Breaking through Impasse

• Author: Victoria Pynchon/Joe Kraynak (With)
• Profession: Mediator, author, speaker, negotiation trainer, consultant, and attorney with 25 years of experience in commercial litigation practice/Professional writer who has contributed to numerous For Dummies books
• Pages: 219-243

Chapter 13

Breaking through Impasse

In This Chapter

▶ Using diagnostic questions to break through impasse

▶ Helping clients weigh benefits and costs to make well-informed choices

▶ Framing, reframing, and bracketing to shift perspectives

▶ Softening hard offers and rejecting extreme offers

▶ Tapping concessions and reciprocity to close the gap

I

mpasse occurs when neither party is willing to compromise any further on

an issue. When parties reach impasse, they’re likely to regard it as the end

of negotiations. They may tell themselves that they tried their best and tell

each other, “I’ll see you in court!” As a mediator, however, you know this is

just the beginning of negotiations. This is where you thrive.

Many techniques for breaking through impasse are fundamental negotiating

skills — asking diagnostic questions, anchoring, framing, reframing, pitch-

ing offers and counteroffers, bracketing, making concessions, and asking for

reciprocity. But you need to know how to apply these skills in the context of

impasse. This chapter explains how.

To help you navigate this chapter, the following table lists various reasons

for impasse and the sections in which I address those situations. That

way you can quickly find information for the type of impasse you may be

dealing with.

220 Part III: Improving Your Success Rate

Reason for Impasse See This Section

Not sure “Asking Diagnostic Questions”

One or both parties are overly

optimistic about the potential

outcome of litigation

“Using a Decision Tree or Cost-Benefit

Analysis”

One or both parties’ perception or

understanding is getting in the way

“Reframing to Readjust the Parties’

Perspective”

The gap between what one party

offers and the other is willing to

accept seems insurmountable

“Reaching Compromise on

Nonnegotiable Demands and Offers”

and “Negotiating concessions with

logrolling”

One party is bluffing or makes an

exaggerated claim

“Calling a bluff with a contingent

concession”

Asking Diagnostic Questions

To break through impasse, you must first ask each party diagnostic ques-

tions. Pretend that the parties are from Mars. Like hypothetical Martians,

the parties are a complete and utter mystery to you until you find out more

about them, their motivations, and the reasons underlying their dispute.

You must ask questions to determine what they want and need, who they’re

afraid of, why they’re so angry, how they got into this mess in the first place,

where they’re hoping the mediation leads them, what their preferred resolu-

tions are, whether they’d be open to other solutions, and so on. Diagnostic

questions extract all this valuable information from the parties so that you

can begin to consider solutions that serve each party’s interests and address

each party’s concerns.

Before looking at the questions, however, work through this exercise to expe-

rience the difference between powerful questions and the weak questions

that most people, even experienced attorneys and mediators, typically ask:

A man walks into a bar. The bartender pulls out a gun and points it at the

man. The man thanks the bartender and leaves the bar.

What the heck happened here?

Most people try to figure out what happened by asking weak, closed-ended

questions — yes/no questions that begin with “Did he” or “Was he” or “Might

he have been.” Here are some of the weak, closed-ended questions that

partners in major national law firms, film studio executives, and managers of

Fortune 500 companies have asked when performing this exercise:

✓ Did the bartender know the man? No.

✓ Did the man threaten the bartender? No.