When two stakeholders have genuinely conflicting objectives — not through anyone's fault, but because their goals are structurally at odds — peer-to-peer negotiation is the wrong tool. The fix is to escalate to whoever sits above both of them with a broader view of priorities, and ask that person to make the call.
This differs from Shuttle Diplomacy (used to surface disagreement that's being hidden) and Mining for Conflict (Testing Apparent Consensus) (used to test whether apparent consensus is real): escalation is for disagreement that is already visible and irreducible at the peer level. Bruce McCarthy and Melissa Appel (Align) frame it as a legitimate move, not a failure of the stakeholders' relationship — sometimes the honest answer is "our manager needs to prioritize between us."
Once the shared authority rules, the losing stakeholder is expected to Disagree and Commit despite disagreeing.
Из тем: Stakeholder Power and Trust