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How to Win Any Negotiation

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How to Win Any Negotiation

Without Raising Your Voice, Losing Your Cool, or Coming to Blows

Career Press,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

Negotiation is a game for nice guys. Win by being reasonable, willing to compromise and attentive to others’ needs.

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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

Robert Mayer’s hobby is collecting negotiating tricks, and over the past 40 years he seems to have encountered nearly all of them. Here, he presents 38 techniques that just about anyone can learn to use to negotiate everything from house prices to car leases to executive salaries. Nevertheless, you’ll encounter some bumps along the way. Meyer has to stretch a bit for his LANCER acronym, for example, and he sometimes lapses into jargon. Despite these minor problems, he is almost Solomonic in his ability to come up with ways to divide shares equitably among parties. getAbstract believes that both seasoned and novice negotiators can learn from Mayer’s wisdom. Next time you’re making an expensive purchase, you’ll be able to put his ideas to good use.

Summary

Accentuate the Positive

People who win negotiations usually have a positive attitude and expect a lot from themselves. Negative attitudes breed failure. To win negotiations, master the concepts of LANCER: linkage, alignment, needs, control, evaluation and reading.

  • Linkage – Get to know the other people around the negotiating table. This will enable you to lead and persuade them. Be friendly. The others may be your opponents, but they are not your enemies. In fact, if they consider you a friend, they will be more flexible and open to your suggestions. When a Delta Airlines plane crashed, killing 137 people, Delta sent employees to the homes of the victims’ relatives to express their condolences. As a result, very few of the relatives sued the company, because they felt close to Delta and its employees. Your involvement with the other parties changes the way they treat you and the dynamics of the negotiation.
  • Alignment – Use the energy of the other parties to make your own case stronger. In other words, practice a kind of negotiating martial arts. In this phase, minimize the other parties’ resistance to your proposal. Present hypothetical cases...

About the Author

Robert Mayer is a lawyer who has appeared on more than 130 radio and TV shows, and has conducted negotiating workshops for universities, government agencies, private companies and professional associations.


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