The Negotiation Within: The Impact of Internal Conflict Over Identity and Role on Across-The-Table Negotiations

This article argues that negotiators' experiences of internal conflict over their identity and role - what we term "the negotiation within" - has a significant impact on across-the-table negotiations in the legal profession and in business. This impact has been mostly overlooked by the literature on negotiation, which focuses on strategic, structural, and psychological barriers to negotiated agreements that are divorced from the real, internal experiences of most negotiators. The article analyzes the impact and suggests a typology for naming and understanding internal conflict. It concludes with a three-stage prescription on how to manage such conflicts described as Mirror work, Chair work, and Table work.