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| 1. Sales Effectiveness Training: The Breakthrough Method to Become Partners with your Customers Carl D. Zaiss and Thomas Gordon, Ph.D. Surprise! A sales book tops my list of negotiation resources. But this sales book focuses on the most basic communication strategies which, if mastered, form the basis of any interaction--including negotiation. Sales Effectiveness Training is an offshoot of Gordon's earlier book, Parental Effectiveness Training (PET), itself an invaluable negotiations resource. But I didn't think that even I could convince people to read a parental training manual to improve their negotiation skills. For extra credit, check out PET; it's well written, by Gordon alone; he develops his examples in greater depth than is done in Sales Effectiveness Training. What's exciting about Sales Effectiveness Training is its unique emphasis on skills we'd otherwise overlook. When most people come to me for advice, they want to know what to say, and how to say it. But the most important thing is how you listen, not what you say. This book puts the importance of listening skills -- both as a technique for understanding and as a method of creating rapport in the context of sales effectiveness. Future Batna.com articles will examine these principles in the specific context of negotiations; but the material in Sales Effectiveness Training is highly valuable as is.
2. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In The foundation of all great negotiation books, Getting to Yes gives you the real essence of mutual gains negotiation. It's a neat, concise, little paperback, and a fast read. It's so neat and concise, in fact, that you should buy multiple copies and hand them out to people you like - or to people you want to like you. I've read it a dozen or so times and I keep finding new insights. The main ideas of the book are that positional negotiation is pointless, and that our negotiations should focus on interests rather than positions. As far as I'm concerned, if that's the only thing you recall from reading this book, you'll have learned something indispensable. But, by the time you finish Getting to Yes, you'll be convinced that negotiation is a simple matter of figuring out what you really want, what the other side wants, and working out the space where those interests intersect -- despite the generalizations, deletions, and distortions the other side might use to confuse you. One of the leading fundamental constructs presented in Getting to Yes - which differs radically from my own number one tenet - is "separate the people from the problem." Getting to Yes proposes that problems exist objectively and can be analyzed on their own merits, independent of people's perceptions, attributions, and relationships. My contention is that a problem only exists to whatever extent it is perceived by the beholder. As such , there is no problem if you separate the people from it. In real life, it's impossible to disentangle people issues from discussions of "concrete substance." Regardless of the prescriptive in Getting to Yes, real problem solving negotiations require constant simultaneous attention to the problem and the people. The skills you really need to extract and understand others' perceived interests in the context of a relationship aren't taught in Getting to Yes. The book diagnoses the conditions that cause difficulty in negotiation, but doesn't offer all components of the cure. Nevertheless, one dose each of Sales Effectiveness Training and Getting to Yes should cure just about anything that ails any normal negotiation. As John Kenneth Galbraith says of Getting to Yes, "This is by far the best thing I've ever read about negotiation...equally relevant for the individual who would like to keep his friends, property, and income and the statesman who would like to keep the peace." What other endorsement do you need?
3. Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion I read this book each time I begin to put together a business and marketing plan. It gives a highly regarded social psychologist's perspective on people and the way you can really manipulate...uh, I mean, understand them. Yeah, that sounds better. Seriously, though, the main point of this book is that though there are countless tactics that "compliance professionals" (otherwise known as salespeople, telemarketers, the more enlightened dictators, etc.) use to get you to say yes, each of these tactics falls into one of six basic categories. Each category is governed by its own psychological principle: reciprocation, consistency, social proof, authority, liking, and scarcity. These six principles - combined with sel f-interest, the unspoken seventh - are the weapons of influence used against you by compliance professionals whenever they get you to agree to anything. Even if you don't think you want to use these tactic yourself, chances are that you already use at least a few of them instinctively. And if you can identify and explain each of them in ten words or less after reading this book, you'll have at least significantly increased your awareness. The best way to maximize Influence is by combining it with Fisher and Brown's Getting Together, which is described below. Even though Influence is strong in its discussion of the six weapons, you'll need to read between the lines and make your own inferences in order to apply the weapons to your own negotiating behavior. Influence is more an analysis of types of influence than a how-to-influence manual; however, it is a good breakdown of the techniques. And with over a quarter of a million copies sold worldwide, it's clear that someone's getting the message. And that has nothing to do with the mind-control "buy me" holograph on the front cover (just kidding).
