I have been doing work on the topic of negotiation since the prehistoric era. Allow me to set the stage for the differences between the early books I wrote and the current book.
In 1993 there were as many currencies as there were European countries, we watched films on video cassettes, mobile phones were like something out of science fiction, e-mail was in its infancy, cameras used films, and a road atlas, not a GPS, got you home. It was standard practice to smoke in meeting rooms, in aircraft, and even in elevators.
In those days, the president of the United States was George Bush (and there was no need to add the word “Senior”). Nelson Mandela was fighting for the first free elections to be held in South Africa, and Tony Blair was a promising political newcomer. Global warming was almost an unknown concept.
In business, China was a third-world agricultural nation that was largely cut off from the world, India and Brazil inspired sympathy, while Japan inspired fear. The most admired American corporations were not Google or Amazon, but General Motors and Kodak. In the absence of the Internet, information was a scarce commodity indeed.
Trade negotiations had not yet been transformed by globalization, the technological revolution, or the information age. The changes that have transpired since my early work have been taken into account in the contents of this book.
However, behind all that, many of the essentials have remained unchanged. The workings of commercial negotiations, the golden rules to be followed, and the tools and methods of the best negotiators are almost the same as they were 18 years ago, maybe even 18 centuries ago. So I have sought not to change the essence of this book but to further refine, expand, and simplify its content so as to ensure that it is more relevant, useful, and practical.
I have resisted the temptation to include developments involving negotiations in a multicultural context. Indeed, experience has shown that in this highly complex field, ready-made solutions do not work well for those wishing to employ them in an unfamiliar environment. This subject might one day merit a second volume all its own.
In this book I have included a chapter entitled “How to handle bluffs and detect lies” in order to answer relevant questions that I have been asked a thousand times.
Also, my previous work has focused on teaching sellers how to negotiate and protect their margins. Since then I have realized that tens of thousands of readers have used my earlier books to prepare themselves for purchasing negotiations. This obliged them to perform intellectual contortions in order to adapt advice for sellers to their role as buyers.
While working with our Korda & Partners teams to advise and train buyers on every continent, we realized that we needed to offer a book that specifically met their needs as well as those of sellers.
Lastly, I wanted to provide a proper response to a question I have been asked thousands of times: “Do your golden rules of negotiating also apply to buyers?” Naturally, the fundamental rules of negotiating are the same, whichever side of the table you are on. However, they apply differently, with a logic that is often quite specific.
That is why this book addresses commercial negotiations from both the seller’s and the buyer’s perspectives. Specific advice is given to each side to allow them to optimize their negotiating positions.
Who knows, if one day both you and your counterpart have read this book, perhaps you will be able to conduct impressively fierce negotiations and end up with a wonderful win-win agreement.
This book is structured to help you to gradually acquire the skills needed in order to become an excellent negotiator in today’s environment. In order to negotiate and to protect your margins, the most important thing is to acquire a thorough mastery of the basic rules of negotiating. That is the purpose of the first part of this book. I suggest that you read it in full.
Once you have acquired that grounding, you will need to develop your ability to understand your opponent’s tactics: The second part of the book is entirely devoted to this, and you will be able to acquire a deeper understanding of those issues that concern you most directly.
It is on these solid foundations (mastery of the “basics” and understanding of what lies behind negotiations) that you can then develop the talents that go toward making a great negotiator. It is then a question of earning the sympathy of the “enemy,” handling bluffs and detecting lies, tactfully leading discussions, asserting yourself in tense situations, and above all, overcoming deadlock. That is the challenge of the third part of this book. Thus you will be able to accept and handle confrontation and go on to transform it into cooperation and effectively resist adversaries so that they become partners, wherever and whenever possible.
I wish you great success but also great pleasure in your future negotiations.