging that it would allow hardened career criminals out of jail, completely ignoring the safety valves and language of the actual bill. In August, Cotton went so far as to write an op-ed full of such assertions.
His scare tactics were beginning to work until Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) stepped in with his own op-ed rebutting each one of Cotton’s assertions, calling them untrue and intellectually dishonest. Lee opined, “As a former federal prosecutor, I am clear-eyed about crime. I have nothing but respect for law-enforcement officials, who put themselves in danger every single day in order to protect the public. I know from experience that dangerous criminals exist—individuals who are incapable of or uninterested in rehabilitation and change. We should throw the book at those people. But my time as a prosecutor also tells me that not every criminal is dangerous or incapable of living a productive life. My faith as a Christian teaches me that many people are capable of redemption. And my instincts as a conservative make me believe that the government can be reformed to work better. For those reasons, I believe the First Step Act is legislation that deserves the support of all conservatives.”
Even so, Cotton’s original op-ed proved effective enough that some important Republican senators—including Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas—wavered in their support. The Democratic leadership smelled blood in the water. Figuring that McConnell was stuck, they tried once again to prove to the American people—specifically African Americans—how racist the GOP was. See, the Republicans don’t want you out of jail! they said. And then, in what I have to admit was a smart pivot, the Democrats switched course. Now, ironically, they were backing the act with minor changes attached.
People’s lives were being used as a political football. But it was all theater. The majority of the Republicans in the Senate were, by my count, still in favor of the bill. I had been working on criminal justice issues for years, leading meetings in conjunction with National Bar Association then-president Ben Crump with the chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees on other criminal justice reforms. In this case, we just had some work to do to convince people to set aside their political egos for the greater good.
I traveled to D.C. to lobby one of the most important measures of my lifetime. I wasn’t alone. For months, I’d been advocating for the bill on TV and keeping my ear to the ground on Capitol Hill. Conservative firebrand Candace Owens knew about my advocacy for the First Step Act and asked me to join other conservative voices in D.C. to put on a demonstration of democracy in action. Owens is a far-right commentator and political activist. Her career has been controversial, as her rhetoric is often intentionally confrontational and incendiary.
After speaking with Candace, I booked my ticket and hotel and got ready to leave Los Angeles that night. Wanting to lobby this legislation the right way, I reached out to Mitch McConnell’s and Chuck Grassley’s respective committee counsel to discuss the status of the legislation and see which committee members should be targeted to ensure success. The majority of GOP members were fully in favor of the bill, but I knew our group needed the right strategy to push McConnell to bring this legislation to the floor.
We then walked the halls using the list of members I’d compiled. For us this wasn’t “simply” lobbying a good bill. This was personal. This was a major opportunity specifically for the black community.
One person we definitely needed to visit was Senator Cruz. Like Senator Cotton, he’d been muddying the waters and causing confusion. We soon learned a lot more than what the media was reporting. His criticism of the bill, like Cotton’s, didn’t hold up under scrutiny. We demanded a meeting with Cruz, and when we got it, we pressed him. The senator told us he felt the bill could result in the release of dangerous criminals, even though, as he well knew, federal inmates would first have to go through vigorous analysis put in place by the Department of Justice and their own local wardens. Ultimately, it became clear that Cruz didn’t trust the wardens or the DOJ on this matter, although he couldn’t provide any data to support his claim.
I asked Cruz if he would at least ask McConnell to send the bill to the floor. He said no. Unless the Senate was willing to support Cruz’s amendment to the bill—an amendment that none of us had seen but that Cruz claimed would help prevent violent criminals from being released—he said that McConnell would not bring the bill to the floor.
I told the senator he was effectively standing in the way of criminal justice reform. “Your way,” I challenged him, “or no way at all?”
He denied that claim, but it appeared to me and the rest of us who’d come to Washington that day that was exactly what was going on. Politicians are self-interested. The bigger the issue, the bigger the stage, the more self-interest comes into it. And the more game playing.
I was on a plane to L.A. when I got a message from a friend, a senior official at the White House who’d been one of the early architects of the bill. “I heard you were in town whooping up some votes for my bill,” he said.
I told him I was legitimately hopeful that we were going to get this done and then promised to keep up the pressure on Democrats and Republicans during my appearances on Fox News.
The next day, a piece about our group’s visit appeared online. I started getting calls and texts from many of my Hollywood celebrity friends. Big names. People with millions of social media followers. People with big brand deals.
But they weren’t sending me words of praise and thanks for supporting legislation that would help the black community.
