The-Negotiation-Society-Magazine-The-Change-Issue

ISSUE 7 

The Negotiation Society 

BRINGING R G THE H E ART T AND SCIENCE OF F NEGOTIATION E I A T ION TO O LIFEI F E 

THE 

ISSUE 

The impact of change on how we negotiate, 

do business, and travel through life 

CHANGING 

LANES 

SURVIVING 

COVID 

PROCUREMENT 

TRENDS 

RETAIL 

SPECIAL 

Tanni Grey-Thompson’s 

journey from sports star 

to politician 

Creative responses 

to the pandemic from 

around the world 

Global research into 

negotiation practices 

The brave new world 

of omnichannel

INSIDE THIS ISSUE 

10 20 

Life After 

Sport 

Negotiating change 

with athletes including 

Paralympics legend 

Tanni Grey-Thompson. 

Surviving 

COVID 

Creative responses to the 

pandemic from around 

the world. 

WELCOME FROM GRAHAM 

27 30 

Procurement 

Change 

Global research into 

procurement trends and 

how to apply the learnings. 

37 40 

Virtual Learning 

Debate 

The Future 

of Retail 

Retail specialists on 

the role of customer insight 

and rise of omnichannel. 

Question 

Time 

Over the last year we’ve lived through the biggest 

global crisis in most of our lifetimes and witnessed 

tragedy and devastation. There has also been 

phenomenal adaptation, growth, humanity 

and camaraderie. Throughout, change has taken 

place at an inordinate pace and scale. Hence the 

theme for this edition of The Negotiation Society 

magazine is change. 

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and nine 

other athletes describe the changes they made to 

their lives once the sporting limelight was over. 

Our consultants analyze examples of how their 

region has dealt with Covid-19. We explore global 

procurement trends as Marc Saris walks us through 

our research, and how this impacts negotiation in 

the profession. 

Serena Tittl talks to two experts about how 

customer data and omnichannel are driving the 

ever-dynamic retail sector. And Chris Atkins 

explains why it’s so important in this changing 

world for organizations to invest in their 

negotiation culture. 

In conclusion, a thought for the day: the 

pandemic has brought people across society 

together in an unprecedented way. Their resilience 

and flexibility has shone brightly. How can we take 

these learnings into our businesses, build them into 

our processes and become more collaborative, robust 

and agile in the world we are now embracing? 

Reflections on social 

mobility, privilege, and 

negotiation vs debating. 

Our diverse, expert panel’s 

succinct points of view on 

change and negotiation. 

Graham Botwright 

CEO, The Gap Partnership 

2

THE NEGOTIATION SOCIETY 

OUR CONTRIBUTORS 

Gintare Geleziunaite 

Richard Jones 

Vince Han 

Gintare is a Change Management 

Lead at the Ministry of Defence 

(UK) where she provides strategic 

direction, advice and tools 

to the change practitioners 

across the 250,000 people-strong 

organization. Gintare is also 

Co-Lead of the Change 

Management Institute 

in London. 

As principal consultant 

at The Gap Partnership, 

Richard leads the Legal, Banking 

and Professional Services practice 

for the UK, Middle East 

and Nordic regions. With over 

ten years’ tenure with the business, 

he has responsibility for multiple 

key strategic partnerships, 

and a passion for collaboration. 

Vince is the founder and 

CEO of Mobile Coach and 

an industry thought leader for 

learning and learning technology 

with an emphasis on artificial 

intelligence and chatbot 

technology. He holds an MBA 

from the MIT Sloan School 

of Management. 

Emer Brady 

Gabriel Man 

Ezinne Okuro 

Originally from Northern Ireland, 

Emer is a talent and capability 

specialist with two decades’ 

global experience in multinational 

organizations. Now based 

in Barcelona, Emer heads up 

her own firm, Chispa Consulting, 

delivering tailored learning 

and development solutions 

to clients in multiple geographies 

and sectors. 

Gabriel joined The Gap 

Partnership in 2018 

as a negotiation consultant, 

having amassed a wealth of 

experience in procurement and 

sales in businesses across Europe. 

Gabriel is an expert in retail 

procurement strategy, 

and speaks fluent English, 

French and Romanian. 

Ezinne is Global Chief Inclusion, 

Equity and Diversity Officer 

at Wunderman Thompson. 

She was previously H&M’s first 

Head of Inclusion & Diversity 

for North America. Ezinne 

was named to the Top 100 

Transformers in Business by 

Business Insider in 2020, 

The Network Journal’s 40 under 

Forty and ESSENCE Magazine’s 

Women to Watch in Fashion. 

3

INSIDE 

MY HEAD 

ANTONIO CASTILLO 

UNILEVER’S HEAD OF COMPETITIVE BUYING SHARES 

THE SECRETS TO HIS SUCCESS, THE ROLE OF EMOTION IN 

NEGOTIATION, AND HOW HE ENVISAGES A POST-COVID WORLD. 

4 

How did you make it to where 

you are today? 

There are two drivers of my success: 

purpose and curiosity. My purpose 

is value creation through knowledge 

and people, so I studied Industrial 

Engineering, then left my native 

Spain for Germany, the hub of 

excellence in this area. Ongoing 

curiosity has also been important; 

I have a thirst for learning about 

new ideas, places and technologies 

to fulfil my purpose and also share 

with the community. 

What’s the best thing about 

working in procurement? 

The exceptional people the function 

attracts; I’ve worked with many talented 

peers and leaders. Additionally, you 

learn about different industries. I made 

the transition from automotive to 

FMCG, and got exposure to a whole 

new world of fascinating innovation. 

And the most challenging? 

Well, no surprise, but there’s constant 

pressure to deliver savings. I filter this 

through a bigger picture perspective 

and make my goal to deliver the best 

total value to my business. 

How important is the skill of 

negotiation in your day-to-day work? 

Negotiation is at the core of 

procurement; we are constantly 

negotiating with suppliers and partners, 

and internal stakeholders. It’s internal 

alignment that’s critical in my current 

role, requiring me to negotiate at the 

highest level of the organization and 

with management consulting firms. 

What about negotiating 

outside of work? 

They say that life is about trading, and 

as I have a 3-year-old daughter, I must 

agree! She’s tested my negotiation skills 

beyond that of any supplier. While the 

same principles apply, the difference is 

emotions. I can decouple them from my 

behavior at work, but it’s not possible at 

home – and nor should it be. 

What have been your biggest 

negotiation successes? 

I negotiate with a win-win mindset, so 

the biggest successes are those where 

I’ve created a new development with 

suppliers, maximizing opportunities for 

both companies and limiting the risk to 

mine. I remember when we negotiated 

exclusivity for a new technology that 

disrupted the market and gave us an 

advantage over our competitors. 

Any negotiation disasters 

you’d be willing to share? 

Not really a disaster, but I’ve had 

difficult negotiations. For example, 

we had to terminate a big partnership 

with a supplier. It got very emotional. 

In situations like that I keep the 

conversation factual and correct to 

avoid misunderstandings and limit 

hurt feelings. 

Please tell us what “negotiation 

culture” means to you. 

90% of the result of a negotiation 

comes from preparation, and 10% 

from the actual negotiation. So for me, 

negotiation culture is about how you 

create a universal and standardized set 

of negotiation norms, capabilities and 

processes, following robust procedures 

and embedding them into your ways 

of working. 

How has Covid impacted your world? 

In February 2020 I was in India. The 

situation got difficult in Europe and 

I had to cancel my trip to Singapore 

to get back home. Since then, I’ve only 

gone for a short vacation not far from 

home. So like most of the world, planes, 

hotels and restaurants are something of 

a distant memory! 

What permanent changes do you 

think Covid will bring to the world? 

Business travel will be reduced, and 

offices will become places we visit 

to co-create, collaborate or have 

quiet time. 

You have been very successful. What 

advice would you give to young people 

with similar aspirations? 

It’s simple! Be focused and work on 

something you like. In this way you 

will enjoy every day. TNS


SO, YOU THINK 

YOU’RE READY 

Steve Gates argues that if there’s one thing we can reliably 

predict for the future, it’s continued, accelerated change. 

But is it a time for businesses to be defensive or daring? 

FOR 

I 

t’s February 2021. The media portray most and proposition that sits behind you. 

major towns and cities around the world as Without physical contact are you as valuable 

numb, barely ticking over, destitute, with as you once were? 

little activity. They are shadows of their former In past times, the ability to pre-empt, adapt 

selves. With hotels and taxis at a standstill, to and instigate change has been regarded as 

restaurants and coffee bars closed and the a critical skill of leaders. These champions of 

public told to not leave home unless essential, 

the roads once rammed with commuters 

and people attending to their business now 

“Today we are seeing 

accommodate delivery vans and lorries, the 

visible result of retailing accelerating to the and experiencing change 

future as consumer habits have adapted. 

It’s a picture in time, unpredicted and at a breadth and pace not 

unprecedented in our modern age. Today 

we are seeing and experiencing change at a seen before. 

breadth and pace not seen before. Most of us 

have adapted as best as we can, but there has 

been much coverage about the psychological change are essential to the health and survival 

impact on our mental health. Uncertainty is of businesses, along with adaptability – 

rife and widespread; hardship inevitable for because things don’t stay the same for long 

some and compromise necessary for all, as we if you want to compete. 

turn our attention to, “What now?” 

Post-Covid, change will feature as the most 

Vaccinations in many parts of the world are fundamental differentiator amongst successful 

underway as we count the cost of lives to date, business and those that cling on for survival. 

which in the UK exceeds the death toll of the The pace of change in society and business is 

Second World War. As we look to the future, about to accelerate like never seen before, even 

new behavioral norms in working practices, during the pandemic, as businesses reflect the 

social media platforms, retailing and education demands and habits of the consumer. It will 

will evolve. No doubt this will be accompanied be no place for the timid. The new future will 

by a reaction over the coming years as society be for the brave and bold. 

seeks a break from restrictions, taking more Unless of course you are happy to survive, 

vacations and participating in activities that take stock and hope for the best. TNS 

represent freedom, together with even more 

rights, in response to having had the basic Steve Gates is founder and executive chairman 

freedom of movement temporarily restricted. of The Gap Partnership 

Social interaction represents a critical 

part of the chemistry of society, allowing 

us to experience trust, integrity, sincerity, 

friendship, and a host of other qualities 

which enable relationships to work. 

If you’re someone who relied heavily 

on relationships to win new business 

around the world, you quickly realize 

that the role you once had as a “value 

add” to the sales process has become 

highly dependent on the reputation 

CHANGE? 

5

HOW ARTIFICIAL 

INTELLIGENCE 

IS USHERING IN THE 

AGE OF THE SCIENCE 

OF NEGOTIATION 

Vince Han paints an exciting picture of how advances in AI 

will positively impact the negotiators of the near-future. 

I 

recently saw a demonstration of the Amazon Halo, 

a fitness tracker at first glance not dissimilar to the 

many other wearables in the marketplace. 

One distinguishing feature, however, is the Halo’s 

microphone that listens to your conversations - not 

to monitor the content of what you are saying, but 

rather, to analyze your tone of your voice in order 

to measure your mood. 

In the demonstration, the speaker varied his tone 

while showing real-time analysis on the accompanying 

Halo app. It was remarkable how accurately the 

app picked up attributes like sounding interested, 

focused, knowledgeable, excited and delighted, as well 

as more negative attributes like sounding skeptical, 

embarrassed and confused. 

We often equate artificial intelligence with 

how we see it portrayed in the movies: some 

human-like robot that is emotionally intelligent 

enough for companionship; for example J.A.R.V.I.S. 

from Iron Man or R2-D2 from Star Wars. But this 

real-life example of the Halo device and its 

mood-detecting capability is a great example 

of how artificial intelligence technology is actually 

being applied today – analyzing large amounts of data 

to provide some degree of useful context for humans. 

And nowadays this usefulness is often focused on 

convenience, with artificial intelligence helping us 

navigate the fastest routes, auto-correcting our spelling 

and grammar, unlocking phones and doors with facial 

recognition, and improving our customer service 

interactions with chatbots. 

But as artificial intelligence technologies mature, 

great benefits will be yielded in a business context. 

And nowhere is as ripe with opportunity as the field 

of commercial negotiation. In fact, artificial intelligence 

will accelerate the evolution of the art of negotiation 

to the science of negotiation, to perhaps, one day, the 

automation of negotiation. 

We are already seeing automation of negotiation 

in some form with dynamic pricing mechanisms 

on consumer sites such as travel and e-commerce 

platforms. Within these contexts, artificial intelligence 

automatically monitors supply and demand to set 

pricing in a way in which both the supplier and buyers 

feel like they are getting the optimal deal given the 

circumstances. And isn’t that a fundamental aspect of 

successful negotiations – to instill trust in the process 

for all parties? 

But how can artificial intelligence help with 

negotiating the terms of more complex situations, 

such as multi-faceted deals between large 

corporations or high stakes negotiations among two 

individuals – both way more complex than a simple 

e-commerce transaction? 

6


HERE ARE FOUR IDEAS FOR HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 

COULD AID ANY PARTY IN A NEGOTIATION. 

This is not intended to be a comprehensive list, but rather it’s designed 

to stimulate ideas and provoke imagination around what is possible. 

CREATING AND MAINTAINING A DYNAMIC 

SCOUTING REPORT 

The more you understand the context behind the 

party you are negotiating with, the better you can 

prepare proposals and counterproposals that will 

resonate with them. But context is constantly changing. 

Imagine negotiating a long-term wholesale deal with a 

certain supplier who is simultaneously in negotiations 

with several other distribution partners. Their appetite 

and tolerance for risk could change each day depending 

on how each negotiation is doing, as well as keeping an 

eye on daily market forces that impact the outlook of 

consumer demand. Offering a proposal that looks good 

on a certain day might look awful to them on the next 

day depending on how things are going. 

To help navigate this fluidity, you could set up 

an artificial intelligence scout who is trained to 

dynamically track thousands of data points from press 

releases, social media posts, market prices, personnel 

changes and so forth to give you a comprehensive 

snapshot of their situation at any given moment. This 

“dynamic scouting report” could help tremendously 

with making sure you are on point in making offers you 

know will be genuinely considered. 

HELPING YOU MASTER NEGOTIATION 

SKILLS AND TACTICS 

Even with the overwhelming amount of technology 

in use today, successful negotiation is still steeped in 

interpersonal skills and will be for the foreseeable 

future. And just like any skill, you can learn to improve 

dramatically with practice and feedback. Practically 

speaking, most practice and feedback for negotiators 

comes from actual negotiation, which as a result is too 

often at the expense of the quality of the negotiation, 

until you become more fluent with these skills. Artificial 

intelligence coupled with technologies like virtual and 

augmented reality can actually put you in elaborate 

simulated negotiations that allow you real practice, 

personalized for your current ability level. Imagine 

applying the technology I described with the Amazon 

Halo device to a simulated negotiation – you can 

monitor how confident or tentative, how trustworthy 

or not you may sound. 

PROBLEM-SOLVING BY EXHAUSTING 

ALL POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS 

Of course one of the core tenets behind artificial 

intelligence is that it can algorithmically sort through 

millions of scenarios faster than any single or group of 

humans can. Gone is the era when a human could still 

compete with a computer in complex games like chess 

or the Chinese game, Go. Today’s computing power is 

no match for humans. So plug in all the variables within 

a negotiation, and a computer can process all possible 

combinations as well as assigning each combination’s 

likely economic value and outcomes for all parties. 

PROVIDING UNBIASED 

MEDIATION 

The more intelligent a computer becomes, the 

better positioned the computer is to be the most 

effective mediator between parties. A computer can 

be programmed and therefore implicitly trusted to 

keep confidential information confidential, to offer 

information without bias, to broker compromise, as 

well as hold each party accountable for commitments 

made. Computers can even proceed from mediation to 

drafting formal agreements based on each settled item 

within a negotiation. 

