If you want deal innovation, learn how to collaborate and get used to contention and conflict — and lots of it.
Deal innovation doesn’t happen when people are comfortable. Deal innovation happens at points of contention — and the deeper the contention, the more innovative the solution will be.
The important thing is to be able to take that contention and turn it into something special . . . and that takes collaboration and teamwork. In the right hands, contention doesn’t mean a fight. It means an opportunity to problem-solve, to create, to collaborate, to innovate.
So the question is: do you engage with your potential innovation partners in a way that supports this environment, or in a way that undermines it? You’d be surprised how often you think you’re doing the former, but are actually doing the latter.
If innovation is the goal, you can’t forget that you have two negotiations going on — a macro negotiation and a series of micro negotiations. Get the macro negotiation wrong, and the rest of it will tank.
