Time is the greatest negotiating tool

The illusion of winning and the discipline of negotiating

The latest round of US–Iran negotiations has ended, as many such negotiations do, without agreement. After more than twenty hours of discussion, both sides walked away, each claiming they had the upper hand, each blaming the other, and neither willing to concede on the issues that mattered most.

If you step back from the politics and the headlines, what you see is something very familiar. Not geopolitics, but human behaviour. Not strategy, but the failure to understand what negotiation really requires.

I have spent a lifetime in business, often in situations where the stakes felt existential. What I have learned is simple, but rarely practised well. Negotiation is not about winning. It is about creating an outcome that both parties can live with.

And that is where most negotiations fail.

Trust is not a soft concept, it is the foundation

In any negotiation, particularly one with history, mistrust is always present. In the case of the United States and Iran, that mistrust goes back decades, shaped by political intervention, revolution, sanctions, and conflict. 

When trust is absent, every proposal is viewed not as an offer, but as a trap. Every concession is seen as weakness. Every delay is interpreted as manipulation.

In business, I see exactly the same pattern. Two parties sit across the table, each armed with data, advisers, and carefully constructed positions. Yet underneath it all is a simple question. Do I believe you are acting in good faith?

If the answer is no, the negotiation becomes theatre. Positions harden. Language becomes performative. And the likelihood of agreement collapses.

Trust is not built in the room. It is built before the negotiation ever begins. Through consistency, through transparency, and through behaviour over time.

Both sides must leave with dignity intact

One of the most dangerous mistakes in negotiation is to believe that forcing the other side into submission is a success.

It is not.

A negotiated outcome that strips one party of dignity is not stable. It may hold for a moment, but it will not endure.

This is not theory. It is history.

At the end of the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles imposed punitive terms on Germany. Economically, politically, and psychologically, it was designed to humiliate as much as to resolve. The result was not peace, but resentment. And that resentment became one of the direct pathways to the Second World War.

In other words, the “win” was an illusion.

In business, the same dynamic plays out on a smaller scale. A supplier forced into an unsustainable contract will eventually fail or retaliate. An employee humiliated in a negotiation will disengage or leave. A partner backed into a corner will look for a way out.

If one side walks away diminished, the deal is already broken.

Time is the most undervalued asset in negotiation

Modern leadership is impatient. We want outcomes quickly. We measure progress in days and weeks, not years.

Negotiation does not work like that.

The US–Iran talks are a good example. The issues on the table are not transactional. They are structural, emotional, and historical. They cannot be resolved in a marathon session, however intense. 

Time is not a delay. It is a tool.

Time allows positions to soften without loss of face. It allows internal stakeholders to adjust. It allows new information to emerge. Most importantly, it allows trust, however fragile, to begin to form.

In my experience, the most effective negotiators understand pacing. They know when to push and when to pause. They resist the pressure to “close” simply to demonstrate progress.

Rushed agreements are rarely good agreements.

The discipline leaders must bring

So what does this mean in practice for leaders?

First, stop thinking of negotiation as a contest. It is not about defeating the other side, it is about solving a shared problem.

Second, invest in trust before you need it. Once you are in a high stakes negotiation, it is already too late to start building credibility.

Third, protect the dignity of the other party, even when you disagree fundamentally. Particularly then.

And finally, respect time. Not as an inconvenience, but as an essential ingredient in reaching a durable outcome.

The world will continue to produce negotiations like the one we have just seen. Some will succeed, many will fail.

But the underlying lesson remains constant. Agreements that endure are not those where one side wins. They are those where both sides can walk away, look their people in the eye, and say, “we did what was necessary”.

That is the real test of negotiation. And it always has been.