Activate this model whenever you are in a conflict or negotiation. It pre-loads all the relevant tools so you don’t have to assemble them under pressure.
Position: What someone says they want (e.g., “I want a 20% raise”)
Interest: Why they want it; the underlying need (e.g., Security, recognition, market value)
Negotiations conducted at the position level create zero-sum dynamics: your gain is my loss. Interests-based negotiation opens solution space, because two parties often have compatible interests behind incompatible positions.
Classic example: Two people want the last orange. Each claims the whole orange (positions in conflict). One wanted the peel for baking; the other wanted the juice (interests compatible). Neither would have reached this solution through positional bargaining.
Your Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA) is your real source of leverage, not your stated position.
Map your own BATNA: What do you do if this negotiation fails?
Estimate their BATNA: What is their best alternative?
Determine your reservation price: The point at which your BATNA is better than the deal
Estimate their reservation price
Identify the Zone of Possible Agreement (ZOPA) between the two reservation prices
Without knowing your BATNA, you cannot know your reservation price. You may concede when you should walk, or walk when you should concede.
Before engaging, map each party on three dimensions:
Goal: What do they want?
Fear: What do they stand to lose?
Model: What do they believe about the situation?
Most conflict and negotiation failures are failures of motive modeling. We act on guessed motives and are consistently surprised by actual behavior.
Before applying any tool, diagnose which type of conflict this is:
Zero-Sum: One party wins; one loses. Resources are genuinely fixed. Hard negotiation; maximize your position; protect your BATNA
Coordination Problem: Both parties want the same outcome but can’t coordinate. Focus on communication and commitment mechanisms
Misunderstanding: Apparent conflict with no real underlying divergence. Clarification; Ladder of Inference; Definition Pinning
Values Conflict: Genuinely different values or priorities. Acknowledge; find domains where values align; accept limits
Applying conflict-resolution tools to a zero-sum situation is futile. Applying adversarial tools to a coordination problem is destructive. Diagnosis first.
Reactive devaluation: Automatically valuing a concession less because it came from the other side
Fixed-pie bias: Assuming the negotiation is zero-sum when it may not be
Anchoring to first offer: The first number stated has outsized influence on the final settlement
BATNA overconfidence: Overestimating the quality of your alternative