One Step Ahead: Mastering the Art and Science of Negotiation

Negotiation isn’t a war, it’s a game—and it’s possible to learn how to play it, writes behavioral economist Sally (coauthor, The Numbers Game) in this valuable primer. Sally has taught negotiation to MBA students for 25 years, and found the two gold standards on the subject in business literature, Getting to Yes and How to Win Friends and Influence People, useful, but lacking when it comes to the crucial piece: learning to understand and respond to the opposing party. Reliably winning high-level negotiations, he proposes, requires becoming a world-class analytical observer of other people. Sally notes that the best negotiators are those who are simply better prepared on every level—from doing the research about the other party to understanding their own biases. Informed by game theory, the book covers how to pick the right battles, be fair as well as tough, manage gender stereotypes, be consistently “one step ahead,” and approach numbers as a valuable resource, rather than a necessary evil. Entertaining and conversational, this is an important tool for getting to yes, as well as understanding exactly what will prompt an opponent to say it. (May)