Before arguing about the answer, the parties agree how the decision will be made: who decides, on what criteria, by when, and with what evidence, which makes the result harder to reopen.
An example
Six months after its first large funding round, a logistics software startup had to choose a customer relationship system, and the chief technology officer and the head of sales had fought over it for weeks: build on the company's own platform or buy a commercial product. Each meeting reopened the same arguments. The head of sales stopped arguing about the answer and proposed an agreement on how to reach it. The two of them wrote it on one page. The chief executive would decide by the end of the month. The criteria were three-year cost, time to launch, and fit with the sales process, weighted equally. Each side would bring one estimate, checked by the finance lead. Both signed. The finance lead's check moved the build option's launch time from four months to nine. The chief executive chose to buy, and the technology team did not reopen it.
Why it works
Disputes over an answer often run on because nobody agreed how the answer would be chosen, so every loss can be appealed. Settling the process first, while the outcome is still uncertain, makes the eventual decision easier to accept, since each side agreed to the rules without knowing who would win. It also makes a proposal that is strong on the agreed criteria look better. The parties must be willing to commit in advance, the criteria clear enough to apply, and the decider acceptable to both sides. It fails if either side can walk away from the process at no cost.
The thinking behind it
Deepak Malhotra Malhotra's Negotiating the Impossible: How to Break Deadlocks and Resolve Ugly Conflicts (without Money or Muscle) (2016) presents framing, process, and empathy as often neglected tools for breaking deadlocks, and treats process, how a negotiation is conducted, as something the parties can themselves negotiate. The startup's one-page agreement is a negotiated process of that kind, and it ended a deadlock that weeks of argument over the substance had not.
David A. Lax In 3-D Negotiation: Powerful Tools to Change the Game in Your Most Important Deals (2006), Lax and Sebenius describe setup, a dimension beyond tactics at the table: arranging before talks begin that the right parties are involved, in the right sequence, with the right interests in play. Naming the decider and the person who would check the estimates before the argument resumed was a setup move, settling who sat at the decisive table before the answer was contested.
Roger Fisher One principle of Fisher and Ury's Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In (1981) is to insist on objective criteria, a basis independent of the will of either side, searched for jointly, with each side yielding to principle and never to pressure. Agreed, weighted criteria and estimates checked by finance gave both camps such a basis, which is why the losing side accepted the result and did not appeal it.
When it fits
Stalled decisions, ones that keep being reopened, and contested choices between peers all suit it, especially where the sponsor believes the facts favor them if they get a fair hearing. Counterparts must be willing to agree on rules, and there must be a decider whose authority both sides respect.
How to use it well
Propose the process before anyone argues the answer, and offer it as a way to end the fighting. Cover four things: who decides, the criteria and their weights, the evidence each side brings and who checks it, and the date.
- Put it on one page and get both sides to sign or confirm by email.
- Ask the decider to confirm it.
- Choose criteria you can defend even if they cost you.
- Keep to the process when the answer goes against you.
Setting the process is a contest of its own: you will want criteria that favor your side, and so will the other side. Settle on criteria both could accept blind, since a skewed process gets rejected.
What it costs and where it backfires
You are bound by the outcome. A process you proposed and lost is very hard to walk away from, and it should be. Negotiating the process takes time when the parties want to argue the substance. Criteria chosen to favor one answer will be spotted and refused. Fair rules are ones both sides could accept without knowing the outcome. A process rigged in advance, with a decider who has already committed, is a staged decision.
When it is used on you
Agree to settle the process first if a rival proposes it, and negotiate the details: the criteria, the weights, who checks the evidence, and who decides. Make sure the criteria include what matters to you. Then commit, because the agreement protects you as well.