Amid election season, I have been thinking A LOT about how our tendency to focus on positions is driving social division and polarization, and how it is getting in the way of us working together to solve our pressing societal challenges.
In the hope that it helps us all navigate this challenging election season, I want to build on ideas I’ve explored in prior blogs to directly address the problem with focusing on positions and highlight some approaches for focusing on what really matters—our interests. As I explain, not only does focusing on interests rather than positions help us avoid polarization and divisiveness; it also helps us effectively address societal challenges and get good outcomes for ourselves and others.
What are positions and how are they different from interests?
A position is a particular solution or strategy we are advocating for to try to address some sort of a problem. It is a “how” we propose to address the problem and/or “what” we think needs to be done.
In contrast to positions, our interests are what really matter to us. They are our fundamental needs or concerns, or the true “why” we care about the problem.
To use examples of current national election issues: Promoting a certain level of child tax credit or promising to not tax certain kinds of income are positions, whereas needing to put food on the table or a concern about fairness are interests.
The problem with focusing on positions
Based on my experience working with thousands of people, I can say with confidence that people—at least here in North America—have a very strong tendency to see and approach the world in terms of positions. For example, we feel strongly that we need a tax cut, or we argue strongly for or against gun control laws, often without being clear about what our fundamental needs and concerns are related to these issues. While we may cite reasons for our positions—such as being pro- gun control to reduce school shootings, or being anti- such laws because we think guns make people safer—the reality is we typically are just using rationales to argue for our preexisting positions, and we often become more focused on pushing our position than on meeting our underlying needs and concerns.
Our tendency to see the world in terms of positions—and our related tendency to become positional—is problematic for a number of reasons. First and foremost, when we become fixated on positions, we tend to lose sight of what it is that really matters to us. Further, when we focus on positions, we often fail to do the self-reflection necessary to figure out what our true needs and concerns are. This often leads people to push for positions that don’t meet their interests, or to pass up options that would meet their interests because those options are different from the solution they had in mind.
Focusing on positions not only gets in the way of us getting good outcomes for ourselves; it also drives polarization and divisiveness. This is because positions—such as “no on gun laws” or “yes on gun laws,” or “increase taxes for corporations” or “cut taxes for corporations”—are often mutually exclusive. Therefore, when we approach issues in positional ways, it makes it seem that the only options for dealing with our differences are to either win (get our position) or lose (not get our position)—or to find some sort of a “you give a little, I give a little” compromise (and, as I explained in my last blog, no one really wants to compromise because compromise usually doesn’t meet our needs!). As a result of our positionality, our conflicts often feel totally unresolvable. We may find ourselves thinking that we have little in common with other groups of people and that there is no way for people with diverse needs to co-exist and collaborate to solve problems.
I think this pretty much sums up how many people in our country feel right now. The good news, however, is that there is another (and a better) way: focusing on interests.
The power of focusing on interests
When we stop focusing on particular solutions and strategies and instead put our interests front and center in our conversations and decision-making, we often realize that our needs and concerns aren’t mutually exclusive at all. Instead, we often find we have more in common than we think, which helps us feel more connected and less divided. We also may find that our interests aren’t in tension with each other and, thus, we don’t really have any conflict!
When we do have different needs and concerns, focusing on interests enables us to productively resolve conflict by working together to co-create innovative solutions that address these different interests. This helps bring us together, rather than push us apart. It also helps us create value by working together (as opposed to losing value by fighting or alienating each other).
That is why understanding the world in terms of and focusing on interests in all parts of our lives is so important: Doing so empowers us to productively work through conflict to get good outcomes for ourselves and others, and it also liberates us from getting bogged down in unnecessary (and even imaginary!) conflict. And, as a result, it helps prevent and heal divisiveness and polarization.
The Nine Whys: A tool to help you clarify and focus on interests
While the benefits of focusing on interests are clear, doing so is a skill that, like so many skills of effective conflict resolution (and being an effective human in general), is simple to comprehend but not easy to put into practice. One key reason for this is that most of us have learned to see the world in terms of positions, and learning to understand and focus on our interests requires rewiring our brain. It therefore takes time, intention, and practice.
To help you get clear on what really matters to you in any situation, here’s one technique I find particularly helpful (as do my students): the Nine Whys.
I first learned about the Nine Whys, which I have mentioned in prior blogs, from the free and publicly available Liberating Structures toolkit (which I highly recommend). The purpose of this exercise is to help you peel back the layers of the onion of your interests to get to the core needs and concerns that really matter to you.
It works like this.
Step 1: Identify an issue that you are really concerned about and/or a position you strongly hold.
- To use a current election example, you might be thinking: “We need to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S.”
Step 2: Ask yourself, “Why do I care about this?” or “Why is this important to me?”
- To continue on with my example, if you ask yourself why you feel strongly that we need to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., you might find that you are concerned about the loss of well-paying jobs in the U.S. Midwest.
