As we’ve witnessed in the past few days, it’s pretty obvious that some of us are better at deal making than others. it seems to me that the older people are, or the higher up the hierarchy they climb, the less they seem able to make great deals that everyone is able to sign up to.
Making deals has always been part of my working life. From agreeing with a colleague in Health Commissioning how we’re going to fund somebody’s care and support across the two agencies, to finding the funding to support innovation in adult social care, or making the case for why we should fund a program for a second or third year. All these projects and many more have required me to make deals.
In every deal I make, I take the view that I’m looking to create outcomes where as many of those directly or indirectly effected by the deal can win and if people do lose, it’s never a catastrophic loss and people are able to retain their grace and dignity and are respected.
When I was studying for my masters degree in Community and Primary care, one of the biggest influences on my thinking was international diplomacy.
Something I learnt early on was that when we think about diplomacy, we have to look through two lenses at the same time, the global lens and the local lens. The global lens looks at the issue in the round and considers its impact not only on those close to decision-making but also those at distance from the decision-making who may not even understand that this global decision will have an impact on them. The local lens focuses on those directly impacted by the decision, and considers how that decision will play out in the community or communities directly affected.
Most people find it hard to think about deal making in a global context or see the big picture. Many of us are comfortable with a local context (or what is there right in front of us ). In both instances how we view globalism and localism, depends on where we sit in our organisation or in the plethora of organisations that surround us.
I’m not saying that dealmaking is harder on a global level than on a local level. I’m saying that to make good deals that are sustainable and truly have impact, we have to be able to look through both lenses at the same time.
For example, if I’m looking to make a deal about a particular piece of work, I need to understand the perspectives of those who’ll be involved, their motivations and the outcomes they are looking for. I also need to understand what that means from a local perspective.
If I’m working with central government their perspective is likely to be global but the piece of work is likely to be implemented locally, so I need to be able to understand the local situation as much as I understand the global situation. I also need to I know how to bridge the gap between those of global understanding and those with local understanding. That’s where diplomacy begins to come in.
By being able to understand both perspectives I’m in a much better position to negotiate a deal that makes sense both locally and globally. From a global perspective the deal needs to meet policy objectives that fit with the current government’s commitments. From a local perspective, the deal needs to make sense in the context of local government and local people’s perspectives.
Take direct payments for people with care and support needs for example.
In a global context direct payments might be seen as a way of improving people’s lives, enabling them to have more freedom with how, when and where they are supported. It could also be said that the same applies locally, however in a local context other things come into play. How much money is available, how is the available money being spent at the moment, how are we going to move that money from one part of the system to another in order to meet those global objectives? The local perspective may be in agreement with the global perspective, but it will worry more about how it is implemented.
And that’s the challenge for any deal making. If you do not know how to compromise. If you do not know how to be humble. If you do not know how to make everyone feel like a winner then you are doomed to failure.
We have witnessed massive failure in deal making over the last few weeks, where humble respectful negotiation and deal making has been replaced by dogmatic bullying. Winning has become everything and compromise has been thrown out of the window. Sleep walking into a deal, won’t meet global or local outcomes for anyone.
Jim Thomas
March 2025
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