Why the Same Thing Can Mean Different Things in a Negotiation

If you ask two people to estimate the value of the same object, chances are you will get two different answers. Not because one of them is right and the other is wrong, but because value is rarely absolute. It depends on perspective, priorities, timing and circumstances.

This is something we intuitively understand in everyday life, yet we often forget it when we sit at the negotiation table. We tend to assume that the other party sees the situation exactly as we do, that they evaluate the same variables, worry about the same risks and pursue the same objectives. More often than not, they don’t.

Think about buying a house. For one buyer, the deciding factor might be the price. For another, it could be the proximity to good schools. Someone else may be willing to pay significantly more simply because the property allows them to move in immediately. The house is exactly the same, but its perceived value changes depending on who is looking at it.

Business negotiations work in much the same way.

Two companies can be discussing the very same agreement while attaching completely different importance to each element of the deal. One organisation may be under pressure to preserve cash. Another may be trying to accelerate growth. One supplier might be concerned about production planning, while the customer is focused on reducing uncertainty. On paper, they are negotiating the same contract. In reality, they are often solving different problems.

Recognising this difference is one of the first steps towards becoming a better negotiator. Too often, negotiations become a conversation about positions: the price is too high, the deadline is too short, the conditions are unacceptable. Those positions are visible, but they are rarely the whole story. Behind every request there is usually a reason, and behind every reason there is something that carries more value for one party than it does for the other.

This is why experienced negotiators spend so much time asking questions before proposing solutions. They know that understanding how the other side evaluates the situation is often more useful than preparing one more argument in support of their own position. The objective is not simply to persuade. It is to understand what really matters.

Interestingly, this idea is not new. Long before negotiation became an academic discipline, popular wisdom had already found simple ways to describe complex human dynamics. Across cultures, idioms have survived precisely because they capture situations that people continue to experience generation after generation. Their words may differ from one language to another, but the underlying behaviours remain remarkably similar.

That is the idea behind this series: exploring negotiation through popular idioms, both Italian and English, and discovering how centuries-old expressions can still offer surprisingly relevant insights into modern business conversations.

In the next video, CABL Faculty member Giovanni Aquilanti introduces one of the most evocative Italian idioms: cogliere due piccioni con una fava, literally “to catch two pigeons with one fava bean.” At first glance, it may sound like a curious rural expression. In reality, it introduces one of the most important concepts in negotiation and shows how looking beyond the obvious can completely change the way we think about value.