How Derrick Chevalier is building Harrison-Chevalier into a negotiation powerhouse by challenging decades of conventional wisdom
For fifteen years, Derrick Chevalier absorbed everything he could from Dr. Chester Karrass, the legendary negotiation authority whose “You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate” seminar remains a huge part of current global business culture. But mentorship, even under a master, only takes you so far. Chevalier spent the next fifteen years in the trenches—consulting rooms, boardrooms, libraries, and negotiation tables spanning continents—where he did massive research and exploration to identify cracks in the foundations of traditional negotiation theory.
The result of that three-decade journey is Harrison-Chevalier (H-C, Inc.), a negotiation training and consulting firm that’s challenging the status quo in a field that hasn’t seen fundamental innovation in generations. At its core sits CNSUF®—the Comprehensive Negotiating Strategies Universal Framework—a proprietary system that Chevalier developed specifically for the complex, interconnected challenges of today’s global economy.
What makes H-C’s approach different? According to AI analysis of the framework, “Unlike traditional frameworks, it emphasizes behavioral intelligence and real-time information gathering over fixed tactical formulas.” In other words, while classic negotiation models offer prescriptive playbooks, CNSUF® trains practitioners to read the room, gather intelligence dynamically, and adapt strategies on the fly. It’s a distinction that matters when you’re navigating multimillion-dollar corporate deals or high-stakes government negotiations where rigid formulas can’t account for human complexity.
Taking On The Giants
Chevalier didn’t just build a new framework—he threw down the gauntlet to the field’s most sacred texts. His book, “EVOLVE OR BE SLAUGHTERED: Negotiation For The 21st Century,” directly challenges pillars of negotiation literature including “Getting To Yes,” “The Negotiating Game,” and “Never Split The Difference.” Rather than simply offering an alternative perspective, the book methodically exposes vulnerabilities in these classic frameworks and provides actionable insights to address their gaps.
The business community has taken notice. The book is a number one bestseller on Amazon, with a 4.9 rating, and recently earned the prestigious International Impact Book Award. Independent reviewers have called it “a commanding, richly layered negotiation manual that shatters conventional wisdom and replaces it with a framework as rigorous as it is revelatory.” For his work, Best of Best Review named Chevalier “Best Negotiation Trainer U.S. for 2026″—a recognition that signals his arrival among the field’s elite practitioners.
Scaling Sophistication
H-C’s client roster reflects the sophistication of its approach. The firm works with top-tier consulting companies along with entrepreneurs and senior executives across a vast range of sectors, and industries dealing with a vast range of issues and high-stakes scenarios: complex sales negotiations, procurement agreements, political conflicts, mergers and acquisitions, and dispute resolution.
What sets the firm’s customized training and consulting services apart is versatility. CNSUF® was designed from the ground up to scale across contexts—from billion-dollar corporate transactions to interpersonal workplace conflicts. This universal applicability means H-C can deliver consistent methodologies while tailoring specific applications to each client’s unique challenges.
But Chevalier isn’t resting on current success. His vision for H-C’s future involves something far more ambitious: proliferating CNSUF® globally through licensing agreements with large-scale consulting firms, businesses and governments. The plan integrates the framework with proprietary AI systems that will handle competitive intelligence gathering, preliminary analysis, and strategic foundations—freeing human negotiators to focus on strategy, execution, and relationship dynamics.
“The CNSUF® framework will inform and guide a great deal of the competitive intelligence and preliminary work, providing the groundwork and structure for tailored strategies and action steps that can be implemented by negotiators,” according to company materials describing the vision. Each organization will work directly with H-C to ensure their AI-enabled CNSUF® implementation aligns with their specific preferences, goals, and objectives.
The Long Game
Beyond business expansion, Chevalier harbors a broader ambition: establishing “EVOLVE OR BE SLAUGHTERED” as a globally recognized authority in the body of knowledge on negotiation and conflict resolution—the kind of foundational text that shapes how future generations of business leaders approach deal-making and problem-solving.
It might appear a bold goal, but given the 4.9 Amazon, and 5-star independent reviews of the book, as well as, the enormous success of clients who are using it, it is likely more of a forgone conclusion,than a stretch. For companies and executives facing increasingly complex negotiations in an interconnected global economy, contacting H-C to schedule a no cost, no obligation consult is the first step to learning more about their proprietary problem-solving approach, including something other firms can’t match: a system built specifically for the challenges they’re actually facing, not the ones their predecessors encountered forty years ago.
In business, as in negotiation, timing matters. And for Harrison-Chevalier, the moment when organizations need fresh thinking about an old discipline means that “The future of negotiation is now” which is why so many smart executives, and those who are seeking the most cutting edge negotiation, and strategic insights for their companies, are embracing EVOLVE and the CNSU Framework, so enthusiastically.
