Logo Crowlight Partners

Call us in Germany
+49 228 707 8670

Call us in Switzerland
+41 32 510 4122

We’ll take your call 24/7
Mon-Sun: 0.00-24.00

Category: Consulting

  • Game Practice #4: The Ultimatum Game

    Game Practice #4: The Ultimatum Game

    When Fairness Beats Logic

    Imagine you get €100 and must split it with someone else. But there’s a catch — if they reject your offer, neither of you gets anything.

    For example, you offer €10 wanting to keep €90 to yourself, and they say no. Then you get nothing, they get nothing. Game over.

    Welcome to the Ultimatum Game, a classic experiment in behavioral economics. And a powerful lens on real-world negotiation dynamics.

    “But rejecting free money isn’t rational!” I hear you object. Yet the experiment consistently reveals that people don’t just care about the outcome — they care about fairness, respect, and how the offer is made.

    In B2B negotiations, we see this more often than you’d think:

    • One side anchors hard — and the other walks, even if the deal made economic sense.
    • A retailer pushes for steep discounts, but the supplier rejects, incurring short-term financial loss, to avoid setting a harmful precedent for future negotiations
    • A startup declines a lucrative acquisition—not due to price, but because of disrespectful treatment.

    People don’t respond to logic alone. They respond to how they’re treated and whether their needs are acknowledged.

    Key takeaways for B2B negotiators:

    ✅ Fairness is not a soft topic — it’s a strategic variable.

    ✅ Power plays can backfire when they are perceived as unjust.

    ✅ Both the deal structure and the delivery matter: clarity, timing, tone, and process shape how offers are received.

    In short: Negotiation isn’t just math. It’s psychology.

    Ignore perceived fairness, and you might win the numbers on paper — but lose the deal.

    #Negotiation #GameTheory #B2B #Fairness #BehavioralEconomics #Leadership #CreatingSharedSuccess

  • You’re leading a team through a crisis. How do you balance urgency with input from frontline staff?

    You’re leading a team through a crisis. How do you balance urgency with input from frontline staff?

    In today’s dynamic markets, the best corporate intelligence often resides at the frontline. It is at the customer interface where value is created daily — and where problems first appear. Empowering the frontline becomes imperative and achieves two goals:

    1️⃣ It drives better real-time decisions. Effective responses to the crisis can be identified and implemented immediately.

    2️⃣ It fosters dedication and loyalty among intrinsically motivated team members. It builds commitment and creates ownership.

    Of course, in Tayloristic organizations operating in sluggish markets, decision-making may still be best placed at the top. But that’s a different discussion.

    Once the urgency subsides, the leader’s responsibility is to address the root cause that turned the issue into an emergency, and to build a system that prevents the next crisis.

    Because the ultimate measure of leadership isn’t just how you resolve a crisis, but whether you create conditions that make the next one less likely.

    #Leadership #CrisisManagement #OrganizationalLearning #Empowerment

  • Game Practice #3: The Stag Hunt

    Game Practice #3: The Stag Hunt

    Why trust is the silent partner in every high-stakes deal

    Imagine two hunters. They can either each chase a rabbit (a guaranteed but small reward) or cooperate to hunt a stag (a much bigger win, but only if both fully commit).

    That’s the Stag Hunt, a classic game theory model.

    And it plays out all the time in B2B negotiations. In theory, both parties benefit most by pursuing the joint optimum. But in practice, fear of being left hanging leads one or both sides to settle for a lesser but safer option.

    Here’s how it shows up:

    • A supplier won’t invest in custom tooling because they’re unsure the buyer will commit long-term.
    • A client wants innovation, but won’t share enough information to enable it.
    • A strategic partnership fails to launch because neither side wants to go first.

    These aren’t failures of logic — they’re failures of trust and coordination.

    In high-stakes negotiations, the size of the prize often depends on how well you can manage uncertainty, build credibility, and signal commitment.

    If you want the stag, you can’t just say it, you have to show it. You need to convince the other side you’re in it with them. Build transparency into your actions. Ensure commitment is visible across various levels of the organization. Embed structures into your agreements that reinforce mutual investment.

    Trust isn’t built on promises. It’s built through risks taken together.

    Follow this series as we explore other real-life games that shape negotiation behavior and how to play them wisely.

    #Negotiation #GameTheory #Strategy #Trust #B2B #CreatingSharedSuccess