Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People

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.)

What is common among Donald Trump, Benjamin Franklin, J. P. Morgan, Sony's Akio Morita, your boss, your customer and your daughter?They will all bargain with you for things they need and more importantly, for things you need from them.Rchard Shell's practical, easy to understand book lays the intriguing art of negotation bare. Unlike other "coaches", Shell invokes real examples of multi billion dollar deals to get his point across and this is what sets this book apart. You will not see just what needs to be done but also how to do it. Shell serves you the bargaining do's and don'ts hot from the negotiating tables of legendary leaders of our times as well of past. We hear how Benjamin Franklin and Mahatma Gandhi negotiated their way into the system that was unbiased and unjust and managed to use it to their advantage.We see how Sony became a household brand because Morita said no to a deal of a lifetime when he thought he wan't getting a good deal.Shell starts with fundamentals, 6 of them, to help you realize your style of bargaining and best strategy according to your style. He gets into leverage and strategy and then explains 4 principles that will guide you through the actual process of negotiation. He even provides a chart for you to maintain, if you think you are confused or nervous. With the tools available in this book, and a little practice, you can gain self confidence needed for winning on the negotiation table.

I actually found this to be a pretty interesting read, which I think is saying something about a negotiation book.I picked this up to help with my career in general - I didn't have any upcoming negotiations I was worried about, but I do have to negotiate on behalf of myself and my employer fairly frequently, and it's an area I've looked to improve at. I wasn't expecting to really learn that much about it from a book, but Shell lays things out in a simple and easy-to-follow way that makes sense and is easy to remember. There are plenty of tips, not just about how to negotiate but how to develop your own negotiation style. And while he clearly favors some styles over others, he's upfront about this and still manages to give advice for those who choose to go a different route.I haven't had a chance to put my new knowledge to the test yet, but at the very least I feel confident that the next negotiation I step into, I'll know how to prepare and what to look for. And if I don't feel confident at the time, this book includes an appendix to help you organize negotiation prep ahead of time as well.

One of the leading manuals/theory to application on negotiation, conflict management, and management in general. Applies to everything from low and higher level business management to families to hostage negotiations, showing how there is so much in common with different challenges. An absolutely essential piece for any manager-to-be, or anyone involved in any kind of relationship (neighbors, family, manager/employees, business negotiations, arbitrations, mediations, buyer & sellers). Shell points out in this easy to read, thorough and insightful how conflict management truly impacts an individual's personal and professional life, and how understanding these dynamics can indeed lead to acceptable if not highly positive conclusions. Read it as a master's student, use it as a professional, needs to be used in every management program anywhere, and wish it had been required in an intro-psych course.