Simon Dowling

Getting to Yes


When the authors of the classic negotiation text Getting to Yes* penned the advice ‘focus on interests, not positions’, they couldn’t have chosen a simpler way to describe what in practice can often prove challenging. The guideline ‘focus on interests, not positions’ serves as a powerful remedy to the tendency for negotiators to focus on […]

Relationship maintenance: The heart of supply chain management


If you are a manager of supply contracts – whether from the supplier or the customer side of the fence – you might well lie awake at night trying to work out how to remove people from the picture. After all, so many contract performance issues can be traced back to “people problems” — poor communication, […]