Dovetail different interests
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008“I want the orange!” ”I need the orange too!” ”Fine. I could fight you, but I’ll split the orange with you so we each get half of what we want.” ”Fine, I’ll give in and compromise. I’ll take this half.” ”Wait, why are you grinding up the peel?” ”I’m using this orange peel to bake my Orangepeelicious Dessert!” ”But you threw the orange in the trash!” ”What, the juicy part? I just need the peel.” ”Oh! I wanted to eat the juicy part!” ”And you threw your half of the peel in the trash! I could’ve made my Dessert twice as big!” ”Sigh. You know, we both could’ve had all of what we wanted.”
The following quote is from the classic Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton:
“Dovetail differing interests. Consider once again the two children quarreling over an orange. Each child wanted the orange, so they split it, failing to realize that one wanted only the fruit to eat and the other only the peel for baking. In this case as in many others, a satisfactory agreement is made possible because each side wants different things. This is genuinely startling if you think about it. People generally assume that differences between two parties create the problem. Yet differences can also lead to a solution.
Agreement is often based on disagreement.”
Consider the fight at the local church over a pension plan for the man who’s maintained the building over the past 20 years and is ready to retire. The church’s lawyer says the pension plan should be cut. This causes a ruckus among the members of the church. Some side with the lawyer, others with the man who’s waiting for his pension plan. Meetings are called again and again, tensions rise, and members start to leave the church.
One day, the lawyer is overheard telling his wife how he resents that there’s no nursery room where they can leave their child during services. The man waiting for his pension to be unblocked likes taking care of kids, and would actually very much like to make the church more family-friendly by converting the unused basement into a play area. The lawyer has also wanted to make the church more family friendly, and his resentments about the church building not having a play area were displaced into his resentment for the man who maintained the building. The building and the church rules are made more family-friendly, membership grows, and everyone is happy.
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