Most negotiations don’t fail because people lack training.

They fail because the negotiation strategy is flawed.

I help leaders and organizations create measurable economic value in negotiations by shifting focus from tactics to structure, value creation, and trust.

Through the SMARTnership™ and NegoEconomics™ frameworks, organizations typically unlock up to 42% additional value in commercial negotiations—without damaging relationships or increasing risk.

What I Do Differently

I founded The SMARTnership™ Negotiation Organization to move negotiations away from confrontation and toward collaboration that delivers measurable results.

Our award-winning model, NegoEconomics™, helps organizations uncover value that traditional negotiations miss—often up to 42% additional value by redesigning how deals are structured, not just how prices are argued.

And yes—those results are guaranteed.

⸻

Why Organizations Trust SMARTnership™
	•	World’s most awarded negotiation methodology 
               (12+ international awards)
	•	Ranked #3 negotiation workshop globally by Global 
               Gurus
	•	Used by organizations, leaders, and governments in 
               50+ countries
	•	Delivered through a global network of certified 
               partners across continents

We replace outdated tactics with trust, transparency, and value creation—and the outcomes speak for themselves.

⸻

My Background
	•	Former CEO of a public technology company
	•	Doctorate focused on negotiation, artificial   
               intelligence, and trust
	•	Author of 27 books, published in 38 countries
	•	Executive MBA faculty and guest professor 
               worldwide
	•	Judge at international negotiation finals
	•	Ranked Top 3 Negotiation Expert globally by Global 
               Gurus

⸻

What Actually Motivates Me

Titles and trophies are not the point.

What drives me is helping people and organizations achieve more together—not at the expense of others, but with them.

That’s the real power of SMARTnership™.

⸻

If you want negotiations built on trust, measurable value, and outcomes that last, let’s connect.

Keld Jensen

Black Umbrellas

Business Mentor

Vlerick Business School Belgium

My primary areas of teaching and research cover negotiation, conflict management, dispute prevention and resolution as well as workplace relations.

Professor and partner

Teaching and research in negotiation, mediation and conflict / dispute resolution

Professor

Institute for Negotiation Innovation

The INI is a not-for-profit platform that bridges negotiation research and practice; promotes inspiring negotiation thought leadership worldwide;  and mobilizes capacity for higher levels of negotiation competence and excellence: https://ininegotiation.org/

Co-Founder & Vice-President

Project Seshat 

Project Seshat is a spin-off of the Institute for Negotiation Innovation (INI). We seek, through collaboration between academia and practice to advance the state of awareness and knowledge about hybrid warfare ('grey zone conflict) from the negotiator’s perspective and to develop the skills required to negotiate effectively in the context of this global threat in as many of its aspects as possible: https://ininegotiation.org/seshat-geopolitical-negotiation-research/

Member of steering committee

NCMG International, Switzerland

Member of global advisory board

University of Stellenbosch Business School

I teach negotiation, workplace relations, dispute resolution and mediation at the USB and USB-ED Ltd.  I established the Africa Centre for Dispute Settlement (ACDS) at the USB in 2008 and currently also serve as its head (www.usb.ac.za/disputesettlement). It is an African hub for the study and teaching of  consensus-based dispute resolution in all areas affecting business, including conflicts within and between businesses, and between business and the community.

Professor extraordinaire

European Faculty of Law, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Teaching dispute resolution, negotiation, mediation

Visiting Professor

The Virtual Learning Platform

The VLP offers a wide range of cost-effective programmes - from finance, to HR as well as "soft skills" - off a virtual platform. All programmes are developed by leading experts in their respective fields. For more information, please visit www.tvlp.co.za

Director

University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business

Teaching negotiation skills; programme director negotiation skills programme, UCT GSB Executive Education

Teaching fellow

Global Pound Conference

The IMI Global Pound Conference Series - www.globalpoundconference.org - is an ambitious new  project of the International Mediation Institute to create a series of meetings around the world during 2016-17 bringing together all stakeholders involved in dispute prevention and resolution. The theme of the series is “Shaping the future of dispute resolution and improving access to justice.” Based on a series of core questions that participants vote on during each event, we hope to gather sufficient and credible data to better understand the needs of users of dispute resolution services across different jurisdictions and to determine to what extent there are gaps between their expectations and the service and advice they get provided with by courts, arbitrators, mediators as well as by their own internal and external advisors. It is hoped that this will generate new discussions and further research about what types of processes may be most appropriate in given situations and what choices should be provided domestically and internationally.

