Hehe. The comparison is both amusing and apt. I’m often in the “executive” position in this scenario and this barrier between the angry team/customer/partner and the people doing engineering work really pays in spades. The people doing the “real” work on both sides usually avoid animosity and the management teams slugging it out in conference rooms usually understand that the dance they’re doing is just business as usual and not personal. When the separation is violated you can have engineers doing shoddy work because they’re stressed or emotionally overloaded. Early in my career I was in that situation and made some very pointed comments that the company’s CEO had to smooth over.
If you do a really good job at handling the communication separation the business relationship is stronger after and each side better understands one another’s needs and motivations. My foot in mouth moment ended up turning into a larger business arrangement because the CEO turned it into a positive experience.
While not a universally perfect negotiating book, I’ve found “Never Split the Difference” to be an interesting tome on making the best of adversarial business situations.