Three stacked gaps cause disagreements: uncertainty about what a claim means, how to evaluate it, and what actually matters. Fix them with a scoped definition, an evaluation standard with stated reach, and a priority that names the cost. This moves you from impasse to agreement.
No matter where the disagreement is, you don't reach common ground by out-evidencing, out-proofing, out-I'm-righting the other person, or about saying that they care about the wrong things. Those are sure paths to making sure you never get an agreement on something. Ultimately, there's 3 places where these gaps open and they stack, but there's also 3 solutions for them. The first big gap is whether or not something is even real, and the solution is a scoped definition. Agree on what one thing is for this purpose for now. Not everything, not always, not everywhere. The second place this opens up is on how we know. And in this case, what we're looking for is a standard with a stated reach, meaning what is the standard we're going to hold it to and how far are we going to hold that standard? And then the third one that we talked about here is what actually matters. In this case, we are finding a priority with a stated cost.