Even since humans started interacting with each 

other, the art behind negotiation has meant that a lot 

of bad deals have been executed. The fact that a bad deal 

could be had gives any savvy negotiator pause and can 

create a vicious cycle of stalled deals or no deals when 

certainly a great deal exists for all parties involved. 

As more technology becomes available to us, we can 

move into the science of negotiation with data points 

providing weight over personality or verbal persuasion. 

But with the advent of artificial intelligence, parties 

can look forward to letting computers work out the 

complexities of situations to present all possible winwin 

outcomes. This era of intelligence will ultimately 

snuff out the inefficiencies of negotiations created by 

a lack of trust, suspicion and the uneasiness of having 

incomplete information, and will help parties quickly 

come to agreements that improve each party’s welfare. 

And that outlook is surely, for negotiators 

everywhere, a win-win. TNS 

7

CHANGING LANES 

Richard Jones speaks to athletes who’ve successfully negotiated to 

new careers after sport, and discovers inspirational stories of courage 

in adversity and new beginnings. Illustration by Mercedes deBellard. 

8 

IMAGE CREDIT: MERCEDES DEBELLARD - FOLIO ART


F 

or most people, the dream of 

representing their country as a 

professional athlete will never be 

fulfilled. Very few make it to the top, and 

even fewer stay there for a prolonged period. 

As the great British and Irish Lions coach 

Jim Telfer famously put it, “You are privileged. 

You are the chosen few.” 

For those privileged few who do play sport 

professionally, it’s generally not a career that 

will sustain them throughout their working 

life. The physical toll and inevitability 

of human ageing mean that most find 

themselves retiring at a relatively young age. 

So what do they do next? 

Ten athletes shared their story of transition 

with me. Some had managed the change 

on their own terms, and some not. Their 

journeys have invariably required steely levels 

of resilience, self-discovery and adaptability, 

and contain lessons for any one of us facing 

profound and disruptive change in our lives. 

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson DBE 

“ You need more to talk about than what you did 

in your last training session.” 

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson 

DBE is arguably Britain’s greatest 

ever Paralympian, winning 16 

medals at five Games, achieving 

30 world records and winning the 

London Marathon six times during 

her 16-year career. 

When Tanni was competing 

her life revolved around sport, and 

she scheduled her degree, wedding, 

honeymoon and even pregnancy 

around events. However, even with 

that level of commitment, Tanni 

recalls, “I never wanted sport to be 

the biggest thing in my life.” Her 

father was similarly pragmatic and 

encouraged her to try other sports 

and study hard; as Tanni explains, 

“It’s important to not just be an 

athlete. You need more to talk 

about than what you did in your 

last training session.” So, unlike 

many, she was already considering 

transition in her teens, years before 

her phenomenal success. 

Tanni tells me that one of the 

key issues sports stars face is that 

they have no idea what they’re 

good at outside of sport. This is 

compounded by the common 

misperception that professional 

athletes are all high earners, 

when in reality few can afford to 

wait patiently for the perfect job 

opportunity when they retire. I was 

amazed to find out that even with 

Tanni’s global profile, 

she only just earned enough each 

year to compete the next, and at her 

peak was working in temp roles for 

additional income. As she points 

out, “Most athletes retire early, with 

limited savings and no idea what to 

do next.” 

In her early twenties Tanni 

had ambitions to be a lawyer, but 

she was aware that she couldn’t 

be a brilliant athlete one day and 

a top lawyer the next, and that 

her transition would take time, 

dedication and commitment – an 

approach that mirrors her attitude 

to training. She attributes her 

biggest performance jumps in sport 

to a dedication to improving the 

things she wasn’t good at. “I was 

great at pushing downhill, but very 

few races are all downhill.” 

She continued, “As an athlete I was 

always in control of how hard and 

how often I trained.” And arguably, 

when preparing for life after sport, 

it’s the same: the motivation to 

prepare is down to the individual. 

So, three years before the 2004 

Athens Paralympic Games and her 

intended retirement, Tanni started 

to plan for life after sport. Law was 

still an option, but Tanni knew that 

beyond that she wanted to make a 

difference, and was passionate about 

disability rights. For the next three 

years, armed with only enthusiasm, 

a list of questions and a relentless 

work ethic, Tanni focused 

on building her CV for career 

number two. 

In 2005 Tanni became a Dame 

for her services to sport, and in 

March 2010 she was conferred the 

title of Baroness Grey-Thompson 

and the position of life peer. “Dad 

told me at 21 I would end up in the 

House of Lords and he was right!” 

It has taken time for Tanni 

to adjust to life post sport, but 

since her retirement she says 

she appreciates having a broader 

outlook, consciously taking the time 

to question, reflect and consider the 

views and experience of others. In 

addition, she also acknowledges the 

importance of both time at the desk 

and away from it, and how physical 

health supports mental health. 

A champion on the track and 

road for many years, Tanni now 

champions causes she feels most 

passionately about in the Palace 

of Westminster, spending her time 

challenging law and government, 

and helping to shape the country 

that she proudly represented for 

so many years. Her rationale is 

simple: “If you want to make a 

difference, you must first be part 

of the discussion. Only then can 

you influence the decision.” 

9

Marc Stcherbina 

“I was just praying I would be able to walk again.” 

Marc Stcherbina is an 

international rugby player from 

Sydney, Australia. He turned 

professional at 20 and enjoyed 

a stellar career representing his 

country in both 7s and 15s and 

for several clubs across the world 

including the NSW Waratahs, 

Biarritz, Northampton Saints, 

Cardiff Blues and Newport Gwent Dragons. 

On December 6th, 2008 Marc was playing 

for Newport in the European Cup against 

Toulouse. During the game he made a 

tackle which resulted in three players falling 

awkwardly on top of him. It was very serious: 

he had broken the C4 and C5 vertebrae in his 

neck and was paralyzed from the neck down for 

25 minutes. Waking up in hospital following 

emergency surgery on his 32nd birthday, Marc 

was told by the doctor that he had narrowly 

escaped not just quadriplegia, but death. 

Following his subsequent retirement from 

the sport, Marc took time to reflect and consider 

what he wanted to do next. The injury became 

the catalyst that changed his entire outlook; 

he was now chasing something more profound 

than his next payslip. “I wanted a deeper sense 

of fulfillment. I had been given a second chance 

at life, I wanted to be happy, and I wanted to do 

something I was passionate about.” 

Marc believes this more holistic way of 

thinking about a career is often lacking in 

professional athletes, because “their focus is 

almost always short term – winning the next 

game or the next event.” Perhaps this helps 

to explain why so many athletes struggle with 

transition following a career in sport as, “you 

are never thinking too far ahead.” Looking 

back, Marc wishes he had started planning 

for his transition sooner, and invested time in 

another interest, or pursued other goals, outside 

of sport. “It would have made me a better, more 

rounded person - and a better rugby player.” 

Marc is now MD of Winning EQ, 

a company that helps sports professionals 

and businesspeople alike. Marc explains its 

philosophy as, “Better people equals better 

performance: in sports, business and life.” 

Laura Lee 

“I lost everything.” 

Three decades ago, ten-year-old Laura Lee 

sat with her proud parents, as scout after scout 

visited their home. With Dad a huge Arsenal 

soccer club fan, it was inevitable which academy 

Laura would sign for. She went on to become 

one of the youngest members of the incredibly 

successful Arsenal Ladies team in the early 

‘90s, winning the FA Women’s League, League 

Cup and FA Cup, all while studying for her 

A-Levels. 

Laura grew up in East London as part 

of an Irish Catholic family and attended a 

convent school. When she came out as gay at 

18, the fallout was traumatic. As Laura recalls, 

“Everything changed. I lost everything.” Laura 

was forced to leave the family home, and with 

only a small income from soccer, she had no 

choice but to stop playing to support herself 

financially. She was left to fend for herself. 

We often assume that the career of a 

professional sportsperson ends due to injury, or 

age, but as with Laura and others, that is not 

necessarily the case. Leaving Arsenal was 

not Laura’s choice; it was forced upon her. 

Yet, even at such a young age, the skills 

she had developed in her early years in 

sport have played a major part in her 

commercial successes. 

Laura describes walking into her first 

interview with a logistics firm and simply 

saying, “I just need a job, I'll do anything!” 

But while she acknowledges that playing 

for Arsenal opened doors, with no 

experience, it was more her drive, 

enthusiasm, and ambition that convinced her 

new employers to take a chance. 

Her advice to others? “Think of your 

transition from sport to work as the longest 

90 minutes you have ever played. Things will 

go wrong. Do not panic. Instead, reflect, adjust, 

back yourself and go again.” Laura now works 

for a market-leading IT outsource company, 

specializing in sales, and is also the captain of 

Tottenham LGBT. 

10


Serge Betsen 

“ You cannot be successful all the time.” 

Serge Betsen is one of the most decorated and 

well-respected rugby players of the professional 

era. He played for Biarritz, London Wasps and 

represented France 63 times over ten years, playing 

in two World Cups. “Rugby helped me to build 

character, to not shy away from a challenge and to 

value the importance of a strong team ethic.” 

Serge had a long and successful career 

considering the way he played the game; brave, 

abrasive and totally committed. He planned to 

retire with France winning the 2003 World Cup 

in Australia and was well on his way to achieving 

that goal. He scored the first try in the semi-final 

against England before being shown a yellow 

card after 55 minutes for a late tackle on Jonny 

Wilkinson. England scored six unanswered points 

while he was off the field and with limited time 

left, England closed out the game. 

The game had not ended as Serge expected, 

and although he blamed himself for the loss, he 

is now much more philosophical: “You cannot be 

successful all the time. Life is a 

journey and you have to learn 

from your mistakes, believe in 

yourself and have a positive 

mindset.” He took ownership 

of his failings that day and had 

the humility to acknowledge 

it, learn from it and grow. 

“Everybody makes mistakes, 

gets scared or frightened, but 

it’s how you deal with those emotions 

that make you the person you are.” 

Following a successful spell at London Wasps, 

Serge retired, and like most, found his transition 

difficult. “You quickly realize that without getting 

that payslip every month, you need to very quickly 

regroup, focus and move forward. It’s about your 

mindset, you need to be positive.” Serge now 

works as a BBC pundit on TV, a motivational 

speaker, a well-being coach, and a brand 

ambassador for several well-known companies. 

Myriam Glez 

“I was forced to choose between the Olympics 

or business school.” 

Myriam Glez was born in Lyon 

in 1980 and was introduced to 

synchronized swimming while 

watching TV as a five-year-old. 

Recalling that moment, Myriam said 

she immediately told her mum, “That’s 

what I want to do with my life!” 

Myriam was born a French 

national, but her story is not 

straightforward. She competed for France at the 

2000 Olympics in Sydney, with the team finishing 

fourth. This promising performance was seen as 

a great foundation to challenge for a medal in 

Athens in 2004. 

A conscientious student, as well as a dedicated 

athlete, Myriam continued to manage her studies 

and competitive sport throughout her career, 

maintaining a balance between the two. Following 

the Sydney Olympics and with Athens 2004 

likely to be her last, Myriam applied to several 

business schools. To her delight, she was accepted 

into one of the top schools in France. 

Myriam’s excitement was short-lived, as soon 

after she was summoned to a meeting with her 

head coach and a French federation representative. 

To her amazement she was given an ultimatum 

– “The Olympics or business school.” Feeling 

betrayed and let down, Myriam chose school 

– a decision that probably came as a surprise 

to both her coach and the federation. 

Her decision that day took courage, strength of 

character and backbone – arguably skills nurtured 

from the dedicated years of training in the sport 

she loved. Following school, Myriam took a role 

with Accor Hotels and moved to Sydney. To make 

friends, she thought she could join a synchronized 

swimming team, but found there were none. 

She approached Synchro Australia to offer her 

expertise as a coach but was instead encouraged 

to compete in the upcoming national 

championships, which she won. Myriam became 

an Australian national several months later due to 

her residency in the country and was subsequently 

picked to represent Australia at the 2008 

Olympics in Beijing – managing to get to 

another Games after all. 

Following a move to London in 2010, 

Myriam went on to represent GB as a coach 

in 2012, and finally took the role of High- 

Performance Director with the US in 2016. 

Myriam now resides in the US with her family 

and spends her time running a non-profit 

company called Athlete Soul – a fantastic 

organization that helps athletes with their 

transition to work, through education, 

coaching and career support. 

11

Blaine Scully 

“Accept that you are in build mode and be ok with that.” 

Blaine Scully is a former member 

of the United States Rugby Team. 

He made 54 appearances for his 

country and captained the side to 

notable regional success and the 

2011 and 2015 Rugby World Cup. 

Blaine represented the University of 

California, Berkley, before playing on 

the international 7s circuit. He went 

on to play for Leicester Tigers and 

finished his career with the Cardiff Blues in 2020. 

Unlike many athletes, Blaine was actively 

preparing for life after sport during his time 

in the UK and “treated every Wednesday as 

a workday”, when he would sit behind a desk 

and work on building up his “desk endurance” 

for a life post-sport. “Personal and professional 

development as an athlete do not have to be 

mutually exclusive,” he told me. 

Following his final year with Cardiff Blues 

and with a baby on the way, Blaine decided to 

move back to the US to start working on his 

transition. He fully expected the change to be 

difficult and he told me he has had to remain, 

“active and engaged, utilizing a positive mindset 

from my days as an athlete.” He has had to chase 

conversations and opportunities, cognizant that 

he was not a priority for any company. Above all, 

he needed to make this happen himself. 

Any transition can be both mentally and 

emotionally challenging, but Blaine explained 

his approach in a simple but effective way. “You 

just have to accept when you’re in build mode 

and be ok with that. Trust your own skills to 

adapt, develop and grow. You go to the gym to 

get stronger and that takes time; it’s the same 

when you are building a new career.” 

Following his retirement, Blaine attended 

a “Crossover into business program”, an executive 

MBA established between the NBA and Harvard 

Business School for retired athletes. He is now 

developing a career in the sport technology sector. 

His advice to others going through a similar 

transition is to “Be efficient and effective in 

how you spend your energy and downtime as 

a professional athlete. Invest in further 

education, work experience, internships, 

and business relationships.” 

Danielle Brown MBE 

“I was told my disability wasn’t bad enough 

to continue competing.” 

At 11-years-old Danielle Brown MBE battled 

with a neurological condition that caused her 

chronic and debilitating pain in her feet. She 

was formally diagnosed with complex regional 

pain syndrome at 16. 

However, rather than holding her back, she 

told me her disability helped her to “build 

confidence and focus on solutions, actions, 

and resolutions. To always be positive.” Danielle 

went on to achieve an incredible eight World 

and Commonwealth Championships and two 

gold medals at the Paralympics, in her chosen 

discipline of archery. 

Following her gold at the 2012 London 

Paralympics and the four-year training cycle 

she was about to embark on in preparation for 

Rio 2016, Danielle was summoned to a meeting 

with her sport’s governing body. At that meeting 

she was, “asked to sit on a bed then pulled, pushed 

and prodded.” She spent the next few days in 

agony. On review she was told that her disability 

was not bad enough to allow her to 

continue competing and she was 

being reclassified. 

Overnight Danielle lost her 

career and income, with no recourse 

to challenge the decision. "My whole 

life revolved around sport, and when 

that structure is taken away, it 

is devastating.” 

With a first-class law degree and a 

background in elite sport, Danielle thought, 

like many in her position, that she would walk 

straight into a job, but the offers never came. 

So, she focussed on what she knew: 

“If there’s one thing all athletes are good at, it’s 

setting a goal, surrounding yourself with good 

people, then building a plan to achieve that goal.” 

