The Question That Saved a Multimillion Dollar Contract
The Question That Saved a Multimillion Dollar Contract
A manager once told me to treat negotiation like a test of control: see how long you can keep the prospect following you. That was the training for the day.
So I did. I walked a prospect through my process for three straight hours. They followed me the whole way.
They did not buy. And I doubt they ever came back.
That was the moment I started questioning what control actually produces in a negotiation. Compliance, sometimes. Commitment, rarely. The prospect sat in that meeting for three hours but never experienced the conversation as theirs. They were being walked, not being understood.
Not long after, I found myself inside a situation that taught me what curiosity looks like when the stakes are real. It is the same principle behind every difficult conversation that actually moves something forward: the outcome depends less on what you say than on what you make possible before you say it.
What a Broken Multimillion Dollar Contract Taught Me About Asking the Right Question
I was brought in to take over a project already more than a year behind schedule. Multimillion dollar contract. Angry client. Angry contractor we were subcontracted to. A team that had been living inside the friction so long they could not see past it.
Before the executives from the other side came in for a day of negotiations, I investigated everything I could find. Talked to every stakeholder. Read the contracts. Documented where we had failed, where they had failed, and where the situation had collapsed under its own weight.
Then, before they even arrived, I told them what the day was for. The goal was to make one choice together: do we want to try to fix this, or do we go to court?
I set up the question before the meeting began.
When they arrived, I laid out everything I had found as objectively as I could. No spin. No positioning. I gave them time at the end to counter or add anything I had missed. And I said upfront: this is a shared facts exercise, so we all start from the same place.
Then I asked: do we want to fix this contract and project, or do we want to abandon it and go to court?
That question moved everyone from adversarial to collaborative before a single solution was discussed. It asked them to choose what kind of conversation we were going to have. And because I had done the work beforehand, the buy-in on the process was already there before anyone sat down.
They agreed to try.
Once they did, we opened it up: what would fixing this actually require? I swapped out my own team almost immediately. Four years of history, culture, and old grudges were going to work against a fresh start. They agreed to do the same on their side.
We did not solve anything that day. We created momentum and a shared commitment to solve it together. The next meeting was already on the calendar before anyone left.
One year later, the project was complete and live. We closed with an additional $2.7 million in funding. The client was satisfied. The contractor, a multibillion dollar company, kept working with us and expanded the project.
Everything that followed started with a question about whether both sides wanted to try.
That is what curiosity produces when it is built into the structure of a conversation. Answers come later. First you build the conditions where honest answers are possible.
Why Control Without Curiosity Produces Compliance, Not Commitment
Control has a role in negotiation. A clear agenda, deliberate pacing, turn-taking so both sides have genuine voice, summaries that check for shared understanding: these are the structure that makes a productive conversation possible.
Control applied without curiosity produces a specific kind of failure. People follow along, nod, even say yes, and then nothing moves. Commitments are half-hearted. Delivery falters because the real concerns were never surfaced. Trust erodes and the next negotiation is harder than the last.
Research on procedural fairness shows why. When people feel heard, they judge outcomes as fairer, even when they do not get everything they want. When one side dominates the agenda, the other side feels managed. People who feel managed comply until the pressure lifts, and then they stop. This is the same dynamic that makes dignity-first negotiation a commercial strategy, not just a values position.
The prospect who sat with me for three hours was waiting to be understood. I never got there.
Curiosity Is How You Set Up the Conversation, Not Just What You Say In It
The most important move in that contract negotiation was the work I did before anyone arrived.
Investigating the situation from every angle. Sharing the goal of the meeting in advance. Creating space for them to add or counter what I had found. Naming upfront that the day was about shared facts, so everyone started from the same place.
By the time I asked the question, the conditions for an honest answer were already in place. That is what structured curiosity looks like in practice. You build the environment for honesty before the conversation starts, and the question almost answers itself.
That same principle applies at a smaller scale in everyday negotiations. Before a difficult conversation with a team member, name what the conversation is for before it begins. Before a contract discussion with a vendor, share what you are trying to understand alongside what you want to achieve. Before a client negotiation, ask what a good outcome looks like for them before you describe what it looks like for you. That last move, asking about their outcome first, is the practical entry point into negotiating from interests rather than positions.
Curiosity built into the structure of a conversation surfaces the information that control buries.
What Happens When Structure and Curiosity Work Together
The most durable negotiations happen at the intersection of both. Structure makes the conversation feel safe and fair. Curiosity surfaces what is actually driving the other side.
Control opens the door. Curiosity gets people to walk through it.
A negotiator who relies only on control produces agreements that stall in execution. A negotiator who only listens produces warmth without resolution. A clear process combined with genuine interest in what the other side actually needs is what creates agreements that hold.
One practical move worth trying this week: in your next high-stakes conversation, name the purpose of the meeting before it begins and give the other side room to add to or adjust that framing before you start. One person running a process becomes two people shaping one together. If you feel tension rising before that conversation starts, a physiological sigh before you walk in is worth more than any rehearsed opening line.
That is where commitment lives.
If this resonates and you want to build these skills with your team, The Cyr Method offers in-person communication and leadership training for teams in Halifax, Dartmouth, and across Atlantic Canada. Reach out and we can talk about what that looks like for your group.
Sources
Lind, E.A. & Tyler, T.R. (1988). The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice. Plenum Press. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4899-2115-4
Galinsky, A.D. & Schweitzer, M. (2015). Friend and Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both. Crown Business. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/205841/friend-and-foe-by-adam-galinsky-and-maurice-schweitzer/
Curhan, J.R., Elfenbein, H.A. & Xu, H. (2006). What Do People Value When They Negotiate? Mapping the Domain of Subjective Value in Negotiation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16938032/
