My Dinner with Kumar

When two parties get into a dispute, the situation often devolves into a win/lose paradigm – either I win and you lose, or I lose and you win.   Instead, the parties should try to find the win/win solution. 

A few years ago, I was at a charity dinner.  If you are professional in New York City, it can seem that you go to one every other week.  This was for a charity that I have supported for many years, and in fact, I was a co-chair of the dinner committee.  At this dinner, there was a silent auction – where you enter your name and price and the bidding goes on throughout the night, and whoever entered the last and highest bid at the closing time wins the prize.  The prize in this case was a dinner with a celebrity comedian, Kal Penn (widely known as Kumar from the “Harold and Kumar” movies, but who also gave up his acting career to work in Obama White House), whom I admired and who was a supporter of the charity.  The cutoff time was 8:30 pm sharp.  At 8:29, I entered my name and a bid at the required increment over the prior bid.  The event sponsors promptly closed the bidding and I win the bid. 

All of a sudden a horrified young lawyer comes running up from the bar and demands that he be allowed to enter a late bid.  He explains that he was busy getting a drink at the bar and lost track of the time. He claims that he had been delegated by his boss, a partner at his law firm (a firm known particularly for their contentious manner), to bid for that prize on the partner’s behalf and that his authorized limit was well-above my winning bid and if it wasn’t for the bartender taking so long with his gin and tonic, he would have entered his bid timely.

The charity was not about to be swayed. I was a long-time donor and co-chair of the dinner committee.  Besides, this was a charity event for a pro bono legal organization where most participants were lawyers, and rules are rules.

The young lawyer then leaves and returns with his senior partner in tow.  The senior partner begins to litigate the matter.  He argued that since this was for charity, that he would enter his maximum limit bid and that amount was above my bid.  Thus the charity would raise more money than if they accepted my bid.  He argued that he intended to take Kal Penn to dinner at his private club and that Kal would enjoy that dinner more than whatever I planned. He demanded that his bid be entered over mine.

I didn’t argue back.  I let the charity staff handle the matter while I went back into the main room and found Kal Penn sitting at his table.  I explained the situation and asked him if he would do two dinners instead of one at the winning price.  Kal was happy to do so and raise twice the amount of money for the charity.  The partner from the other firm was mollified and the charity was thrilled with the solution. That’s what I call finding a win/win solution instead of being trapped in a win/lose paradigm.  We should always try to find a win/win solution instead of thinking in win/lose terms, although, I admit, I never did schedule that dinner with Kal Penn.