There was a man who was a distributor of industrial gases. He had three sons. The man made it known that when he died he wanted his eldest son to have one-half of his cylinders, his middle son to have one-third of his cylinders, and his youngest son to have oneninth of his cylinders. When the man died he had 17 cylinders.
The brothers were at a loss to understand how to satisfy the wishes of their father, because 17 is not divisible by two or by three or by nine. At first they scratched their heads. Soon they began bickering, and then the bickering elevated to divisive argument. Finally, they were persuaded to consult with the oldest and wisest woman in the industrial gases industry. After listening to the brothers describe their problem, the woman said she didn’t think she could help them, but she said she had an old cylinder in her garage and she gave it to the brothers. The next day the brothers had resolved their problem, because one-half of 18 is nine, one-third of 18 is six, and one-ninth of 18 is two, the total of which is 17. So they divided their father’s 17 cylinders exactly as their father wished, and gave the 18th cylinder back to the wise old woman. (Adapted from an anecdote developed by William L. Ury, co-author of “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In” and co-founder of Harvard’s Negotiation Program.)
Too Many Negotiations Fail for the Wrong Reason
What happened? Why had a solution to the problem evaded the three brothers? We’ll likely never know, but it probably went something like this: the eldest son insisted on nine of the 17 cylinders because one-half of 17 rounded to the nearest whole is nine; and it is likely that the youngest son insisted on three cylinders because one-ninth of 17 rounded to the nearest whole is three. That left the middle son with five cylinders (onethird of the 17 cylinders rounded down), making the positions of the others unreasonable. The eldest son didn’t like being called unreasonable, and told the middle son that he didn’t deserve any cylinders because he had not been a good son to their father. While he was at it the eldest son also pulled rank on the youngest son, making it clear that as the youngest son he didn’t have a say about anything. Thus it was that a solution evaded the brothers because they quickly became embroiled in asserting and defending their respective conflicting positions rather than focusing on their respective yet not necessarily conflicting interests. In so doing, each appeared unreasonable and greedy to the others, causing them to focus on each other, rather than the problem. They failed to take a step back and resolve the problem by finding a way to satisfy the interests of each—which, as the wise old woman proved, was possible.
The story that best illustrates why people fail in negotiation when they focus on their respective positions rather than their respective interests or collective interest, is the story of the two children who are fighting over an orange. Each wants the whole orange. Push comes to shove and they run crying to their mother. What does the mother do when she sees them fighting over the orange?—split it, of course, and give each half. What could be fairer? Yet each child is still angry. Why? Because one child needed the whole orange peel for the cake he wanted to bake for the school bake sale, and the other child needed the whole inside of the orange because his recipe for juice called for him to squeeze the juice of a whole orange. If only the mother had asked why each child wanted the orange, she would have been able to fully satisfy the interests of each child by giving one the peel and the other the inside of the orange.
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