I DENTIFY AND R EMOVE THE B LOCKS 59 one else. This can be very helpful because what we intend to say and how we come across to someone else are often two different things. Enough Time? Other times we perceive that we do not have enough time, either because the other party won!t give us enough time or because we have too much to do. If you think the other party does not have enough time, think about when they may have the time or ask for the time you need up front. If you think you do not have enough time or that the negotiation will take too much time, think again. That is usually not true. Often when we say to ourselves that we do not have enough time, we are afraid of something else and are using time as an excuse. Al had a manager who reported to him. The manager was technically very competent but he had a way of making others feel inferior&even Al. Two of Al!s other managers had complained to him about this person!s behavior, and Al!s response was that he did not have time to babysit them. The truth was that Al had observed the negative effect this manager was having on a number of people in the organi- zation, but Al was intimidated by him. Time was not the real issue. The real issue was that Al did not feel confident in addressing the manager!s perfor- mance. It is true that some investment of time is required to stay with issues and work through them to completion. Sometimes our negotiations are not quick fixes and require several sessions. The question we need to ask ourselves is what does it cost us, including time, to not address our issues. It may take more time in the short-term to address the issue, but it frequently saves us a lot of time in the long run. In the example of Al!s manager, the manager was costing Al a great deal of time and productivity. Al was under a deadline to revamp his company!s mar- keting. He was committed to presenting an integrated strategic plan to the board at its next meeting, but the plan was not coming together. His managers were not working together because they refused to work with the "problem# manager, who was responsible for pulling the plan together. Instead of giving him what he needed, other managers were working around him and purposely withholding information. This was a form of payback. While it would have required a time commitment from Al to address these performance and relationship issues, it was costing him much more to not address them. Instead of dealing with it once and getting it out of the way, he was dealing with it every day through a variety of symptoms. Problems don!t disappearZ they just keep changing so we pay the price in other ways. In this example, only Al was responsible for not addressing his issues. Al!s own self-dialogue caused him to feel disempowered. Al!s self-dialogue was the only thing stopping him and was his responsibility to change. R ELATIONSHIP B LOCKS A second frequent source of blocks in negotiations is the quality of our rela- tionships with others. Relationships become a block in our negotiations when