Danielle is now a successful author, and 

she spends her time sharing her knowledge 

and experiences with others, speaking of the 

importance of inclusivity and equality. 

12


WHAT NEGOTIATORS 

CAN LEARN FROM 

SPORTING PROS 

IN TRANSITION 

0 Approach your work with confidence 

and respect for your ability. 

0 Never assume your counterparty 

has more power than you. 

0 You are in control of how much 

you plan and prepare. 

0 Push yourself to maximize deals 

and don’t settle. 

0 Be curious, ask questions, 

and collaborate where possible. 

0 Get more comfortable in those often 

very uncomfortable negotiations. 

Casey Laulala 

“I had to be curious, not afraid to ask for help.” 

I loved watching Casey Laulala 

play rugby. With style and grace, he 

made the game look easy. He attended 

the famous Wesley College before 

his meteoric rise to the senior game 

with Canterbury Crusaders in 2004. 

However, having failed to tie down 

a regular starting spot with the All 

Blacks in 2009, he moved to Europe 

and went to play for arguably the 

best teams in Wales, Ireland and France. After an 

enviable career he retired in 2018 due to a ruptured 

anterior cruciate ligament. 

Following his retirement, Casey had no idea 

what he wanted to do. What he did know, however, 

was that he had a passion for food, fashion, and 

coffee. And wanted to do something he loved. With 

no prior business experience and living in a foreign 

country, he knew he was going to have to “learn the 

hard way.” 

Fast forward to 2021, and Casey is the owner of 

Itacoa, a critically acclaimed restaurant in Paris. He 

has also launched his own coffee brand, Le Case. 

He puts his success down to, “hard work, asking 

questions, and a healthy work culture.” Post-sport, 

he told me he simply needed to start again. “I had 

to educate myself. I had to be curious and not afraid 

to ask for help. Being an entrepreneur is tough and 

success is never guaranteed, but the sorrier you feel 

for yourself, the more depressed you become, the 

more pressure you put on yourself. I try to focus on 

the opposite; the more I believe in myself, the more 

positive I become.” 

Echoing the All-Blacks ethos of “always leaving 

the jersey in a better place,” Casey explained, “I 

wanted to build something bigger than myself.” 

Casey still lives in Paris with his young family and is 

focused on building on the success of his restaurant 

and growing his coffee brand. 

Katy Sexton MBE 

“I felt completely lost.” 

Katy Sexton MBE grew up in the coastal town 

of Portsmouth, England and quickly developed 

a passion for swimming. A prodigious talent, she 

competed in the World Championships in Australia 

at 15 and became Commonwealth champion in 

Malaysia at 16, all while studying for her GCSEs. 

Katy went on to have a 15-year career that saw her 

become a World and Commonwealth champion, 

European silver medallist and two-time Olympian. 

But when her 15-year swimming career came to 

an end, Katy admits to feeling “completely lost”, and 

after a period of uncertainty, Katy the swimmer, as she 

was known locally, formally retired. Overnight, she 

lost her identity, and with no idea what to do with 

her life and next to no support, Katy suffered. 

Without help, advice, and guidance to help her 

find her way, shortly after her retirement she was 

diagnosed with depression. 

There is often an assumption that professional 

sportspeople earn enormous amounts of money, 

and then use their wealth and fame to seamlessly 

transition into lucrative 

commercial roles. But clearly 

that is not always the case: in 

fact, it is the exception, not 

the norm. Ironically as Katy 

points out, “Athletes have 

many qualities that are often 

overlooked in the workplace, 

but that add significant 

weight to a person’s capability 

to do any job. Sadly, some just never 

get that opportunity.” 

Thankfully, Katy’s partner at the time encouraged 

her to start a swimming academy, which this year 

celebrates its 10th anniversary. It has been a great 

success, allowing Katy to share her rekindled 

passion for swimming with children, with a focus on 

enjoyment first. In addition, Katy works as a teaching 

assistant at her old secondary school, inspiring the 

next generation of budding world champions. 

13

TIPS FROM THE 

SPORTING PROS ON 

HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY 

NEGOTIATE A 

NEW CAREER 

0 Believe in yourself and cultivate 

a positive mindset. 

0 Follow your passion: in the words of 

Ray Bradbury, “Love what you do, 

to do what you love.” 

0 You are stronger than you 

think you are. 

0 Ask for help: nobody succeeds 

on their own. 

0 Build relationships, not a network. 

0 Nothing worth achieving in life 

is easy. Persevere, be disciplined, 

and resilient. 

Brad Voth 

“ You don’t have to love every person 

on your team to be successful.” 

Brad Voth is a former professional ice hockey 

player from Calgary, Canada. Brad played in 

Canada, the US and UK, representing the 

Columbus Cottonmouths, Texas Wildcatters, 

Worcester Ice Cats, Peoria Rivermen and latterly 

the Cardiff Devils, before retiring from the sport 

in 2012. 

After a successful junior career in Canada and 

the US and having just missed out on the NHL, 

Brad was at a crossroads – not knowing whether 

to return to Calgary to find a job or accept a 

hockey contract overseas. He joined my local 

club, the Cardiff Devils, and is regarded as one 

of the team’s greatest players. He stayed for seven 

successful seasons which culminated in his number 

26 jersey being retired in his honour in 2011. 

Like many, Brad had no idea what he wanted 

to do, or how to approach transition. Being from 

Calgary it made sense to pursue a career in oil 

and gas. The roles paid well and he had an interest 

in sales, but with no prior experience he found it 

difficult to get a job. After much struggle, he came 

to realise that as a former professional ice hockey 

player he was able, “to gain people’s trust, even 

when it wasn’t deserved”, such was the admiration 

and respect for a 

successful athlete. 

During our discussion 

Brad highlighted several 

skills that helped him 

succeed in the commercial 

world, with the most 

notable being the ability 

to deal with people. He 

explained that sport, as 

with business, is all about people: “Player 

turnover in hockey is relatively high compared 

to other sports. Every year we would essentially 

have a different team. Players from Russia, UK, 

Czech Republic, US, Canada, Sweden. All thrown 

together, all with different views on life and in a 

very short time you must build trust, develop a 

relationship to ultimately succeed. It is no different 

to business. ” 

Brad now works as sales director for a national 

disposal company in Canada. “I didn’t think this 

is what I would be doing post hockey, but I enjoy 

getting up and going to work every day and I feel 

as if I’ve helped the business grow.” And there is a 

lot to be said for that. 

From my conversations both with the athletes 

included in this article, and with those I know as 

friends, it's clear that most struggle with career 

transition. While athletes are accustomed to adversity, 

pressure and disappointment, it’s important to also 

recognize that these heroes, champions, and prodigies 

are also just people, with struggles, worries, and 

insecurities like any other human being. The truth 

is that no matter who you are or what you do, 

change is difficult. 

So while we may not be able to swim like Katy, 

skate like Brad, or step like Casey, we can all learn from 

their experiences and take their advice on how they 

have negotiated profound change and transition. TNS 

Danielle, Laura, Katy, and Serge are all 

members of an organization called World After 

Sport (WAS). WAS is devoted to assisting 

athletes while they are still involved in sport 

to help them prepare for their transition. They 

supply expert advice, coaching, education, and 

pathways to new employment. To find out 

more, visit www.worldaftersport.com 

14


NEGOTIATION CULTURE: 

A MANIFESTO FOR 

COMMERCIAL SUCCESS 

Chris Atkins explains why developing an optimized 

and high-performing negotiation culture is integral 

to the successful delivery of business strategy. 

“I can't understand why people 

are frightened of new ideas. 

I'm frightened of the old ones. 

- John Cage 

W 

hy create a negotiation 

culture? This is a good place 

to start. Why would I change 

the culture, or build a new culture, 

in my organization? And if I were 

going to do that, why would I choose 

a negotiation culture? These are 

questions I’m often asked – and 

they are great questions, because 

changing or creating culture is hard. 

There will be many who have grown 

up and grown successful within the 

existing culture, and the forces for 

maintaining the status quo will be 

as strong, if not stronger, than those 

that see the benefit in change. 

So let’s examine each of the 

elements of negotiation culture and 

try to unpick the “Why?” I’ll start 

by considering and correcting some 

very common misconceptions. 

MISCONCEPTION #1: NEGOTIATION IS A WIN-LOSE GAME 

One of the challenges of being 

a negotiation consultant is that 

people expect and assume that 

you specialize in being tough, 

argumentative and insistent on 

driving a hard bargain. And 

when negotiation is considered 

to be an aggressive activity of 

last resort, then driving this 

into organizational culture 

could be considered a negative, 

even retrograde step, creating 

an unpleasant place to work 

for all but the toughest, most 

Machiavellian individuals. 

But this is a narrow and 

misleading definition of 

negotiation. The much more 

interesting and complex truth is 

that in its most complete form, 

negotiation is a subtle, combined 

art of listening, understanding 

and creative problem solving. 

15

WHEN WE CARRY OUT NEGOTIATION CONSULTING 

WITH OUR CLIENTS, WE EMPHASIZE THE 

FOLLOWING PRINCIPLES: 

1. A team that knows what they are doing 

and their individual responsibilities 

2. Efficient and comprehensive planning 

3. Objective evaluation and mitigation of risk 

4. Control of the situation; not being 

controlled by events 

5. Understanding and effectively selecting options 

6. Knowledge of your counterparty 

7. Strategy development that understands 

the “How?” as well as the “What?” 

8. Valuing priorities from your point of 

view and theirs 

9. Ensuring all internal parties are aligned 

throughout the process 

10. Ensuring plans and activities align 

with the overarching strategy 

11. Communicating effectively both internally 

and externally 

12. Having a replicable process that maximizes 

the chance of success 

13. Using a toolkit that supports and enhances 

all of these principles 

Viewing these principles through a different 

lens, I suggest they are also the principles of sound 

commercial management which, when firmly 

embedded within a cultural framework that rewards 

these principles, will lead to better decisions being 

made, understood and implemented effectively. 

In our experience these principles, while appearing 

obvious when are they written down, are not commonly, 

consistently or completely practiced in many business 

environments. Sometimes it’s because we don’t have 

time to plan properly. Sometimes it’s because objective 

evaluation is not rewarded. And sometimes it just 

feels more heroic to fight fires than to stop them 

from igniting in the first place. Whatever the reason, 

introducing and encouraging the habitual adoption 

of negotiation principles will start moving the needle 

toward a more commercially aware and astute approach. 

This will in turn start moving the profitability dial. 

MISCONCEPTION #2: NEGOTIATION IS LIMITED 

TO CERTAIN SPECIALIST TEAMS 

The sales team – they do the negotiating, right? Oh, 

and procurement, of course. And while we are thinking 

about it, supply chain negotiates all the time. Hang on, 

what about employee relations, and negotiations with 

unions or prospective hires? And legal, well of course 

they negotiate contracts too. Marketing – don’t they 

negotiate with agencies? IT have ongoing negotiations 

with contractors and service providers. As do facilities. 

I could go on. 

Every day, every team negotiates with someone, 

be it internal or external, because negotiation is the 

act of two or more parties coming together to reach 

an agreement. And in today’s world multiple 

stakeholders have an impact on the trajectory of 

negotiations that would have previously been 

conducted in a one-department “bubble”. 

Here’s an example. We recently supported a 

multibillion-dollar RFP process for a significant 

portfolio of raw material commodities. Because this 

raw material sat at the core of our client’s end 

product, the award decision needed to consider many 

dimensions: environmental sustainability, contractual 

requirements, supply chain resilience, innovation, 

technical support, customer service, productivity, 

quality and, of course, cost. In total, more than 30 

different factors were considered, and all stakeholders 

needed to be satisfied. 

It is this ecosystem of factors that needs to be 

considered in any negotiation, all of which require 

suitable planning, alignment and communication if a 

negotiation is to be successful in today’s environment. 

MISCONCEPTION #3: NEGOTIATION HAPPENS 

AT THE END OF THE BUSINESS PLANNING PROCESS 

No. Negotiation is the means by which an 

organization delivers its business strategy. 

At The Gap Partnership we’ve built a reputation as 

negotiation specialists – and we’re proud of that. But 

increasingly it’s clear that we’re also specialists in the 

execution of business strategy, in realizing the goals 

set within that strategy, and maximizing the chances 

of success. We often encounter critical failure points 

in our negotiation support activities: 

1. Specific negotiation goals are mismatched 

to individual KPIs. 

2. Individual KPIs are mismatched 

to departmental objectives. 

3. Departmental objectives are 

mismatched to business strategy. 

The magnifying effect of this layering 

of mismatches results in a negotiated outcome that fails 

to satisfy the business strategy, and in many cases has 

a directly contradictory outcome. So, the overarching 

business strategy is bound to fail in its execution. 

Consequently, our first task is recreating the connections 

between specific negotiation goals and business strategy. 

The connection between organizational strategy and 

its execution with negotiation is inextricable, so it’s 

critical to consider the end-to-end process with all its 

many facets as the strategy is developed. 

16


BRING IT ALL TOGETHER. 

What is negotiation culture, at its most 

fundamental? A great place to start is with 

the meaning of the words themselves. Both have 

their roots in Latin: 

Negotiation is from the Latin negotiari, 

meaning "to carry out business". 

Culture is from the Latin cultus, meaning 

“foster” or “cultivate”. 

So, negotiation culture is, literally, “fostering 

a [new/better] way of carrying out business.” 

To implement a successful negotiation 

culture requires us to understand and address 

shortcomings in three key areas: 

The people that we hire, the methods by 

which we develop their capability and the ways 

in which we encourage their behaviors. 

The replicable process and methodology 

which provides a more consistent chance of 

success in multiple scenarios, and the tools 

provided to support those processes with 

the thinking that underpins them. 

The organizational structures that we put 

in place to provide governance, guidance and 

empowerment. The cultural reinforcement which 

develops habits, facilitates communication 

and creates a safe learning environment and a 

corporate memory which reduces reliance on the 

knowledge of few individuals. 

P E O P L E & 

C A PA B I L I T Y 

SYSTEMS 

& PROCESS 

Let’s return to our original questions: 

“Why do I need to change the culture of 

my organization and why would I choose 

a negotiation culture?” Here’s why… 

Because an organization with a strong 

negotiation culture has everything in place 

to execute and deliver its commercial business 

strategy. Because the commercial world 

is changing, and the speed of change has 

accelerated in the past year. Because it is 

imperative to keep pace with change today: 

the competitor you’ve never heard of is 

doing it already. TNS 

O R G A N I Z AT I O N & C U LT U R E 

17

A YEAR 

Dealing with change is never plain sailing, but facing 

it in the midst of a global pandemic presents additional 

challenge and pause for reflection. We hear a personal 

perspective from three professionals on an aspect of 

change they have dealt with or witnessed in the last 

year, and the role that negotiation has played. 

OF CHANGE 

by Emer Brady 

Y 

ou could say my big change 

happened recently, but its 

roots were planted two 

decades ago. Fresh from university 

in 1999 I joined Mars, initially 

selling Mars Bars to corner shops. 

While recognizing sales was not 

for me long term, I gained valuable 

insight into skills development, job 

satisfaction, and the joy of clinching 

a deal. Then the career gods smiled 

upon me with a serendipitous 

opportunity to work in training. 

Right away it felt like coming home, 

and I can honestly say I feel like I 

haven’t worked a full day since. 

I enjoyed wonderful years of 

big, stretching roles and global 

travel: from Australia to China, 

I designed and implemented 

learning and development programs, 

set up sales colleges, and was 

responsible for training thousands 

of people. I felt privileged to also 

experience tremendous personal 

learning; operating at the heart of a 

multinational business afforded me 

deep understanding of developed 

and developing markets and how 

digital was playing out from the 

L&D coalface. 

