Expanding the Pie: Negotiation Beyond Splitting the Difference

The integrative negotiation practices that create value before you claim it

How do you create more value in a negotiation instead of just dividing what exists?

Expanding the pie means trading across issues that the two parties value differently, so both sides gain more than any fixed compromise would allow. Malhotra and Bazerman’s research shows that most negotiators leave joint gains on the table because they treat every issue as a zero-sum battle.

Most people enter a negotiation ready to split the difference. That works if one thing is on the table, but in almost every real negotiation multiple issues are live at once — and the parties rarely care about them equally. Malhotra and Bazerman’s integrative framework starts with a diagnostic question: where do our interests differ, and can those differences be turned into trades? The practices below draw on that framework, grounded in the mechanism of each, with an honest read on the evidence.