4. Getting Past No: Negotiating Your Way from Confrontation to Cooperation Sometimes I'm tempted to tell people to bypass Getting to Yes and just go straight to this spin-off. It imparts the same essence of mutual-gains negotiation, and additionally includes lessons in good basic strategy for dealing with others' negotiation tactics, tricks, and attacks. While Getting to Yes gives you the foundation of principle-centered negotiation, this book focuses on what to do when that principle-centered negotiation breaks down due to the other side's deceitful, confused, or just plain difficult behavior. If this were a sales book, it would be called something like "Dealing with Sales Objections," but as a negotiation book, it's even more effective: It addresses ways of identifying and dealing with common barriers we all face when trying to strike deals. Getting Past No has the same concise, pithy style as Getting to Yes, which makes the tactics sound a lot simpler than they prove to be when you try to put them into practice. But as an analysis of difficult negotiation and as a general roadmap to the land of "Don't get mad, don't get even, get what you want!", it really can't be beat.
5. The Social Animal The Social Animal is a lengthy book and it might seem a little pedantic at first, but its basic presentation of humans as a social species is wel l- researched and well -written. The chapters on self-justification, conformity, and social cognition are especially valuable as a negotiations resource, though the entire book will influence your understanding of human behavior. If Fisher (of Getting to Yes) is the authority on getting started with mutual gains, then Aronson has created the ultimate intro to social psychology. Though Aronson and Fisher have similar status in their respective fields, their origins have little in common. You might catch Fisher roaming the hallowed halls of Harvard Law in a jacket and tie, while Aronson can be found in his Birkenstocks, humored by the pierced and tattooed students of Santa Cruz. Imagine setting the two of them on the world peace puzzle: more people working together, less social prejudice, and maybe even better grades.
6. Unlimited Power If you watch any late-night infomercials, you've probably seen our man Tony grinning (or was that grimacing?) at you from the TV. Or maybe he was convincing some of his disciples that they, too, have the power to walk barefoot over hot coals. All that hype -- and some of the more annoying elements of his public persona- -made me not want to recommend this book at all. But the truth is, I'd ignore everything in this book except pages 197-342, where he talks about actual negotiation and how to interact with people outside your own head. This book might be a little too self-help oriented, and perhaps too all-purpose for some readers. But there is valuable information about rapport building and reframing perspective, and that's worth the price of admission. Additionally, Robbins' discussion of NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming, is one of the sanest - sounding explanations I've read of a science that can get really confusing in the hands of other writers. While he clearly defines NLP, Robbins does push the limits of the science here and there and tends to overdo the emphasis on NLP as a panacea for ironing out differences and making your opponents like you. But then, if you're Tony Robbins, you probably get to think whatever you want. 7. Negotiating for Dummies Not to be confused with Negotiating With Dummies (which might be a good Batna.com article, come to think of it), this is another book I didn't want to recommend, but had to. And I'm not sure I really do recommend it wholeheartedly, though I have to admit that I'm compelled to thumb through it from time to time and read various sections. Apart from its strength of being divided into very short, very digestible sections, this book contributes to negotiations literature the idea of the pause button: the notion that sometimes it's best to take a deep breath and back off instead of reacting impulsively to derailing tactics employed by the other side. Of all the books on the list, this is definitely the one to keep in the bathroom, for all those times you have a few spare minutes and feel like multitasking.
8. Getting Together: Building Relationships as We Negotiate Very few times have I suggested a book that has brought others more grief on my account than this one. My insistence on quoting to anyone who will listen from the chapter on reliability will give you deep insight into my psyche and compulsions. Have I mentioned that being reliable is important to me? Getting Together expands on yet another element of mutual-gains negotiation: the need to develop ongoing, working relationships with the people we deal with. Functional relationships can accommodate conflict, speed reconciliation, and generally make the process of negotiation kinder and gentler at work, as well as in your personal and professional life (unless, of course, you're not reliable).
