Episode 38: The Science (and Art) of Persuasion in Bargaining

This episode examines the six principles of persuasion drawn from the book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, and considers how these principles apply to the world of collective bargaining.

Reference:
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini

Transcript

Chris Casillas: 0:10

As negotiators, one of our objectives in many negotiations is to try and persuade the other side as to the merits of our own position or proposal, in the hope that our idea, or at least some version thereof, may be adopted by the parties. But the pathway to persuasion is often filled with more obstacles than we may realize. Our success in persuading our partners on the other side of the bargaining table is rarely as straightforward as simply presenting exceedingly rational, or logical ideas, or ones that are supported by an overwhelming amount of data. The reality is that to truly persuade someone, it requires a deeper understanding around how the human mind processes information, and how decisions are subsequently made. After processing all that data. In this episode of the PERColator Podcast, please join your co hosts, Chris Casillas, and Loyd Willaford, as they consider this question of how to be more persuasive in bargaining. In their discussion, Chris and Loyd review the six principles of persuasion that are drawn from the famous book Influence The Psychology of Persuasion, which was written many years ago by Dr. Robert Cialdini beyond just discussing these now, six principles, however, Chris and Loyd also consider how these ideas apply to the world of collective bargaining and public sector labor relations. We are back for another episode of the PERColator podcast and I'm joined today by my colleague Loyd Wilford, Loyd, how're you doing?

Loyd Willaford: 1:52

I'm doing good, Chris, how about you?

Chris Casillas: 1:53

Doing great, doing great, glad we could connect to do this episode and which I'm excited about. Cuz one thing we like to do here at the negotiation project, is to kind of look across different fields of academic study and think about how the work of scholars from from other disciplines kind of might apply to the world of negotiations and labor relations. And so for this episode, we thought we could begin to explore this topic of persuasion. Something that kind of on the minds of negotiators, obviously. And to do so we thought we might use this pretty seminal book, which has been around for some time, and sold many, many copies over the years. While it doesn't have anything to do explicitly with negotiations. I think the principles there can apply to our world of labor negotiations in a number of different ways. And that book is by scholar and author Dr. Robert Cialdini. And the books titled Influence The Psychology of Persuasion, I was hoping we could do today Lloyd is talk about some of the core principles of persuasion that Dr. Cialdini identifies. But then, more important to kind of all of us in our listeners, kind of think about how to specifically apply them to the labor relations, labor negotiation setting and kind of think about their applicability to our own world. So that's, that's what I'm hoping we can talk about today. Before I, before the two of us kind of jump into that piece, though, I just wanted to mention a couple of important kind of points to consider as we kind of dive into this world of persuasion. And one thing is, you know, whenever we talk about these kinds of concepts, I always like to kind of caution folks that when we think about applying these tools, in situations like labor negotiations, we want to think about how they can be used in ways to kind of foster more positive behaviors and outcomes, and certainly not in ways that would be underhanded, or unethical or unlawful. Whenever we get into this kind of topic of human psychology, I think sometimes folks think about how these principles can be used to kind of manipulate other people or other parties. And I just want to be clear, we're not advocating for for that kind of approach here. And one way to kind of manage that and think about that. One technique I've always encourage folks to use is this framework called the GTT framework. And I think it'd be can be really helpful in thinking about how to utilize tools like this in a way that is positive and productive and lawful. GTT is an acronym for Good practices, Tactics and Tricks. It's something I borrowed from a negotiation professor and scholar, Howell Abramson. So good practices are things like sharing information between parties. Which is always a good idea. It's a ethical, aboveboard practice, tactics are things like coming into a negotiation with a really high offer one that you know that you, you know, come down from, but you kind of want to start there. That's a tactic that is commonly deployed. In negotiations, it's kind