Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People

What is common among Donald Trump, Benjamin Franklin, J. P. Morgan, Sony's Akio Morita, your boss, your customer and your daughter?They will all bargain with you for things they need and more importantly, for things you need from them.Rchard Shell's practical, easy to understand book lays the intriguing art of negotation bare. Unlike other "coaches", Shell invokes real examples of multi billion dollar deals to get his point across and this is what sets this book apart. You will not see just what needs to be done but also how to do it. Shell serves you the bargaining do's and don'ts hot from the negotiating tables of legendary leaders of our times as well of past. We hear how Benjamin Franklin and Mahatma Gandhi negotiated their way into the system that was unbiased and unjust and managed to use it to their advantage.We see how Sony became a household brand because Morita said no to a deal of a lifetime when he thought he wan't getting a good deal.Shell starts with fundamentals, 6 of them, to help you realize your style of bargaining and best strategy according to your style. He gets into leverage and strategy and then explains 4 principles that will guide you through the actual process of negotiation. He even provides a chart for you to maintain, if you think you are confused or nervous. With the tools available in this book, and a little practice, you can gain self confidence needed for winning on the negotiation table.

Un libro que nos ayuda a estructurar la negociación y nos da tácticas según la situación para salir mejor posicionados.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.This book is a pretty good guide that helps you understand many strategies and tactics you can use OR that will be used against you in negotiations. Shell gives many examples of the strategies in tactics in action to help drive the points home.There’s a “personality test” of sorts you can take to understand the type of negotiator you are, which helps guide how you would use the different strategies and tactics.In many ways, this books almost feels like a watered down version of Robert Cialdini’s Influence book, but with a focus on negotiations. In fact, Shell even says in the beginning that his writing of this book was inspired by Influence.I’m not entirely sure this book truly lives up to all its promises, but it is still an informative read.

Enjoyed throughout the entire book

Great book for anyone looking to improve their negotiating skills, whether for personal or business negotiations.

Very useful book. Ideas are presented slowly and carefully and are not difficult to understand. So glad I got it.

An excellent and affordable resource that breaks down negotiations for everyone. As of this time the audio book is not on the same version.

I use this book in a class on dispute resolution. Of course, I have to use Getting to Yes because everyone in the world, living or dead, says its the best book on negotiation. But like Getting to Yes, and virtually every book and video and lecture and paper, it promotes the notion of principled negotiation. Which is wonderful and ideal. A standard to strive for in every walk of life.But my real world experience tells me, at least in my field of Real Estate Development and Construction, that a lot of lying goes on. Bargaining for Advantage, doesn't promote it, but it talks about people who find lying, exaggerating, leaving things out etc. to be within the ethical boundaries, and, most certainly, legal ones. There are even published guidelines for lawyers to know how much they can lie and still be ethical. It is wrong to talk about puffing and fraud at the same time. Fraud is a crime. It can land someone in jail, and should. But when a general contractor tells a plumbing bidder he has a lower price, and doesn't, this is not a crime. It's nice to sit in an ivory tower and cry unethical every time a bottom line is revealed inaccurately but I will not send my students into the world without a true picture of what they will encounter. I have seen a lot of treachery in my career. Bid rigging, graft, extortion. It exists. If you offer 200 and they ask 700 for something worth 250, you set yourself up to be fleeced. Some idiot, probably a lawyer on the other side, will say let's split the difference. Will you end up paying 450, leaving 200 on the table. Better to go in at 100. When you sweeten your offer you jump to 120, not 200. There is a tango that goes on among even ethical people in negotiations. All the time. You have to learn it, even If you don't want to play. You have to be able to spot deception and deal with it. Bargaining for Advantage helps.

This book was part of the required reading for my business school negotiation class. It is full of good tips and techniques to help you reach a deal that is beneficial for both you and your negotiating partner. It is all about being fair while firm for the things that you really care about.

The best book on this subject I have read. It will make you a better negotiator for buying a car, insurance, or anything. It will help you get a raise, handle people, talk to your wife or children, or anyone, since everything is either selling yourself in a social marketplace or negotiating for what you want in life. This book will keep you from being a sucker, but it is not going to make you Donald trump. It's just basic negotiation 101, just what most people need.

One of the leading manuals/theory to application on negotiation, conflict management, and management in general. Applies to everything from low and higher level business management to families to hostage negotiations, showing how there is so much in common with different challenges. An absolutely essential piece for any manager-to-be, or anyone involved in any kind of relationship (neighbors, family, manager/employees, business negotiations, arbitrations, mediations, buyer & sellers). Shell points out in this easy to read, thorough and insightful how conflict management truly impacts an individual's personal and professional life, and how understanding these dynamics can indeed lead to acceptable if not highly positive conclusions. Read it as a master's student, use it as a professional, needs to be used in every management program anywhere, and wish it had been required in an intro-psych course.

I actually found this to be a pretty interesting read, which I think is saying something about a negotiation book.I picked this up to help with my career in general - I didn't have any upcoming negotiations I was worried about, but I do have to negotiate on behalf of myself and my employer fairly frequently, and it's an area I've looked to improve at. I wasn't expecting to really learn that much about it from a book, but Shell lays things out in a simple and easy-to-follow way that makes sense and is easy to remember. There are plenty of tips, not just about how to negotiate but how to develop your own negotiation style. And while he clearly favors some styles over others, he's upfront about this and still manages to give advice for those who choose to go a different route.I haven't had a chance to put my new knowledge to the test yet, but at the very least I feel confident that the next negotiation I step into, I'll know how to prepare and what to look for. And if I don't feel confident at the time, this book includes an appendix to help you organize negotiation prep ahead of time as well.

