1️⃣ No BATNA still has levers HBR’s May-June piece argues that weak-BATNA negotiations are not dead ends: leaders can still use partial substitutes, procedural moves and hidden interests.

💡 Why it matters Dependency is common in suppliers, regulators and enterprise deals. The job is to change the table before accepting the terms.

☕ Coffee talk Who in the room has confused “we cannot walk away” with “we cannot move”?

2️⃣ Risk is moving into the operating model BCG’s Risk and Compliance 2026 says leaders face export controls, sanctions, regulatory divergence and data-localization demands, while AI adds new scale.

💡 Why it matters More controls and headcount will not keep up. Risk now needs product, supply chain, data and governance decisions wired together.

☕ Coffee talk Which board still thinks compliance is a department, not a design constraint?

3️⃣ M&A culture is decided in the rules INSEAD says merger culture fails when leaders confuse equal power with fairness, stated values with lived behavior, and local differences with incompatibility.

💡 Why it matters Integration is less about slogans than decision rights. Employees watch the rules, not the launch memo.

☕ Coffee talk After the deal closes, who gets to keep their way of working and who has to pretend?