-- Most negotiators walk into a room with a map. They know what they want. They know what the other side wants. They aim, with the precision of a chess player, to find the intersection — the famous win-win. Stephen Covey made this the gospel of effective leadership. Think Win-Win, he said. A noble idea. A necessary corrective to the zero-sum thinking that dominates most deal rooms. But here is what I have come to believe after decades at the negotiating table — in boardrooms,

Years ago, when I was at Diageo, some of us from different parts of the world were pulled into a creative setting in Chicago to deal with a problem statement. At that point in time, we found that we were losing a significant number of high-potential employees – those the company had nurtured, moved across markets, and given higher roles, etc. And yet, they were either fired or left. So the Diageo exec asked the group of us in Chicago, What do we need to do to keep people? It

Trust is the bedrock of any relationship, and this holds true even in a professional setup. The emotional and professional needs of...