The Negotiator’s New Year Resolution

“I will do one thing differently in every significant commercial engagement – question one assumption, challenge one standard, stay engaged one step further, build one relationship differently.”

At the end of last year, I ran a survey to ask what most often prevents win-win outcomes in negotiations. 45% of practitioners identified lack of trust, more than double any other factor. Time pressure came in at 19%, lack of authority at 16%, and lack of planning at just 11%.

This result tells us something important: negotiators want greater collaboration and recognize that the reason it fails is not because of technical deficiencies but because of relationships and behaviors that are inconsistent with the need for trust. What we lack is confidence in each other.

Trust doesn’t fail by accident. Its because either we fail to take the steps needed to create it, or it breaks down when organizations operate in adversarial systems that make collaboration irrational. For example, Sales teams often seek to engage directly with business stakeholders because they see procurement as an obstacle to their goals, a function that delays deals and imposes terms which optimize for legal protection over delivery outcomes. From a Procurement perspective, a defensive posture may reflect hard-earned experience with suppliers who overpromise to win deals, obscure unfavorable terms in complex proposals, and prioritize signatures over deliverability. Both sides contribute to the dysfunction, creating a self-reinforcing cycle where collaboration becomes impossible and everyone loses.

The Root Cause Is Structure

What we have is a structural problem embedded in how organizations design commercial interactions:

• Standard contract terms that allocate risk rather than seek a shared approach to its management
• Procurement models that emphasize control over enablement
• Success metrics that reward transaction completion rather than delivery outcomes
• Category management frameworks that constrain judgement and adaptation
• Commercial practices and templates designed for different times, different risks, different commercial environments and persist simply because “that’s how we do it”

These structures make trust irrational. Why would a supplier trust a customer armed with punitive contract terms? Why would procurement trust sales teams whose compensation depends on signatures, not performance? We aspire to win-win outcomes while maintaining win-lose systems.

The Resolution Challenge

If we’re serious about addressing the trust deficit, our 2026 resolution can’t be a simplistic mantra like “build better relationships” or “communicate more effectively.” We need an approach which at least starts to address root causes in a way that indicates sincere intent: redesigning commercial structures, challenging inherited standards, and fundamentally rethinking whether our sales and procurement models actually serve the outcomes we need. But we must be realistic: most practitioners can’t redesign their organization’s entire commercial model, rewrite the standard templates or change how success is measured. You don’t have that authority.

What you can do is start shifting how you personally operate.

Each of the following actions is a small contributor to greater trust, building gradually through consistent behavior, demonstrated judgement, and evidence that different approaches produce better outcomes. None will transform your organization immediately, but practitioners who consistently do things differently eventually become the leaders who design things differently. So choose one, choose several, and recognize that you truly can make a difference.

What You Can Actually Do – Starting Now

1. Ask “what are we actually trying to achieve?” before “what does the process require?”

Before defaulting to the standard approach, spend ten minutes understanding the business outcome this purchase or contract needs to enable. What does success look like in twelve months? What could cause this to fail during delivery? Let that context inform your conversations and decisions, even within existing constraints. This signals to stakeholders and counter-parties that you care about the actual goals, not just process compliance. It shifts the conversation from adversarial (you vs. them) to collaborative (shared problem-solving).

2. Document the consequences of standards

When a standard term causes contention, delay, higher pricing, or performance problems, document it. Build an evidence base about which inherited practices serve current needs and which don’t. Share it when opportunities arise to influence change – or be even bolder, and create a business case for change. Evidence-based arguments for change demonstrate that you’re acting on data and experience, not personal preference. This builds trust with leadership and counter-parties that you’re advocating for better outcomes, not just easier processes.

3. Stay engaged past signature

For at least one major contract, maintain involvement through early performance – attend delivery meetings, observe what’s working and what’s not, monitor which contract provisions helped and which created friction. Use that learning to inform your next negotiation. When you signal concern about outcomes, you alter assumptions about your motivations.

4. Build one bridge

Identify one internal stakeholder or one customer or supplier contact who currently sees you (or your organization generally) as an obstacle. Invest time in understanding their perspective, their pressures, their goals. Find one way to help them succeed that doesn’t compromise organizational interests. This is the most direct trust-building action. Small acts of collaboration – helping someone solve a problem, removing an unnecessary obstacle, sharing information – create reciprocity and goodwill that builds over time.

5. Develop judgement alongside method

Commit to reading one case study per month about commercial arrangements that succeeded or failed – business cases about projects, partnerships, or ventures where commercial structure enabled or prevented delivery. Use what you discover to support your negotiations. When you can explain why you’re recommending a particular approach based on delivery context rather than just citing policy, people trust your judgement. Expertise builds credibility; credibility builds trust.

6. Practice saying “I don’t know, but let’s find out”

When asked to apply a standard process to a non-standard situation, don’t pretend the process is adequate. Acknowledge complexity, seek input, adapt where you can. Model the behavior of an intelligent negotiator, who recognizes that discipline complements judgement, it doesn’t replace it. Admitting uncertainty and inviting collaboration signals that you value getting things right over being right, which fundamentally changes how others engage with you.

None of these actions will transform your organization overnight, but they will transform you:

• You’ll develop commercial awareness and judgement that makes you more valuable
• You’ll build relationships that give you more latitude to experiment
• You’ll accumulate evidence that makes the case for larger changes
• You’ll contribute to rebuilding trust in dozens of individual interactions

Trust is built on behavior that demonstrates empathy and a readiness to understanding different motivations. When 45% of practitioners say trust is the barrier to win-win outcomes, they’re identifying the symptom. The problem is commercial structures designed for adversarial relationships and practitioners who have learned to operate within those constraints rather than challenge them.

The 2026 Resolution

I will do one thing differently in every significant commercial engagement – question one assumption, challenge one standard, stay engaged one step further, build one relationship differently.

You can’t change the system overnight. But you can start where you have agency and build from there. And practitioners who consistently do things differently eventually become the leaders who design things differently

Start now. Start small. Start with trust.