Insights

Perspectives from two decades of commercial negotiation and advisory work.

Your BATNA Is Probably Decorative
The acronym is everywhere. The thing it describes is rare. Three questions to test whether your alternative is functional or decorative.
The 5-Minute Pre-Mortem
Most people spend their last five minutes before a meeting re-reading their own slides. There's a much more useful thing you could be doing.
The System Behind Your Sales Team's Discounting
Define negotiation as price concession and architect the firm around that definition, and you've built a system that guarantees unilateral concession. A structural view.
Asia Is Not One Country
Companies keep parachuting headquarters talent into APAC with zero regional experience, then wonder why deals fall apart. You can't Google your way to guanxi.
When Agreeableness Becomes a Financial Liability
Agreeableness builds trust in negotiations. But when it's your only mode, it becomes a financial liability the moment it's time to claim value.
Pattern Break, Pattern Lock
Negotiation teams don't lack effort. They lack a mechanism that turns experience into a repeatable edge. Here's the discipline that fixes post-room amnesia.
The 5-Minute Cultural Override Check
Cultural patterns are statistical tendencies, not guaranteed personality traits. Before your next negotiation, run this quick check.
The 5-Minute Prep: Minimum Viable Negotiation Preparation
When you've got minutes before a negotiation and zero preparation, you need a minimum viable approach. The 5-Minute Prep (5MP) is that approach.
The System Behind Your Team's Conflict Avoidance
When commercial teams won't push back, the diagnosis is almost never culture. It's structure, incentives, and a system designed to produce that behavior.
The Deal You're In Isn't the Deal You Agreed To
A factory tour in Korea turned into an accidental fraud investigation. Sometimes the only negotiation position that matters is the right to leave.
Money Illusion and the Contracts It Destroys
Currency moves can quietly gut a contract that "felt right" at signing. Money illusion bias makes negotiators treat exchange rates as facts, not variables.
Who Said It Matters More Than What They Said
Two biases distort every negotiation: the messenger effect judges information by its source, illusory truth makes you believe whatever gets repeated.
What Street Market Aunties Know About Silence
Everyone's been taught that silence is golden in negotiations. Street market aunties in China figured out something more sophisticated decades ago.
Your Walk-Away Point Is Not Your Target
Most negotiators confuse their walk-away point with their target. One is a budget number. The other is where walking out costs less than staying in.
Lead With the Big Contentious Thing
Most teams save the hard stuff for the end of a negotiation, when everyone's tired. The primacy effect says lead with it instead.

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