The commitment to concession protocol

There is a basic playbook that all effective negotiators consciously or unconsciously follow. I call this the ‘commitment to concession protocol’. The basic idea is that you focus on finding common ground at a high level before applying that understanding to specific issues.

Instead of talking about your needs, you start by searching for a ‘commitment’ to a high-level commercial, moral, technical or legal principle. This could, for example, take the form of the parties agreeing that a certain industry standard is universally accepted. This high-level agreement is your ‘commitment’.

The idea is to begin with such high-level agreements because they are often easier to secure than agreements on specific points of contention. Once a high-level agreement is reached on a guiding principle, that principle can serve as a tool for resolving more detailed issues.

Take, for example, a corporate customer and a cloud platform provider struggling to agree on cybersecurity measures. Rather than debating individual demands, it may be more productive for the parties to step back from their positions and discuss what is considered standard industry practice. By aligning on a shared understanding of market norms, they can return to negotiations with a high-level agreement on what cloud providers typically offer, making it easier to settle the specifics.

To maximise the impact of such high-level agreements, they should be made as clearly and publicly as possible. The more people are present to witness the agreement, the stronger it is. A public and clear commitment to a principle makes it hard for a party to act inconsistently with it. After all, no one wants to be seen as contradicting the principles they’ve publicly endorsed!