“What are you doing?” they asked.
I was confused.
“You’re working with Candace Owens? Are you serious?” they said. “You got to think about your brand and reputation, doing any work with her.”
My brand and reputation? Rest assured, I was aware of my “brand” and the minor blowback I might get long before I headed to D.C.
“Are you joking right now?” I shouted back into the phone. “This bill is for black people. For the community! Are you being serious?”
Owens is all in with Trump and sometimes says things I don’t agree with. But none of that mattered to me in this case. From what I could tell, she was very serious and passionate about this issue for all the right reasons. Why wouldn’t I want to work with her, or anyone else, on this?
About a month after our visit, Congress passed the First Step Act, and it was signed into law by President Trump.
Those folk on the phone didn’t care about my reasons for supporting the bill. Not really. Many of the naysayers would rather have seen black Americans stay in jail if it meant Trump succeeding. And this is exactly what the Democratic Party wants. They don’t want any conservative being seen as someone who does good work for African Americans, or Hispanics, or women. Worse—and the reason the bill had a very real chance of failing—they will not compromise.
These days, it seems, you have to be extreme. It’s all in on Trump or all against him. Radical left or dug-in right.
But there’s another way.
Whether in politics or personal relationships, the word “compromise” can often be seen as a dirty word, a polite label for caving on a position that’s truly important to you. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Compromise isn’t about finding a resolution that both parties can endure, even if they secretly hate it. It’s about understanding where all parties in a disagreement are coming from and forging a solution that continues to meet the spirit of what each person truly wants—even if the details of that solution aren’t what they first expected. While true compromise is rarely easy…sometimes it’s necessary. When it is, these five tips I’ve learned might help.
1. Winning today is less important than winning your goal.
It’s human nature to want to win, and the bigger the stage, the higher the stakes for that win. Whereas you might be willing to concede a point in a college classroom or at the kitchen table, giving up the floor at your workplace or in your church may feel impossible. And once you’ve won once, you want to keep winning, again and again. That implacable need to win, however, is already a failure. It shows you aren’t truly committed to the longer-term goal of a successful relationship with those in your workplace, church, community, or family. Your driving need to dominate every minor decision could be setting you up for future discord that will keep you from accomplishing real, meaningful change. So be strategic as you enter each conversation, and know that sometimes compromising is the way to ultimate success.
2. Keep your emotions in check—except in this very important way.
We’ve all been in arguments with that individual who thinks the loudest voice or the greatest fury wins. Once again, this strategy can absolutely succeed in the short term—but in the long run, it wreaks havoc on your reputation as a negotiator or influencer. People want to work with others they can genuinely respect, even like. That’s not the person whose rage is their most memorable attribute. Emotion does have its place in conversations while you’re working toward compromise, but it’s not after the fact, when everyone’s laid out their viewpoint and you’re struggling to reach an agreement. It’s at the very beginning of the process. Specifically, when you first present your side of the story, explaining why you want the outcome you want. At that moment, you simply must…
3. Share deeply and authentically.
In any situation requiring compromise, all parties must get their say. The chance to explain their point of view and offer facts, research, or personal stories supporting their push for a particular outcome. It’s critical to come prepared to state your case as clearly and authentically as you can, driving home the personal and deeply emotional reasons why you think the way you do. This is where skill as a speaker will come into play, and where you will most impress the other members of the group with how important and valid your position is. This is the area in which you have the most control.
4. Listen with an open mind.
Perhaps the simplest part of the process is to listen. Not with the intention of identifying logic lapses or argument holes, and not as simply a bridge before you get to speak again. Listen to opposing viewpoints with a genuinely open mind, giving yourself permission to learn something new about the topic that you perhaps had not considered before in that particular light. Listen actively, making eye contact with the speaker, taking notes if relevant, and even following up with questions that are not tailored to showcase your viewpoint, but to draw even deeper information from the speaker. This approach will get noticed and will earn you the respect of your peers even if they don’t acknowledge it in the moment.
5. Show appreciation.
Ultimately, a decision will be reached and a resolution accepted. You may win this particular battle—or you may not. But no matter what the outcome is, be sure to show your appreciation to everyone involved in hammering out the compromise. All of you cared enough to make a good-faith effort to achieve the best solution, and the group’s ability to work together ultimately will make it stronger, better prepared for the next decision you need to make. Take a moment to reflect on the final decision and why it’s the best decision for the moment—and express those reasons positively and proactively. Compromise is hard work. Honor the effort, and you’ll validate all parties involved.