Mastering Business Negotiation: A Working Guide to Making Deals and Resolving Conflict

Whether we know it or not, each of us engages in some type of negotiation virtually every day - yet we still dread the idea and activity of negotiating itself. And like so many things in life, the best way to get better at a skill is to consciously practice it. The authors of the book -Mastering Business Negotiation - have effectively compressed reams of research and years of negotiation experience into an accessible tool that will help experts and novice negotiators alike. Soundview recommends this book because it offers useful steps, principles and tips that can benefit complex arbitration, everyday negotiations as well as everything in between those diplomacy extremes. Some of the specific skills that the authors showcase include: when to divulge true intentions; how to spot deceptions; when to use collaboration versus compromise as well as a host of other tactics. The reality is that in this life, to get what you want for your vested stakeholders, your organization or for yourself requires polished negotiation skills, which this book can help you acquire - and that fact is not negotiable.

With this book, intended as a `working guide' and a `how-to-guide', the authors have reduced the huge volume of available information on the art of negotiation into an easily accessible resource for busy executives who need to prepare for everyday negotiations. But this book will also be useful for any person wanting to learn the art of negotiating. Negotiating is a bit like breathing. Everybody negotiates constantly -- all day long. You negotiate with your family, friends, shop owners, customers, colleagues...and even with yourself! In fact, we negotiate with ourselves all the time. Self-negotiation is usually a conversation between our more rational self and our impulsive, subconscious self. These are the "should I or shouldn't I" discussions in our heads. According to the authors, the most important thing to understand in negotiating with yourself is to continue to pay attention to both sides of your brain. Learning to listen to your inner voice--your intuition or your gut--may be the best thing you can do to avoid a negotiating disaster (p. 46-47). Fundamentally, negotiation is all about each party's efforts to influence the other. Social interactions are all about influence. No person is an island. Yet most people never study influence in depth, and so they go through life, and negotiations, in constant ignorance of the forces of influence at work around and on them. This book offers down-to-earth advice for learning to play the negotiation game. The authors walk the reader through every negotiating pitfall and opportunity. In the preface the authors tell the readers "we don't make this stuff up." This book is grounded in lots of solid research. I really enjoyed reading it. The following are some notes I took while reading this book that you might find helpful: According to the authors, individuals who master negotiations are rated high in emotional intelligence by their peers, tend to be promoted more rapidly, are more productive and emerge as natural leaders. Whether it's sales, customer service, engineering, management or any other area of business, negotiation skills play a surprisingly large role in career success. This, then, is the negotiation imperative: Recognize the many times each day you have to negotiate and influence others. In doing so, treat these as opportunities to advance your personal goals, help your business prosper, and build stronger supportive relationships in a widening business and professional network. The authors' research shows that the business that negotiates better generally grows and prospers faster than others. According to the authors, to choose the right negotiating strategy, you need to address these two important factors: the outcome and the relationship. When considering the outcome, you need to ask yourself what you will win or lose on the substantive issues in negotiation. When considering the relationship, you must ask how the negotiation process, and the specific outcome settlement, wil

Authors Roy L. Lewicki and Alexander Hiam clearly are familiar with the academic research governing negotiation, but they don't let this direct, pragmatic guide get bogged down in it. In fact, they use many real life examples to clarify their advice. Lewicki and Hiam don't add that much new material to the study of negotiation; experienced negotiators will find much of what they say familiar. However, they deliver a strong, methodical, hard-headed approach. They break negotiation into specific skills, concepts and activities that anyone can study and learn to do more skillfully. At the same time, they are realistic about the challenges involved - and about the fact that sometimes other considerations (such as power or apathy) trump negotiation. They present all this with useful traces of humor. We recommend their book to everyone who is serious about learning the art of negotiation, especially novices.

The authors argue that style is one of the hallmarks of the master negotiator. Roy J. Lewicki, a business professor at Ohio State University and Alexander Hiam, a consultant, argue to master every negotiating opportunity and resolve conflicts, you need to adjust your approach. By considering the importance of both outcome and relationship, you can adapt your tactics to the situation. The following strategies can be adapted: * Avoiding - otherwise known as Lose - Lose. The priorities for both the relationship and the result are low. Neither is important enough to pursue the conflict further. * Accommodating - otherwise known as Lose to Win. Importance of relationship is high; importance of the result is low. * Competing - otherwise known as Win to Lose. Importance of result is high; importance of relationship is low. * Collaborating - otherwise known as Win - Win. Importance of result and relationship is high. * Compromising - otherwise known as Split the Difference. A combination approach. The authors state it is important to prepare for the negotiations. They offer an eight step method: 1. Define the issues and goals. 2. Order the issues and agenda. 3. Analyze the other party. 4. Define the underlying interests. 5. Consult with interested parties. 6. Set goals for the process and outcome. 7. Identify you own limits. 8. Develop supporting arguments. As you interact with the other party, it is important to recognize that everything you do and every decision you make is part of the negotiation. The authors advise following these rules to pilot the middle ground in a competitive negotiation. 1. Stick to your planned target and walk-away points. 2. Do not reveal your target until you are close. 3. Never reveal your walk-away point. 4. Get the other party to make big concessions. 5. Keep your concessions few, slow and small. 6. Investigate the other party's level of concern for the outcome. This book is an invaluable resource for anyone facing a negotiation. And who isn't? The skills and techniques discussed by the authors will prepare everyone, from the high-powered business executive to the person facing informal day-to-day challenges of selling, buying and getting along with colleagues.