Made to Stick
continued from page three
preserve open space. It was working, but, as we’ve seen, much of that was pity, or luck, or established connections. The message had been getting stickier, but the big showdown was to be a meeting on January 31st with the oil company and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Could we make the idea stick there where it really counted? By now, I was at the end of the book in the Epilogue, and I was still learning like crazy. The oil company had an existing knowledge of all the facts, a “schema” infinitely vaster than my 100-page fact book. My facts came from their facts, so, getting them to believe wasn’t a problem. That leg of the stool was as sound as it would ever be. But we needed to get them to care, and that, my friends, is a tall order when you’re talking to executives and managers of one of the world’s biggest and most profitable corporations, and you’re just a family ranch.
“O-S-P-P” in the middle for “Open Space Pilot Project.” This is the name we gave for the idea that both the oil company and our ranch could have their cake and eat it, too. She laid out little napkins and plastic forks, and placed a bunch of balloons next to it, saying nothing. It was the focus of lots of curiosity and conjecture, an unusual object to say the least. The BLM asked me to begin, and I pulled out eight single sheets of paper, each with a picture and just a few lines of 42-point type so they would be visible from across the room. I duct taped them to the wall. Each page was one of the rounds we had fought with the company over the years and they all had the exact same format:
Bake A Cake
It revealed an unexpected pattern for us, and I know very unexpected pattern for them. The reason for the positive outcome, I said, was that Jane and I had always made sure our facts were right, then always asked for something reasonable (in our opinion), and then we never
It was the night before the big meeting. I was through with the book, and I had got to make this giant care before I could make it act. Jane and I had been going round after round with these guys for 10 years, always about environmental responsibility and stewardship and blah, blah, blah, and I realized that the single reason we were so passionate was that we were trying to save the ranch for our kids. Jane had just bought a youth saddle for one of our granddaughters who is still too little to ride and I thought, “Why? At this drilling rate, there’ll be nothing left to ride on when she’s ready.” Our kids, and their kids, are the real owners of the ranch, but the oil company, the BLM, doesn’t know them. I also realized looking back through my notes of all those rounds fought, we had actually always won if you conceded the fact that they were going to drill anyway. We never thought we could stop them drilling in an established field; the fights were always about where, and when and how, not if. I got out the scissors and duct tape and went to work. Oh, and Jane baked a cake. At the presentation the next day, as everyone was jockeying for position at the conference table and exchanging preliminary pleasantries, Jane set down a white cake with the oil company logo in icing in one corner, our ranch logo on the opposite corner, and the letters 4
IN PRACTICE
h
May / June 2008
1) Our Request 2) Their Answer (always, “No”) 3) Their Reasons 4) The Outcome (always positive for us)
gave up. In one case, it was five years to get some damage repaired! The outcome exercise didn’t involve any intellectual calculating, the simple stories were there for all to see. The most common reason for saying “No” to any of our requests was money. Whatever we wanted done was going to cost money and they were dedicated to saving money and returning a maximum profit to their stockholders. In fact, we had recently been paid $7,000 by the oil company for some surface damage. I reached into my bag and pulled out $7,000 in cash and laid it on the table in front of the senior executive and said, “Jane and I want to return this money to you. We would like to demonstrate that not all decisions can be based solely on money and that the Open Space Pilot Project is more important to us than money. Once the open space is gone, no amount of money can buy it back.” I think that got everybody’s feelings up in the air. I know mine were as I said goodbye to seven grand. Finally, I took out five more single sheets of paper, again with just a few lines of 42-point type and the rest of the page a large photo of one of our kids. The copy said which kid it was, what they did, and what contribution they had made to either the ranch, or the Open Space Pilot Project, or both. I duct taped them into a line up. “When you say ‘No,’ as you have done in the past, this is who you are saying ‘No’ to. Jane and I won’t be here that long. These kids, and their families, will be living with the surface destruction you cause.” Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional and Stories. My 100-page notebook never saw the light of day. In the end, it was just 13 pieces of paper so sticky we had to peel them off the wall. We talked about it for a little while, and the BLM ordered a moratorium on new surface disturbance and formed a committee of the oil company, the BLM, and our ranch to see if we could work out some cooperative resolution with the goal of preserving open space. Then we all had a piece of cake. Don Schreiber can be reached at: schreiber@wildblue.net. With the Open Space Pilot Project the Schreibers can continue to have wide open spaces to ride their horses and the oil company can drill for new oil.