#46 – Half Baked Promises: When Contracts Can’t Protect Culture, As Told by Ben & Jerry's
Release Date: 10/28/2025
#51 – Sell Like A Spy: How To Get What You Want Without Asking
Station 4 Negotiation
What if the best sales skills weren’t built in boardrooms, but in backchannels, briefings, and quiet conversations where every word counts? This week on S4N, Gene pulls lessons from the world of espionage and shows why spy tradecraft maps surprisingly well to business negotiation. Drawing from Sell Like a Spy and Netflix’s The Spy, he breaks down what intelligence professionals do differently when the stakes are high and the margin for error is low. Few people can get what they actually need to know without making the conversation feel like an interrogation, a pitch, or a trap. That’s...
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#50 – The Dark Side of Strategic Questions: Why the Most Dangerous Move in a Negotiation Sounds Polite
Station 4 Negotiation
In most negotiations, questions are collaborative tools. They clarify priorities, surface constraints, and move conversations forward. This episode looks at what happens when they’re used for something else. In the first 2026 episode of S4N, Gene examines how questioning shifts from exploration to influence – and why that shift is difficult to recognize in real time. Using examples from illegal gambling and reformed mobster Michael Franzese, the conversation shows how patient, well-timed questions can feel supportive while quietly doing more directional work. Nothing sounds aggressive....
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#49 – The Art of the Meeting: How to Run Meetings That Actually Get Results
Station 4 Negotiation
Are your business meetings stalled, off-track, or simply not delivering results? Say goodbye to all that in 2026. In the last 2025 episode of S4N, Gene draws astonishing parallels between the missteps of world leaders in 1914 and the mistakes we still see in today’s boardrooms, team huddles, and high-stakes negotiations. Using colorful stories from the infamous Sarajevo assassination and the global domino effect that ensued, you’ll be confronted with the real-world consequences of unclear communication, rigid thinking, and poor meeting leadership. Gene decodes how a lack of message...
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#48 – Mr. Hegseth, You’re Wrong: What American History Really Teaches Business Leaders About Strength and Unity
Station 4 Negotiation
This week on S4N, Gene dives straight into one of the loudest leadership debates happening right now: is diversity a competitive advantage, or – as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently claimed – “not our strength”? Gene doesn’t just push back on Hegseth's idea. He brings historical receipts. Using one of the most powerful leadership case studies in American history, he breaks down how Abraham Lincoln built a wartime cabinet that should’ve collapsed under its own contradictions: rivals, skeptics, political opponents, and people who were openly hostile to his agenda. Instead of...
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#47 – Why Deals Break: What Gaza's Ceasefire Teaches About Making Agreements Stick
Station 4 Negotiation
Why do some deals collapse almost as soon as the ink dries? This week on S4N, Gene cuts through the noise of the recent Gaza ceasefire, the Trump administration’s role in shaping it, and the years of history that led up to the conflict, pulling out the hard negotiation truths every leader should know. Gene gets straight to the real failure points – credibility gaps, sloppy execution, and agreements that rely on pressure instead of real buy-in. How does this affect your business? The same traps that derail geopolitical deals are the ones that quietly sink corporate mergers, partnerships,...
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#46 – Half Baked Promises: When Contracts Can’t Protect Culture, As Told by Ben & Jerry's
Station 4 Negotiation
How do you protect what your company stands for – when that can’t be written into a contract? This week, Gene dives into Ben & Jerry’s Unilever deal – and Jerry’s recent exit from the company – to unpack one of the toughest challenges in negotiation: defending values when profit and principle collide. From the ice cream brand’s fight to preserve its social mission to the legal and strategic tools they tried to use to “hardwire” their culture into a corporate merger, this episode explores what happens when ideals hit the limits of a deal. If you’ve ever faced a...
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#45 – Pfizer vs. the White House: Inside the Deal That Changed Drug Pricing
Station 4 Negotiation
The recent drug-pricing clash between Pfizer and the Trump administration wasn’t just another policy fight – it was a huge negotiation in US healthcare. This was a high-wire act: a pharmaceutical giant under intense political pressure, a White House eager for a headline win, and billions of dollars on the line. This week on S4N, Gene breaks down how Pfizer held its ground, built quiet alliances, and seized the exact moment the Trump administration started negotiating against itself. Most importantly, he explains the critical difference between power and influence — and when to use each....
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#44 – Make The Problem Bigger: How to Break Out of a Negotiation Deadlock
Station 4 Negotiation
What if the key to breaking a business deal deadlock isn’t narrowing the focus – but making the problem bigger? This week on S4N, Gene explores the counterintuitive strategy of “enlarging the problem,” drawn from the book Swap: A Secret History of the New Cold War by Drew Hinshaw and Joe Parkinson. With stories from U.S. hostage negotiator Roger Carstens, Gene shows how widening the frame of a stalled conversation can unlock new options and shift outcomes – and gives you a step-by-step, seven-part military decision-making framework you can put to work in your own business...
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#43 – Trump, Trade & Transcontinental Growth: Negotiating International Expansion in a Closing America
Station 4 Negotiation
This week on S4N, Gene breaks down one of the most daring corporate maneuvers in recent memory: Nvidia’s bold push into the Chinese tech market under the shadow of U.S. export controls. Through the lens of The Art of War and real-world strategy, Gene returns to our friend from episode 40, Jensen Huang, to explore how Huang played a complex, high-level game – while balancing political risk, regulatory firepower, and a negotiation counterpart unlike any other: Donald Trump. This episode offers a rare look at how high-stakes corporate negotiations unfold when global markets, national policy,...
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#42 – Knock on That Door: Negotiating the Salary You Deserve, as Told by Three’s Company
Station 4 Negotiation
One question that comes up time and again when people start learning negotiation is: okay, but how do I negotiate my own salary? This week on S4N, Gene takes a close look at that question through the lens of a well-known Hollywood standoff with surprisingly relevant lessons for today’s professionals: the salary dispute that led to Suzanne Somers’ abrupt exit from the iconic sitcom Three’s Company. This episode explores what went wrong, how it could have gone differently, and what it all means for anyone negotiating compensation – whether you’re managing a team or...
info_outlineHow do you protect what your company stands for – when that can’t be written into a contract?
This week, Gene dives into Ben & Jerry’s Unilever deal – and Jerry’s recent exit from the company – to unpack one of the toughest challenges in negotiation: defending values when profit and principle collide.
From the ice cream brand’s fight to preserve its social mission to the legal and strategic tools they tried to use to “hardwire” their culture into a corporate merger, this episode explores what happens when ideals hit the limits of a deal.
If you’ve ever faced a negotiation where what matters most isn’t on the balance sheet, this conversation will change the way you think about leverage, trust, and the true power – and limits – of a contract.
Remember: negotiation is life.
Mentioned in this episode:
- Ice Cream Social: The Struggle for the Soul of Ben & Jerry's by Brad Edmondson
- PennState's Berkey Creamery