I then moved to Barcelona and 

a new world of change. From 

knowing just hola and gracias, I 

learned Spanish, fast, to communicate 

with my partner’s family, and became 

a mother to my son, Oran. Upon 

returning to Mars after maternity 

leave I was given another fantastic 

role, in charge of digital learning 

globally. But the inner voice that had 

been whispering for several years 

that I should start my own business 

became louder and more insistent. 

And so, on November 30th 2019, 

20 years to the day that I started at 

Mars, I left. 

Change, even when opted for, 

is unsettling. This was change on 

steroids. It was terrifying to leave 

a secure, well paid career, global 

network, and the reassurance of 

familiarity with people, processes 

and work. But what makes change 

frightening can also make it 

exhilarating. I had planned for this – 

wanted it, debated its pros and cons, 

crafted how it would be. After a six 

month “transitional” maternity cover 

role that helpfully coincided with the 

start of the pandemic, I hung up 

my corporate boots and in October 

2020 launched my own business, 

Chispa Consulting. 

Since then, it’s been a blast and 

completely liberating. I’ve honed in 

on my areas of expertise – women in 

leadership, people processes, learning 

design, and connecting learning 

to business strategy. I now work 

with mid-level companies where 

these areas are of huge importance 

and I can add disproportionate 

value. All that I learned at Mars, 

I bring to the table. I’m so excited 

about the possibilities and see huge 

opportunity to positively impact 

swathes of employees who could 

benefit from having better managers, 

the opportunity to learn and grow, 

and access to learning that’s inspiring, 

sticky and engaging. 

Knowing how to negotiate has 

served me well. One example is 

pricing. I overrode the instinct to 

start low, and instead used classic 

negotiation principles of getting your 

price on the table first and managing 

discomfort. This allowed me to set 

my price, objectively, to represent the 

value I offer. Of course I have a huge 

amount more to learn, which 

is joyous. Right now I’m learning 

from other entrepreneurs how to 

build a sustainable business, figuring 

out the clients I want to work with, 

and equally importantly, those I don’t. 

For me, change is about embracing 

challenge, discomfort and ambiguity, 

but most of all, opportunities to learn. 

It’s a truism for a reason that without 

change, no progress can be made, 

and I am on a mission to support 

others to change, learn, and progress 

for the better. 

18


by Lance Ward 

A 

s an African American alumni 

of Stanford and Harvard 

Universities I have always stood 

out due to the color of my skin. It is 

something I had to learn to deal with 

at an early age. I moved around a lot 

as a kid, but each time I would make 

friends, become more comfortable, 

and eventually integrate myself into 

the community. 

The thing is you never know 

when the world is going to remind 

you that we are not all the same. 

It is late at night and I am 

walking home from a party. I am 

a few blocks from home, when I 

turn the corner I am blinded by 

flashlights and physically accosted 

and handcuffed by several policemen. 

I knew I had done nothing wrong, 

yet I was petrified. Fortunately, this 

was not the first time I had been 

mistreated solely based upon my 

appearance. I was scared, I was angry, 

I was frustrated, yet I knew that how 

I responded to this harsh and unfair 

treatment could literally be the 

difference between life and death. 

Unfortunately due to the legacy 

of slavery in the United States and 

prejudices being passed down from 

generation to generation, many 

people have preconceived notions 

regarding my character, intelligence, 

and socio-economic status based 

solely on the color of my skin. It is 

not until they interact with me on a 

personal level that these unconscious 

biases are stripped away. 

When faced with these racially 

motivated encounters I have learned 

that my mindset and communication 

skills are paramount. From a mindset 

perspective, I focus on staying calm, 

clearly identifying my objective 

(quite often it is to extricate myself 

from the situation unharmed), 

and not doing anything that could 

jeopardize that objective. This may 

sound easy, but trust me it is not. 

Every fiber of my being wants to 

react, lash out, and scream how 

unfair this is, but I realize that 

this will only fuel the unconscious 

biases that caused the situation in 

the first place. 

Next, I focus on clear and direct 

communication with active listening 

being the first step. Again, this is 

easier said than done when your 

heart is beating out of your chest and 

you have several men simultaneously 

yelling instructions and questions at 

you. The ability to remain calm, stay 

focused solely on the objectives at 

hand, and effectively communicate 

my views has proved lifesaving in 

these situations, but has also served 

me extremely well in business and 

high pressure negotiations. 

Looking back at 2020 there is no 

question that it was a historic year 

of change. Changes in how we work, 

changes in how we interact, and a 

change in the responsibility 

we each carry for our fellow people. 

But in many ways I have to wonder 

if we have changed enough. The 

repeated shootings of unarmed 

African Americans this year would 

suggest that many things are the 

same as they have always been. 

In fact, today I don’t feel any safer 

walking down the street than I did 

when my altercation with the police 

occurred many years ago. The undue 

burden of being judged as “guilty 

until proven innocent” is carried 

by millions of African Americans 

on a daily basis. Fortunately media 

coverage of these events and 

movements such as Black Lives 

Matter have finally created an 

awareness far beyond the minority 

communities that live it everyday. 

Unfortunately awareness is the 

only the first step on the journey. 

The continued protests have clearly 

demonstrated that millions of 

Americans agree 2020 didn’t bring 

enough change, but hopefully it has 

at least put us on the right track. 

by Jessica Harvey 

W 

hen Covid hit in March 2020, 

I was living at home with 

my parents and whereas my 

partner and I had previously been 

spending most of our time together, 

lockdown put a stop to this. After a 

couple of months we decided to take 

control of our situation and buy a 

house together. 

It was a huge step for us. 

Neither of us had ever bought a 

house. To combat the anxiety I 

was feeling, I decided to approach 

it as I would a work project, 

conducting research, creating a plan, 

and building relationships with 

stakeholders. Applying these skills 

to a personal project made it feel less 

overwhelming and more manageable. 

In May we found our perfect 

house. Now to negotiate. Before we 

handed over our deposit and with 

the words of my boss in my ear, I set 

out to understand all of the value 

on the table and identified other 

variables that were key to us such 

as solicitor costs, white goods, and 

fixtures and fittings. 

We had two early wins. First 

I negotiated £1,000 off our legal fees 

with the solicitor. I then negotiated 

with the conveyancer to remove the 

VAT from their fee. Excitement 

kicked in. 

The next negotiation was with 

the developers. Conscious that we 

were paying full price and that we 

were in an ever uncertain market, we 

managed to get them to contribute 

£10,000 towards interior design 

and white goods, as well as a further 

£1,000 towards legal fees. 

Several months later we’re now 

happily settled in our new home and 

I can look back at the lessons learned. 

First, to make my voice be heard 

– developers won’t listen if you’re 

quiet and sit on the fence. Second, to 

approach moving as you would a job 

– reading through contracts to spot 

issues and also variables that might 

be high value to you but low cost to 

them. Third, identify my priorities, 

and how to achieve them. 

The last year has changed me. 

It has been stressful but I have grown 

and matured. The result has been not 

just my dream house, but also a set 

of life skills. It’s an experience I will 

never forget, and an achievement 

I will always remember. TNS 

19

SURVIVING COVID SURV 

T 

he global pandemic has on one level brought identical 

challenge to the world. But some of the ways in which 

regions have responded has revealed nuanced and 

fascinating variance in policy and culture, and provided 

negotiation learnings. 

WE ASKED CONSULTANTS FROM THE GAP PARTNERSHIP 

TO SHARE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES FROM THEIR REGION. 

ASIA 

by Chloe Su 

As is evident worldwide, industries such as 

transportation, travel and hospitality have been 

particularly heavily impacted by Covid-19. But Asian 

companies in these sectors have responded nimbly with 

creatively adapted offerings. One such is The Singapore 

Tourism Board who found a way to leverage people’s 

continued desire for travel. Their Cruise to Nowhere 

collaboration with Royal Caribbean kickstarted a new 

style of mini-break in which cruise ships take passengers 

on journeys that start and end at the same port 

without any stops in between. 

The success of this initiative has been echoed in 

new offerings from other travel firms. Singapore 

Airlines welcomed passengers aboard its fine-dining 

restaurant inside a retrofitted A380-800 plane, 

complete with cabin crew, pilot announcements, seatback 

entertainment and a tour of the plane. The catch? 

The eatery never makes it to the clouds but remains 

grounded on the tarmac of Changi Airport. No matter; 

for Singapore’s travel-starved residents it has proved 

hugely appealing – in fact so much so that the slots of 

the exclusive experience sold out in just 30 minutes 

post-launch. Sure, you might not be taking off any 

time soon, but fans of flying can still experience the 

excitement of boarding a plane and enjoying a great 

meal with premium service. 

These are just two examples of companies that have 

been able to successfully pivot to new offerings through 

an understanding of their brand and service and what 

their customers value in both. I would wager that 

businesses that lack such adaptability, creativity and 

the ability to think laterally may just find themselves 

struggling, even after the pandemic has ended. 

IMAGE CREDIT: (TOP LEFT) DAVID TADEVOSIAN 

20


IVING COVID SURVIVIN 

LATAM 

by Renata Madeira 

Covid-19 has had a hugely detrimental effect on 

developed economies the world over. However, stop 

to consider the lives of people in underdeveloped or 

developing countries, such as Latin America, where 

the effects are even tougher. Less sophisticated social 

infrastructure and economies have been knocked 

hard, from hospitals to schools to an abundance 

of gig workers whose jobs don’t allow working 

from home. What’s more, the western approach of 

strict lockdowns to limit the spread of the virus is 

incredibly challenging for many LATAM economies, 

as a significant amount of the population live largely 

hand-to-mouth. 

Businesses from major economies will continue to 

follow strategies to globalize, whether manufacturing 

or services. But as the virus is overcome there will 

be opportunities to disrupt global trade from the 

dominant economies in the east, particularly 

China. A skillset that helps the region grow post- 

Covid will therefore be an ability to negotiate with 

governments and businesses of advanced economies, 

to win infrastructure and services opportunities in 

the region. 

This opportunity comes with the need for 

diversification in case of other calamities, in the 

same way that we diversify investments in the stock 

market to mediate against downturns in one specific 

industry. The dependency that developed countries 

have on Asian countries is significant; an issue 

during the pandemic with high reliance on China 

for ventilators and other PPE. If the LATAM 

governments and businesses play their cards 

right, they can use this as an opportunity to add 

manufacturing jobs, build and rebuild the economy, 

and create new opportunities. It’s a great time for 

these rebuilding negotiations to take place. There is 

certainly demand for it. 

21

USA 

by Sib Law 

I read an article that captured a truism for 

most people in the US when the pandemic 

started. It said that unlike 9/11, the Space 

Shuttle Columbia disaster, or even the Kennedy 

assassination, there was not a moment where 

people would say, “I remember where I 

was when…” 

However, I do have a moment. I know 

exactly where I was. 

It was Monday February 24, 2020, around 

11 a.m. on a flight from New York to Chicago 

I noticed that half the seats were empty. Having 

been a weekly flyer for years this seemed strange, 

so I asked the flight attendant if their other flights 

were this empty. Initially they maintained they 

were full, but five minutes later returned to inform 

me that, in fact, all future flights were half full. 

At best. 

That is when I knew this far-off news story 

would have a massive impact on me and everyone 

I knew. Like the rest of the world, the US 

economy and its societal fabric has experienced 

tremendous upheaval. We saw record numbers of 

new unemployment filings. At the same time with 

record numbers of people at home, many took to 

the streets to protest systemic racism, and maskwearing 

become politicized. 

As the United States governs differently 

than many other countries, the response to the 

pandemic proved different as well. Many states 

constructed a defense to the pandemic themselves, 

banding together into “regions” designed to bolster 

their negotiation power. For example, New York, 

New Jersey and Connecticut formed an alliance 

intended to acquire PPE as a single group, as 

well as propose quarantine guidelines and enforce 

travel bans. One could argue the non-unified 

approach led to some of the highest per capita 

infection and death rates globally. 

Like many parts of the world, we’ve seen 

some industries desecrated – travel, small 

business, business attire, commercial real estate, 

fossil fuels; and other industries thrive – tech, 

streaming services, delivery services, home office 

and workout solutions. My favorite stories are 

about businesses that figured out how to beat 

the shutdowns to stay in business. One such is 

the trend of ghost kitchens – restaurants with 

no storefront. The only way to get a meal from 

a ghost kitchen is through a delivery app. They 

were getting popular in New York City prior to 

the pandemic and have grown significantly over 

the past year. Many restaurants which had to 

close their dining rooms needed to find additional 

ways to generate revenue. So, the kitchen at 

Ming’s Chinese Restaurant might also become 

the kitchen for a brand new, app-only restaurant 

called Daisy’s Home Cooking. Some chain 

restaurants are even rumored to be piloting ghost 

kitchen programs. 

As people continue to stay home, it’s this kind 

of creative thinking that will change the game for 

agile businesses. A simple business philosophy 

stands: understand a problem, master a solution, 

deliver it in a way customers want. Be ready for 

each of these to change. 

22


UK 

by Jessie Lancaster 

Great social change brings great linguistic 

change, and so it is that Covid-19 delivered new 

vernacular to the UK, and English-speaking world 

alike, gifting lexicographers a rare opportunity 

to observe the rise in usage of multiple new, or 

previously less-used, phrases and words. Ordinarily, 

whether specialist medical terms or ways of 

describing our social (or not so social) lives, very 

little is genuinely new in terms of phrases and 

words recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary 

(OED). But we now have countless armchair 

epidemiologists (with hitherto no specific interest 

or knowledge in virology) confidently discussing 

herd immunity and their country’s R number versus 

their neighbor’s. 

While these and other phrases and words may 

not be new per se, their usage frequency most 

certainly is. For example, in April 2020 furlough 

made it into the top 25 monthly keywords tracked 

by the OED, signaling not just a change in language 

for the UK but also a change in circumstance for 

many. Less than a month later at the pandemic’s 

peak, 8.9 million jobs had been furloughed. 

Existing phrases have also been reinvented with 

new, modern, specific meanings. Self-isolating has 

had an entry in the OED since 1841, when it 

was used to describe the isolationist foreign 

policy of Japan (also known as Sakoku or “closed 

country”). But now the definition in most of our 

minds is the monotonous 14-day period spent 

at home or an airport hotel following potential 

exposure to the virus. 

These developments in language have parallels 

with two key skills of negotiation: understanding 

the meaning behind words and getting inside our 

counterparty’s head. Our collective circumstances 

may be literally closing our front doors, but they’re 

opening up new metaphorical doors to empathy, 

and opportunities to connect with our colleagues, 

suppliers and customers in ways we may not have 

done before. When you spend those obligatory first 

five minutes of your video call chatting not about 

your weekend – because we haven’t done anything – 

but about how Covid is impacting their world, what 

questions have you prepared to ask to really get 

inside their head? What could you share to initiate 

the law of reciprocity and how might that build the 

trust you need to move your relationships forward? 

Which brings me to another new word. I believe 

nothing quite sums up what muddling through 

2020 felt like than adulting; noun (informal): 

“The action or process of becoming, being, or 

behaving as an adult; (now) esp. the carrying out 

of the mundane or everyday tasks…” Whether it’s 

homeschooling, baking banana bread, surviving 

Zoom fatigue (including when negotiating), or your 

first self-isolated Christmas, adulting feels like a 

concept that’s very much here to stay. 

SPAIN 

by Lucía Roccatagliata 

Since Covid, Spain has endured many travel bans 

with restaurants, bars, non-essential shops, schools 

and offices all closed. The streets were deserted 

and everyone was home: a safe space where we feel 

comfortable and protected. But what if this safe 

environment becomes the most dangerous in 

which to conduct your negotiations? 