of well understood that that's kind of part of the process. But it's, you know, you're being a little bit more strategic with tactics, you have to be kind of thoughtful and conscientious about how you're using them. But generally, they're okay. Tricks, on the other hand, are things that you should really avoid. They could be unlawful or unethical, something like deliberately lying about something or trying to create a false impression about a material fact. And so I think, you know, as you think about these things, that framework can be helpful, because while I think for you, and I will aid we would consider all these things, to be something that could be considered as good practices or tactics, it for all of our listeners, you want to make sure that whenever you're kind of deploying some of these strategies, they don't ever fall into that trick category. Because that's, that's a problem. So just wanted to mention that piece and thinking about it. As we kind of turn more to this specific topic, though, I also wanted to kind of just lay a little bit of foundation for our listeners, before we start talking about these principles of persuasion, because this is something that's obviously relevant to many of us in a more traditional negotiation, I mean, part of what negotiators are doing at the bargaining table is trying to persuade the other party that, you know, your position on an issue or topic has a lot of merit. And that, you know, essentially the deal should look something more like what what you're proposing than what the other side is proposing. And when we're trying to kind of persuade people, I think it's pretty easy and natural for a lot of us to kind of launch into, like, you know, like a 10 minute dialogue about or monologue about, you know, why, you know, our position on this is so, so amazing. Or maybe we kind of throw a bunch of data and analysis at the other side to kind of prove the merits of our position. But you know, for really like, now, I think at this point, like the last 50 plus years, there's been a lot of research studying how people, in actuality kind of process information, how they manage conflict, how they make decisions about things. And that research has generated a lot of insight into these areas. But there's one part of that research, I want to kind of highlight here before we jump into this. And that is that in pretty much all facets of our of our life, including certainly at the bargaining table, we're we're bombarded with all sorts of information, right. So almost like information overload, if you really think about all the all the bits of information coming coming at us at any given time, can be really hard to kind of actually sort through that and make decisions around everything, given how much information is coming at us. And while we can do that in a pretty sophisticated way, when we need to that takes a lot of time and energy. And so what this research has has shown is that our brains and our bodies have developed these different mental shortcuts or what we call kind of heuristic devices to process information more quickly, and kind of make some more snap decisions without always having to invest so much time and energy. And it turns out these mental shortcuts are really invaluable to us in so many ways, but they can be biased in different ways. And even when we do kind of invest more time and energy to kind of make more sophisticated decisions and more complex decisions. What this research has also shown is that those initial kind of snap judgments that we made influence that deeper level thinking and so we're always kind of subject to those kind of quick decision making processes that our our bodies have, and our minds have developed over the years. I mentioned all that because we're going to talk here about Cialdini's six principles of persuasion. And really, in many ways, these are kind of go to that kind of mental shortcut. And these are ideas of how to make what you're presenting more persuasive by appealing to those mechanisms that that I just mentioned. So with that in mind, let's let's jump into this Lloyd. The first principle I want to talk about from the book is reciprocity. As the term I think many of us are kind of familiar with the term you know, as humans, we experience a lot of pressure socially to try and give back to others. A similar level of behavior or service that that we receive first, I opened the door, you see this at like, like a shopping mall or something like some where there's kind of like a double set of doors, right? Like, you open one set of doors, and then somebody walks through, oh, thank you for opening the door. And then they immediately open the next set of doors and hold it for you. That's the principle of reciprocity at work. So what so maybe can you talk about that a little further and think about what that looks like in the context of bargaining and labor negotiations?

