An Open Letter to Theresa May

Having run a business for 25 years, I consult on a wide range of business issues.  This requires me to negotiate, handle difficult relationships and resolve complex or so-called “wicked” problems. I decided to use my knowledge, skills and experience to offer some advice to Theresa May on the incredibly “wicked” problem of Brexit.  Here is my letter to our Prime Minister, in the hope that it inspires others to action.

Sign the Open Letter here.

Dear Prime Minister Theresa May,

I write to offer my unconditional advice and support to the persistent and chronic problem of Brexit, which continues to baffle and befuddle the brightest minds on the planet.  I will cover just a few of the many issues you currently face.

Brexit itself is what complexity theorists call a “wicked problem”.  Such problems are characterised by multiple stakeholders, multiple diagnoses of the problem and possible “solutions”.  None of the solutions are optimal.  A wicked problem is rather like a Rubik’s Cube that cannot be solved.  Once you attempt to resolve one aspect of the problem, for example, the Northern Ireland backstop, you find that it reveals other problems such as freedom of movement, smuggling, terrorism etc. 

Typical digital “Problem-Solution” thinking does not suit wicked problems.  They require whole systems approaches.  Suffice to say I don’t envy the challenge you have taken up in the name of healing your party.  I will not dwell on this high-level issue too much here as it is an essay in its own right.  However, a failure to deal with the strategic context will always mean that you end up being frustrated by the tactical issues due to the ever-changing nature of Brexit itself.

Dropping down from the strategic clouds, I can offer some more concise help via this brief education on negotiation.  I know you have tried to keep No Deal Brexit as an option to persuade the EU and UK citizens to accept your Brexit deal.  No Deal is what is known in the negotiation trade as a BATNA or “Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement”.  A BATNA is only relevant if you are able to enact that option in your negotiation strategy. 

Unfortunately, nearly all economists on the planet are united in their analysis that No Deal will be a financial, political and social catastrophe.  Aside from the fact that No Deal is an impotent threat, it is also a scenario that you and your party will never recover from. Therefore, the threat of No Deal Brexit is not a viable BATNA. 

Furthermore, David Davis has long likened the Brexit negotiations to the situation of buying a car, where you walk out of the showroom if you don’t like the deal.   The analogy is not a good one however.  You cannot walk out of the “Audi showroom” and go to the “Vauxhall showroom” in the case of the EU.  There is no other showroom of equivalent value and the WTO showroom has no “cars available for sale” for many years.

I recommend that you take No Deal off the table immediately and try to restore some goodwill between you and the other principal actors in the system in Europe before they begin to act as if you have actually already left the EU. 

A negotiation has two components, the task and the relationship.  A lack of focus on the relationship inevitably frustrates the task and the Brexit negotiations have been overly concentrated towards the task at the expense of goodwill in the relationship. 

Unfortunately, some of your ministers have made it extremely difficult for you to act, as they have used what the Huthwaite Institute calls “irritators” from the outset, and this has soured the relationship.  A typical irritator in a negotiation is when someone says “my fair and reasonable offer”, which is usually neither fair nor reasonable.  David Davis is a master of such things when he said that “the EU needed us more than we need them”.  Liam Fox, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are also serial offenders.

I’d say that so much damage has been done to the relationship between your key protagonists and the EU that you may need to consider removing some of the worst offenders and replace them.  There are no magic bullets here but at least some self-disclosure on your part may win you some relationship with the EU leaders, who seem to understand the intense pressures you are under.

This brings me to my third and final point: Conflict management.  A study of Thomas and Killman’s five styles of conflict management would be useful here.  You have tended to use avoidance and accommodation as your main styles of dealing with members of your own cabinet, promising things to each individual and group; then promising other things to others. 

Avoidance and accommodation are low effectiveness strategies and tend to make conflict more chronic.  John Major regretted not dealing more effectively with the “bast*rds” in his cabinet.  I fear that you face the same fate unless you find some more effective means of conflict management.  I recommend you take some very difficult decisions with your cabinet to diminish the power of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson.  Yes, you may well lose them, but you stand to gain an influx of moderate Conservatives and others to your party.  The gains will outweigh the losses.

Your leadership will ultimately be judged by the legacy you leave in the history books.  Take courage and cancel Article 50.  This is your binary choice:

• Continue with Brexit and you may as well let James Goddard run the country.

• End Brexit and you will have the majority of the country behind you.  You may even save your party from oblivion.  Unlike Margaret Thatcher, you will be known as “the woman who turned”.

All the best,

Peter Cook

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Peter Cook leads Human Dynamics and The Academy of Rock. He is the author of and contributor to nine books on business leadership. Most recently, he is the author of Let’s talk about Brexit..it.  He has spent 18 years in academia and more than 18 years running his businesses.

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