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2023 – Happy new Conflict!
Happy new year! The supposedly bright, fresh new year seems to have dragged a bucket load of the doom and gloom from the previous one...
Jan 4, 20233 min read


Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the richest of them all?
(Well, we should check in with the magic mirror on this question as it's panto season after all!) Until recently Elon Musk held the...
Dec 15, 20222 min read


Why psychological safety is important for negotiators
"Can we check our collective psychological safety before we start?" This was the question asked of me before recently embarking upon a...
Dec 6, 20223 min read


All Change!
In the UK we’ve had some high-profile industry conflicts that seem to have been dragging on for ages (with a few more in the pipeline as...
Nov 28, 20223 min read


Never, say never (unless you’re really sure)
It’s been a week of people boxing themselves into corners unnecessarily. Firstly, there was ‘Loss and Damage’ – John Kerry, the US...
Nov 23, 20223 min read


If you laze, you pays!
Sometimes it’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking our commercial conflicts are one-off and transactional. We go in with a set of...
Nov 9, 20223 min read


Why ‘Yes’ can be worse than ‘No’ in commercial conflict
There are times when saying 'Yes' or 'No' can be problematic – we’ve seen the dilemma this week in the political arena: “Yes” (we are...
Oct 17, 20223 min read


Welcome to Conditioning
What do automotive dealers, software companies and the owners of a Dalmatian dog all have in common? – they’ve all been responsible for...
Oct 11, 20223 min read


Plan for the expected…..and the unexpected
My partner was definitely grumpy a couple of weeks ago. The reason – stress, or more accurately fear of the unknown. You see she’s a...
Sep 27, 20223 min read


Why negotiating will always be emotional
“This is straightforward, we’ll have a deal in ten minutes”, the participant confidently stated (just before the start of one of our...
Sep 6, 20223 min read


The Wrath of Khan
According to Sir Tom Winsor’s report, when Sadiq Khan withdrew his support and ultimately his confidence for Cressida Dick earlier this...
Sep 2, 20222 min read


Setting budgets in turbulent times
It’s approaching that time of the year again when we sit down at Savage Macbeth and set our budgets for the next calendar year. I was...
Aug 31, 20222 min read


Why AI will demand we raise our negotiating ability
How we look is not necessarily how we feel. I remember one participant on a course telling me that he had a naturally ‘smiley’ face which...
Aug 18, 20222 min read


Feeling hot, hot, hot - in Commercial Conflict
The historic temperatures we are currently experiencing in the UK are having a monumental effect on schools, transport and peoples’...
Jul 19, 20223 min read


Help! I’m in negotiation with a Narcissist... Get me out of here!
The Covid Pandemic and subsequent supply chain and inflationary pressures have no doubt taken their toll on our collective mental health...
Jul 14, 20223 min read


You’re next chum!
Loki, our Dalmatian should be concerned. One of his priorities in life – food, has moved front and centre of the conflict that surrounds...
Jul 7, 20222 min read


Getting emotions back on track
"We will win", "An aggressive agenda", "A dereliction of duty", "Inflaming the situation", "Causing misery"... These are just a few of...
Jun 23, 20222 min read


Generation Z – Is the juice (job) worth the squeeze (effort)?
A recent article from the BBC suggests that the ‘Gen Zers’ (Generation Z people) have watched and learnt from the older generations in...
Jun 17, 20223 min read


You can have Liquid Death or something worse!
For the uninitiated out there, Liquid Death is a bottled water company with a tagline ‘murder your thirst’. Its water is sourced from,...
Jun 14, 20223 min read


Confidence Trick?
We’ve all been watching ‘Partygate’ unfold over the past six months or so and after months of speculation over whether Boris is the right...
Jun 7, 20223 min read



