If you want to create lasting value and impact, stop competing and start collaborating. I left a global negotiation consulting firm to go out on my own. It wasn’t something I had planned, but after a leadership change, I found myself unable to work with the new general in charge. I went from being seen as a comrade to a competitor.
It was a narrow view by the organisation. Within six months of the leadership change, three team members had also left to start their own ventures.
Rather than becoming competitors, we saw a different opportunity—we chose to be comrades. We all wanted autonomy to shape our career paths and run our own businesses, but competing didn’t make sense. Competing often destroys value, while collaboration creates it.
Whether you’re negotiating with a service provider, supplier, or client, here are five reasons why you should see them as comrades, not competitors:
- Sustainable relationships are the key to business success
No one succeeds alone—every business needs strong relationships to survive and thrive. When you’re growing a business, the relationships you form can often outlast a single transaction or deal. It’s trust and rapport that sets you up for long-term growth. In our case, we knew individually, we had less leverage than the company we left. But together, as comrades, we strengthened our position both individually and collectively.We opened doors for each other, widened our networks, and reached new clients. Had we competed, we’d likely still be fighting for scraps, rather than enjoying a richer pool of opportunities.
- Collaboration expands your vision for what’s possible
If you’re only focused on your own goals, you limit yourself. When you compete, you stay within the confines of what you know and what you’ve always done. But collaboration opens up different perspectives. It allows you to see what others value and where you can align.When my former colleagues and I discussed our next moves, we realised we didn’t want to carve up the same piece of the pie—we wanted to create a bigger one. We each had different drivers for our businesses, but we all shared the same ambition: to elevate the art of negotiation and make a real difference. By sharing resources, skills, and ideas, we ended up offering a broader suite of services than any one of us could have delivered alone.
- Your impact is far greater together
What you can do in collaboration with others is exponentially greater than what you can achieve on your own. Competition often keeps you isolated, with your focus locked on winning a single race. But when you approach others as comrades, you create opportunities to build something bigger.By collaborating, we amplified each other’s reach. Instead of fighting for the same clients, we expanded our market. We started working on projects that we would have never tackled alone, and as a result, our impact grew far beyond what any of us had originally envisioned.
- Collaboration improves leadership and teamwork
Whether you’re negotiating internally within your team or working with external partners, collaboration builds better teams and stronger leadership. A competitive mindset inside a business fosters individualism—where everyone is focused on their own win. This often creates tension, silos, and inefficiency.But when you foster collaboration, especially in negotiations, you build a sense of shared purpose. It’s no longer about personal wins; it’s about how the team can win together. We saw this firsthand as we transitioned from colleagues to co-collaborators—when everyone had a stake in the outcome, our collective energy and focus improved. We worked harder for the bigger goal, and as a result, everyone benefited.
- Collaboration creates more value for everyone involved
Competition comes with a scarcity mindset—the belief that there’s only so much value to go around. Collaboration, on the other hand, embraces abundance. When you work with others, you pool ideas, resources, and opportunities, which often leads to innovation and solutions that benefit everyone.We shared knowledge, contacts, and even clients. We avoided the “grab what you can” mentality and instead focused on how we could create value together. We knew that collaboration, not competition, was the smarter way forward. And that’s the point—collaboration doesn’t just create more opportunities; it creates more value for everyone involved.
The world of business is often framed as a battle, where only the strongest survive. But that’s outdated. Those who collaborate, build sustainable relationships, and expand their vision ultimately create more value.
By seeing others as comrades, you set yourself up for long-term success. It’s not just about winning today—it’s about building something lasting that benefits everyone involved. Next time you find yourself in a negotiation, ask: how would this change if I saw the other party as a comrade?
Written by Glin Bayley.
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