Midwestern Contemporary Art

The case of Midwestern Contemporary Art (MCA) is a turbulent one to say the least. The issue at hand is between the Board Chairman Peter Smith and MCA's Executive Director Keith Schmidt. Smith wants to keep the same strategy that the museum has used for the past ten plus years. This is a conservative approach to keep the books at steady pace without the need to be aggressive. Schmidt on the other hand, feels that this approach is to conservative and wants to expand the business by building a new building on the Seaside to help generate more revenue. This overall heated debate has begun to boil over as other members of the board can see the tensions between the two parties. There are two approaches that can help ease this tension for this negation process. The first technique is the dual concern approach which has four different outcomes depending on how the situation unfolds. The second technique that could be used is the interests, rights and power technique which focuses on those three concepts and who controls those areas to help reach an agreement.

When it comes to Peter Smith I feel that the dual concern model should be the strategy of choice in this situation. This issue is a tricky one as it deals with two people of significant power in an organization. Both are concerned with the overall prosperity and efficiency of the museum moving forward. This creates an issue by Smith viewing the situation as something he needs to win. I feel like there may be more emphasis on the outcome of this situation and significantly less on the relationship at hand. This creates the very dangerous situation of "win or lose at all cost". This ensures that someone will not be happy at the end of the process. This is shown in this case because Smith was so frustrated with the situation and not being able to get his way that he left the museum and was replaced on the board. If Smith would have spent more time focusing on the relationship and the outcome, both parties could have achieved the important "win-win" situation which could have helped avoid this less than satisfying outcome.

Schmidt, like Smith, should have also approached the dual concern model. I feel that this is the golden standard that everyone should try to achieve in all negotiation. It seems that Schmidt was trying to follow the interests, rights and power model which is especially difficult to find favorable results when someone has seniority and higher position. By Schmidt thinking that he had the higher power, and that he had the overall interests of MCA on his side he was very headstrong on his idea of expanding the business. He later found out that he did have the interests of the board as they voted in favor of his proposal leaving Smith frustrated, which led to his departure from the organization all together. Even though this could be considered a "win" for Schmidt it was a loss for the organization as a whole. They lost an experienced and hard working chairman of the board because Schmidt, like Smith, approached the situation as "win or lost at all costs". If both parties would have been collaborative with the situation, this could have had a much more successful outcome for both parties.