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Mastering Business Negotiation

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Mastering Business Negotiation

A Working Guide to Making Deals and Resolving Conflict

Jossey-Bass,

15 min read
10 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

Negotiation is a game. This is the rule book.


Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

Authors Roy J. 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. getAbstract recommends their book to everyone who is serious about learning the art of negotiation, especially novices.

Summary

The Game of Negotiation

Negotiation happens all the time. People negotiate with themselves, their loved ones and their co-workers. A few governing principles guide each exchange. Mastering these principles will let you pursue your goals more consciously throughout the negotiation process, and will help you pay better attention to your relationships with those involved. Start by recognizing that you usually care about the outcome of your negotiations. (If you genuinely don't care, don't negotiate.) The investment in a negotiation is both intellectual and emotional. Work out your approach with the other people involved, not in isolation. Your final deals must take your relationships with them into account. Thus, you can't practice a single approach to negotiation; you must adapt your technique depending on who you're negotiating with and how important that relationship is.

Thinking of negotiation as a game sometimes helps. Like a game, it has understandable rules. Events aren't random, but occur according to certain patterns that vary depending upon who is playing. Since inexperienced negotiators don't realize this, they enter negotiations without clear goals, cling ...

About the Authors

Roy J. Lewicki has published more than 30 books including Negotiation, Negotiation: Readings, Exercises and Cases and Essentials of Negotiation. He is a professor at Ohio State University. Alexander Hiam has published several books including Marketing for Dummies and Motivational Management.


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