Negotiating a Power Plant

I asked three groups to negotiate a deal / set of policies for establishing a power plant in or near Town X. This was based on the activity, "Environmental Justice: Whose Resource Is It?" published on the web by the Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics at Virginia Tech.  (https://aaec.vt.edu/content/dam/aaec_vt_edu/extension/cee/files/environmental-justice.pdf)
In this activity, a new power plant is proposed to be built in Town X, which is a low income community that has had to deal with environmental and health concerns from the past. I asked one group to review all 5 characters to brainstorm a solution that was amenable to all parties. For the other two groups, I asked each participant to play the part of one of the characters. I was surprised to find that this did not change the dynamics much; in both cases, the participants openly discussed their point of view and worked to find common ground. I was pleased to hear several differences. For instance, one group suggested that the town build roads to alleviate congestion that was inevitable while another group thought the company should build a back road for employees to minimize traffic issues. As another example, in two groups, the participant playing the role of the company spokesperson compromised on environmental / health concerns by promising to either provide health care for employees and/or adhere to environmental inspections. In the third group, the participant representing the company was quite inflexible and only compromised on the traffic issue that was raised. This raises a very important lesson: although many individuals will work to find common ground and compromise to minimize friction in discussion, there are some who will remain inflexible and give up very little in negotiations. In this latter case, it may be that either the deal favors one party over the others or the deal may fall through with no winners in the end. Unfortunately, compromise has often been associated with weakness or failure, when in fact, it is a must with the diverse perspectives and viewpoints in today's society.