Loyd Willaford: 10:43

Sure, Chris, so I'd be happy to. Before I do that, I just want to talk about my own experience with Cialdini's work. When you brought this topic up. I'm recalling that in my former life before coming to PERC, I was a trial lawyer. Cialdini's work has been very influential on jury persuasion. So all of these tools that we're talking about, can be deployed in lots of different places. And Cialdini's work itself often is, he places in kind of in the setting of sales. Like how do you persuade somebody to buy something? And again, that's, I have the same kind of visceral, you want to be careful about this stuff being reduced to a bag of tricks to get what you want? Because I don't think in the long run, I don't think that works. And of course, the labor relations, we are often talking about the long run. So having said that reciprocity, I think, you know, the first thing and when I think of reciprocity in labor relations, it's the movements in negotiations, like as a mediator, I'm often encouraging people to make a move that is significant, because the other side is then going to feel like okay, they've made a move, now I need to make a move, and we will get closer to a deal. But it can be even simpler than that. And I think Cialdini's talks about this, these tools in the context of kind of setting up, but even the title of a book is about influence, right? It's not get them to do everything, you can maybe, nudge people bored, where you're at, if you set these kind of automatic, and he uses the term like click where there's a click, right, okay, somebody has done something for me, that clicks in this reciprocity, and then I act on it almost unconsciously. And you know, there's a limited, there's a limited effect of that, right? It's not going to overrun the total reality of the situation. Just because you give somebody a nice meal does not mean they're going to, you know, give all their possessions to you. For example, I was just in Las Vegas recently. And of course, on the street, there's, there's all of these people handing out beads and stuff, of course, that's desperately they want you to take the beads, so then you'll donate to their religious costs. And, and that's the same thing, the reciprocity. So this idea of, you know, I treat you well, and then you'll treat me well in return. And to set that up at the beginning, I think is important. Because that's the other thing is, there's a kind of a framing mechanism, like, we kind of keep going in the same direction. So you want to be deliberate at the start, like, start by being reciprocal, rather than diving in and getting contentious and then deciding later, you're going to backtrack, oh, now I'm going to be reciprocal. It's much harder to get people to move once they're going down a different track. So things like at the beginning of bargaining, like deciding, okay, we're going to buy each other lunch, as a way of setting up good faith and the reciprocity piece, it can be totally disconnected from whatever I mean, I use the at the beginning, I use the example of movements, right, that would be a sort of direct thing. But the indirect I think, is also valuable, because it sets up people to hear from you. Like, I am going to give you something, and now you're going to be receptive to the next thing that I say, which might be my position. So I think setting the stage and that's why I look at all these tools of kind of creating a space where people can hear you, and then maybe agree with you that reverse can be true, too. If you show up and you you do something nice and that you don't get reciprocity. Now you've created barriers, almost immediately, of course, we see this negotiation, some party makes a big move, and the other party just pockets it and makes a little tiny move. And now you're just stonewalled because you've now invoke the other reaction, which is now you disagree with yes, we're gonna disagree on everything. You want to sort of create that environment. So that's kind of how I see reciprocity as kind of setting the stage for beneficial movement from the other party.

Chris Casillas: 14:39

That resonates so deeply with me what you said there Loyd, about how it's almost like the anti reciprocity is so damaging in bargaining, right? Because how many times do we especially as mediators now, how many times do we see or hear from parties like, you know, somebody makes a move or doesn't doesn't make a move. And it's like, well, why why should I, why should I change my proposal, because they didn't change their proposal? I mean, it can really, really kind of negatively impact that, which I think demonstrates the strength of this kind of social connection that exists in these negotiations, like not being reciprocal, can be really harmful in in a negotiation. So I think that's, I think that's right. And I also like how you mentioned too like, thinking about it indirectly, like, it doesn't have to be like, direct quid pro quo, like something as, you know, generous as like, oh, we brought in lunch today, like, with no expectations around that, you know, it doesn't have anything to do directly with with bargaining, but it creates this atmosphere of of reciprocity, like, oh, I, they did something kind like eat, and maybe, you know, it's, it's weeks or months later that they reciprocate in some other way. But it kind of creates that Zeitgeist in the, in the negotiation, so to speak.

Loyd Willaford: 16:04

Yeah, I think there's another example of reciprocity, like a little bit deeper example of reciprocity, I think, is significant here. And that's vulnerability, like, I am vulnerable, like, I share something that maybe I'm not comfortable sharing, that I think maybe might have some kind of, you know, I'm worried that there may be some kind of adverse impact to that, that opens the door for the other side to be vulnerable. And sometimes one of my trial lawyer heroes like to call this, you know, I show you mine, and then you show me yours, I'm vulnerable. And that vulnerability will often open up avenues for people to start to be more open and direct with each other, which can then lead to, you know, creative solutions, which might not be there otherwise, and also to know where people are at. Because sometimes people want to be they want to be closed in and secretive. They don't want to, you know, they're worried about being taken advantage of, so they're not going to share stuff, if the other side doesn't know, you know, what, what's going on, they can't kind of try to meet you, meet your interests that they don't know about them. And the only way really to get that is to maybe one party, take a leap, and then that often will trigger that reciprocal, you know, oh, yeah, we we to have these things.

Chris Casillas: 17:19

Yeah, good. I'm glad you introduced that concept as well, that's helpful and kind of thinking about it. In no particular order of principles. But the next one I wanted to raise was this principle of scarcity. And again, I think this is something we're all familiar with, right? Like, you know, we always we always want what we can't have, or what's less available, that creates a kind of desire and us to kind of want that more, how do you see that playing out in bargaining? What do you think about like, one thing that

