What someone says they want and what they actually need are almost never the same thing.
When a faculty member says “I refuse to teach that course” or “this committee assignment is unfair,” they are stating a position — what they want, or don’t want, right now. That position is real and worth taking seriously. But it is the tip of an iceberg. Beneath it are the interests driving that position, and beneath those are the deeper needs that give those interests their urgency.
Chairs who respond only to positions get stuck in binary standoffs. Chairs who learn to ask about interests and needs find pathways forward that neither side had seen. This resource introduces the PIN model — Position, Interests, Needs — and shows you what it looks like in practice.
The PIN Framework
What someone says they want — their stated demand or stance.
This is what you hear first. It is often absolute, sometimes urgent, and frequently not the real issue. Positions are visible and easy to respond to — which is exactly why they can lead chairs astray. Engaging at the position level alone usually produces either capitulation or standoff.
Examples: “I won’t do that.” / “I deserve a course release.” / “This policy needs to change.” / “She should be the one chairing this committee.”
The concerns, priorities, and motivations behind the position.
Interests explain why someone holds their position. They are more flexible than positions — there are often multiple ways to address an interest even when a position feels non-negotiable. Understanding interests shifts the conversation from “who gets what” to “what are we actually trying to solve.”
Examples: Protecting research time. Maintaining credibility with peers. Avoiding an overloaded semester. Getting recognition for service contributions.
The fundamental human and professional drivers beneath the interests.
Needs are universal: fairness, respect, autonomy, security, belonging, recognition. They rarely change and cannot be argued away. When a conflict feels stuck even after the surface issues are addressed, it is usually because an underlying need has not been acknowledged. You cannot negotiate someone’s need for respect. But you can acknowledge it — and that acknowledgment often changes everything.
Examples: Feeling valued by the department. Trusting that processes are fair. Having professional autonomy respected. Being seen as a serious scholar.
Most chairs are trained to solve problems. The PIN model asks you to do something harder first: understand them. When you surface interests and needs before proposing solutions, you often discover that the stated conflict was covering something more fundamental — and that what seemed like an impasse has more room to move than it appeared.
See It in Action: A Scenario Walk-Through
Read the situation, then work through each layer before revealing what the chair discovered.
The situation: Dr. Chen, a mid-career associate professor in your department, has come to you with an ultimatum: she will not accept the introductory methods course on next year’s teaching schedule. She is direct about it — “I’ve taught that course for four years. Someone else needs to take it. I’m done.” She seems genuinely frustrated, and the conversation feels tense from the start.
Your first instinct might be to explain why the assignment is necessary, or to ask who else could cover it. Before you do either — pause. What is actually happening here?
What is Dr. Chen’s position — and what do you notice about it?
Think about this before revealing the analysis.
Position Layer
Dr. Chen’s position is clear: she refuses the introductory course assignment. Notice what this tells you — and what it doesn’t. You know what she doesn’t want. You don’t know why, and you don’t know what she does want instead. Responding to the position alone (“I understand your concern, but we need someone to cover that course”) treats this as a scheduling problem. It probably isn’t.
The position is the door into the conversation, not the conversation itself.
What might be driving Dr. Chen’s position? What interests could explain it?
Generate a few possibilities before looking at the analysis.
Interests Layer
When the chair asked Dr. Chen a few open questions — “Help me understand what’s driving this for you” and “What does next year look like from your perspective?” — a clearer picture emerged. Dr. Chen is in the middle of a book manuscript that needs to be completed for her promotion case. She has taught the introductory course every year for four years and feels it has absorbed time that could have gone toward research. She is not opposed to teaching high-enrollment or introductory courses in principle — she is trying to protect a specific window of time that matters for her career.
The interest is not “avoid difficult courses.” The interest is “protect research time at a critical career moment.”
What deeper need might be underneath Dr. Chen’s interests?
What is she really asking the department to see?
Needs Layer
Beneath the interest in research time is something more fundamental: Dr. Chen needs to feel that the department sees and values her scholarly trajectory. Four years of introductory course assignments can feel like an implicit message about how the department views your work — as someone who covers service teaching rather than someone whose research matters. Whether or not that was the intent, it may be how it has landed.
The underlying need is recognition and professional respect. That need cannot be addressed by rescheduling a course. But it can be acknowledged — and once it is, the conversation about the actual scheduling becomes much more productive. The chair might say: “I hear that this isn’t just about next year’s course — it sounds like you’re concerned about whether the department is supporting your path to promotion. Is that right?” That question changes the conversation entirely.
With a clearer picture of Dr. Chen’s interests and needs, the chair was able to explore solutions that hadn’t been on the table: assigning the introductory course to a newer colleague who needed the teaching experience, pairing Dr. Chen with a co-instructor for a reduced load version, or planning to return to the assignment in a future year when the manuscript was complete. The position — “I refuse” — hadn’t changed. But the problem being solved was now different, and the solution space was much larger.
Questions That Surface Each Layer
These are starting points — adapt them to your context. The goal is not to run through a checklist but to listen for what the answers reveal.
P — Clarifying the position
- “Help me understand what you’re asking for.”
- “What would need to happen for this to feel resolved from your perspective?”
- “When you say [X], what does that mean specifically?”
I — Surfacing interests
- “Help me understand what’s driving this for you.”
- “What’s at stake for you in this situation?”
- “What does your workload / schedule / situation look like from your perspective?”
- “What would change for you if [X] were different?”
- “What’s your concern about the current approach?”
N — Reaching toward needs
- “It sounds like what matters most to you here is [X]. Is that right?”
- “What would it look like for this to feel fair to you?”
- “What do you need from me — or from the department — to feel supported in this?”
- “Is there something about how this has been handled that feels like it doesn’t reflect how the department sees your work?”
- “What would make a difference for you at this point — even if the specific outcome can’t change?”
A note on bias in this process
The PIN model surfaces information — but you have to be careful about what you do with it. Your interpretation of someone’s interests and needs will be filtered through your own assumptions about what matters, what is reasonable, and what is professional. A chair who assumes a faculty member’s frustration is disproportionate may stop listening before they reach the need layer. A chair who assumes they already know what a colleague cares about may not ask the questions at all.
Before a difficult conversation, ask yourself: what assumptions am I bringing in about this person? What would I need to hear to be surprised by their perspective? The most important part of the PIN model is not the framework — it is the genuine curiosity it requires.
Apply this to a real situation Download the PIN Model Worksheet to work through a current conflict in your department — mapping positions, surfacing interests, and generating questions that get to needs.
Download WorksheetDescribe a conflict you are currently navigating. Walk through what you know about the position, and then tell Sophia what you think might be underneath it — at the interest and need level.