Negotiations
Getting to Yes is about improving your negotiation skills. First, it goes through the disadvantages of the classic positional negotiating tactic that involves taking a stance and slowly reaching an agreement after each party makes multiple concessions often ending with less than anyone wants and a poor relationship between parties. After that, it discusses principled negotiation which, in short, is focused on separating the people from the problem, focusing on the interests of the parties and not their positions, inventing multiple options that look for mutual gains through brainstorming activities, and basing the end result on objective standards. This is the bulk of the book and there are many examples ranging from insurance adjusters to Middle Eastern treaties. After the in depth explanation of principled negotiation, the last part of the book describes many situations where the other party is using tricky tactics, won’t cooperate, or have a much better bargaining position than you. There are methods discussed to try to lead the negotiation in the direction you want, creating a BATNA, or diffusing the tricky method by calling it out. Overall, this book did not guarantee that this method will win every negotiation, but it will allow you a much greater chance to efficiently go through a negotiation and end up with more than you would have gotten not using this method.
After reading this book, I have noticed that for the most part I understood and easily accepted everything it said about negotiating. There was nothing presented that was new to me, however it presented the material in such a way that made me think about and analyze what I have done in the past, what I do presently, and what I may be able to include in my future negotiations. I have often used the positioning method in negotiations that mainly include haggling for products at a