Loyd Willaford: 17:49

It is a little bit difficult, because we're Cialdini talks about this in the sales context, it's about you, you create the perception that something is directly or indirectly, that there's not much of something, it's valuable that you should pay more money for it. You know, in the context of collective bargaining, I'm not sure how much direct you know, there's a little bit of pot of money, or there's maybe there's limited resources. Or it could be the talent pool, like it in particular in specialized kinds of areas where there's not very many people you need to attract and retain, right. So there's scarcity, what are we going to do to attract and retain people? The other thing about this is the, the scarcity, kind of like, is it this thing called anchoring, which is sort of related like I pick a high number. And that then sets the tone for the rest, rest of the negotiations are what you talked about at the beginning about as a tactic. And I think this is one of those ones that can be, particularly if you're going to be careful about the creating the illusion of scarcity where there isn't any. Because if people figure out that, you know, okay, we're not being truthful, about the scarcity, then they're not going to trust you on other things. They this is one that's that is harder to sort of, in a collective bargaining context, really deploy and accept in certain limited circumstances where there might be a limited number of something that you're bargaining over. comes to mind for me here is like, is time and using time as a scarce resource. And particularly thinking about, you know, sometimes we see out there, like, proposals have time boundaries around them. I'm sure you've seen seen something like that, like what, you know, I think that's drawing on this principle of scarcity. But I think, you know, it's a little bit of a mixed bag in terms of a tactic in negotiations. Any thoughts there? I mean, it's a little hard, right? Because even even the time limited proposals, like you can't get away with the thing in collective bargaining things that you could get away with in the marketplace, right? Yeah, you could have a time limited proposal, but when the time expires, how often do we see parties actually enforced that? There? And there's some reasons for that. So I do think creating, you know, this sort of sense of urgency like you need to do this now or you're going to miss, actually, you're going to miss out. So this idea of loss aversion, key to this, but lots of studies about this, you know, what, are we people motivated? Are they motivated by wanting to gain something? Are they motivated by losing something, and I think the research pretty clearly shows that loss aversion is a much stronger influence, like, and we see this a collective bargaining all the time, we want to hang on to what we have. And if you try to take something away, that's a huge problem. So when you're framing things, you know, you want to frame things as, okay, if you don't do this, what are you going to lose? That's a much more persuasive tactic, then, oh, here's the benefits you get if you get this, no, if you don't do this, if you don't say yes to this, you're this, you're losing these these things. And I can, I think, can cut both ways. Both proposals, like, you know, hey, if union says, Hey, if we don't get these wages, you're just not going to get good quality people, you've been bleeding people, you're going to continue to bleed people, it, there's going to be a whole bunch of losses associated with not accepting our proposal, obviously, you got to be credible about that, you have to have some kind of rational, something that backs that up that it makes it believable.

Chris Casillas: 21:22

I like that, that's a good draw into another kind of important principle there. Let me introduce two more here. And we can talk about him kind of individually, but I think they're somewhat connected in various ways. And those next two are this principle of authority. And this principle of social proof. So authority is this kind of idea that people tend to follow the lead or direction of others that they think are, or that they view as kind of credible or knowledgeable sources of information or direction. So that that can be very influential. Social proof, as I said, kind of a related concept here, that when you know, we're a little bit unsure of kind of what to do, or how to behave, how to act, it's natural for us to kind of rely on the actions and behaviors of other people around us to help guide those decisions. So this is, this is kind of the, the social animal, right? You know, we really look to what the, what folks around us are doing to kind of guide some of our own behaviors in the face of uncertainty around our own individual actions. Maybe you can take those individually or together, but how might that apply in the negotiation setting?

Loyd Willaford: 22:49

Yeah, I mean, I think we see a direct, I mean, I just think of the issue of comps, you know, comparator jurisdictions, that that's your social proof, what are what are all these other people doing? And shouldn't we be doing something similar? We see this all the time, particularly where, you know, in like, the interest arb contexts where there's a, you know, that's one of the criteria is to look at what these other people are doing. And that also goes back to authority, right? Oh, well, here an interest arbitrator who could ultimately decide this, has decided something similar we're going to appeal to that authority, sometimes we as mediators can, can wield some authority, like, I in fact, start up every mediation, say, Hey, I used to practice in this area, and I have some experience, and I may offer some suggestions, what I'm really doing, they're saying, I am knowledgeable about something, perhaps you should listen to me, when I make a suggestion and that appeal to authority can be helpful, particularly when it's demonstrated, okay Yes, this authority has been right in these other circumstances, or we've seen this person before. Authority, you know, for example, internally, maybe you've got somebody who's been on bargaining teams for 30 years, that person may be an authority figure, hey, we've seen this before. And that person will then be able to say, Hey, this is this is within the norms, or it's outside the norms, or I may have some, a little more weight and influence than somebody who does not have that authority, they're gonna maybe look up to the person. One of the things I thought about when I this issue of authority is the issue of kind of experts in the trust or mistrust of experts that we see in society today where people can, oh, I can, we don't know who to trust, or we were worried that people are making stuff up or they're or they have an agenda, which is one of the nice things is a mediator and a neutral setting. I don't have an agenda that I tell people that my agenda here is for you to get a voluntary agreement, that authority where there's not a stake in the outcome, the person making that assertion will have a little more have some more persuasive weight than somebody who is going to be perceived as being biased.

