The Best Book for Negotiation
By Chris Voss
Rating: 10/10
Best Line #1: You’re going to have to embrace regular, thoughtful conflict as the basis of effective negotiation — and of life. Please remember that our emphasis throughout the book is that the adversary is the situation and that the person that you appear to be in conflict with is actually your partner.
Best Line #2: “Why” is always an accusation, in any language
Negotiation is endlessly fascinating and every book on the topic has something to offer. Many authors study it from an analytical, business-oriented point of view. For them, the objective is machine-like optimization. This approach has its merits. Negotiation is a game and game theory does indeed apply.
There is, of course, more that happens outside the sterile environment of the game. In fact, the emotional and psychological factors are much richer, more individualized, and far more influential. This is where the real mastery awaits. Negotiating from a rational, analytical point of view is like painting by numbers — crude but effective. Adding a deliberate strategy for emotion and psychology is like graduating to the artist’s canvas.
It gives you more freedom, more possibility. But with a higher degree of difficulty. And I…
