Culture is one of those things that everyone talks about but few leaders actually manage. We invest in strategy, talent, and technology and assume culture will sort itself out. It won't.
Research tells us that companies with great cultures can improve their performance by up to three times. Engaged employees in results-focused cultures demonstrate 23% higher profitability and 18% higher productivity. Culture is a performance lever, and most leaders aren’t pulling it.
We see this all the time: Your team negotiates the way your organization negotiates. The behaviors they bring to the table — how aggressive they are, how much they concede, how they treat relationships — are the product of what leadership models, what the company celebrates and punishes, and what it communicates (explicitly or otherwise).
If your culture says, “Win at all costs,” your people will grind every deal even if it breaks the relationship with the other side. If your culture says, “Just get it done,” they’ll cave when they should hold firm. If your culture says, “Don’t bring problems to my desk,” your team will hide a troubled negotiation until it’s too late to fix it. Problematic deal outcomes are just symptoms; the culture is the disease.
The question isn’t whether you have a negotiation culture. You do. The question is whether it’s the one you want.
Start by assessing where you are. Does your team think negotiation is adversarial? Do they believe they have the authority to make a deal? Do they know what a good deal even looks like? Their answers will tell you more about your negotiation culture than any outcome report ever could. (If you’re not sure where to start, our Negotiation Capabilities Survey is designed to do exactly this, giving you a data-driven baseline of your team’s current negotiation beliefs and behaviors.)
Define the future state. There’s no path forward without a destination. What does a good deal look like in your organization? How do you measure success at the table? How do you expect your people to treat the other side? What does it look like to negotiate well internally, not just externally? Vague aspirations don’t move culture. Defined, observable behaviors do.
Build alignment, especially with your stakeholders. This is the step most leaders skip, and it’s the one that kills progress. Frontline negotiators need approvals, support, and air cover. When the people around them — Finance, Legal, senior leadership — aren’t aligned to the same values, it creates friction. Stakeholders default to what’s easiest or what protects their own position. Your job as a leader is to bring them into the culture, not leave them on the sidelines.
Establish accountability. Culture doesn’t sustain itself on good intentions. It requires systems such as reward structures, delegation frameworks, communication expectations, and deal debriefs that reinforce the behaviors you want and create consequences for the ones you don’t. If you celebrate the hero who swoops in and saves a deal, don’t be surprised when your team stops developing. What you reward, you get more of.
And then, keep going. Culture isn’t a project with a finish line. It’s a practice. Measure the culture at least annually, so you can see drift before it becomes damage. Publicly call out the behaviors that support where you want to go. Address the behaviors that don’t fit, and do it promptly, because silence reads as acceptance. Create space for your team to talk openly about your negotiation culture, because the conversations happening in the hallway need to be happening in the room. And revisit your definition of a good deal periodically, because markets shift, relationships evolve, and what “winning” looks like today may not be what it looks like two years from now.
Your team is watching how you negotiate. They’re watching what you reward, what you tolerate, and what you model. Culture is set at the top and lived at the table.
The real question is, what culture are you creating?
Negotiation Training and Consulting to Establish the Negotiating Culture You Want.
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