Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World

435 Pages·2010·1.91 MB·English

by  Stuart Diamond

ACCLAIM FOR STUART DIAMOND AND HIS NEGOTIATION CLASSES
“If I had spent my entire tuition at USC to take only your course, it would have been well worth it—the
most valuable class ever, including the U of Chicago, Skidmore, and UCLA.”
—Beth S. Brandegee, MBA, USC
“The best class at Wharton; it changed my life.”
—Jim Vopelius, Vice President and CFO, Trident Risk Management
“There isn’t an hour that goes by in my personal and professional lives when I don’t use what I learned from
your class.”
—Bill Ruhl, Director, National Customer Service Operations, Verizon
“I am living proof that this course does pay! I saved $245 million for my company.”
—Richard T. Morena, CFO, Asbury Park Press
“The best class ever at Google—it should be required for all salespeople. I know I will use all of my newly
realized tools for the rest of my life.”
—Patrick Grandinetti, Senior Manager, Google
“I have found the lessons I learned at Wharton from Stuart Diamond invaluable to helping me achieve my
goals, whether on the field, in the office, or at home with my five children.”
—Anthony Noto, CFO, National Football League
“I would rate this course as the crown jewel. It fundamentally changed my way of thinking.”
—Ravi Radhakrishnan, Senior Manager, Accenture
“In the years since I graduated, it has become clear that there is one class that has paid for my entire
education—negotiation. I was able to sell an asset that I purchased for $1 to a public company for $450,000.
It was a direct result of what I learned in the class.”
—Bradford S. Oberwager, CEO, Sundia Corporation
“There have been hundreds and hundreds of situations where what I learned has made the difference.”
—Robert Silver, Executive Director, UBS
“I’m one of Stuart Diamond’s biggest fans—he taught me more than anyone that I can recall.”
—Rob McIntosh, Procurement Director, Dell
“The best presentation any of us have ever seen.”
—Rob Alromare, Business Operations, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a Johnson & Johnson Company
“The most interesting and valuable experience I had in my five years at Wharton.”
—Jed Cairo, Associate, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
“Best class ever! So far I have been able to use the tools Stuart Diamond taught in the U.S., Korea, and
Brazil.”
—Nana Murugesan, Global Strategist, Samsung
“The most important class I’ve ever taken.”
—Shanan Bentley, Senior Vice President, Risk Management, Citigroup
“I have used these tools to help with everything from convincing the manager of a packed restaurant to seat
me immediately with no reservation to negotiating a large increase in the compensation of a job I accepted.
Stuart Diamond’s class made me a more persuasive person. It has dramatically improved my success in
reaching better agreements of every type.”
—Daniel J. Karp, Director, Worldwide Business Development, Pfizer
“Through more than twenty years of hiring, and working at General Electric’s Leadership Training Institute,
I have seen hundreds of the very best teachers from all over the world. Stuart Diamond exceeds their
standards. His passion for excellence reinforced my belief that it is really possible to make a difference.”
—Pat Scott, President, Professional Development Associates
“By far the best class I’ve ever taken.”
—Greg Schorr, Managing Director, Crescent Capital
“[The negotiations course] was the most personally and professionally enriching class I took. It has
definitely made me self-aware to an extent that I never thought I could achieve.”
—Kaushik Kapisthalam, Boston Consulting Group
“Stuart Diamond is the ‘Master of Negotiation.’ ”
—Robin Khuda, Group CFO, Pipe Networks