In a face-to-face negotiation setting, stepping 

into a counterpart’s office awakens the adrenal 

system: the flight or fight response is initiated and 

adrenaline and noradrenaline start pumping. These 

hormones prepare the human body to deal with 

stress, ensuring it stays alert by raising the heart rate 

and increasing blood flow to the muscles and brain. 

During negotiations, this instinctive reaction is 

critical for remaining focused. 

But when circumstances force a negotiator into 

negotiating virtually from home with the kids 

homeschooling next door, partner close by, and dog 

in the corner of the room, what happens to 

this adrenal response, so essential for being 

on guard? 

Well, there’s an imperative need for the 

negotiator to adapt their approach, remaining 

sharp and in control, even without the adrenal 

response and sitting on that chair that has to date 

been a place for pleasant memories. They must stay 

consciously competent and deploy their full range of 

skills: consistent, solid preparation, an appropriate 

choice of platform, and clear delivery of the message 

to the counterpart. 

Predictions are that post-Covid-19, more than 

32% of Spanish workers could remain working 

remotely, so virtual negotiations are here to stay. If 

you’re committed to becoming a successful virtual 

negotiator, do not succumb to the pitfall of comfort 

that can put effective negotiation at risk. 

23

RUSSIA 

by Vladislav Andreev 

The average size of a Russian apartment is 56.2 

square meters: an ironic statistic considering the 

country’s physical footprint and 11 time zones. 

These small apartments are on average home to 

2.6 people. Two-thirds squeeze in a pet. The idea 

of working from home is therefore problematic, as 

many people simply don’t have the space. Only a 

minority, usually senior people, have the luxury of 

owning a dacha (an out of city residence) with a 

designated room in which to work. 

I’ve seen countless kitchens, bedrooms 

and living rooms in the backgrounds of video 

conferencing calls as most professionals are 

working from their 56.2 square meters alongside 

their partner, a homeschooled child, and cat 

or dog – perhaps with sound effects from a 

neighbor doing some drilling. This has affected 

the way people conduct negotiations. It’s close to 

impossible to be tough on a video call when your 

cat strolls in front of your camera, or your child is 

loudly demanding attention in the background. 

Hence the need for a more flexible negotiation 

style, with several key competencies becoming 

relevant. It’s become critical to be able to 

concentrate, and technical skills are also more 

important because you must control the steadiness 

of your signal and internet speed, and learn 

how to navigate the audio and video settings of 

your computer. It’s also crucial to have sufficient 

“conscious competence” not to show your entire 

screen when presenting, so the other side can’t see 

confidential information. 

Russians need to change and adapt to the “new 

normal” rather than ignore it and wait – not so 

different from other nations, but with the added 

complications of small-space living. 

FRANCE 

by Gabriel Man 

The initiatives the French government created 

to help companies survive Covid-19 included a 

partial activity scheme, solidarity funds and state 

guaranteed credits, and a relaunch plan of €100 

billion euros to jumpstart the reeling economy. 

In a bold statement, Bruno Le Maire, Minister 

for the Economy and Finances, declared, "We 

will meet the needs of all business leaders, 

without exception." 

French economic distress is echoed wordwide 

with the widespread cancellation of events; the 

tourism sector in the doldrums, particularly in 

places frequented by Chinese travelers; industries 

out of supply from China, and so on. The French 

organizations the hardest hit are scrambling 

to spread tax burdens and reschedule loan 

repayments, with entrepreneur-led firms calling 

upon the services of credit provider Bpifrance to 

help them stay afloat. 

The government also announced the virus 

would be considered a "force majeure” case for 

companies with public contracts, letting them 

off penalties in the event of a delay in delivery. 

As Le Maire explained, "We wanted to provide 

an immediate and powerful response for 

companies…we need to put the package in right 

away. Our responsibility is to ensure this impact is 

limited and economic activity can restart after the 

virus as soon as possible." He also called for action 

at European level, with fiscal stimulus measures 

from the states and the European Central Bank. 

Even so, loud voices claim the government 

could do more. While a hot topic for debate, 

particularly among opposition parties, as a 

negotiator it flies in the face of an established 

negotiation rule: “You will never win an argument, 

so don’t bother trying.” What the future holds 

for the French economy is uncertain, but wise 

commercial leaders will focus on available aid 

and make tough decisions necessary for survival. 

24


GERMANY 

by Stephan Schlotoff 

In Germany, Covid prompted a rapid 

acceleration of digitalization, which while widely 

discussed pre-pandemic had made slow progress. 

Once the world was in the grip of the virus, 

digitalization became imperative for survival, 

and German businesses moved online as fast 

as they could. 

This is a useful backdrop from which to examine 

the Covid-induced phenomenon of working 

from home and how it’s played out in Germany. 

Corporate culture had been largely unsympathetic 

to the practice, viewing it with suspicion; wouldn’t 

it encourage that most unGerman practice of 

“slacking”? Plus, Germans feel comfortable with 

hierarchies, and what is more 

hierarchical than the office? – 

bosses and subordinates, and 

rules governing everything 

from the start and end of the 

day, to what to wear, and even 

where to sit. 

But to paraphrase, necessity is the mother of 

change, and after a steep learning curve Germany 

has adapted. It’s debatable how “sticky” this will 

be once offices reopen, perhaps partly due to the 

challenge of achieving a sensible work-life balance. 

When the work and home environment is the 

same, separation isn’t always easy. Those who 

manage this most effectively approach it with a 

mindset similar to that of a skilled negotiator - 

they are “in charge” of themselves and their 

schedule and plan and prepare their day to 

ensure conditions are optimized. 

My prediction for post-Covid working life 

in Germany is there will be more flexibility than 

before, but limited – so people might work from 

home one day a week. But progress in digitalization 

will have pushed German business to the next 

level. E-learning, virtual conferences and meetings, 

and more thoughtful travel will endure, to the 

benefit of our industry, culture, and environment. 

SOUTH AFRICA 

by Campbell Graham 

IMAGE CREDIT: GIRTS RAGELIS 

Negotiators trained by The Gap Partnership 

are aware that one o’clock on the Clockface is 

bartering. It’s not an area we spend too much time 

on, as commercial negotiation goes beyond simple 

bargaining. But in the age of Covid, with crypto 

currencies and “swapping” websites, extraordinary 

stories abound, such as the woman who bartered 

a hair clip up in value until she purchased a house. 

Bartering is commonplace during crises such 

as war, hyperinflation...and pandemics. The simple 

exchange of goods or services for the mutual benefit 

of both parties allows anybody with something to 

trade to endeavour to get what they want. In 

Africa we recognize this more informal way of 

doing business as our second economy. For rural 

regions, bartering has been going on for most 

of history. With limited mobility and far from 

urban hubs, villagers trade with each other; the 

famer needs the blacksmith, the baker needs the 

electrician, and so on. 

I contend these subsistence businesses are the 

real entrepreneurs in Africa. As a boy, our family 

friends owned a painting and decorating firm. 

What intrigued me was how their seemingly lowvalue 

business afforded them the ability to carry 

out major home improvement projects. Years later, 

they let me into their two bartering secrets. First, 

conditionally trade – get what you want before you 

give them what they want. The second trick talks 

to the skill of bartering. He exchanged his painting 

services with other contractors in return for their 

services to him: “If you drill a borehole for me, 

I will paint your house,” and “If you put in 

a floodlit tennis court, I will paint your offices.” 

In this post-Covid world, I hear similar stories. 

A friend did some landscaping consulting in 

exchange for annual golf club membership. 

In a closer-to-home example, my daughter 

trades with my wife to watch Netflix 

in exchange for brushing her hair. 

And so the micro economy is still bartering. 

Which brings me full circle. I suggested that 

commercial negotiation is beyond simple 

bargaining. Or is it? You be the judge. TNS 

25

Tricks of my Trade 

Consultant Marcellus Robinson reveals how he has combined 

a love of tech with a people-centered approach to achieve great 

things in corporate America and the world of negotiation. 

The Negotiation Society: Marcellus, tell us about your 

early career before The Gap Partnership. 

Marcellus: I spent five years at telecoms giant Verizon. 

As a technology nerd, I love how tech can improve 

people's lives. 

TNS: Interesting! Give us an example. 

Marcellus: In those days, cellphone tech was on the brink of 

incredible innovation, like caller ID and then smartphones. 

As well as being involved in their commercial application, 

I got to see their social impact. For example, the FBI would 

reach out to telecoms firms as a first port of call in trying to 

locate missing people. To be able to help in situations like 

that was a privilege. 

TNS: That’s very cool. What was next for you? 

Marcellus: An opportunity came up to move to television 

provider Dish. It catapulted me into a whole new world; 

I went from managing 23 people to having responsibility 

for 500. 

TNS: How did you manage such a step change? 

Marcellus: I hired smart, talented people. By having that 

insulation, the pressure was reduced and it was less daunting. 

I’ve always found if it’s a shared outcome, then it’s a 

richer one. 

TNS: Very wise. Why did you leave Dish? 

Marcellus: I got married and moved 

to another state to join finance firm 

Charles Schwab, which turned out to 

be another game changer. To become 

a stockbroker you need to take many 

tests, so I juggled studying with a fulltime 

leadership position, and my family. 

As if that wasn’t enough, I also chose 

to get my MBA at the age of 45. 

TNS: That all sounds 

quite stressful… 

Marcellus: It 

was one of 

the most 

intense times 

of my life 

– learning new skillsets and technologies, and giving 

material advice to people about their finances. But again, 

my lifeline was other people. I leaned in to healthy 

relationships for support. 

TNS: Your career and learning trajectory to this point 

are already impressive. Where next? 

Marcellus: Morgan Stanley gave me an opportunity to become 

a vice president and branch manager in south Florida. As well 

as new responsibility, it took me out of call centers where I’d 

been for two decades. And if I’m honest, the weather was a 

factor – 73 degrees at 2am isn’t too bad! But it was the first job 

I’d had where I quickly realized it wasn’t for me. 

TNS: Ah, so is this where The Gap Partnership 

entered your life? 

Marcellus: Yes! Knowing my love of coaching, a colleague 

recommended them to me. Before that I’d never worked for 

a company with fewer than 15,000 people. So it was another 

complete paradigm shift. I now wear multiple hats and have 

discretion over my day and client interactions. 

It’s empowering. 

TNS: Sounds good. What was your negotiation 

experience going in? 

Marcellus: I had always had an innate affinity for negotiation. 

In fact, the FBI had tried to recruit me to be a hostage 

negotiator many years before. Now, I believe the unique 

perspective I bring to my clients and where I show up best 

is helping them to effectively negotiate internally. Because 

if you can’t negotiate internally, that is career limiting. 

TNS: How do you advise clients to approach 

their internal negotiations? 

Marcellus: Stop being narrow in your definition of value. 

Once you understand the principles of low cost/high 

value trades, it’s amazing what you can achieve. Being able 

to share this knowledge makes it easy for me to get excited 

about the work I do with clients today. 

TNS: Indeed! Any other final words of advice? 

Marcellus: If people can stop making everything in their 

life all about them, they will have a richer life. If you’re 

experiencing job dissatisfaction, consider the fact that because 

of what you do, your coworker has a job. This thinking will 

enrich your life, making it easier and less stressful. TNS 

26


THE CATALYST FOR 

PROCUREMENT CHANGE? 

by Marc Saris 

2020 delivered cataclysmic change to 

individuals, businesses, economies, 

and nations across the world. It will be 

a year to remember, and the shockwaves it has 

produced are unlikely to settle down quickly. 

Most professionals found that standard 

approaches to ways of doing business became, 

virtually overnight, no longer fit for purpose. 

The discipline of procurement was of course 

no different, and those working in this field 

the world over found themselves having to 

adjust and deviate from tried and tested ways 

of working to deal with the new reality. 

This shift coincided with a global research 

study that The Gap Partnership conducted 

into procurement and its relationship with 

negotiation. We reached out to over 140 

procurement leaders across the globe to find 

out from their perspective about the changes 

happening within the procurement department, 

and the impact on negotiations. The results have 

provided us with some of fascinating insights 

and a deeper understanding of the successes, 

challenges and opportunities that procurement is 

facing into every time they negotiate. 

A strategic discipline 

The procurement managers and leaders in our 

research agree that procurement has become 

a much more strategic function over the years, 

with some saying it can be the glue in the right 

organization, 

bridging matrixed 

“Being able to represent 

your brand and image 

globally, you need to 

be connected across 

all departments. 

departments and 

helping to align 

overall company 

strategy. But 

change comes with 

new challenges 

and increased 

complexity. 

Procurement 

professionals now 

need to keep their finger on the pulse of not just 

company priorities and supplier risk, but also 

market dynamics at a local and global level. 

“There is a need to connect and create bridges 

between companies, continents, and exchanging 

info, technology and purchasing is part of that. 

Everyone who wants to be global needs to have 

global sales channels, have market specific solutions, 

but at the same time you need to be able to source and 

go everywhere to understand your client base. Being 

able to represent your brand and image globally, 

you need to be connected across all departments. 

Purchasing is part of the glue.” – Procurement 

professional, Automation Technology, Belgium 

While procurement is more and more 

recognized as a strategic function contributing 

to the competitive advantage of a company, we 

found that its ways of working have yet to catch 

up to the new responsibility. To quote Henry 

Ford, “If you do what you’ve always done, you 

will get what you always got” - so when there is 

an expectation of the procurement function to be 

more strategic, it must review its ways of working 

to adapt to the new world. 

The impact of change 

So, have the changing circumstances of 2020 

accelerated procurement’s change, and how is this 

impacting negotiation? Our research indicated 

that the changes have indeed impacted how 

procurement professionals choose supplier. Cost 

is still very much a priority, but it is however 

clear that this cannot be at the expense of quality, 

service, innovation, and resilience. These criteria 

will vary by industry: for big consumer brands, 

quality and the potential reputational impacts 

are paramount, while for telecom and technology, 

innovation and flexibility are a priority. 

The sustainability lag 

Sustainability is also gaining momentum in 

procurement. With global supply chains and 

higher scrutiny from NGOs, journalists and 

educated consumers, sustainability seems to be 

on everyone’s agenda. However, our research 

suggest that sustainability only makes up 5% 

of the decision-making criteria (see diagram 1), 

and 48% of procurement professionals in the 

US and Canada stated that they never choose a 

supplier based on most sustainable practices, 

27

PRICE 

36% 

28 

QUALITY/ 

UNIQUE/ 

SERVICE 

14% 

TIME TO 

DELIVERY 

10% 

Weight given when choosing suppliers 

THE RELATIONSHIP 

7% 

RISK MANAGEMENT 

7% 

SUPPLIER REPUTATION 

6% 

INNOVATION 

6% 

compared to 0% in China and 38% in Europe. 

One reason for this is that sustainability 

can still come with additional costs, and few 

are willing to pay much more for it. Only one 

in five will pay more than 5% for ensuring supplier 

sustainable practices (22%). 30% say they will pay 

nothing at all. But there is a flaw in this approach 

of thinking that procuring sustainable can only 

be traded against costs: in a more collaborative 

approach a procurement team could trade low 

cost variables to obtain more commitment to 

sustainability from their suppliers – think 

larger volume, longer contract durations, 

or public endorsements. 

The role of negotiation 

While procurement leaders across the world 

are stating that criteria such as sustainability, 

quality, innovation, and resilience are becoming 

more important, there is still a long way to go. 

One way to speed this transition is to change 

the way procurement departments approach 

negotiations, where it shifts from being the last 

activity in a sourcing process to incorporating 

it as a core element throughout 

the procurement process. 

