DON’T FEED THE BEARS

The Blueprint For Negotiating Successful Partnerships

Partnerships fuel the modern business landscape. Strategic alliances, technology ecosystems, joint ventures, and channel relationships are just a few forms of collaboration shaping the 21st-century economy. These are not one-time transactions. They are living strategic growth opportunities that can become compounding assets over time or significant financial drains if not managed properly. Yet the dominant negotiation frameworks used by professionals in collaborative engagements today were designed for an entirely different world: zero-sum battles with adversarial counterparts seeking to win a one-shot interaction. In the new partnership economy, those tactics don't just underperform, they destroy the very thing your organization is trying to create–a long-term trusted relationship.

This book was written because the world of business negotiation has a serious problem. The most widely taught and widely read approaches to negotiation were designed for the wrong context. They were built for single interactions: buying a car, resolving a hostage situation, landing a transactional deal. In those scenarios, you will likely never see the other party again. There is no relationship to protect. Winning at any cost is the entire point.

But that is not the world most business professionals live in. CEOs, partnership executives, business development leaders, and sales professionals are not negotiating one-off transactions. They are negotiating the foundation of relationships that must deliver value for years, sometimes decades. They are negotiating with people they will call on Monday morning, sit across from at quarterly business reviews, and depend on when things go sideways. For these professionals, the tactics in the bestselling negotiation books are not just unhelpful; they are actively harmful. Don't Feed The Bears is your blueprint for negotiating successful partnerships!

A must read for every business professional

This book provides a research based framework for navigating deals of any kind. whether negotiations happen inside of your company or externally with vendors, customers, or partners, this book will give you dozens of tools to take your negotiation game to the next level.