Chris Casillas: 24:57

This is not intended to be a plug for mediation and mediators. But I think your example is, is spot on, both in the context of how you raised it, but also, just recognizing like, I mean, I've done this before where, you know, you're, you're mediating a grievance. And, you know, I also happen to be an arbitrator. And so, now, I'm not going to be deciding this particular case, but it might be of some value for you to understand my perspective on that, as someone who, in theory, you know, could decide a case like this. And that level of knowledge and expertise can can be really valuable in helping to guide some decision making. That's a that's a situation where you are stuck and having conversations, you know, bringing in a mediator in those contexts is another good reason for it. So, absolutely. Okay, let's, let's keep moving on to our fifth category, which is liking. And again, I keep saying this, but it's like this. If you think about it, this is just like very intuitive, obvious stuff, but that we see in all aspects of our life. The basic concept here is that, you know, we are more receptive and more willing to say yes to people that we relate to, or have close connections to people that we like. So it's not kind of rocket science here. I think we all experienced that in our in our daily lives, and in various ways. But, you know, we can't always control who's at the table or whatnot, in bargaining, but how might that come into play in a labor negotiation setting Loyd?

Loyd Willaford: 26:38

To your point about this is not rocket science. I mean, I was talking to somebody about doing this podcast, and I mentioned to them, you know, I was doing it, and, you know, I read this stuff. And a lot of this is just repackaged stuff that's been around for a long time, even going back to Aristotle's rhetoric, right. So nobody's reading Aristotle today, but they are repackaging these things. Dale Carnegie, this whole issue of liking people, you want people to be your friends, how to win friends, and influence people, all the stuff that Carnegie's talking about the tools, like using people's names, paying compliments, building a relationship with somebody before you ask them for something, that order here is really important. If you come in and say let's, you know, and even Cialdini gives some examples about this in his book about if you just sit down and say, Let's get down to business, and you'd there's no chitchat, there's no kind of rapport building, people are less likely to get an agreement than if you say, hey, let's let's talk about, you know, something good. Can we share a personal fact about ourselves? And you know, and I do this in mediations, like I have a, something I stole from one of my colleagues about, that I do and lots of mediations, like tell us, you know, what was your first job? Where was it at? And what did you do? And invariably, people will say, Oh, yeah, I grew up in that area, I did that similar kind of job. And you get a little bit of this connection between people, before there's any, you know, exchange of requests. And it does create the ability for people to hear back to what I said earlier about, I like a lot of this stuff is about clearing out the mental space for people to be able to hear each other in a real way and connect so that they can maybe get to an agreement, because we show up with all kinds of attitudes about people, places, things, institutions, when we sit down to the bargaining table, and we can't avoid that. But there may be some some of these practices that can clear away some of that stuff to put us in a mindset of, we're here to try to get an agreement. And now I can I can listen to you. And I think, you know, some of this stuff can feel you know, when I mentioned this sort of Dale Carnegie, you know, it can, done kind of manipulatively it can feel a little bit slimy, like, oh, you're just trying to ingratiate yourself a bit here. You're buttering me up with compliments. So you have to be a little bit careful that it's actually genuine, like, easy to tell that if you don't, if you really detest somebody telling them Oh, we think you're just a wonderful, lovely person probably isn't going to work because they see body language, there's other other places, but to be genuine. Hey, I really liked this or that, say that out loud so that people could hear it puts them in a place. Oh, you you really liked me. Well, that's nice. I really I like you too. And now we can sit down and talk. And we don't have those barriers that might keep us from getting to an agreement.

