There’s an old Buddhist story involving a group of blind men who encounter an elephant on their travels. Each attempts to describe the creature to the others based on their sense of touch, but they can’t reach a mutual understanding to agree on what exactly it is in front of them. This leads to accusations of dishonesty, heated tempers, and an all-out brawl.
So why couldn’t the men agree on what the elephant looked like? Well, each man was touching a different part of the large mammal’s body. One felt the tusks; another the tail; another its ears; another its flank, and so on. Even though all the men encountered the same animal, they had incomplete information and refused to seek clarification on why their impressions varied so dramatically.
This is what happens when there is no mutual understanding: people don’t share a common, accurate picture of reality, so their perspectives collide rather than align. Mutual understanding (saling pengertian dalam negosiasi) means that everyone involved has a clear grasp of the facts, intentions, and meanings at stake and recognizes that others share that grasp.
Without it, as in the parable, everyone is left angry, confused, and alienated. (Apart from the elephant, who was presumably thrilled with the impromptu massage.)
Mutual Understanding: What It Is and Why It Matters
This story highlights why mutual understanding is essential for any productive conversation, but especially in a negotiation. If you can’t agree on the fundamentals, there’s a slim chance that the eventual outcome will satisfy both parties. Effective negotiators know the importance of being able to “playback” information from the other party. This helps clarify common ground, surface and clarify differences, and strengthen the relationship.
Let’s go over a few of these “playback” techniques.
Test and summarize the other party’s position
As you might recall from our previous articles, Test and Summarize is a relationship-building negotiation behavior that encourages cooperation and communication.
This is precisely why it’s such an effective way to clarify a point and ensure mutual understanding without implying agreement during a negotiation.
Not only are you showing the other party that you’re willing to cooperate and build a long-term relationship, but you’re also doing so in a way that strengthens your own understanding of the entire situation.
As a quick refresher, the Test and Summarize technique involves paraphrasing what the other party says, and then asking them to confirm that your understanding is correct. When you’re doing this, however, just make sure not to embellish or manipulate. The goal here is to find that common ground, not to twist their words to serve your own self-interest.
Confront and clarify your differences head-on
If you ever find yourself in a contentious situation, be it a sales negotiation, a supplier negotiation, or an internal negotiation, mutual understanding is paramount. How are you meant to address the elephant in the room if you’re talking about its tusks, while the other person thinks you’re talking about its tail? This leads us to the other “playback” skill: clarifying and confronting differences.
Confronting differences is valuable for a number of reasons. For starters, you’ll be clear on the scope and severity of all differences before attempting to solve the problem. Without doing this, you risk wasting time and resources on a solution that doesn’t even fit the situation. Confronting differences also makes everyone feel better about working through the conflict by initially focusing on areas of agreement. And by setting out to articulate core issues of contention, you’re able to stay in the (healthy) tension until everyone is clear about what the problem is.
So how should you confront and clarify differences?
We’ve identified four steps that can be applied to practically any negotiation situation to minimize the risk of misunderstanding and illuminate any and all points of contention.
Identify common ground and areas where both parties agree
Describe remaining disagreements as you see them
Ask the other parties for confirmation and for their thoughts on the disagreements
If necessary, continue until everyone agrees on what differences remain
With everyone on the same page about where disagreements lie, it will be that much easier to approach an effective solution that leads to a mutually beneficial outcome.
RED BEAR Negotiation Company is a global performance improvement firm dedicated to maximizing the profitability of the agreements negotiated with customers, suppliers, partners, and colleagues. If you’re interested in empowering your sales team with world-class negotiation skills, contact us for more information.
What Mutual Understanding Means In Negotiation
Mutual understanding in negotiation is not about agreeing with the other side; it is about accurately grasping how they see the situation, what matters to them, and why. Through a RED BEAR lens, mutual understanding is the practical outcome of two core principles at work: managing information skillfully and satisfying needs over wants.
When negotiators Manage Information Skillfully, they deliberately explore rather than assume. They ask clear, open questions, test their interpretations, and share relevant information at the right time and in the right way. This turns the exchange of information into a disciplined process for uncovering how each side defines success, risk, and fairness, laying the groundwork for mutual understanding instead of mutual misunderstanding.
Mutual understanding also depends on the ability to Satisfy Needs Over Wants. Wants are the stated positions, price points, deadlines, and terms. Needs are the underlying drivers, risk constraints, performance requirements, and relationship priorities. By focusing on needs, negotiators look past surface-level demands to the real interests at stake. This focus enables both sides to recognize the legitimacy of each other’s concerns, even when they remain far apart on specific proposals.
Together, these principles make mutual understanding a deliberate choice, not a hopeful accident. Managing information skillfully reveals what is really at play for each party; satisfying needs over wants turns that insight into options that respect both sets of interests. The result is a shared, accurate picture of the negotiation landscape that enables productive movement, even in high-pressure or high-conflict situations.