Sales · Salary negotiation anchored in the market, Research conducted by Harvard’s Program on Negotiation shows that a candidate who backs a pay request with verifiable market data (sector scales, public benchmarks such as Levels.fyi or public industry data) obtains better results than by arguing on merit alone. One striking point: when objective information on salaries is available before the interview, the gap in outcomes between men and women tends to disappear. Here the external criterion plays a dual role, it legitimises the request and corrects a relational bias, illustrating that objectivation does not merely serve to persuade, it also levels the playing field.
Political · The MIT model at the Law of the Sea Conference, In Getting to Yes, Fisher and Ury report a case that has become a classic, drawn from the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. The United States and developing countries (including India) were flatly opposed over the royalty that mining companies should pay to exploit the polymetallic nodules of the deep seabed. Rather than bargaining position against position, the delegations relied on an independent economic model developed by MIT, which simulated the profitability of a mine and the revenue of the Authority under various payment regimes. Faced with this shared reference, both parties revised their initial demands: the debate moved from wills to the model’s assumptions, opening the way to a quantified and defensible compromise.
Diplomatic · Namibia: “principles” as a foundation for transition, The process of Namibia’s accession to independence illustrates the power of criteria set up front. Faced with a tangle of wills (South Africa, SWAPO, the Western contact group), the negotiation advanced by first fixing a framework of shared principles: Security Council Resolution 385 and then, in 1982, a text of “Principles concerning the Constituent Assembly and the Constitution” put forward by the contact group and accepted by all parties. By anchoring the rest of the process in these agreed standards rather than in the balance of power of the moment, the mediators gave each camp a justifiable basis, the condition for an agreement that no one could denounce as a capitulation.
Legal · Independent expertise as a criterion for compensation, In compensation matters, personal injury, expropriation for public purposes, insurance disputes, French judicial practice institutionalises the objective criterion through adversarial expert appraisal and reference scales. In expropriation, fair compensation is determined by reference to the market value established from comparable transfers, not by the owner’s wish nor the local authority’s budget. Likewise, compensation for personal injury relies on reference frameworks (the Dintilhac nomenclature, capitalisation scales). The judge does not arbitrate between two wills there: they apply an external standard, making the decision reasoned and reducing arbitrariness, exactly the logic that Fisher and Ury transpose beyond the courtroom.
Business · The indexation clause in procurement negotiation, In industrial framework contracts, procurement departments avoid heat-of-the-moment renegotiations by writing in objective adjustment criteria from the outset: price indexation to a public index (Syntec for intellectual services, raw-material indices for components), revision clauses tied to official inflation, contractual benchmarks. When the supplier invokes a rise in its costs, the discussion no longer bears on its “will” to raise prices but on the measured movement of the agreed index. This preventive framing defuses most tariff conflicts: the criterion, accepted in the cold, holds authority in the heat, and protects both parties from a cyclical balance of power.
Everyday life · Selling your home at the price of comparables, An owner attached to their flat values it at a price the market does not validate; the buyer, for their part, anchors low. The way out lies in a criterion: the notarial references and recent comparable sales in the same building, reduced to the price per square metre. By stating “let us take the three most recent comparable transactions and reason per square metre”, the emotional confrontation is replaced by a verifiable grid. The seller can give up a few thousand euros without feeling cheated, it is not the buyer imposing it, it is the market that says so, and the buyer stops underbidding. The criterion takes the heat out, speeds things up and makes the agreement defensible on both sides.
