What I Mean by Fair

“That’s not fair” is one of the most common sentences in any negotiation, and one of the least useful. Usually it means “I would like more.” It invites the reply “says who?”, and the conversation goes nowhere.

I use the word too. Going back through my emails, though, it has always been tied to something specific. There are three versions.

Fair is what we agreed

In December 2012 the draft contract for an office purchase arrived with two numbers that did not match what had been discussed. The seller said we could work through it. My reply:

Fine, but we both should stick to what we both agreed to. I don’t want those type of surprises.

This is the strongest version of fair, because it is not an opinion. Either the document matches the agreement or it does not. A party who reopens an agreed term is asking for a new negotiation, and should expect one.

Fair is what it is worth to us, now

In 2018, negotiating a sales-training programme for a young DMA, I offered less than the trainer’s price and said why:

It’s just the stage of business we are in and that’s what we believe is fair value to us at this time.

That is not a claim that the trainer’s list price was unfair. It is a statement of what the thing was worth to us, at that stage, given what we would actually use. It gave the trainer something to work with: a reason, not just a lower number. He came back with a shorter term at our price. That story is in Tuesday Mornings at 8:30.

Fair is risk that runs both ways

In January 2025 I received a notice that a presale condominium I had bought would be delivered months late, alongside news of how much the units had appreciated. My reply was one line:

How are we compensated for delays in the form of penalties; these should be fair relationships

Buyers were paying on a schedule. The developer’s delivery date had just moved, and there was no compensation attached to the move. Fair, in that sense, is symmetry: if one side carries a penalty for being late, so should the other. It is also, as I wrote about in Price Is One Term, a term that has to be negotiated before signing, not after.

Why the anchor matters

Each of those is something the other side can check. The agreement is written down. The value is explained. The asymmetry is visible in the contract. That is what makes the word persuasive rather than just loud.

The useful response to “fair” in a negotiation is a question: fair according to what? If there is an answer, the conversation has somewhere to go. If there is not, it is a request for more, and it can be treated as one.