At The Gap Partnership, 

we segment strategic negotiation 

in the pre, during and post 

negotiation phases as depicted 

in diagram 2. Let’s explore how 

each of these steps can support 

procurement functions to make 

the shift from a focus purely 

on cost, to becoming a more 

strategic force that supports 

the implementation of the 

company vision. 

The pre-negotiation phase 

Too often procurement 

departments go to market 

with a conformance specification 

where the suppliers need to put 

SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES 5% 

FLEXIBILITY 5% 

SCALABILITY 4% 

OBJECTIVE SETTING & 

STAKEHOLDER ALIGNMENT 

PRE-NEGOTIATION NEGOTIATION POST-NEGOTIATION 

PRE-CONDITIONING 

in a quote based on a detailed 

requirement overview. Sure, 

there are times where this is 

appropriate, but when having 

to contribute a competitive 

advantage to your company, 

procurement professionals 

require innovation, 

sustainability, and flexibility 

from its suppliers in order 

to get the best result. 

So, what can be done? 

It’s essential to engage 

early with a wide range of 

internal stakeholders. This 

enables an understanding of 

their different requirements, 

facilitating them to think 

more widely than just their 

immediate need by exploring these requirements 

of innovation, sustainability, and flexibility 

– and more. 

Through this process, clear objectives and 

internal alignment needs to be defined 

early on in the procurement process. 

Once the objectives have been formalized 

and the internal stakeholders are aligned, the 

market can be preconditioned to what the 

expectations are, priming the suppliers to start 

thinking more broadly. Then, actively engaging 

with suppliers to share information will enable 

the identification of opportunities to meet 

the objectives set out. All of these activities 

are undertaken before the negotiation 

has commenced. 

“Collaboration with others, trying to create an 

end goal and come to a solution that works for all 

parties. Problem solving. Development of innovative 

solutions.” – Procurement professional, 

Consulting, UK 

“Meeting people, customers, of different 

backgrounds, cultures, scenarios, etc. When you're 

faced with entirely new situations you learn a lot. 

INFORMATION SHARING 

PROPOSING 

REPACKAGING 

“SHAPING THE TABLE” “AT THE TABLE” 

AGREE 

IMPLEMENT 

REVIEW 

IMPLEMENTATION & 

MEASUREMENT


I like to find my way out of issues, pushes you to think 

creatively.” – Procurement professional, 

Telecom, India 

To do this successfully requires careful 

planning, but unfortunately we find that too often 

preparations for strategic sourcing initiatives are 

started too late. Timing also has an effect on how 

satisfied individuals are with the outcome of their 

deals: our research indicated that spending a month 

or more preparing results in double the number of 

procurement managers saying they are satisfied with 

their deals. 

The pre-negotiation phase in a negotiation takes 

a lot of time, as engaging with internal and external 

stakeholders and preconditioning appropriately is 

a matter of months not weeks. When we consult 

with our clients, we often advise that they start 

developing a plan 6 to 9 months before a deal 

needs to be reached. 

“Short termism should only be adopted in extreme 

business needs. The likely fall out is that you end up 

with poor service / quality and minimal innovation, 

you are also putting your suppliers at risk by forcing 

them to adopt unsustainable margins.” – (Quality, 

Innovation, Supply chain risk) Procurement 

professional, Manufacturing, UK 

Reasons for dissatisfaction* 

The terms of the deal made were too short sighted 

The deal was focused on cost-cutting 

I felt I had to pressure the other party too much 

Other party did not have authority to make the right deal 

Other party was too aggressive 

I did not have the authority to make the deal I wanted 

We did not reach a deal 

I did not have a good rapport with the other party 

Other party was using questionable sourcing practices 

Other party was too weak 

I felt the other party pressured me too much 

15% 

12% 

11% 

10% 

7% 

7% 

6% 

During the negotiation phase 

Once at the negotiation table for strategic 

sourcing initiatives, it takes a skilled negotiator to 

keep the bigger picture in mind and not just focus 

on price. Having set clear objectives and aligned 

those objectives internally empowers the negotiator 

to be able to explore value-creating opportunities. 

This also creates more satisfaction with the 

outcome of the deal, as our research indicated 

that dissatisfaction with deals is driven mainly by 

the double whammy of short-sighted goals and a 

focus on cost-cutting, as well as a perceived need 

to pressure the other party too much, and the other 

party lacking the necessary authority. 

Procurement negotiators can steer a negotiation 

to look beyond just costs, but it requires a different 

approach and flexibility in their own approach. 

If the standard approach to market is some form 

of auction then the foundation of having a 

negotiation focused on value creation, innovation, 

sustainability, and flexibility has already been 

greatly reduced. 

During the pre-negotiation phase based on 

the objective set and information sharing that has 

taken place, the procurement professional should 

think about which route to market and which 

negotiation tactics will help reach the goals set out. 

Procurement processes designed to reduce cost by 

driving competition – such as E-auctions, tenders 

and RFP’s – are often ill-suited to facilitate a more 

value-driven agenda. This will often result in having 

to deviate from the standard approach set out by 

procurement functions. 

The post-negotiation phase 

A key part of the process that is often not given 

sufficient consideration, nor attention, is the postnegotiation 

phase. It starts with ensuring that the 

implementation of the deal is done correctly and 

that the value is extracted from the collaboration 

by managing the contract effectively. 

Reviewing the entire negotiation process from 

the pre-negotiation phase to the implementation 

will identify areas for improvements and embed 

those learnings 

further into the 

organization. This 

will allow the 

22% 

22% 

28% 

33% 

*of those satisfied with 

0-9 of the last 10 deals 

procurement function 

to adapt more 

quickly to changing 

circumstances by 

learning from their 

best practices and 

mistakes. 

In a year that 

has tested many 

organizations to their 

limits, the need to 

reflect on our ways 

of working has 

become a must. Companies have been forced to 

adapt the way that they do things, and procurement 

functions have been no exception. The good news 

is that over the years significant progress has been 

made within procurement functions to become 

more strategic in nature. In certain organizations, 

this development has acted as a catalyst for change 

in how procurement engages with their supplier and 

how negotiations have set up. In others however, 

it has resulted in a regression to their old ways as 

the situation gets worse, so again the sole focus 

becomes price and how to drive it down. One thing 

is for sure: procurement professionals’ negotiation 

skills are more important then they have ever 

been to navigate a new world order that presents 

challenge to any standard approach. There is a 

Darwinist truth to this situation, in which those 

who adapt will survive, but those who hang on to 

"the way we have always done things”, may not. TNS 

29

NEGOTIATORS 

AND RETAILERS 

WOULD LIKE TO GET 

TO KNOW YOU WELL 

Serena Fallahi Tittl has candid conversations with two 

retail experts about the commercial value of knowing 

and understanding what customers are thinking. 

S 

ocrates’ famous pronouncement about 

self-awareness - “To know thyself is 

the beginning of wisdom” – has been 

analyzed and critiqued by philosophers, 

economists, and thinkers past and present. 

While debate in such circles may continue 

for evermore about what precisely Socrates 

meant, and indeed how his advice can be 

implemented, a contemporary updating of 

the quote for negotiators could be argued 

to be, “The most skilled negotiators are 

those who understand their counterparty 

better than their counterparty understands 

themselves.” Because it’s only by truly getting 

inside the other party’s head (never mind 

their own!) that a negotiator can craft and 

offer the most value-creating proposals. 

A lawyer friend of mine once recounted 

a story to me in which he was asked to 

assemble a case brief for a certain defendant. 

Being new in his career and eager to make 

an impression with his boss, he labored over 

the brief, spending late nights and weekends 

compiling it. Upon presenting the finished 

result to the chief counsel, his leader looked 

it over and commented, “This is good. Now 

that you so clearly understand the defendant’s 

view, you’re adequately prepared to write the 

case brief for our client, the plaintiff.” Since 

this encounter, my friend has never lost sight 

of the importance of getting inside the head 

of the other party. 

This behavior and skillset are not limited 

to negotiation, however. They are also coveted 

in the sophisticated and modern area of 

consumer insights. As in negotiation, there 

is a focus on interpreting the meaning behind 

the words and actions in order to understand 

consumer behavior. Keen for the opportunity 

to dig deeper into this fascinating area, 

I sat down with two leaders in the consumer 

insights field: Mindy Dempsey and Vaughan 

Ryan. Both provided me with expert analysis 

of how data impacts the consumer experience, 

predictions for the near-future, and also a 

reveal of how data insight and analysis share 

a core philosophy with the tenets 

of negotiation. 

30


Mindy Dempsey is a business strategy 

consultant in the retail and entertainment 

industries. Mindy specializes in building 

long term, sustainable products and 

processes, using data and analytics to 

support merchandising teams and 

accelerate business growth. 

Serena: Mindy, let’s start with common 

objectives and uses from a retail perspective. 

What are retailers looking to gain with 

consumer insights? 

Mindy: Generally, the way in which 

retailers leverage insight data is, from my 

experience, from a more competitive landscape 

side. Essentially we are trying to identify 

areas of opportunity that align with company 

capabilities. There are all sorts of paths retailers 

and brands can take when it comes to building 

out a strategy, and what insights, data and 

analytics can do is to help build a roadmap 

by matching insights with capabilities - people, 

resources, ideas. There’s no shortage of data, so 

the challenge is figuring out what data is the 

most important. That’s where you have to look 

inward to try to think about where you have 

the right to win and how do those things 

align/match. It’s important to use competitive 

data to build out your strategy to figure out 

your niche, and how you’ll go after that. 

Serena: Can you give some examples 

of what you mean by that? 

Mindy: Well, from a competitive 

perspective, you have to assess your 

competition. SWOT analysis can be useful to 

build out strategy; some of that is data-driven, 

and some is really, truly understanding where 

you have strengths and opportunities. Then you 

have to ask yourself how that aligns with your 

competition, and is there a sweet spot in there 

for you to excel. What retailers are trying to 

do is use data to be more predictive, which is 

at the cutting edge of what a lot of companies 

are trying to think about. In a nutshell, the 

question they’re using data to help them 

figure out the answer to is, “How can I 

predict consumer behavior?” 

Serena: When it comes to building 

strategy from insights, what comes first: the 

data formulating the strategy, or the strategy 

and then finding the data to support it? 

Mindy: The former is far more important 

than the latter, because the second is implying 

data bias. Although it could be both to an 

extent, if used appropriately. However, the 

challenge with your latter question is, if you 

build strategy first you might only look at the 

data that supports your idea. Inherent bias 

is something all companies have and is why 

unbiased third parties responsible for the data 

are so important. They have an impartial view 

and are able to present data to say, “Here’s what 

the data says the landscape looks like. 

You won here, but you missed here. You did 

this but you didn’t do that,” and so on. 

Serena: How do retailers use data for 

behavioral insights? 

Mindy: Consumer data is two-fold: there 

are quantitative and qualitive consumer 

insights. Both are imperative to really 

understanding the “Why”. The quantitative 

information can tell us what happened in a 

finite way – for example when something was 

purchased, but the qualitative data is what tells 

us why the consumer purchased when they did. 

Serena: You’ve been in a unique position 

of having been privy to multiple third party 

insights, as well as the insights generated 

internally by a retailer. Given all you know, 

what is exciting you in regards to consumer 

behavior and the future of retail? 

Mindy: As I’m an industrial engineer by 

trade, what excites me the most is something 

I think about all the time - efficiency. 

We are on the brink of finding so many 

more efficiencies from the insights and 

operationalizing them. Finally we are seeing 

the full digital shift, and after times of ebbing 

and flowing out of it, it’s here to stay. We have 

arrived at the digital age through this pandemic 

and are seeing everyone embrace a digital 

world. This is clearly the future of retail, and 

how we live in general. Some retailers were far 

more prepared than others when the pandemic 

hit, and so some have thrived through 

embracing a multifaceted omni approach. 

That excites me, seeing how so many factors 

come together. 

31

Serena: On the subject of omni and its 

implications, there had been a mindset that the 

digital and in-person experiences were secular. 

Now however there is broader recognition 

that they are unified and complementary. 

What trends are you seeing with this united 

omnichannel view? 

Mindy: For one, a tremendous increase in 

in-store pick up; buying online and picking up 

in store for a unified experience. The consumer 

is looking at their experience in terms of 

convenience, as in “What’s more convenient for 

me?”. Avoiding the extra time from shipping 

and risk of packages going missing, versus 

ordering online and picking up in store in a 

timely manner, on the same day or within hours 

– which is almost instant gratification. This is a 

great example of removing part of the friction 

to create a more seamless model for the 

consumer. Retailers are striving towards this 

in all aspects of how they reach the consumer, 

and that’s the exciting way in which digital and 

brick-and-mortar are creating an experience 

that is timely and convenient. Consumer 

insights coupled with omnichannel approaches 

brings us a broader perspective, with a broader 

set of assets and assortment, making anything, 

at any time, available. 

32 

Vaughan Ryan is Managing Director 

of Consumer Intelligence at NielsenIQ 

Asia, helping companies understand 

consumers’ full shopping journey across 

both the offline and online environments 

and using data, analytics and insights 

to do so. 

Serena: In the early days of shopping online 

there was a differentiated view on shopping; it 

occurred online or it occurred in store. However, 

particularly in light of living through a 

pandemic, the concept of treating omnichannel 

as a value driver and looking at instore and 

online as a unified and immersive experience 

seems to be winning in the marketplace. 

What other effects are you seeing in consumer 

behavior over the last year? 

Vaughan: We sort of joked in the early days 

of the crisis that whatever you do, just make 

sure you do something. A need for innovation 

is even more critical, especially now that we’re 

home shopping 24/7. When you sit back and 

have lunch you’ve got your smartphone in front 

of you checking out what’s going on; a deal 

pops up and you jump on that. So, the need to 

innovate has never been more important, not 

just in terms of the retailing element, but also 

the products that are being developed. 

One of the things that has been interesting 

has been this do-it-yourself mentality. For 

example, a number of friends have taken up 

cooking because they’re at home. Or taking on 

home renovations: repainting, doing projects 

that had previously been put off. The categories 

that were traditionally all about convenience 

have been thrown on their head to a certain 

extent. It’s not that consumers don’t want 

convenience, but they want convenience that 

suits them, when it suits them. 

Serena: What are other innovations 

that you are seeing in the retail experience? 

Vaughan: From a retailing view point we’re 

seeing a lot more educational elements to the 

do-it-yourself elements – so again, baking at 

home is a great example. I know that sounds 

like something that has been around forever, 

but the experience has changed because we’re 

spending significantly more time in the house. 

It’s not just in store or online; they’re working in 

tandem for a total experience. 

There has also been a shift in the way we as 

consumers feel about promotions – we simply 

don’t get as excited about them as we did in the 

past, because we’ve been conditioned to know 

they’ll be there next week. So now, consumers 

shop in store to compare the best prices, using 

multiple sources to “price check”. So stores 

have to be more creative on how they impact 

the consumer’s omni-experience; from logistics 

management to loyalty programs. In fact, loyalty 

is probably the next angle to watch. 

Serena: Thinking about the macro trend of 

loyalty, what are the generational impacts or


shifts to preferences in loyalty? 

Vaughan: I think loyalty is being 

challenged, and that’s why the importance 

of loyalty programs has never been more 

important to create that stickiness with 

your consumer. You’ve got to find a reason 

to keep bringing them back. We’re all at 

home, looking around, shopping all the 

time, and that shopping voice is louder 

than ever before, so I don’t think it’s the 

case of a demographic profile being more 

loyal than another. In fact, if anything, 

we’re terribly disloyal, unless you give me a 

reason to be loyal. It’s all about convenience, the 

biggest driver for a long time. Now convenience 

is, “I can order online whenever I want and 

from wherever I want…and I’ll trial everything 

unless I get a loyalty that helps me out and 

offers me something the competition doesn’t.” 