9. In Business as in Life--You Don't Get What You Deserve, You Get What You Negotiate You've probably seen Chester Karass's picture in any one of the airline magazines - he has probably the most successful seminar series going. Of course, the picture on all his materials is twenty years old, but who's counting? This book is a great guide to the tactics and tricks of negotiating. I'm not exactly an advocate of the strategies laid out, but his knowledge of knavery is well documented. Whenever I talk to people about the tricks of Karass, they're fascinated(kind of like the way some people watch Penn and Teller and want to know how the tricks work so they can try them at home. One note of caution: Karrass bases his conclusions about aspiration levels on his research, but closer inspection of the significance criteria used would probably give Aronson and his academic ilk a heart attack! Karrass's conclusions reflect keen observations but not always scientific fact - so keep the old maxim, "Lies, damn lies, and statistics' in the back of your mind and then strategically place this book on your desk so everyone will fear you.
10. The Manager as Negotiator: Bargaining for Cooperation and Competitive Gain After you've graduated from the basics and feel like you want a book with Ivy League substance, check out this title: It's the advanced course in understanding mutual gains. Your knowledge of it will really impress the other kids on the block. In this book, again, the advice is not prescriptive; it won't tell you how to negotiate as a manager, or with one. The analysis and case studies are helpful, and the book as a whole gives you a sense of managers' bargaining perspectives. This book discusses strategies for managing the tension between competition and cooperation. It also enters the current debate surrounding game theory, which is both challenging and interesting as it applies to negotiations. Not a weekend book, though--this one's more like a textbook for the advanced and very curious negotiator.
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| Some of you out there might not feel like reading the books. Or you might be facing long commutes with nothing better to do than surf radio channels and make crank calls on your car phone. If this sounds like you, check out the audiotapes listed below - and give the cell phone a break.
1. Getting to Yes. If you don't feel like reading the book, at least listen to the tape, even though it shortcuts the book's basic principles a bit. In fact, buy one for everyone you know, FedEx a copy to each of your negotiation counterparts...and warn them that you'll be using the ideas here in your next deal-making session. 2. Getting Past No The advantage of this tape is that the more subtle nuances of communication - and the problems you might face in trying to communicate with certain people -come through really well in the audio format. The two hours you'll spend listening to these cassettes, especially in combination with Getting to Yes, could be the best hours you spend learning about negotiation.
3. How to Deal With Difficult Peopl Drs. Rick and Rick are entertainers extraordinaire: Think Abbott and Costello, or maybe they're closer to the Car Talk brothers of NPR fame. With a cameo by Max Headroom, this tape contains some of the best available discussion of rapport building, with the added pleasure of real humor. And if you question the value of "match, pace, lead," listen to these guys. At the end of the tape, you might still be unconvinced, but you'll at least enjoy the discourse. Hearing these two perform some of the tactics and tricks of truly difficult people adds a dimension of understanding unmatched by anything in print.
4. You Can Negotiate Anything These two cassettes give you the essence of Herb Cohen's charismatic style: If nothing else, listening to this guy will convince you that you don't have to be smooth or slick to be a good communicator. The New York accent is so entertaining that 20 minutes or so into the tapes, you might just find yourself wishing for a nice bagel and lox special (just like my mama use to make).
5. Mark McCorkmack On Negotiating These cassettes do a good job of boiling down just about every great anecdote and lesson from the original book, in the author's distinctive voice. Mark McCormack, Founder and Chairman of the International Marketing Group (the worldís largest sports marketing and athletic management organization), has some enlightening stories to tell about his life as a sports agent. In fact, if anything, too many of the stories draw from his agency experiences. Of course, if you're a sports fan, or a serious student of the film "Jerry Maguire," this may be just be negotiating tool for you. I don't think the phrase "Show me the money" appears here, though. And there are definitely no adorable little kids. But they'd just distract you from your driving anyway. Also by McCormack, What They Donít Teach You at the Harvard Business School. A Note from Amazon.com Amazon.com is pleased to have Batna.com in the Amazon.com associates list selected books in an editorial context Thank you for shopping with an Amazon.com associate. Sincerely, Jeff Bezos P.S. We guarantee you the same high level of customer service Copyright 2000, Batna.com eric@batna.com |