This book first impressed me with the range of negotiations it covers: from multi-million dollar business deals, to hostage negotiations, to your five-year-old refusing to eat her broccoli. The suggestions in this book are backed up with research results, illustrated with real world examples, and summarized with tables and checklists. Whatever your style of learning, this book offers a way for you to engage with it. Moreover, Shell recognizes the negotiator as full person with a personal style, a culture, existing relationships, and an ethical framework. I have found the lesson learned in this book have helped me in negotiations over resources at work as well as when conflicts occur in my romantic relationships. I whole-heartily recommend this book to everyone.

Most people can't negotiate at all. They think they can but that's because they haven't defined what it means to win in a negotation. For instance I have a friend who is an aggressive and competitive negotiator who almost always wants to win and for his opponent to lose (WIN - lose). His problem is that he almost always loses but doesn't consider it a loss since he moves the goal posts or he starts to play another game. He goes from a game of business negotiation, loses, then makes it a moral issue where he believes he wins. In fact he loses that too. To top it all off he is also very emotional so he argues from emotion, not logic.This book would help him. He could see that in most of his big moralistic wins he actually lost and lost big. He would have seen that he was in an inferior position when it came to leverage. Often times he had a lot to lose and a lot to win but since his goal was to win 100% he often lost that much. He came away with nothing. If armed with this book he would know better and would try to get as much as he could in his inferior position. He would be negotiating with logic and not emotion. He would define "winning" in a different way.However we need not dwell on my friend. Let me tell you what I took away from this book. I learned that figuring out a person's negotiating style and determining who had the leverage were the most important things. If I come across a compromising person with a lot of leverage I become an aggressive negotiator and I try to get as much as possible without losing the deal. If somebody is a weak negotiator I am ruthless regardless of their leverage. If I have all the leverage and nothing to lose I'll be aggressive again. I compromise when I know I have little to know leverage but I never give up that fact to the person I'm negotiating with. Lastly, I always try to make the deal be perceived as a win-win no matter what I was thinking. They get some of what they want but I got most of all I want.However, I have learned more about negotiating since this book so let me tell you that this is not the end-all, be-all of negotiating books. Read others, take seminars, research different approaches and you'll get better and better. This book gives an amazing foundation for you. It's taught in some law school negotiation classes and it's on a lot of business school class syllabi. It will frame your thinking on negotiations and teach you to be logical instead of emotional.The book is practical, logical and can be applied the same day you read it. If you read one business book this year read this one. The other is just noise (unless it's another classic in negotiating.)

I've read half a dozen books on negotiation including the classics like "Getting To Yes" and I think this book is the most useful for real world negotiations. It spells out a simple (not necessarily easy) process to follow that will maximize your chances of achieving your goals while preserving critical relationships and not selling your soul. There is very practical advice on how to proceed in the negotiation process depending on your relationship with your opponent: how you negotiate with a loved one will probably be very different from haggling over the price of a used car. The book includes a very useful summary table that identifies the most common negotiation situations and suggests what to do in each case. My negotiation skills have improved significantly after reading this book. Highly recommend.

I had to buy this for a two week contract negotiation and drafting class. I can't say that I took much of his doctrine from this book, but it was an easy read and he incorporated great stories. It was more of a leisurely read than a text book, but i also did take away some main negotiating things from it.

I needed a quick review on negotiating. This book was perfect for me because it established a set routine/system on how to bargain for position. Instead of taking the easy way out and splitting the difference all the time (as most negotiating cowards do) the book makes you think more about working an even better deal for yourself based on normative leverage. Get it! Like me, you will find that you save yourself lots of money on your first deal after reading! It's the lessons that will last you a lifetime!

I will keep this short. This book was excellent, complete, and thorough. I found the approach to be genuine and positive. Overall the book is a quick read and very interesting as well. In particular, it is littered with real life experiences. The stories are profound examples of his points and are entertaining to read. Besides negotiation, it is also informative in regard to business history. I reference the lessons and concepts of those stories often and am extremely satisfied with this purpose. The cost to education ratio is about as good as one could hope.

As a small business owner I often find myself in the previously uncomfortable position of having to negotiate for my business advantage. Before reading this book, my own negotiation "rules" could be summed up with the following beliefs: "If I am reasonable in my requests, I should not have to negotiate, only approve or disapprove deals" and "I will ask for what I want and need, and they can take it or leave it" and the typical belief "everyone is out to screw you over, be careful". This book took the mystery and bravado out of the negotiation process, arming me with "rules" that actually civilized the process for me, I feel confident that can handle typical negotiation situations in the future with a level of success that I have never achieved in the past. I cringe at the lost opportunities, missed because of my own missteps from the very begining of the process using my old negotiation belief system. This book is not simply common sense, it is a door opener.

I found myself dozing off to sleep sometimes just trying to get past some of the "duh" moments in this book. Perhaps only for newbie b-schoolers or those getting a start in a career where heavy negotiating is key will this book really be a benefit. Otherwise, the best parts were the self-assessment to determine your personal negotiation style, and the chapter about "leverage." Recommended for those who may not have had very much business or sales experience, or experience particularly in a global forum where dealing with international company execs is uncommon.