Chris Casillas: 29:27

That's really insightful. I like that one. One other curious kind of way you think of this, because maybe it's slightly more kind of Machiavellian then than what you just described, but but I think it kind of goes to the same idea of like saying, say for example, like you're, you know, presenting a proposal on some like scheduling issues or something. There's a member on your team that has, you know, some good connections, some good work history with somebody you know, or a group of people on the other side and maybe they don't, they're not, you know, the one that normally kind of presents on particular proposals or says a lot, you know, I think here is an example where it might be good to utilize that person in kind of presenting that particular proposal because those connections exist already, like they have a good relationship with several members on the other team, they have a good working history, and hearing that proposal come from them, as opposed to say, you know, an outside person or somebody doesn't have that same kind of connection is going to be is just going to be received somewhat somewhat differently from those folks than from when they hear it from the person that they already have that connection to. And so I think something as as simple as that can can kind of change how that information is received. Because of that connection.

Loyd Willaford: 30:52

I think that's exactly right. And so I think this is where being all these tools, thinking about them ahead of time. For example, even like selection of your team, perhaps selecting people that if you know who's going to be on the other team, perhaps selecting somebody who has a relationship with one or more people on the other team, so that you can you already start off with some kind of upon and often it's particularly in smaller bargaining units, you're going to have that because these people work together on the opposite side day in and day out. And often they will have good relationships, one hopes they have good relationships. But if you have a choice about putting people on your team that have a good relationship with somebody versus a bad relationship, I think this principle would suggest, perhaps put the people on the team that have good relationships with each other, so that you start off on the right foot.

Chris Casillas: 31:41

Well, I can probably continue to talk to you about this for the next couple hours. But I've been told that people don't want to listen to me for that long. So let's let's hit up our last principle here. Consistency, which, again, is just this fairly straightforward idea. But I think, you know, when when you hear it kind of resonates with all of us that people kind of generally like to be consistent with previous positions or commitments that they've taken. We don't, we don't like being called hypocrites. How do you see that being utilized in our space?

Loyd Willaford: 32:17

So I can think of one specific example. Right after I came to PERC, one of the things we do we go around, we follow other mediators. And I was in a particularly contentious mediation, which could have potentially resulted in a strike. And the person, the mediator, basically got the people in a room and started off the mediation by getting people in the room, setting them up at a table, sort of a roundtable, but basically, management, union, management, union, all the way around, and then got them to state each one of them. What did they want to get out of the mediation? And they said it out loud. We want we want to get an agreement. We want the agreement to be sustainable. That and then, you know, there were a couple of times during the mediation where the mediator, would remind them hey, you remember you said this at the beginning? You want, you want, so we want to and people remember, Oh, yes, I made this commitment, I want to act consistently with with my with my commitment. And I think that's a great, it's a great tool, I'll be Cialdini gives examples of things like putting things in writing, like somebody writes something, maybe writing it down, to get people sort of, hey, this is what we said, we're going going to do. And then you know, occasionally, you know, you don't have to remind people, but they'll remember if they've made a made a commitment. So I think this is this is probably one of the most powerful ones, because people they do not, being inconsistent is internally uncomfortable. Like people don't want to feel like they're, there are very few people in the world that can just, you know, completely contradict themselves and be comfortable. Most people don't like that. So they will act consistent with the way they they've done before. So one of the things you can do is get them to take a position early on, and then they will, you know, hopefully follow through, generally, they're going to follow through on it. So there's, again, there's ways to do that. I particularly like that example of getting people to commit early on to process stuff is a good example things like ground rules, we're going to, here's how we're going to treat each other. Here's what we're going to do things are what do we want to get and then and then hopefully, you know, that sets the space for people. Because again, in this particular case, these people were they were ready to go on strike. And I personally think that that reset, set, I mean, it was still two days of of, you know, hard bargaining, but they didn't end up striking. And I you know, attribute part of that to the way this was set up at the beginning to get people to be, you know, we're going to avoid the strike. We don't want to strike. And so we're, that's a commitment. Like we're going to try to get an agreement without a strike.

Chris Casillas: 34:53

That made me think of a joke, but I'm going to withhold that because I'm realizing I'm a state government employee in this being recorded. So we'll we'll leave it there. I like that example, Loyd. It's a great one to kind of finish this off. Really great discussion with you today. I think we should come back again and kind of dig into this topic even further. So much to discuss. You already kind of introduced us to a few other concepts here. So, I hope you'll join me again for another conversation on this. But otherwise, thanks so much.

Loyd Willaford: 35:27

Yep, happy to do it. Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it!