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Black Belt Negotiating: Become a Master Negotiator Using Powerful Lessons from the Martial Arts, by Michael Soon Lee and Sensei Grant Tabuchi 2007 New York, NY: AMACOM, American Management Association 223 pages; Softcover; $15.00
Intended Audience(s): L
Major Headings from the Table of Contents: Modern Lessons from Ancient Traditions; Overcoming Fear of the Blow; Playing to Win; Learning the Rules of Power; Spying on Your Opponent; Identifying Vital Striking Points; Developing the Fighting Stance; Opening Tactics; Reading Your Opponent; Countering Your Opponent's Moves; Finding Middle Ground; Distancing Yourself from the Battle; Making Time Your Ally; Developing Advanced Fighting Skills; Breaking Impasses; Turning the Battle in Your Favor; Dealing with Dirty Fighters; Ending the Contest with Respect; The Road to Continuous Improvement
How Is the Book Most Useful for Its Intended Audience? This book will stretch your comfort zone and provide you with many specific methods to help you become a tougher, more successful negotiator.
The Top Things You Learned from Reading this Book:
1) Begin negotiating with a strong intent to win.
2) Begin by giving something of value to your opponent that is of little value to you.
3) Define exactly what you need from the negotiation, then add your wants.
4) Allow your opponents to take care of their own interests.
This book is tough. It's all about tough. It is not for the faint hearted, or perhaps it is. By reading this book, a weak negotiator can become a better, tougher negotiator. Yet, by advocating toughness in negotiations and making many situation-specific suggestions for tougher negotiating, the authors prepare the negotiator to perform the task in a smoother, though not friendlier, way. The authors set the tone at the beginning: Negotiating is a competition; and if you are not there to win, you have no business being involved. Negotiating is not about giving your opponent what he needs or wants. It is about getting what you want. That includes getting it for the least amount of giving.
However, later in the book, the authors suggest various ways of giving to your opponent. However, their purpose in giving is not to satisfy the opponent, but that we give to get. We set up our opponent to feel good by using specific presentation...