What do you do when you can't agree on what matters?

If you've ever gone apartment hunting or house hunting with a friend or a roommate, you have likely been practicing what's known as axiology. Don't worry, don't get afraid of that. Axi means value and ology means the study of. So when you were putting together your list of we want X number of bedrooms or no bedrooms at all, or we want this kind of kitchen, or we don't cook, so we don't need that, or you want outdoor space or entertaining space or a bathroom for each of us. You were talking through what was of importance to you, what was valuable to you, and having to weigh that against things like location, cost, and your relationship to each other. Now, those conversations rarely go absolutely smoothly, not only because within one person you may have to deal with your own sense of tradeoffs. I only want to spend X amount a month, but I really want my own bathroom. Which might mean that you have to consider a different neighborhood than maybe you were considering. So you have to make that trade-off, but so does the other person. And then you have to do it with each other. As you may have gathered, this applies far beyond house hunting and apartment hunting. It can apply to negotiations. It can apply to new ideas. It can apply to political positions. It can apply to— well, you get the idea. All sorts of things. The issue is that when there's disagreement about that, like one person says, let's go for the one downtown, and the other one goes, I want the one by the park, and you're just stuck on this is my position, literally downtown, no park. Each of you were defending a position that you've landed on, and that's normal. And in fact, there's been a lot of books written on how we tend to argue positions. There's also been a lot of research on how that tends not to be successful. There's lots of different ways to get past that. But the way that I like to think about it and that I've found really practical, especially as it ties into that idea of what people value, is to think beyond the positions to what priorities those positions represent. If somebody wants the one downtown, there's reasons why they want that apartment downtown. It might be because that means they can walk more, and that's important to them because activity is important to them. The person who wants to live by the park may want access to nature. They want the view. They want what they perceive to be quieter. You get the idea. The priority is the thing underneath the position. And that's important when it comes to finding common ground because hiding within those positions could be something both of you share. And when that's the case, a shared priority allows two people to make the same choice no matter the entire universe of their values or that deeper understanding of what globally they think is right or important. So you can see where we can make some progress there. But just having a shared priority doesn't necessarily solve the whole thing. Now, let's say with our friends, by surfacing those priorities, they realize that both of them have hiding in their position of park versus downtown the ability to go someplace and walk. So this priority of walkability is something that they share, but they can still get stuck because the downtown apartment has that, but So does the park one. With that priority in mind, they can now start to look at the cost of that priority, and they can start to put it in terms that are meaningful to both of them. So in this case, we can talk about it literally, literally talk about the cost of walkability in each of those locations. And let's say they're looking at those apartments and they realize that the park apartment's version of walkability fits in their budget, but the downtown apartment's version of walkability does not. Now they can start to look at those things together. The downtown person can now say, ah, I see, I still get walkability and I can maintain the other thing I value, which is keeping to our budget. The reason why a stated cost works is because the value you put on something is quite literally what you're willing to give up for it. Now, it's not always a literal cost, meaning it's not always about money. Sometimes there are other kinds of costs associated with this kind of finding of common ground. For instance, sometimes the cost is reprioritizing some of your priorities. As I say in my book, "Say What They Can't Unhear," when two truths fight, only one wins. So that downtown apartment person now has to actually look at walkability and that specific location in terms of the budget. And one of those things is probably going to give. Either they're saying, "Hmm, I don't actually care about the budget as much," which may put the whole roommate discussion into play. Or they can say, "Yeah, I thought it was walkability, but actually it's this other thing." And yeah, that may reopen the discussion, but it reopens it back to finding a priority that both of them share. And they could only get there by attaching a cost to it. Sometimes it's giving up something a little bit more personal or a little bit more ego-driven, like winning or being certain or being right in this particular situation. That, by the way, takes us back to making sure we agree on the overall question we're trying to answer in the first place. But there's other ones too. Sometimes the cost of moving forward, being practical or pragmatic, means softening an absolutist position on some other principle you hold. By the way, that's actually a lot more common than we'd like to think about ourselves. We can see this in broader conversations like collective welfare comes often at the cost of individual autonomy. One more thing: this isn't about saying everything has a price in economic terms. I personally I don't believe that all values can be reduced to monetary status. Maybe you do. I don't. That's fine. It's about what trade you'd be willing to accept here. What would actually satisfy those things that are worth it to you more than holding onto your position about which specific thing you think is the one that's right for everything. This is more than a ranking with a financial currency price attached to it. It's about agreeing on what comes first when two priorities collide. And what each person, each party is willing to give up in order to honor that agreement. And like the other aspects of finding ground that we've talked about before, common ground about what reality is, common ground about how we'll know, this only has to apply for this particular decision, this particular shared outcome that the two parties are interested in. How do you get there? Number one, look under your own position and assess what it is that you are putting first. What is the grouping of things that you consider important that are captured in the position that you're holding and figure out which one of those, at least for now, is the most important. Now, this does rely on the other person doing the same thing, but typically, thanks to the nearly universal value of reciprocity, if you do it, they are more likely to do it too. Then it's about looking at those priorities that are surfaced and picking one together. We both feel that this priority is most important in whatever it is that we're talking about. Third, say what it costs for each of you to hold to that priority and what you're willing to give up. Are you willing to say, okay, I'll take less of this thing or more of that thing in order to maintain this priority that we both agree on? And like the other pieces in this series, once you've stated it, you need to make sure that you both have the same understanding of it. So we need to hear back from each other. This is what we agreed on. Yes? Yes. Ultimately, our two friends stop arguing about downtown versus park. It's all about walkability. They end up choosing the park one because for one, it was worth a price-based value. It stayed within their budget. And for the other, it was worth the second bathroom. Not only does a priority with a stated cost allow you to find common ground with someone who sees the world differently than you do, and thus gives your idea a better chance to take hold, It also adds nuance to your positions, both the other person's and yours. You get a deeper understanding of why you believe what you believe, but you also get a deeper understanding of why they believe what they believe. And that just might add a little bit more understanding and a little bit more empathy to all the exchanges going forward. Whether you recall or not, this topic is the last in a series about trying to figure out what do you do when it feels like you did everything right when it came to making something make sense to somebody else and they're still not on board. Almost always in these cases, there is something underneath the disagreement that isn't being surfaced. There's something underneath their position. There's something about the nature of their position, their positionality, the characteristics of that position that don't match up. In those cases, it's important to start to explore, to say, where is the actual disagreement about what's going on? Is it about what's even real? Is it about how we'll know? Or is it about what we value? Or honestly, is it some combination of those? We have to deal with each of the disagreements wherever they may be if we're looking to move forward. And that's exactly what we've been talking about this whole time. And in this piece. So if there's a disruption where it feels like everybody understands, but we still don't have an agreement, that's a sign, a sign to go back and check each of those layers and make sure that we've got agreement underneath so that we can get agreement overall. 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. When you've done everything right and somebody understands your position but just doesn't agree with it, stop and explore and figure out where the disagreement is. Is it about what's there? Is it about how you know it? Or is it about what matters? Because if the outcome you're working towards is worth it for all of you, so is the work that will get you there.