You've read the classic on win-win negotiating, Getting to Yes but
so have they, the folks you are now negotiating with. How can you get
a leg up and win?
Win-win negotiation is an appealing idea on an intellectual level: Find
the best way to convince the other side to accept a mutually beneficial
outcome, and then everyone gets their fair share. The reality, though,
is that people want more than their fair share; they want to win. Tell
your boss that you've concocted a deal that gets your company a piece of
the pie, and the reaction is likely to be: Maybe we need to find someone
harder-nosed than you who knows how to win. We want the whole pie, not
just a slice. However, to return to an earlier era before win-win
negotiation was in fashion and seek simply to dominate or bully
opponents into submission would be a step in the wrong direction -- and
a public relations disaster.
By showing how to win at win-win negotiating, Lawrence Susskind provides
the operational advice you need to satisfy the interests of your back
table -- the people to whom you report. He also shows you how to deal
with irrational people, whose vocabulary seems limited to no, or with
the proverbial 900-pound gorilla. He explains how to find trades that
create much more value than either you or your opponent thought
possible. His brilliant concept of the trading zone -- the space where
you can create deals that are good for them but great for you, while
still maintaining trust and keeping relationships intact -- is a fresh
way to re-think your approach to negotiating. The outcome is often the
best of both possible worlds: You claim a disproportionate share of the
value you've created while your opponents still look good to the people
to whom they report.
Whether the venue is business, a family dispute, international
relations, or a tradeoff that has to be made between the environment and
jobs, Susskind provides a breakthrough in how to both think about, and
engage in, productive negotiations.
