Position versus Interest

For a mediator, it’s all about position versus interest.  A position is something a party has decided on. An interest is what caused the party to decide. When a problem is defined in terms of the parties’ underlying interests it is often possible to find a solution that satisfies both parties’ interests.

All people will share certain basic interests or needs, such as the need for security and economic well-being. As a mediator, try to identify, understand, and deal with both parties’ underlying interests. This can be done by:

§  Asking why the parties hold the positions they do, and consider why the parties do not hold some other possible positions.

§  Asking the parties to explain their interests clearly.

§  Discussing these interests together looking forward to the desired solution, rather than focusing on past events.

§  Focusing clearly on the parties’ interests, but remain open to different proposals and positions.

The classic example of the difference between position and interests is the story of the two children fighting over an orange. By focusing on positions, the problem is that both children want the orange and their parents must decide who gets it. To complicate matters, dad wants the daughter to get the orange and mom thinks it should go to the son. Imagine the conflict between brother and sister, mom and dad, daughter and mom, son and dad.  It’s a mess.  By focusing on positions, the logical choice would probably be to cut the orange in half.

By focusing on interests, however, mom and dad learn that daughter wants to eat the orange and son needs the rind to bake. They discover that while both children want the orange, they don’t want the whole orange. By asking why they want the orange (i.e., interests), mom and dad learn that each child can get the whole fruit or the whole rind instead of half of it.

Fisher and Ury explain the dichotomy between position and interest this way:  “Behind opposed positions lie shared and compatible interests, as well as conflicting ones. We tend to assume that because the other side’s positions are opposed to ours, their interests must also be opposed. If we have an interest in defending ourselves, then they must want to attack us.... In many negotiations, however, a close examination of the underlying interests will reveal the existence of many more interests that are shared or compatible than ones that are opposed.”

If the conflict over the orange were an actual dispute mediated by a good mediator, then mom, dad, daughter and son all walk away happy. With the orange cut in half, they may no longer be in conflict but they walk away only somewhat happy. And without a mediated outcome, they remain in conflict. It’s all about position versus interest.