Naseem Khuri, adjunct assistant professor of International Negotiations at Tufts University, speaks to newly elected status representatives and local executive council officers at this year’s Leadership Training Conference.

As a pilot, you’re well acquainted with communicating through problems and high-stress situations on the flight deck. But that training doesn’t always apply to life here on the ground, especially when it comes to contract negotiations. During a recent episode of the Air Line Pilot Podcast, Capt. Jason Ambrosi, ALPA’s president, talked with Naseem Khuri, adjunct assistant professor of International Negotiations at Tufts University, who spoke to newly elected status representatives and local executive council officers at this year’s Leadership Training Conference. The following is an abbreviated excerpt from that podcast discussion.

Ambrosi: Tell us a little about your background and how you got to where you are today.

Khuri: I started off in college. I was interested in helping people and following in the footsteps of my dad, who was this great heart surgeon, so I was a premed student. I thought I wanted to be a doctor and help people that way. I realized at the end of senior year, after spending four years in the lab and having no life, that I really wasn’t into the science. I was interested in one aspect of it, immunology, which is basically how the body has conflicts with itself. And then I realized I was actually interested in conflict outside the body. So I found this strange, weird field of conflict management and worked my way through some organizations that focus on that and have been a consultant working with different types of organizations ever since. I work with all sorts of folks—from special operators in the military to Israeli-Palestinian diplomats to pilots, obviously, to eighth graders to grad students. And I find that with all those different contexts, and they’re very different contexts, different languages, that there are very similar human dynamics at play. And I’m fascinated by those dynamics. I love the diversity of all those different types of people so this is the job for me.

Ambrosi: Not many people can say they love what they do, right? We’re pilots, and I can tell you that our pilots love doing what they do every day. So it’s good to meet somebody else who actually really loves what they do and isn’t just punching the clock. Well, now that we know where you’ve been, can you tell us what you’re doing here with us…and what conversations you’re having with our pilots.

Khuri: I love working with pilots because there’s this strange dynamic where I’m sitting here talking about how we collaborate with each other and how we influence each other and how we can work well together. And that might mean me asking you a bunch of questions and us building a relationship and doing all these wonderful things. But on the flight deck, you don’t want that, right? You have precious seconds and minutes to make decisions. There needs to be a clear line of authority. And sometimes when you’re on the ground, those lines of authority aren’t quite there. So…why is it so hard to influence and to collaborate when those lines of authority aren’t there?

When you don’t have authority over someone, you’ve just got to get them to come along with you. How do you do that? And why is that hard? With pilots, I’m trying to introduce a few challenges to that and the kind of traps that we tend to fall into, and introduce a few tools to show how you might be able to deal with those situations a little bit better. And again, you’re making the distinction between what you’re doing on the ground and on the flight deck. I don’t want you bringing my stuff onto the flight deck. I want that clear line of control on the flight deck. So those are the types of conversations that we’re having, and I think that you all are taking seriously this idea that there’s a certain skill set that you need for certain situations, which is important. I want to be able to help pilots hone their skill sets on those tough conversations when there’s no clear line of authority.

Ambrosi: I think that’s essential for our reps to learn in order to do their jobs effectively. Because that’s what this is all about. Here at ALPA, we represent more than 79,000 pilots at 42 airlines. As a result, we always have some group or groups in negotiations. And we’ve seen the full range of the process from long and hostile to friendly and quick. What advice would you give groups that know they’re about to engage in negotiations with a management team that’s known to be intransigent?

Khuri: First, I would ask, have you done your homework? Have you figured out not just what you want, but why you want it? I spend most of my time with my clients pushing them on why they want what they’re asking for. We tend to go into negotiations preparing our positions, right? And we try to look for data that backs up our positions. And if we don’t get the position that we’ve been asking for, we consider it a failure. We judge our success based on whether we get that position or not. And I just see over and over again that when we set that as our metric, we’re disappointed. We don’t get that position exactly as we want it. So it’s a real question of figuring out what do I actually care about? What’s leading to that position? What are the interests behind that position? What are my core motivating factors? And can I problem solve for that instead of problem solving for the position? So I would ask, have I figured out what we’re actually doing and why we’re doing it? So that’s the first thing I do.

The second thing I do is ask if we’ve checked our own assumptions. I would ask if we think they’re being intransigent. If so, why is that? Are they? Are they just operating from their position…and is there a way we can steer them in the process to have a better conversation around that, not just react, but maybe do better problem solving and figure out what the core motivating factors are? We often think that someone is intransigent or unreasonable, but in their mind, they’re being completely rational and they’re looking at all the data in front of them and coming to a very rational conclusion. They think we’re the crazy ones. So can we break down that barrier and try to operate together to figure out what the problem is that you really need solved?

Ambrosi: I couldn’t agree more as the why is important because sometimes the positions are going to be very different with the company and the management team. But I think sometimes in a personal experience doing this, you sit there and say, okay, this is why this is so important to our members. This is why the pilots feel this way and try to explain it to them…. It’s almost like humanizing the position. You’re saying, this is what these pilots feel…when you give this flying to a foreign airline instead of ours and they’re flying into our hubs—this is viscerally how it feels to us. It’s not just numbers…it’s not just Xs and Os.