Step 3: Keep asking yourself Why do I care about this? or Why is that so important? repeatedly, up to nine times or until it feels like you can’t go any further because you have clarified your deep needs and concerns.
- To keep going with the example, this might look like:
- Why is that important to you? “Because I’m concerned about bringing well-paying jobs back to the Midwest because my family lives there.”
- Why is that important to you? “Because I’m concerned that many of my family members and friends are struggling to make ends meet.”
- Why is that important to you? “Because I don’t want them to struggle.”
- Why is that important to you? “Because I care deeply about these people and places and want them to thrive.”
In this example, the Nine Whys might help you clarify that what you really care about—what really matters to you, your core interest—is helping the people and places you care about thrive. If this is the case, you might realize that there are many things other than the loss of manufacturing jobs that are contributing to these people and places struggling, and that the solutions must therefore also be more multi-faceted. For example, helping these places thrive might require addressing aging infrastructure, making housing more affordable, providing better and more affordable healthcare, and/or investing in education or community development—all of which are complex issues in and of themselves.
Also, and importantly, understanding your core needs and concerns helps you see ways you can directly take action to advance your interests. For example, if your key concern is seeing the people and places you care about in the Midwest thrive, you might find other ways to provide support, for instance by volunteering for or donating to community groups serving the region. It also might be important to vote for elected officials who don’t just promote certain positions (such as “I will bring back manufacturing!) but who have actually demonstrated their commitment to promoting wellbeing in the Midwest region (such as by seeing and working on all of the issues that are affecting regional wellbeing)—and to commit to holding whoever is elected accountable for following through on addressing these issues.
Being clear about our interests also helps us see what we need to stop doing or not do to avoid acting against our interests. For example, if you want to contribute to the thriving of people and communities in the Midwest, you might find that it isn’t helpful to feed into divisiveness and polarization in the region, especially since these dynamics often lead to the politicization of issues rather than collaborative and concerted work to meaningfully address those issues.
The basic takeaway is that focusing on interests encourages us to stop or avoid oversimplifying issues and putting energy into things we cannot control or directly influence (for example, an individual cannot singlehandedly bring back manufacturing to the region, and even if those jobs came back, it might not solve the problem). Instead, it encourages us to put that energy into things that are directly in our sphere of control or influence and to become more intentional and creative about how we can act to achieve our interests.
Helping others clarify and focus on their interests
The Nine Whys exercise works well for anyone who is ready and willing to shift their focus from positions and interests and to do the deep work to clarify what really matters to them. But how can you help other people who aren’t so eager to stop being positional?
The best way I have found to do this is through effective listening, i.e., listening to truly understand and doing so with true curiosity for what really matters to the other person. A core part of this is asking effective questions that are aimed at helping you—and the speaker—get more clarity on what the core needs and concerns are. To learn more about effective listening and how to ask effective questions, I encourage you to check out our Effective Listening 101 handout.
It is important to note that some people may be reticent about or even resistant to clarifying what really matters to them and focusing on their interests rather than positions. However, having trained and worked with thousands of people, I can say with confidence that focusing on interests and not positions is truly liberating and empowering, and it is a gift we can give ourselves, others, and the broader world.
So give it a try!
We live in interesting times and many of us, understandably, feel trepidation and worry about the upcoming election.
For anyone out there who feels this way, I suggest you use the Nine Whys to get clarity on what really matters to you—what your core needs and concerns are as they pertain to the election—and to liberate and empower you to take meaningful action in support of these core needs.
For me, the Nine Whys helps me see that my deep need is to flourish as an individual, and that I am concerned about the wellbeing and flourishing of my community, country, and the broader world. Keeping my interests front and center helps me avoid becoming positional (or outraged) about the election and politics and instead use my precious time, energy, and resources to invest in things that help me and others thrive. An example of this: To advance my interests, I am being careful to not contribute to divisiveness and polarization, and I am doing my best to teach people how to skillfully navigate their differences and make conflict productive (including by writing blogs such as this one).
I encourage you to really lean into focusing on interests rather than positions during the next few weeks (and beyond) and to help others to do so as well. You might be surprised how big an effect it has on your life.
Just think what our election and our politics would look like if everyone in our country was focused on interests rather than positions!
Danya Rumore, Ph.D., is the director of the Environmental Dispute Resolution program in the Wallace Stegner Center at the University of Utah. She is a research professor in the S.J. Quinney College of Law and a clinical associate professor in the city and metropolitan planning department at the University of Utah. She teaches about, practices, and conducts research on conflict, negotiation, dispute resolution, leadership, and collaborative problem solving. She is also the founder and a co-director of the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative.
About the EDR blog: Hosted by the Wallace Stegner Center’s Environmental Dispute Resolution (EDR) program, the EDR blog shares ideas, tools, and resources to cultivate a culture of collaboration and help readers be more skillful in working through conflict. Read additional blog posts at edrblog.org.