Copyright © 2010 by Stuart Diamond
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Business, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
CROWN BUSINESS is a trademark and CROWN and the Rising Sun colophon are registered trademarks
of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Diamond, Stuart.
Getting more : how to negotiate to achieve your goals in the real world / Stuart Diamond.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Negotiation. I. Title.
BF637.N4D53 2010
302.3—dc22 2010017638
eISBN: 978-0-307-71691-0
v3.1
For Kimberly and Alexander
Contents
Cover
Acclaim for Stuart Diamond and His Negotiation Classes
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Preface
1. Thinking Differently
2. People Are (Almost) Everything
3. Perception and Communication
4. Hard Bargainers and Standards
5. Trading Items of Unequal Value
6. Emotion
7. Putting It All Together: The Problem-Solving Model
8. Dealing with Cultural Differences
9. Getting More at Work
10. Getting More in the Marketplace
11. Relationships
12. Kids and Parents
13. Travel
14. Getting More Around Town
15. Public Issues
16. How to Do It
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Preface
This is an optimistic book, intended to make your life better. It starts with the
principle that you can get more. No matter who you are, no matter what your
personality, you can learn to be a better negotiator. You can get more.
In the twenty-plus years I have been teaching, I have had the palpable
experience of watching people become better negotiators before my eyes. They
became more aware of themselves and particularly others in their quest to get
more in their lives through negotiation.
A lot of the tools that they learn in my class and use in their lives challenge
the conventional wisdom. Many seem counterintuitive at first. But the success of
my students’ day-to-day experiences, and their personal growth, are the markers
of a new way of looking at human interactions. The Getting More process
presented in this book redefines negotiation theory: simplifying it, eliminating
the jargon, and providing a more practical, realistic, and effective way of dealing
with others.
You will see how the conventional concepts of rationality, power, walking out,
and “win-win” actually don’t work very well much of the time. Instead,
strategies like emotional sensitivity, relationships, clear goals, being incremental,
and viewing each situation as different are much more persuasive.
My students learn to get more by communicating even in the face of hostility,
and by valuing the other side’s perceptions no matter what they are. They learn
about the loss of profit from confrontation and “us versus them” tactics, and gain
much more value by constantly pushing for collaboration. And they learn to
handle hard bargainers by using their words against them in the least combative
way. They offer trust but insist on commitments in return. They are not patsies.
They meet their goals.
As mentioned throughout, the title of this book is Getting More, not Getting
Everything. The book is intended to significantly improve the life of anyone who
reads it and embraces its tools and strategies. Some elements will work
sometimes; some will work better than others. It will teach you to determine
what works best for you and train you to make those tools your own.
At the end of the day, Getting More is not about learning how to negotiate; it
is about becoming a negotiator to your core, so these tools become as much a
part of you as your personality. Once the tools are internalized, virtually every
interaction you have will improve.
Not everything in this book will apply to you. Some of you don’t have
children, and others are uninterested in public issues. But in writing this book I
tried to communicate advice that touches a very broad audience. Something that
you already know may be very fresh to someone else, and vice versa. The point
is to identify what you can use, now and throughout your life, and key on it.
Look for the things that can help you, that can add value to your life and the
lives of others.
All of the material, whether applicable to you or not, is presented through the
stories of my students and my own experiences, in the hope that their successes
—and failures—will be interesting to you even as you are learning the tools.
Unless you practice with these tools, however, they will remain words on a
page. You must see them work for you to own them.
You may think that some of the negotiation tools in this book cannot possibly
work. But everything has been tested and tested again. They do work; often they
tap into fundamental tenets of human psychology. If you’re skeptical, try them in
nonrisky environments, and incrementally, and see what happens. You’re likely
to be pleasantly surprised. Don’t do everything at once. Try something, feel it
out, improve it for yourself, and then add something else. You have a lifetime to
do this.
Finally, let me know how you are doing. I’m a teacher at heart. I want to know
how my students are doing, and anyone else who addresses the material. Write
me at www.gettingmore.com. This book is intended to begin a dialogue among
those who have looked around at the world we live in, and decided it’s time to
get more.
Haverford, Pennsylvania, August 12, 2010
1
Thinking Differently
My run slowed to a jog as we approached the gate for our flight to Paris. The plane was still there,
but the door to the Jetway was shut. The gate agents were quietly sorting tickets. They had already
retracted the hood connecting the Jetway to the airplane door.
“Hi, we’re on this flight!” I panted.
“Sorry,” said the agent. “We’re done boarding.”
“But our connecting flight landed just ten minutes ago. They promised us they would call ahead
to the gate.”
“Sorry, we can’t board anyone after they’ve closed the door.”
My boyfriend and I walked to the window in disbelief. Our long weekend was about to fall to
pieces. The plane waited right before our eyes. The sun had set, and the pilots’ downturned faces
were bathed in the glow of their instrument panel. The whine of the engines intensified and a guy
with lighted batons sauntered onto the tarmac.
I thought for a few seconds. Then I led my boyfriend to the center of the window right in front of
the cockpit. We stood there, in plain sight, my entire being focused on the pilot, hoping to catch his
eye.
One of the pilots looked up. He saw us standing forlornly in the window. I looked him in the eye,
plaintively, pleadingly. I let my bags slump by my feet. We stood there for what seemed an eternity.
Finally, the pilot’s lips moved and the other pilot looked up. I caught his eye, as well, and he nodded.
The engine whine softened and we heard the gate agent’s phone ring. She turned to us, wide-eyed.
“Grab your stuff!” she said. “The pilot said to let you on!” Our vacation restored, we clutched each
other joyously, snatched our bags, waved to the pilots, and tumbled down the Jetway to our plane.
, Wharton Business School, Class of 2001
—RAYENNE CHEN
The story above, told to me by a student in my negotiation course, was clearly an
account of a negotiation. Completely nonverbal, to be sure. But it was done in a
conscious, structured, and highly effective way. And it used six separate
negotiation tools that I teach that are, in practice, invisible to almost everyone.
What are they? First, be dispassionate; emotion destroys negotiations. You
must force yourself to be calm.
Second, prepare, even for five seconds. Collect your thoughts.
Third, find the decision-maker. Here, it was the pilot. There was not a second
to waste on the gate agent, who was not about to change company policy.