BOOK REVIEW: Negotiation Expert

Title:                     GETTING MORE

Author:                  STUART DIAMOND

Publisher:              PORTFOLIO PENGUIN, 2010, UK

Price:                     Rs. 399/- in India

First-Class Negotiating Advice From A Professional

Reading a book on negotiating that flat-out states, and periodically repeats, that aggression in the negotiating process will mean getting less, about 75% less actually, initially seems like a paean to superhuman reasonableness. It also seems at variation to the prevalent world of power play which works to a winner- take- all approach.

But what seems to make the effort worthwhile, is how collaboration tends to increase the size of the pie. The lone-wolf may catch prey, the book argues, but the team- wolf can hunt down bigger prey. Besides, the brute force advantage is not available to most of us, either as individuals, as part of a collective, or even as citizenry of many nations.

To illustrate this from the other end of the spectrum, Diamond cites America with its $20 trillion plus in GDP and the strongest military in the world, which still cannot ensure long-term compliance using force alone. In fact, America has lost enough protracted wars such as the one in Vietnam. And the US/NATO attacks on both Iraq and Afghanistan in recent times have been far from unqualified successes. Besides, conquest, or at an individual level, rank aggression, is invariably an unpredictable and expensive business.

So Mr. Diamond advises us to be strongly goal-oriented instead. If there are many decision-makers, for example, in a corporation, they should harmonise their goals so that objectives are not in conflict with each other. It is not as important to focus on who is right, because it, a value-judgment, can often be contentious.

 And, very interestingly, Diamond advises us to be deliberately gradual and incremental in our efforts.  He uses a baseball analogy on how a player can improve his batting averages by hitting an extra ball in one game in nine, but how this can mean much better status and monetary rewards for him. Swiftness, and attempting to push through boldly towards our objectives in one fell swoop, tends to retard if not obviate the cooperation of others, and frightens them off and away from the perceived risk.

This book, Getting More, is primarily aimed at the individual, and outlines the negotiating techniques that result in better outcomes in all sorts of situations including purchases, inter-personal relationships, job interviews, office negotiations and so on.  Mr. Diamond lays the greatest emphasis on eliciting people-to-people cooperation, and advises this is best obtained by making personal connections between people.

In other words, the substance of any argument is not going to carry the day but goodwill when sparked will. He draws a pyramid in which the content or substantive issues under discussion gets just 8%, the processes 37%, and the people-to-people cooperation 55%. This, and another ‘four-quadrant’ analytical model, more management- oriented, shows Stuart Diamond’s basic approach to negotiation.

Diamond does outline cultural differences amongst people around the world, but emphasises a common humanity that can be relied upon to resolve differences. Other tools are contextualising, what Diamond calls ‘Framing’, and using already stated corporate or personal ‘Standards’, as a reference point to achieve correct balance and perspective in any negotiation. How a question is framed or reframed can greatly improve clarity and acceptability.

Getting  More is finely detailed, romping through  many every-day negotiations between parent and child, partners, dates, arranging a holiday, making a commitment etc. as well as union and business negotiations and the like. Diamond is sometimes described as ‘the world’s best negotiator’. And the ‘More’ he writes about is not always monetary in nature. It can take in a world of intangibles and unequal values that matter to the protagonists.

Diamond stresses the need to reduce the amount of emotion that enters into a negotiation because, in his opinion, it prevents clear thinking. Sometimes it is best to do this by assuaging the feelings of the other so that calm returns to the discussions.

On matters of Trust and Ethics, the stumbling blocks in the most well-intentioned negotiations, Stuart Diamond has less room to manouevre. He tends to work around these issues, with their potential to derail the process. The suggestion is that mirroring and being sympathetic towards the self-interest of the other usually ends up serving one’s own interests too.  But, this assertion does not seem quite as convincing as many other things Diamond writes.

Stuart Diamond, the author of this book and two others, plus over 2,000 articles in newspapers and magazines, teaches a course on negotiating at Wharton Business School and has consulted/advised extensively on the subject in more than 40 countries, some under the aegis of the United Nations.  He has also taught the subject at other colleges such as Columbia, NYU, USC Berkeley, Oxford and Penn Law School.  Diamond also holds a Law Degree from Harvard, an MBA from Wharton. He was also a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with The New York Times.

(802 words)

December 17^th, 2013

Gautam Mukherjee