This is a different kind of article—less technical, more personal—like the time I wrote about the installation of the chimneys at Larcomar. It’s a personal story with lessons applicable to negotiation in business environments.
I hesitated a bit on how to title it, because it’s about negotiation, but I wasn’t directly negotiating anything work-related. Well, technically, it was a work matter—just in a rather indirect way.
It was 2009, and the company I worked for, FIANSA, was going through a period of low sales. Our business was engineering and manufacturing of steel structures, as well as the construction and electromechanical erection of heavy industrial projects—including commissioning of hydroelectric plants.
As part of the sales effort, the general manager, the head of engineering, and I (operations manager) headed out to a scheduled meeting to assess the feasibility of taking on the El Platanal Hydroelectric Plant project, which at the time had progressed approximately 70% in infrastructure. The project owner had signed a contract with Odebrecht, one of our regular clients back then, for parts of the work.
The project faced social conflict due to concerns from farmers in Lunahuaná and Cañete about potential impact on the river flow.
We left Lima early on a weekday. The approximately 180 km route was expected to take around 3.5 hours, though our plan included a breakfast stop at the well-known “El Piloto” restaurant in Cañete.
After a great breakfast and in good spirits, we continued the trip, expecting no more than 1.5 hours to go. Unfortunately, a surprise awaited us in the final stretch of the road.
About half an hour after resuming our journey, as we passed the entrance to a small town, some locals signaled for us to turn off and enter the village. Thinking they were warning us of a problem on the road, we entered.
As soon as we got in, we saw several other vehicles stopped and many locals surrounding them. Most of the villagers were carrying long sticks (those of us who were Boy Scouts would call them “staffs”). We couldn’t move forward, and several of the villagers—armed with those staffs—had surrounded us and blocked our rented car (with driver) from reversing.
We had been taken hostage, in a place without even mobile signal coverage!
It was a situation I had never experienced, and I was scared. My first instinct was to tell the driver to reverse no matter who he ran over, to get us out. Something in my brain told me that wasn’t a good idea. We could seriously hurt someone, and the villagers’ reaction would be extreme and violent. They were too many. So my first real action was to stay quiet and study the situation with as much calm as I could manage.
We quickly coordinated among ourselves and rolled down the windows to ask what was happening—why we were being stopped. The reason was the villagers’ opposition to the project. They were stopping everyone headed to the El Platanalplant.
We explained that we didn’t even work there. This was our first visit to see if we’d be invited to bid. Clearly, the villagers didn’t care. They had decided to oppose the project and would detain everyone passing through until they were heard or the project was stopped.
Then I noticed something. The men—all armed with staffs—were clearly aggressive, but they weren’t in charge. They were just soldiers, the security force. The ones in charge were the women. They weren’t armed, but they were the ones making decisions and giving orders.
The leader closest to us—a middle-aged woman—told us we wouldn’t be harmed, but we wouldn’t be allowed to leave. I started to think about what we could do. We consulted with each other and took turns repeating that we had no involvement with the project.
After a while, I asked the woman by our car for permission to go to the bathroom. She agreed. On my way back, I stood by the car and started talking to her. I told her I was married and had a three-year-old daughter. I pointed to my colleagues. My boss, the general manager, was also married, and his first daughter was slightly younger than mine. The head of engineering also had a family and had traveled from Trujillo, some 550 km north of Lima, to join us on this visit.
I expressed our fears, and she tried to reassure us—they had no intention of harming anyone. I explained that she might know that, but from our point of view, we only knew that we were being detained—taken hostage by armed people—for no fault of our own, and we feared for our safety and for our families.
Then I asked if she had children. Yes, she said—at least one of them was an adult and working. Well, I said, there are four of us in this car. Three of us are company officials and made the decision to come. But the driver was hired by the rental company—he was just doing his job, earning a living. He didn’t choose to come here. He was ordered to drive us.
I said: Imagine your son gets a good job as a driver at a formal company that pays decently and offers benefits. One day, simply doing his job, he ends up being held by force in a community like this—far from home, unable to contact his family or employer. Wouldn’t your son be scared? Wouldn’t you be scared if you found out about his situation?
That’s when this woman internalized the situation from our point of view. We weren’t defending the project. We didn’t even argue whether it was good or bad. We were human beings like her—with families—caught in a terrible situation. One of us could’ve been her son.
“Alright,” she said. “You can go.” She told the armed men to let us pass. They cleared the way.
“Thank you very much,” I said, immediately jumped into my seat, and told the driver, “Go, now!”
“What did you tell her?” my colleagues asked. I don’t remember exactly what I replied—something about telling the truth and making her see the driver’s situation. After all, she was a mother.
Shortly afterward, I took a negotiation workshop on the “Harvard method.” It’s about negotiating based on interests, not positions. A win–win. At the time of the incident, I didn’t know that. But without realizing it, what I did that day was find common ground. We became two parties who agreed that the problem wasn’t each other—it was external to us, and we had no reason to fight. In fact, we had more similarities than differences.
Those are the same principles we apply today in DC&R’s services—contract negotiation, conflict resolution, analysis of interests vs. positions—and they remain the best path toward solutions that work for all parties involved.
In times of change, where agility and efficiency are essential at every level, relying on specialized services provides the right blend of capability, effectiveness, and efficiency that organizations need to succeed.
At DC&R, we meet those needs with professional reliability and over 30 years of experience in complex engineering and construction environments for demanding industrial sectors such as mining, oil & gas, energy, and infrastructure.
We also offer technical assistance to businesses that need to engage with engineering and construction firms—from managing tenders and projects to contractual administration.
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