Most people can't negotiate at all. They think they can but that's because they haven't defined what it means to win in a negotation. For instance I have a friend who is an aggressive and competitive negotiator who almost always wants to win and for his opponent to lose (WIN - lose). His problem is that he almost always loses but doesn't consider it a loss since he moves the goal posts or he starts to play another game. He goes from a game of business negotiation, loses, then makes it a moral issue where he believes he wins. In fact he loses that too. To top it all off he is also very emotional so he argues from emotion, not logic.
This book would help him. He could see that in most of his big moralistic wins he actually lost and lost big. He would have seen that he was in an inferior position when it came to leverage. Often times he had a lot to lose and a lot to win but since his goal was to win 100% he often lost that much. He came away with nothing. If armed with this book he would know better and would try to get as much as he could in his inferior position. He would be negotiating with logic and not emotion. He would define "winning" in a different way.
However we need not dwell on my friend. Let me tell you what I took away from this book. I learned that figuring out a person's negotiating style and determining who had the leverage were the most important things. If I come across a compromising person with a lot of leverage I become an aggressive negotiator and I try to get as much as possible without losing the deal. If somebody is a weak negotiator I am ruthless regardless of their leverage. If I have all the leverage and nothing to lose I'll be aggressive again. I compromise when I know I have little to know leverage but I never give up that fact to the person I'm negotiating with. Lastly, I always try to make the deal be perceived as a win-win no matter what I was thinking. They get some of what they want but I got most of all I want.
However, I have learned more about negotiating since this book so let me tell you that this is not the end-all, be-all of negotiating books. Read others, take seminars, research different approaches and you'll get better and better. This book gives an amazing foundation for you. It's taught in some law school negotiation classes and it's on a lot of business school class syllabi. It will frame your thinking on negotiations and teach you to be logical instead of emotional.
The book is practical, logical and can be applied the same day you read it. If you read one business book this year read this one. The other is just noise (unless it's another classic in negotiating.)
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Popular Highlights in this book
A negotiation is an interactive communication process that may take place whenever we want something from someone else or another person wants something from us.Highlighted by 1,243 Kindle readers- The more specific your vision of what you want and the more committed you are to that vision, the more likely you are to obtain it.Highlighted by 1,225 Kindle readers
- Our goals give us direction, but our expectations are what give weight and conviction to our statements at the bargaining table.Highlighted by 1,208 Kindle readers
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