There is something I have come to believe about relationships of all kinds—whether it is at work, at home, or with friends. Every relationship eventually encounters friction. You hit a disagreement. Misalignment. A tough moment where two people need to figure out how to move forward together. And in those moments, I have found that people tend to fall into one of two mindsets: you are either a collaborator or a negotiator.
Collaborators come to the table with curiosity. They want to understand, to connect, to figure out how to solve the problem together. They assume that the other person is working toward the same goal and that whatever tension exists is something that can be worked through with honesty, humility, and shared commitment. Their mindset is me and you against the problem.
Negotiators take a different approach. Their focus is not on the shared outcome but on their own outcome. Their default question is ‘how do I give up as little as possible and get as much as I can?’ They see disagreement as a competition, not a conversation. And the goal is not to resolve the tension—it is to win. Their mindset is me versus you.
And here is the hard part. You cannot collaborate with a negotiator.
The negotiator operates from a place of fear. The collaborator operates from a place of faith. But both fear and faith are a belief in the unknown. It’s all about perspective.
Collaboration requires mutual trust. It only works when both people are willing to be open, to share honestly, to give a little, and to believe that the other person will do the same. But when one person enters the conversation looking for a deal and the other enters looking for a partnership, what happens is a slow unraveling of trust. One person keeps trying to build a bridge. The other keeps measuring the cost of crossing it.
I have experienced this dynamic in every kind of relationship. I have had romantic partners who negotiated every disagreement like it was a contract, where every moment of vulnerability felt like a loss of power. I have had friendships where every favor, every effort, every apology came with strings attached. And yes, I have seen it inside organizations too—leaders who use the language of collaboration but operate entirely through leverage and control. People who talk about team culture but cannot stop counting what they are owed.
In the workplace, this dynamic becomes especially dangerous. Because it hides in plain sight. A leader might believe they are being strategic. A teammate might believe they are just protecting their interests. But if every conversation becomes a quiet calculation of who gets what and at what cost, then real progress becomes impossible. No one shares freely. No one volunteers new ideas. No one takes risks. Because they are too busy protecting themselves.
And here is the truth I keep coming back to: High-performance cultures are not built through negotiation. They are built through shared ownership. Through people who are willing to look at a challenge and say, “How do we solve this together?” not “How do I make sure I do not lose anything?”
Collaboration is not just a skill. It is a mindset. It is a belief that progress happens through trust, not leverage. That culture is not created through contracts and conditions but through people who are willing to go all in, even when it feels uncomfortable, even when they are not sure what they will get in return.
So if you find yourself in a relationship—at work or at home—that always feels like a transaction, pay attention. You may be trying to collaborate with someone who only knows how to negotiate. And that is not a problem you can fix alone.
You can show up with clarity. You can show up with compassion. You can be honest, direct, and generous. But ultimately, collaboration only works when it is mutual. You cannot build something together with someone who is only interested in building for themselves.
Culture is how work gets done. And relationships are the foundation of that culture. If we want more alignment, more innovation, more trust, we need more people who choose collaboration over competition.
Because when it is me and you versus the problem, we stand a chance. But when it becomes me versus you, the problem always wins.
Elsewhere In Culture
At Meta, culture is being used as a sorting mechanism. Again. According to an internal memo obtained by Business Insider, managers of teams with 150 or more people are now required to rate 15–20% of employees as “below expectations” in their midyear reviews—up from 12–15% last year. This comes just months after nearly 4,000 employees labeled as low performers were laid off. It’s not a performance strategy. It’s a cleanup effort dressed up as accountability.
Skillsoft’s Leena Rinne is absolutely right: people do not bring their best to work when they’re busy protecting themselves. You cannot expect innovation from employees who are afraid to make a mistake. And yet, so many workplaces still run on fear—mistakes are punished, risks are avoided, and high performers are rewarded for outshining rather than uplifting. That is not a culture of excellence. That is a culture of survival. And in a survival culture, trust erodes fast.
Leaders who model vulnerability create room for others to do the same. It sounds simple, but in many organizations, this kind of leadership is still rare. Transparency, accountability, and clarity about how people fit into the bigger picture—these are not soft skills. They are performance drivers. If your team feels psychologically safe, they will take risks, ask better questions, and deliver stronger results. If they don’t, they will play small. Culture is the system that drives outcomes. If you’re not cultivating it intentionally, it’s costing you more than you think.