In a negotiation,your team is making a huge progress and your opponent is ready to reconcile,your ceo calls and says withdraw?what will you do?why?

Sir, CEO is a descision maker, who will analyse all the information and will take an approrpiate descision that is beneficial to the company in long run. If he says No he must have a reason for that.

You have to hold the negotiation in your winning note but without commitments and get back to your CEO and give a report to put on record your progress and benefits of the contract.

If he still persists you can ask if he is willing to share the grounds of his decision.

According to CEO's decision you must inform your opponent party.

It is indeed a difficult situation! But depends on how flexible your CEO is!

Some CEOs will not take back their word just because they are CEO and they said so, but good ones will sit, listen, think, measure, decide, and will tell you what is his decision based on too!

Myself, I will step up and explain why we need this project and what benefit will it bring to the company, and will also try to know the reasons behind his decision, if it is something he misunderstood or something that me and my team can solve then we will definitely get it done. If it was something larger than our hierarchy and e explains that, then there is nothing to do about it, but i will make sure to come up with an alternative project or a plan B so to lift my team's spirit and keep them going!

I will convince my CEO that we have won the battle already and he is expecting me or our company to run like coward from the battle field as I am just an employee and will surely find a good job in future but being a CEO it would reflect very bad on his reputation and also company reputation . I will put it very politely and also will motivate him that he can go for kill her and get the deal as enjoy it.

talk to my CEO and if he wants take him to the next meeting as a listener, But left or right I will get the Project.

I would update him on the latest progress so that he has the current situation. This will allow him to make the best decision.

This situation happened to me when I was bidding for modern state library in Chennai (India), But I could explain the situation to my president and bagged the order ! which was almost USD $5 Million and finally was appreciated by him for my team effort.

I will try my level best to make him understand   

CEO is the decision-maker, and his decision must be respected, no question in his commitment to the success of the company, and probably he has a new vision for the future of the project that was not clear at the time of negotiation.And my role is to identify the reasons for this decision to take advantage of the results in the next projects.We should also avoid the negative feeling for team work quickly. by explane the new reasons.

CEO knows what he is doing , thats why he is CEO , he already did his research and then he ordered team to withdraw , he is well informed by the team so no harm if you withdraw cause you didn't finalize the negotiation.

There is no harm to withdraw because you have not finalized or committed anything with the customer. You are in the middle of the negotiation and you CEO is asking to withdraw, no need to be panic, simply go for it.

I am sure being a smart manager you will figuare out why CEO asks you to withdraw. If in your opinion, you have not provided him with latest situation update, then you must quickly do it with a apology for not updating him before.

You should refrain from defending your actions and show rosy picture, what if the risk appetite of the company is consumed and CEO does not want to pursue any further to avoid further risk? and what if your judgement about winning is wrong and turns out differently and makes you lose? then you have no face to CEO and no face to your team.

In any organisation, CEO is in right position to make decision, our duty is to keep him abreast with latest situation update so that he takes decision with full picture.