#77 Finding Middle Ground

Have you ever been in conflict with another colleague or team?  How did you feel about their ideas and suggestions?

Reactive devaluation refers to the tendency to dismiss a proposal simply because it comes from an opposing party, regardless of its actual merits.  This cognitive bias negatively affects workplaces, families, communities, and governments, and is a significant barrier to conflict resolution. It stems from several factors, including mistrust, misinterpretation of motives, loss aversion, fervent group loyalty, and seeing negotiations as zero-sum games.

While reactive devaluation is common, research by Lee Ross, psychologist and co-founder of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation, revealed a number of techniques to reduce it, including having:

• The opposing parties 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲𝘀, so they can later connect newly proposed concessions to each other’s lists.

• Both parties 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 “𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘂𝘀,” lists of possible concessions that the other party can pick from.