If good fences make good neighbors, do good contracts make good colleagues?
Three times in the last two years, someone has tried to break a business agreement with me.
In all three cases, the agreement was clear.
In two, they admitted they were breaking it.
In the third, he agreed the agreement was clear, just “insane” enough that he thought it
shouldn’t count.
What determined the outcome wasn’t fairness.
It wasn’t reasonableness.
It was leverage and the strength of the contract.
Today I noticed something about how I read agreements: I’m a textualist.
I see words as meaning what they say.
Not what we wish they meant.
Not what feels reasonable later.
Not what’s convenient once money or ego is involved.
Textualism is simple.
Five dollars means five dollars.
What it doesn’t protect you from is character.
Two times, I fought and won.
This time, it looks like I’ll lose.
Not because the text is unclear.
Because the other guy has leverage.
And laws protect the weak against the strong.
But sometimes they’re insufficient.
When I make an agreement I later regret, that’s on me.
I try to construct agreements that I won’t regret.
Sometimes I fail.
I can think of two recent scenarios.
In these, I don’t blame the other player for creating something that benefits them to my detriment.
Doing so would be simple, but wrong.
Good fences, and good agreements, can prevent a fight.
But if someone feels backed into a corner?
Too often, people change their minds when the winds change.
Ultimately, all diplomacy is bigger army diplomacy.
Julian Wise 