While this is undoubtedly a challenge, it’s also 

given retailers an enormous opportunity through 

Covid to expand their reach. 

“It’s not that consumers 

don’t want convenience, 

but they want convenience 

that suits them, when it 

suits them. 

Serena: Looking ahead, what are some 

prospects that are exciting you about the 

retail landscape? 

Vaughan: I just think the whole omni 

approach is fascinating. The biggest challenge 

for any company in the past has been creating 

trial, but now consumers are willing to try 

anything because they are desperate for an 

alternative. Whether its based on price, comfort, 

the do-it-yourself mentality – they’re all there 

for the consumers to try. So we’re going to see 

some really fascinating retail stores and offerings 

in the next few years, and that’s something that 

really excites me. 

I’m also really engaged with the importance 

of communication in all its different formats. 

We’re consuming and downloading more 

media than ever before, whether reading papers 

or watching the news or reading online, so 

from a retail perspective trying to figure out 

where advertising makes the most sense 

is a challenge, as well as at the same time 

looking for alternatives like never before. 

The new format of communication is 

going to be wild in an omni approach. Just 

think about a particular item that you have 

bought recently: the amount of shopping 

you do online and how much information 

you gather before you purchase a big ticket 

item is so much more than you would have 

done in the past if you had to go store to 

physical store. Now the consumer might be 

looking at 30-40 websites and reading all the 

reviews to inform their purchase. 

By contrast, ten years ago they’d have 

gone to a store and listened to the guy in 

the store, maybe talked to one other store, 

and got the view of some mates. Consumers 

are so much more educated now and so 

communicating to them has never been more 

fragmented, yet also never a more important 

part of the omnichannel experience. TNS 

33

A QUIET 

STRENGTH 

Alistair White meets client manager extraordinaire Marie-Claire Snape 

and uncovers her fascinating life story and a surprising wish. 

34


The theme of this issue of the magazine is change – 

how we deal with it, and how it impacts, and shapes 

our lives. As we shall discover, Marie-Claire Snape, 

born in Vietnam, raised in France, and now settled for 

30 years in England, has been through more change than 

most of us during her lifetime and she has some interesting 

observations on the subject. 

But perhaps the most revealing thing during our two hour 

interview is her answer to a throwaway question I asked her 

right at the end of our conversation. “So, Marie-Claire, if 

there was one thing you could change about yourself, what 

would it be?” Stupidly, I expected a trite, predictable response; 

I wish I was more organized, more decisive, more forceful, 

more…insert the desirable character trait of your choice. 

But no. “I wish I could sing,” she replies after a moment’s 

reflection. “I wouldn’t want to stand on stage as a soloist, 

but I would love to be part of a choir. The thought of that 

unity, the energy that comes from singing together, the social 

interaction with people from all walks of life, bringing joy to 

others through the power of music. That would be great.” 

For those who don’t know 

her, Marie-Claire is a client 

manager in the UK team, 

serving The Gap Partnership’s 

"Being quiet doesn't 

mean you can't make 

yourself heard. 

UK customers and supporting 

the team’s business 

development effort. But there’s 

a lot more to her than that. 

She has been with our 

business for seven years and, 

in all that time, I have never 

heard anyone say a bad word 

about her. She is one of those 

people who never puts a foot wrong, is universally liked and 

respected, makes a massive contribution and always gives the 

credit to others. If The Gap Partnership were a church, she 

would have been made a saint years ago. 

In keeping with this saintly quality, Marie-Claire is 

renowned in the UK office for her fundraising activities 

on behalf of The Epilepsy Society, a charity dedicated to 

improving the lives of everyone affected by epilepsy. She 

regularly organizes and hosts lunches based on the cuisine 

of her native Vietnam, or goes on sponsored walks, but this 

has clearly been curtailed by the impact of Covid-19 and 

the closure of many of our offices. “That’s been frustrating,” 

she admits, “but I managed to organize a sponsored walk in 

August which a lot of people supported.” 

But let’s start at the beginning, because Marie-Claire’s 

story has an interesting one. She was born in what was 

then South Vietnam, the daughter of a diplomat. Her early 

years were spent in Da Lat, a city 1500m high in the central 

Highlands of Vietnam, popular with the French colonists of 

the mid-20th century, many of whom set up home there as a 

temperate retreat from the sweltering sub-tropical heat of the 

country’s southern plains. 

The French influence in Vietnam was significant as they 

had occupied the country since the mid-19th century, and 

Marie-Claire attended a French nursery school. “I have a 

very clear memory of being taken to school on the front of 

my father’s Vespa”, she recalls, “but other than that I don’t 

have many memories.” Perhaps surprisingly she didn’t revisit 

the country of her birth until as recently as ten years ago. “I 

expected things to come back to me, but I recognized very 

little. I was disappointed that I felt no connection to the 

place, I was just another tourist.” 

“In a way, I’m not surprised. My family was very closely 

associated with the colonial-era Vietnam, the French regime 

and then the increased American presence throughout the 

1960’s. Looking back at how the country has evolved, it 

was inevitable that we would leave Vietnam. Most of my 

extended family emigrated to the US, France, and Germany.” 

Her face creases in a smile, “Let me explain how out of 

touch with Vietnam I’d become. It came as a surprise during 

my visit when people asked me how old I was. We just 

don’t do that here.” I took a mental note of Marie-Claire’s 

reference to “we” and “here” and drew a quiet conclusion 

about where she calls home. “But in Vietnam,” she continued, 

“it is very important, because the 

older you are the more venerated 

you are, and people need to 

know your age because they will 

address you in a different way 

depending on how old you are. I 

had forgotten all that because I 

left when I was five.” 

The family moved to France 

where her father worked as a 

diplomat for the then South 

Vietnamese government and 

Paris became Marie-Claire’s 

adopted home. “I think my parents knew we were never 

going back, they saw the future and knew we couldn’t be part 

of it. They were very keen for us to integrate in France and 

we always spoke French at home, so I lost all my Vietnamese. 

The 19 years I spent living in France, as a child, adolescent 

and young adult, were very formative, more so than the 

30 years I’ve spent in England. And then I met Phil, an 

Englishman, we moved to England, got married, and I’ve 

been here ever since.” 

So, Marie-Claire, how do you describe yourself? “I 

remember saying to my children that we were very lucky to 

be half Vietnamese, half French and half English. My son 

was quick to remark that you cannot have three halves, but 

that’s my point – the mix of cultures gives us something 

other people don’t have.” 

Does this eventful life story make her more equipped to 

adapt to the changes we have all had to make in the past 

Covid-shaped year? “No, I have found it hard, just like 

everyone else. Particularly the turn of the year. A new year 

should bring transition, new starts, hope. But there wasn’t any 

and I found that difficult, especially because the changes in 

all of our lives, personal and professional, were imposed, they 

were not made out of choice.” 

35

So how has she coped and 

what advice would she give 

to others? “I cannot change 

what is happening. But I can 

change the way I think about 

it. So, I have made a conscious 

effort to keep mentally well 

and stay motivated. I even 

put an hour in my calendar 

every day to go for a walk. 

How ridiculous is that? 

Scheduling a walk.” 

Marie-Claire is known throughout the business as one of 

the quieter types. I mention that I have heard her described 

by a colleague as “quiet but formidable”. Would she agree? 

“I am quiet, yes. But being quiet doesn’t mean you can’t make 

yourself heard. Society places a higher value on extroverts, 

and they underestimate quiet people. Just because someone 

is quiet doesn’t mean they are not strong.” Her words are 

softly spoken but the tone of her voice and look on her face 

transcend the limitations of a video call, and resonate with 

a conviction bordering on defiance that, to me, embody the 

truth of what she says. 

“The Gap Partnership, like any other business, needs 

a mixture of both. We can’t all be stood in the limelight. 

“The Covid-enforced lockdown has allowed me to 

discover something about myself. I realize that I need the 

energy of other people around me more than I thought I did. 

Our business is small enough for everyone to be able to make 

a difference but the isolation of working from home has 

tested my resilience. Sometimes I think, ‘How much longer 

can we keep going?,’ but I just do, we all do.” 

“There are benefits to working from home. I think I have 

forged stronger bonds with many colleagues simply because 

we have supported each other in our shared adversity. And 

I feel much less guilty about working from home, it has 

"I have made a conscious 

effort to keep mentally well 

and stay motivated. 

definitely lost its stigma and 

that is a good thing, I hope it 

stays that way.” 

So, where does her 

resilience, her inner strength, 

her “formidable” side, 

come from? 

“I think it comes from my 

parents. They’ve both had to 

uproot, build new lives and 

overcome many challenges 

along the way. My mother was 

always very resourceful and my father has had the resilience 

and self-reliance to reinvent himself several times over. He 

initially joined the army, then he switched careers to become 

a diplomat. In France he learned a new trade as a logistics 

manager. After he retired, he studied for a PhD in Oriental 

studies before moving to America. For the last few years 

he has lived the life of a monk in a catholic monastery in 

Missouri, within a community of Vietnamese priests.” 

I couldn’t stop myself from raising my eyebrows in 

surprise. “Oh yes, the French left a strong legacy of religion 

in Vietnam. My father was one of 16 children and about 

11 or 12 of them eventually went into the church as priests 

or nuns. He is a very determined man and I suppose that’s 

where I get it from.” 

As I reflected on our conversation, I thought how her 

ambition to sing in a choir summed up so much about 

Marie-Claire as a person. The desire to be part of a team, 

drawing energy from others, shunning the limelight, the 

selfless fulfillment she gets from bringing pleasure to people. 

That’s Marie-Claire in a nutshell. 

By her own admission, she might not have the greatest 

singing voice but, with her parents’ resourcefulness and 

determination in her genes, don’t bet against her. TNS 

36


A LESSON 

IN HUMILITY 

(AND THE POWER OF DEBATING AND NEGOTIATION SKILLS) 

Kelly Harborne shares her experience of participating in a live 

debate with students from Debate Mate, and how it gave her 

pause to reflect how both debating skills and negotiation can help 

level the playing field in a world of inequality and privilege. 

W 

hen I was a little girl, I 

always dreamed I’d become 

a negotiation consultant… 

said no one ever. It’s an unusual career 

path, often chanced upon rather than 

sought, and I spend a lot of time trying 

to explain it to those who’ve never 

operated in the commercial world but 

do far more important things like teach 

or heal people instead. It’s afforded 

me the opportunity to work around 

the world and to meet a whole host 

of exceptional and interesting people, 

many of whom have risen to the very 

top of the commercial tree and as a 

result have all the symbols of success, 

power and importance you would 

imagine. What I did not expect was one 

of the most memorable or articulate to 

be a 10-year-old from Newham called 

Abdul – and that was my mistake. 

Abdul is a student at an innercity 

primary school in London who 

have partnered with Debate Mate 

- a fantastic social organization that 

recognizes and promotes the positive 

impact that confidence, communication 

skills and the power of advocating for 

yourself can have on social mobility and 

life outcomes. Working with students, 

teachers, parents, and boardroom 

executives alike, Debate Mate 

facilitates after school debate clubs and 

competitions, mentoring programs and 

workshops. In a way that is comparable 

to The Gap Partnership’s focus on 

negotiation, Debate Mate is obsessed 

with the power of debate and the 

skills that are required to be successful 

in this age-old art of persuasion: 

critical thinking, cognitive agility, self 

assurance, empathy, listening skills, and 

clear, precise communication. 

37

Demonstrating characteristic 

creativity to bypass pandemic-related 

restrictions, over the last year Debate 

Mate’s portfolio included virtual 

bitesize debates on a range of topics, 

with guest spots for participants from 

both the commercial world and the 

media. As such, I was delighted to be 

invited to join a lively discussion on 

the pros and cons of virtual learning 

– a subject we’ve accelerated our 

investment in with success during 

2020. Of course, virtual solutions are 

not without their detractors, but my 

job was to cheerlead for them, so I 

was pleased to be able to thrash it 

out in traditional debate style. 

WHY DEBATE MATE? WHY THE 

GAP PARTNERSHIP? 

I can’t deny that following in the 

footsteps of BBC’s Nick Robinson or 

Bloomberg’s Naomi Kerbel appealed 

to my ego. However, contrary to 

the image of consultants as being 

disproportionately concerned with 

ego-boosting activities, there was a 

bigger “Why?” for me. In fact, there 

were two. 

First, Debate Mate’s proposition 

appeals to a core belief of mine – 

that you don’t get what you deserve 

in life, you get what you negotiate. 

This truism encapsulates so much 

about negotiation and the mastery 

of it. It acknowledges that the very 

best deal for you is rarely, if ever, 

accidental. It’s carefully planned 

and meticulously executed, leaving 

nothing to chance. So many clients 

we meet miss opportunities to 

negotiate as they’re prisoners of the 

status quo (“That’s the way 

it’s always been done”), or have their 

expectations managed by the other 

party so effectively that trades are 

wiped off the table before they even 

click “Join meeting” on Zoom. Worse 

still are those that shy away from the 

conflict of a difficult conversation, 

or simply accept what they’re told 

by the other party without 

considering the interests that lie 

behind their position. 

So, if you want to pursue the 

very best deals, the skills that Debate 

Mate are preoccupied by should be 

your obsession too. 

And second, the reality if I am 

being completely honest, is that I 

didn’t just “chance” upon The Gap 

Partnership. I was brought up in a 

white, middle class family, had access 

to a good education, and lived in a 

town in the Home Counties where 

a negotiation consultancy was far 

more likely to have its head office 

than say, East London. It wasn’t 

just luck that brought me to The 

Gap Partnership, but privilege. And 

privilege impacts negotiation just as 

it does every other aspect of life. In 

2015 for example, American Honda 

Finance Corporation (AHFC), the 

U.S. financing division of Japanese 

car manufacturer Honda, agreed 

to refund $24 million to minority 

borrowers because it was found that 

representatives empowered to apply 

higher interest rates did so much 

more frequently to black and ethnic 

minority groups. Their opening 

position was influenced by identity. 

Similarly, in the UK the average 

hourly pay for black people remained 

between £9.91 and £10.80 between 

2013 and 2018, while white people 

saw average wages consistently rise 

from £10.58 to £11.87. Consider the 

impact on pay negotiations if you’re 

already operating from a lower base. 

And, if you didn’t win the postcode 

lottery, you might have a staggering 

23.8% ethnicity pay gap in London 

to contend with - the highest in the 

UK – or the worst chances of social 

mobility if you happen to live in 

Oldham, Bradford or Dudley. 

That we don’t get what we 

deserve in life is an inequality 

Debate Mate wants to rectify, aiming 

their core support at schools with 

a higher than average number of 

students that qualify for free school 

meals, and supercharging their 

prospects by equipping them to 

overcome the additional barriers 

between them and success. How 

could you not be obsessed? 

38


THE MOTION: VIRTUAL 

LEARNING IS MORE IMPACTFUL 

THAN FACE-TO-FACE 

Kalaan Van Der Hamm, a Debate 

Mate graduate and Capability Manager 

for BP, and Ella Cox, an English and 

Political Science student from Yale, 

joined me to argue for the motion. We 

faced into a formidable opposing team 

in the form of Nicole Henjum, Senior 

Learning and Development Manager 

for General Mills, Perry Green, Client 

Director for The Gap Partnership based 

in the US, and sixth grade elementary 

school student Abdul. 

Much like a carefully considered 

trading proposal, a well-reasoned 

argument is incredibly susceptible to 

sabotage when restrictions are placed 

on time and formality on process. As in 

negotiation, preparation was key. 

I spoke with my own “debate mates” 

and colleagues, and reflected on 

The Gap Partnership’s experiences 

delivering advanced negotiation 

“Debate Mate's proposition 

appeals to a core belief of 

mine — that you don't get 

what you deserve in life, 

you get what you negotiate 

programs for the first time this year. 

