Are you fair?

It is a basic human instinct to want to be treated fairly and I would say it is a word that very frequently comes up in negotiations and even more so when it comes to resolving conflicts.

The likelihood of you being able to successfully close an ongoing negotiation or resolve a conflict increases significantly if you ensure that your counterpart feels like they are being treated fairly. But fairness can be tricky in the sense that there is no universal guide for what is fair, it is on the contrary very individual and also highly depends on which country your counterpart comes from.

So every now and then, make a habit of checking the status of the ongoing talks by simply asking: "Sounds fair to you?".