When two executives are deadlocked, the sponsor proposes a facilitator neither controls to run the discussion, which lets both make concessions to the process without conceding to each other.
An example
At a mobile carrier, the chief technology officer and the head of the consumer business had been stuck for two months over how to split a nine-hundred-million-dollar network budget between rural coverage and city capacity. Each had a model that proved their case, and every meeting with the chief executive ended with both restating their positions. The chief executive's chief of staff proposed that a facilitator neither had worked with, a former network planning executive from a carrier abroad who now consulted independently, run two half-day sessions with both teams. The facilitator set ground rules, got both sides to accept one shared set of traffic forecasts, and had each team cost the other's plan. By the second session both had moved: the technology chief accepted a slower rural build in two regions, and the consumer head accepted a lower capacity target. The chief executive approved the joint plan the next week.
Why it works
Facilitators make agreement easier. Neither executive can concede to the other without looking weak in front of their own team, but both can accept a fair process: a shared set of facts, ground rules, an exercise that has each side cost the other's plan. Concessions then read as following the process. The facilitator has to be credible and truly neutral, both sides must approve the choice, and the person who owns the decision must back the process.
The thinking behind it
Deepak Malhotra In Negotiating the Impossible: How to Break Deadlocks and Resolve Ugly Conflicts (without Money or Muscle) (2016), Deepak Malhotra presents process, how a negotiation is conducted, as an often-neglected tool for breaking deadlocks, and treats it as something the parties can themselves negotiate. Proposing a facilitator changes the process instead of the positions: the two executives agree first on how to talk, and that agreement makes the later concessions possible.
William Ury William Ury's Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People (1991) advises building the other side a golden bridge: making it easy to say yes by involving them in shaping the solution and helping them save face, so that agreeing does not look like giving in. A neutral facilitator builds that bridge for both executives at once, since each concedes to a shared process with shared facts and neither has to concede to the other.
When it fits
Consider it when two people of similar rank are deadlocked, both have face to lose, and the decision-maker above them would rather not impose a solution. You need the standing to propose the process, a facilitator both accept, and time for a few sessions. It does little when one party wants the deadlock to continue.
How to use it well
Propose the facilitator as help for both sides, never as a referee for one. Put it to the person who owns the decision first, then to each party separately.
- Let both sides approve the choice, and check that the facilitator has no ties to either.
- Have the facilitator meet each side privately before the joint session.
- Agree ground rules early, and one shared set of facts.
- Give the facilitator room to run the sessions, including stopping either party.
Keep the decision-maker informed but out of the sessions, so neither side performs for them.
What it costs and where it backfires
Facilitation costs time and money, and it admits in public that the leaders could not settle the matter themselves. A facilitator who turns out to lean one way discredits the process and hardens the deadlock. Neutrality has to be real: a facilitator chosen because they will steer toward your side, or briefed privately to do so, is a hidden advocate, and the party who discovers it will distrust the next process anyone proposes.
When it is used on you
Look into the proposed facilitator's history with each side before agreeing, and ask for a private session first. Then use the process in good faith: a shared set of facts often shows where you can give without losing what matters to you.