We’ve always delivered “skill pills” 

and webinars online as part of a 

broader partnership with clients, but 

fortuitously had begun investing in a 

more substantial virtual solution 

in 2019, making us perhaps more 

prepared than most for the black 

swan that was Covid-19. 

Of course, virtual learning is 

not new, but in my experience prior 

to 2020, when looking for significant 

behavioral change, many learning 

professionals have been hesitant to roll 

it out and disappointed when they have. 

So, why was I so excited to be “for” the 

motion? What’s changed? 

In many ways, interestingly, nothing. 

Training is only as effective as the 

quality of its facilitators, its content, 

how engaging and interactive it is, and 

how relevant to the participant. For our 

partners it needs to deliver a return on 

investment and reach as many people 

as possible in as many territories as are 

relevant to the challenge in focus. And 

for genuinely “sticky” learning, it needs 

to be immersive and experiential rather 

than academic. That applies via Zoom 

just as it does via acetate (Google it 

kids), and it certainly applies to our 

commercial partners as much as it does 

to children everywhere who, without 

exception, deserve the opportunity to 

dream and do extraordinary things. 

The real change is in each of us. 

Our creativity, our grasp 

of the available technology, our need to 

remove geography as a barrier – overall, 

our appetite to adapt. And 

yes, there are both glitches 

and some significant 

barriers to access virtual 

learning for those less 

likely to have the internet, 

or in possession 

of laptops which need 

urgent attention. 

But the potential for 

online learning is not only 

incredibly exciting, but 

according to our clients, it’s beginning 

to bear very real fruit. 

For those of you wondering about 

the kinds of results Debate Mate 

achieve, I encourage you to watch my 

very public trouncing in the debate 

by Abdul. It turns out there’s no more 

powerful feedback than someone 

swivelling in circles on their chair 

while you’re speaking. Like a hot knife 

through butter, Abdul articulated his 

position and deflated my ego in equal 

measure - clearly and fully. I have never 

been more hopeful in defeat. TNS 

NEGOTIATION VS DEBATE 

GREAT NEGOTIATORS AND 

GREAT DEBATERS DO: 

• Get inside the other person’s 

head to anticipate and plan for 

their behavior. 

• Consider who the real decision 

maker is. If you’re in a debating 

competition, it’s not the other 

side that needs to agree, but 

your audience. 

• State their position clearly 

and unambiguously 

• Plan meticulously. Both The 

Gap Partnership and Debate Mate 

provide their clients with a specific 

structure to do this effectively. 

• Build on the other party’s proposals 

or arguments for their own ends. 

• Role play their toughest gigs 

before they get into the room. 

• Listen critically to what is said so 

that they can absorb and act on 

new intelligence. 

• Embrace conflict but 

practice diplomacy. 

BUT UNLIKE GREAT DEBATERS, 

GREAT NEGOTIATORS DO NOT: 

• Try to persuade the other party 

to see things their way: you will 

never win an argument 

in a negotiation! 

• Allow sales to slip into the 

negotiation process, that time 

has gone. 

• Allow time restraints to be placed 

upon them 

• Compete with the other party. 

Ego is the enemy of value. 

• Applaud victory. Great negotiators 

agree reluctantly and allow the 

other party to feel like winners. 

39

QUESTION TIME 

We asked a panel of experts to give us 

their rapid-fire response to the question: 

Skillful negotiators view change as 

opportunity, not challenge. 

Ezinne Okoro 

GLOBAL CHIEF INCLUSION 

& DIVERSITY OFFICER, 

WUNDERMAN THOMPSON 

The philosopher, Heraclitus, has a notable 

quote, “The only thing that is constant is 

change.” As seasons change and years go 

by, change is always at the core - impacting 

us personally and professionally. In 2020, 

the world was faced with a pandemic that 

stopped us in our tracks. We were forced to 

make changes, minor and major – reminding 

us we are not immune to change. 

As a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 

(DE&I) corporate strategist, I believe there 

is a direct correlation between change, 

and negotiation, communication and 

DE&I. Communication leads to successful 

negotiation, but more importantly, 

it’s one’s willingness to change to 

achieve the desired goal. 

Change is a component of DE&I, as 

it welcomes (creates space for) people’s 

curiosity and personal experiences. In 

driving for equity and diversity in various 

industries, people (and businesses) are 

asked to fundamentally change their ways 

of working, call out biases, and have a 

willingness to do something differently – 

negotiate. We should embrace change, not 

fear it, because it is an essential tool for 

progress, growth, and innovation. 

Nick Harvey 

MANAGING DIRECTOR ANZ, 

THE GAP PARTNERSHIP 

The vast majority of negotiators take the 

fundamental scope of a deal as a given. But 

turn that on its head and there are often 

opportunities to change the scope and 

achieve better results. 

In these Covid times where the value of 

everything has changed, we can take a “clean 

sheet” to our negotiations and contracts. 

Organizations who recognize that their 

negotiation culture is changing have a unique 

opportunity to direct that for outstanding 

results – or not, which could become 

a challenge. 

Change is the one constant we have right 

now in a difficult to forecast world. Skilled 

negotiators are embracing it to maximize 

their deals’ value, thinking ahead to set 

themselves up for 2022. So, leaders and 

negotiators: embrace change and generate 

value from it. Stay curious, resist the urge 

to complete, keep trading. There is always 

more there if you stay open-minded. 

Gintare Geleziunaite 

CHANGE MANAGEMENT LEAD, 

UK MINISTRY OF DEFENCE AND 

CO-LEAD OF THE CHANGE 

MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE IN LONDON 

Dmitry Grozoubinski 

FOUNDER EXPLAINTRADE, 

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR GENEVA 

TRADE PLATFORM 

If you want to use change to your 

advantage, you must understand its impact 

on the human mind. You should not 

only be concerned with identifying and 

communicating the benefits of change, 

but also with how and when it is best to 

communicate that information. 

In order for successful change to occur, 

you must first build the awareness, then 

build the desire and finally, allow enough 

time for the new information to embed. 

This is a linear process, so do not attempt 

A negotiator, like the colorist of a 

graphical novel, largely operates within lines 

drawn by others, be these formal political 

mandates, commercial realities, or even the 

expectations of a spouse. 

A skilled negotiator can shift the lines 

somewhat, weaving convincing narratives 

for why their sacred cows are more sacrosanct 

than is strictly true, while picking apart 

the overstated sensitivities of those across 

the table. 

However, no matter how savvy the 

negotiator, some positions are simply 

all three steps at once! 

The ever-popular Kubler-Ross Change 

Curve suggests that we all have the 

same mental process when experiencing 

significant change; progressing through 

shock, denial and depression, until 

ultimately, we are able to recognize potential 

upsides. Accounting for this mental 

process can help leaders identify opportune 

moments and capitalize on the benefits that 

change can bring to their negotiation. 

immovable. When two such positions are 

in opposition, a win-win outcome can seem 

out of reach. 

Enter change. Savvy negotiators spring 

on change like Jurassic Park raptors testing 

an electric fence, re-examining every 

previously difficult red line or entrenched 

position for fresh flexibilities. Every change 

is an opportunity to explore new routes, 

innovative solutions and compromises 

shaken loose. Negotiators should welcome 

and be ready to seize it. TNS 

40


Tim Green 

The secret to 

surviving change? 

Be more “finch”. 

According to the old saying, there are only two 

things in life you can rely on: death and taxes. 

However, there has always been a third: change. 

Change happens in some form every day and can 

be observed all around us. 

Some change is easy to see, like the changing of the 

seasons. Other change, like evolution, we don’t actually 

“see”, yet all species of plant and animal alive today 

are evidence of adaptation occurring over millennia. 

This evolutionary change is driven by a need to survive 

in myriad of hostile physical environments which 

themselves change over time. In a previous role, 

I developed brand positioning for a global sports brand 

to support a new direction in their product development. 

I was inspired by Charles Darwin’s book, 

“On The Origin Of Species”. 

His most famous example of observed evolution, 

Darwin’s finches, showed how the South American 

grassquit finch, having arrived on the Galápagos 

Islands, evolved over time to become 13 separate 

species, each with a unique beak adapted to a specific 

microenvironment. 

“True partnership with your 

counterparties is vital to 

overcome Covid’s inevitable 

challenges and grow together. 

Fast forward to today and change is being starkly felt 

by everyone, driven again by a need to survive a hostile 

physical environment, this time created by Covid-19. It 

affects social and business life for those countries where 

the virus is still not contained. Change, when forced upon 

us like this, can feel uncomfortable, even overwhelming, 

but it’s those people and businesses who are able to 

adapt best that will, like Darwin’s finches, survive and 

ultimately thrive. 

While the changes we now face to how we work and 

negotiate can feel restrictive, it’s important to recognize 

they’re probably where we would have ended up anyway 

as technological developments facilitated our ability to 

operate virtually. So, resist the urge to panic and think 

everything has changed. Sure, perhaps you are not able 

to meet face-to-face with your counterparties for now, 

but key requirements to negotiating successfully and 

profitably remain the same as before Covid-19 hit. 

For starters, you should still be focused on maximizing 

value, whether for yourself in distributive negotiations, 

or for you and your business partners in collaborative 

scenarios. Observational and listening skills likewise 

remain vital; your job now is to evolve these to be 

more acute given the challenges of “reading” the other 

party when they’re only a few inches tall on a screen. 

And of course you must still have a strategic plan your 

stakeholders are aligned to; happily, virtual working can 

facilitate timely collaboration to achieve this. 

What else is, essentially, the same? Our old friend, 

being comfortable with being uncomfortable. And 

here there’s even a potential benefit to negotiating 

virtually, which is added confidence if you found 

negotiating face-to-face stressful. Clear communication 

is also still a must to effectively manage the other party’s 

expectations, with the move to more virtual contact 

making it even more vital to ensure your message isn’t 

misunderstood. And finally, remember that if you’re 

seeking creative and collaborative solutions to grow 

mutual value through your negotiations, then true 

partnership with your counterparties (help me to 

help you) is critical to overcome Covid’s inevitable 

challenges and grow together. 

Change on the scale we are seeing 

from the pandemic impacts everyone. 

If you’re thinking it’s only you 

struggling to adapt to new ways 

of operating as a negotiator, then 

get out of your head and into the 

heads of your counterparties. They 

are also having to adapt and may 

be feeling very uncomfortable at the 

thought too. 

With Darwin’s finches, the whole 

grassquit species had to evolve to 

survive. Today, you and your business 

partners all need to work collaboratively 

in your negotiations to ensure that you 

are able to thrive and survive together. 

In short, be more “finch”! TNS 

41

ASK ALISTAIR 

Negotiation expert Alistair White returns 

to answer questions from our readers. 

Q: What are the skills we need to be 

successful virtual negotiators and 

will they be useful when we return 

to face-to-face negotiation? 

A: The biggest difference 

between virtual and face-toface 

negotiations is that we 

have less raw material with 

which to interpret what 

our counterparty is trying 

to communicate, and fewer 

resources at our disposal with 

which to communicate our 

messages precisely. Therefore we 

have to work on our questioning 

and listening skills in an attempt to 

understand what is going on in our 

counterparties’ heads, and we have to 

work on our communication skills, 

our choice of word, our tone of voice 

and our facial expressions to get our 

messages across in the way we want. 

The good news is 

that we have these 

skills already; we just 

don’t rely on them as 

much in face-to-face 

negotiations in the 

same way we no longer 

rely on our sense of 

smell to alert us to the 

presence of danger in 

the way animals do. 

As to whether these 

will be useful when we 

return to face-to-face, well, that’s pretty 

self-evident, isn’t it? 

Q: In our new working world, we 

have found email negotiation has 

increased. How does a negotiator 

read the meaning behind the 

written words? 

A: When we read an email, we cannot 

be as sure of the writer’s emotional 

state of mind as when we are 

face-to-face. So, we impose our own 

interpretation of their emotions on 

the words as we read them and that 

can lead to misinterpretations. For 

example, if someone requests an action, 

“immediately”, some people will read 

“When we read an email, 

we cannot be as sure of the 

writer’s emotional state of mind 

as when we are face-to-face. 

this as irritated impatience, while 

others will read it as just another 

way of saying “quickly”. 

There are a couple of ways to 

counteract this; ask someone else 

to read the email and compare their 

interpretation to yours, a second 

opinion. Or, if you know your 

counterparty well, read the email 

using their voice in your head, 

imagine them saying the words. 

There are some other things to 

watch out for. The use of adverbs 

and adjectives: these are descriptive 

words that will give a particular insight 

into the writer’s intentions. Who has 

been copied on the email and why? 

An angry email that is addressed 

to you only is a clear message 

that the sender wants to resolve 

the matter between the pair 

of you. If, however, they have 

copied the world and his wife, 

then be prepared for things 

to get messy. 

How many emails your 

counterparty has sent you on 

the same subject is a clear 

indicator of urgency and 

sometimes, even desperation. 

Lengthy, verbose emails with lots of 

explanations and padding are often 

an indication of discomfort around 

a negotiating position in the same way 

that excessive justification in a face-toface 

encounter reveals insecurity. 

Q: With the principle 

of getting my proposal 

out first, should I 

use the initial email 

correspondence or 

wait until I have the 

videoconference so 

I can read their 

reaction? 

A: There is no black 

and white answer to 

this. By mentioning 

your proposal in an initial email, you 

are managing expectations and thereby 

reducing resistance because they know 

what’s coming. By waiting until your 

virtual meeting, you gain insight from 

their instinctive reaction. Both give 

you advantages. So, why not do both? 

Send an email upfront, stating that 

you will be seeking a “much improved 

contract duration,” and wait until the 

meeting before you tell them you need 

five years. TNS 

42


CROSSWORD 

Our fiendishly challenging British-style crossword returns. 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 

10 11 

12 13 

14 15 16 

17 18 19 20 21 

22 

23 24 25 

26 27 

28 29 

ACROSS 

1 Having common sense to follow 

game - one that's catastrophic (7) 

5 Remains here as charger bites head 

of hounds (7) 

10 Distribute large quantity (4) 

9 

11 Having a contract, Institute 

engages in concert series with 

timeless recital (10) 

12 Church about to suspend Pence (6) 

13 Affair not starting to become 

friendship (8) 

14 Leave entertaining short film 

to provide protection (9) 

16 Reach depth including limits (5) 

17 Acyclovir usually restricts this (5) 

19 10 I secure at parting after 

the end of lockdown (9) 

23 Server with the best lock (8) 

24 Abject leader removed Liberal (6) 

26 What doctor's doing - removing top 

of long linctus for treatment (10) 

27 Bold starts with learning or 

understanding, describe ... (4) 

28 ...foreign king and knight that have 

to chase peace keepers (7) 

DOWN 

2 Vital tube repairing hurt ear (7) 

3 Sample of zany longcloth fabric (5) 

4 Lots of high adolescents briefly 

pocketing money (7) 

6 Arts scholarship's introduction ends (6) 

7 Playing in casino after leadership 

of tour conductor (9) 

8 After the end of March, bed fruit (7) 

9 East-West collaboration? (13) 

15 Kept woman remarkably sane after 

end of pandemic cycling tour (9) 

18 Statesman played "Oh Diana" (7) 

20 Required dog with bile 

to be managed (7) 

21 Matter arising: Computing Society 

charges (7) 

22 Man getting furloughed at first, 

relaxed but not mobile (6) 

25 Appreciate toilet that's set up and 

regularly used (5) 

ILLUSTRATION: WWW.CARTOONSTOCK.COM 

"Welcome to change management 101. 

we'll start with some free falls" 

For solutions email 

hello@thenegotiationsociety.com 

43

44 

© The Gap Partnership, 2021. All rights reserved.

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