Awareness, Acumen and the Art of Commercial Discipline
“Awareness, Acumen and the Art of Commercial Discipline”
an interview with Duncan Ward, ex‑Oracle
If science is the IQ, art is the EQ of commercial success.
When I sat down with Duncan Ward, for my series of 'Commercial Conversations with Leaders' there was an immediate sense of calm precision, a certainty and confidence. He was thoughtful, measured, and carried the kind of commercial understanding that comes from three decades of selling, negotiating and navigating complex organisations, contracts and commercial requirements. Duncan isn’t a showman, far from it, but he is a skilled practitioner, and that’s why he’s such a compelling voice in this series of interviews with commercial leaders, with the aim of helping others to improve commercial behaviours and value in their business.
We began with a simple but provocative scenario from a business that has asked for my help in ‘becoming more commercial’, it’s a company turning over just under £100 million, keeping c£1.5 million in profit. Money is leaking everywhere in the business from overruns, inefficiencies, missed opportunities, low recovery rates, lack of accountability and leadership. I asked him if he thought was cultural, organisational… what’s going on?
Duncan paused then answered with characteristic clarity.
“It’s most likely an awareness thing. Not everyone is tuned into what that actually means for the company as a whole.”
This became the thread that runs through our entire conversation, commercial awareness is not innate, and therefore must be taught, reinforced and embedded, consistently.
Nobody’s born commercial
I pushed him… If awareness is the issue, how do we create it?
Duncan did not hesitate.
“It can be as simple as helping people understand how the mechanics of the business actually work.”
He breaks it down in plain terms, meaning revenue, costs, inputs, fixed overheads, recovery rates. The basics. The stuff leaders assume everyone knows, but most really don’t.
He makes a powerful point:
“People don’t know what they don’t know. They come out of school with no concept of pensions, tax, compound interest… unless you help them understand how business works, how can you expect them to appreciate the impact of their decisions and actions?”
This is where Duncan is at his best in my mind, cutting through complexity with a very practical, human insight. He argues that ‘leaders massively overestimate how much their people understand’, and this assumption erodes commercial performance.
“Leaders presume people know the company vision, how things work, what standards of performance are expected,” he says. “But if they’re not documented, reiterated, reinforced… how would they know? They might have been told once ten years ago, but that has no bearing on their understanding in today’s world’’
Simply then, in our conversation we agreed that commercial awareness is not a one‑off induction but a continuous cultural practice.
From Fire Extinguishers to $25m software deals
To understand Duncan’s perspective, it might help to understand his journey. He started selling door‑to‑door fire safety products at 18, later, telephone systems, then IT equipment and latterly software, cloud services and enterprise technology. His career culminated in 14 years at Oracle, working with Global Systems Integrators and major Government Departments such as HMRC, DWP and Cabinet Office.
Contracts worth $25 million+ over five years were not unusual.
He earned his place in Oracle’s President’s Club multiple times being the top 1–2% of global sales performers.
This is a man who has lived the full spectrum of selling from transactional, strategic, technical, political, relational and commercial.
Hunters and farmers
I asked him a question many people seem to struggle with… What’s the difference between a salesperson and someone who builds commercial relationships?
Duncan drew a clean line for me, a salesperson is a Hunter, mostly chasing new business, hitting quarterly quotas and moving fast.
A commercial relationship leader is more of a Farmer, nurturing long‑term clients, expanding value over time and seeking to ensure Customer Success.
He said both matter equally, but they are not the same. Then he dropped a bombshell that every CEO or CFO should hear…
“A salesperson can absolutely sell something that’s good for them, because of their commission structure, but bad for the company and even the client.”
He lists the risks:
selling at too low a margin
selling a product that doesn’t fit
under‑scoping delivery
creating downstream liability
earning upfront commission while the company absorbs the future losses
This is why well considered compensation plans matter, why deal governance matters and why commercial oversight matters.
“Once you’ve written a comp plan and given it to salespeople, they will follow it line by line. That’s how they maximise their earning opportunity.”
It’s a reminder that commercial discipline is not just about trust, it’s also about the structure.
IQ meets EQ
Duncan talks about the science and the art of sales, so I asked him to unpack it for me.
The science is the structure, being the CRM, pipeline management, data analysis , sales operations, governance practices and margin discipline.
Whereas the art is the human element, namely the EQ, reading the room, adapting to personalities, knowing when to push forward and when to hold back.
He describes it beautifully…
“If the science is the IQ, the art is the EQ.”
And both matter. Without the science, deals are unpredictable. Without the art, deals may never happen.
Everyone’s in the business of business
We shifted to commercial leadership more broadly, and I asked him whether ‘commercial’ is just a department. He shook his head.
“Every department must have commercial acumen….HR, legal, facilities, ops, marketing… everyone. They all buy, they all sell (internally and/or externally), they all have budgets, impact, choices etc. There’s no escape.”
This is one of Duncan’s strongest insights in my view, that commercial thinking is not a job title, it’s a cultural expectation and a requirement for the whole business.
He argued that leaders must understand how other parts of the business work… not just their own silo. The more they understand the whole system, the more valuable they and their teams become.
He talked about awareness, collaboration and systems thinking.
These are the behaviours he believes elevate commercial performance.
The power of “No”
We talked about sales deal governance and the tension between sales and legal, sales and finance, sales and compliance.
He tells a brilliant story about Oracle’s global approval system. Every non‑standard deal had to go through layers of scrutiny. The approvers’ job was simple, he said, “Their job was to say No!.”
The first “No” wasn’t actually a rejection, it was an invitation to justify the deal properly. Duncan learned that internal selling was often harder than external selling. Much like working with clients, it was necessary to spend time building credibility and trust with the internal deal approvers.
He describes rounds of negotiation, red lines, precedent risks such as Government Departments sharing commercial intel about suppliers, and the discipline required to walk away from deals - even big ones - if they set the wrong precedent for the business as a whole.
It’s a masterclass in commercial governance.
5 steps to commercial confidence
We discussed how we would help a senior leader become more commercially effective.
Here’s a clear outline and structured approach:
Gap analysis … what do people currently understand, what are the gaps?
Identify the blanks … where is awareness missing in people and thus the business?
Education and upskilling … tailored to each group.
Create a culture … to elevate commercial thinking and behaviours
Ongoing reinforcement … making commercial thinking part of everyday behaviour.
It’s practical, scalable and rooted in real experience.
Culture is commercial
Finally, we talked culture. I asked Duncan whether culture and commercial performance are connected. He didn’t hesitate.
“They’re intertwined.”
He reacts strongly to leaders who dismiss culture as irrelevant and he knows of course my (positive) position on culture as an enabler and a commercial advantage.
“When leaders suggest culture is irrelevant, they risk the business becoming the Wild West… anything goes. It can be toxic.”
He explains how visible commercial behaviours such as spending, decision making, discipline, rewards and similar, shape culture just as much as values or leadership behaviours.
A manager who spends modestly for his team creates one cultural signal. A manager who spends £10,000 on a quarterly lunch for his team, creates another.
Culture is not abstract. It’s highly commercial.
Commercial by design, not by accident
What struck me most about the conversation with Duncan is his blend of humanity and commercial rigour. He believes people can learn commercial acumen. He believes leaders must (develop it) teach it. He believes culture and commercial performance are inseparable. And he believes that awareness - true, practical awareness - is the foundation of commercial success.
This conversation is a reminder that businesses don’t become commercial by accident. They become commercial through education, structure, governance, and leadership discipline.
Duncan Ward has lived all of it. Thank you.
#buildingbetterbusiness #commercialdiscipline #commercialleadership #comercialvalue #leadershipcoaching
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