Chair: Academic Committee

I am South African by birth and very fortunate to work and live in both Europe and South Africa. I am a lawyer by training, having obtained a BA (law) LLB and a doctorate in law from Stellenbosch University, South Africa (but a pretty much 'recovered' one by now). After being admitted to practice in 1982 I returned to Stellenbosch University in 1983 first as senior lecturer in law and thereafter professor of law until March 1997. During this time I was for a while an associate at Chennells Albertyn Attorneys, a human rights firm based in Stellenbosch and chairperson of the local advice office. This was at a time when South Africa was under two separate states of emergency. My experience at the firm and the advice office assisting indigent people who could not afford access to justice made me acutely aware of the limits of the law in providing justice in a context where people were either deprived of basic rights or unable to afford the means for exercising them. This is what really sparked my interest in negotiation, mediation and other consensus-seeing approaches to conflict and dispute resolution as alternatives to recourse to the law. 

I left the law faculty in 1997 to become a "pracademic", spending part of my time practicing as a specialist in the areas of employment relations, negotiation, mediation and dispute / conflict resolution and the rest teaching at South Africa's premier business schools, Stellenbosch University’s Graduate School of Business (USB) and the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town (GSB). Since September 2014 I spend most of my time as professor of management practice at Vlerick Business School in Belgium (www.vlerick.com) teaching and doing research in those fields. Apart from my responsibilities at Vlerick, I currently still hold appointments as professor extraordinaire at the USB, and as visiting professor at IESEG Paris and the European Faculty of Law, Ljubljana, Slovenia. 

I am a certified mediator with the ADR Grp (UK), IMI (The Hague), Conflict Dynamics (South Africa) and CEDR (UK) and until 2014 served as external consultant to the World Bank Group's Office of Mediation Services. Between 2016 and 2018 I served as chair of the Academic Committee of the IMI's Global Pound Conference Series (https://www.imimediation.org/research/gpc/series-data-and-reports/) I currently serve as a member of the leadership group of the International Negotiation Initiative (http://www.ininegotiation.org)

Barney Jordaan

Negotiation is a “soft” skill, right? 

Few things rile me as much as this kind of statement. Referring to negotiation as a “soft” skill dramatically understates its impact and displays a lack of understanding of what negotiation really involves. 

Effective negotiation creates measurable economic value, protects margins, reduces risk, and strengthens competitive advantage – nothing “soft” about that at all. Ironically, it is the so‑called “soft” skills such as active listening, perspective seeking, assertiveness, influencing, emotional and cultural intelligence, that most often determine whether a negotiation succeeds or fails. These are the skills that carry the highest price tag when they’re missing.

Negotiation is, at its core, an individual and joint decision‑making process in which we engage others to try to maximise value, either jointly with our counterpart or mainly for ourselves, depending on the context. It therefore requires the ability and skills to manage three dimensions simultaneously: the relational (“soft”) side, the process that guides the interaction, and the substantive problem to be solved. That requires not only strong interpersonal capabilities but also the ability to do rigorous preparation and planning, strategic thinking, tactical execution, facilitation, analytical ability, creativity, and subject‑matter expertise. 

Add to that an understanding of negotiation psychology, behavioural economics, and cognitive biases, and it becomes clear that negotiation isn’t a soft competency at all. 

www.barneyjordaan.com

Dr. Barney Jordaan

Helping organisations build negotiation competence & conflict-positive cultures. Professor | Mediator | Trainer | Conflict & negotiation advisor and coach

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