Common Sense Negotiation [Paperback]

Donald C. Farber (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0941920453 | ISBN-13: 978-0941920452 | Publication Date: November 20, 2001

Nonfiction. Having a copy of COMMON SENSE NEGOTIATION is like having an uncle in the business. Donald Farber, long-time entertainment attorney and literary agent, pulls up a chair and shares his philosophy-that the best deals are created in an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust. Not only does everyone win but a foundation is laid for future cooperation. Farber illustrates his points with fascinating and often amusing examples from his long career in entertainment law and shows how to adapt his time-tested techniques to deal-making at any level.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Subtitled The Art of Winning Gracefully, here is a volume of worldly philosophy masquerading as a nuts-and-bolts how-to book that also somehow also manages to be a chatty tell-all Broadway autobiography. Whew! Tough to categorize, but rewarding to read from any of those three perspectives. Theater and film attorney Donald C. Farber, author of numerous texts on entertainment law, has distilled his experience, explaining how actors and authors can most successfully bargain for the best possible contract--not just the one that gets the most money, but one that will stick and not cause problems down the line. He shows how to wed dogged self-interest with a larger sense that all parties in such a contract will be part of a collaboration for months to come, and will remain part of the same entertainment community for years to come--so why not do what's best for all? Can this philosophy be applied to life in general? You bet. Best of all, each point in the book is lavishly illustrated with anecdotes from Farber's real-life contract negotiations on behalf of his own starry clients including author Kurt Vonnegut.

Review

In our present litigious times, negotiating agreements between two parties, whether they be businesses or individuals, is too often approached from an adversarial stance. Negotiating a deal with which all parties are satisfied and a cordial, ongoing relationship is established is an art. By taking negotiating out of the competitive arena, Donald Farber argues, deals can be struck that are actually more favorable to everyone concerned and that form a groundwork for future cooperation. Veteran attorney Farber shares with the general reader the tactics and techniques he has developed during his many successful years in the entertainment industry in Common Sense Negotiation. Farber defines winning as getting as much out of a deal as you ought to have -- neither taking advantage of someone nor settling for less than you are entitled to. Gracefully means convincing the other party that you have a community of interest rather than a conflict of interest and that the agreement is in their best interest as well as yours. Farber's straightforward, common sense advice, written in accessible non-legalese, and practical examples will help readers at all levels of business experience create solid, fair deals and strong working relationships. Common Sense Negotiation contains helpful appendixes with sample letters and agreements. This is "must" reading for anyone involved in negotiations from playground to boardroom, in the family or in the workplace, in politics or in business. -- Midwest Book Review --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 158 pages
• Publisher: Bay Press (November 20, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0941920453
• ISBN-13: 978-0941920452
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,394,595 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars American Theater Culture, March 23, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Common Sense Negotiation: The Art of Winning Gracefully (Hardcover)

This book is a clear example of where American and world business is going in its short term employment and flexible contracts. The business world likes clear linear lines to their contracts. Don Farber does as well but with a clear sense of the necessity for flexibility and an attitude that creates serious theatrical work rather than lost time in useless conflict. Hard feelings in the theater and film world simply cost money. Intrigue is not productive given the high levels of expertise and labor costs as well as the rental costs of shooting a movie. Humanity and a downplayed aggressiveness, leaving that for the product, is essential when the product is based upon human attitude. I have worked cross culturally on many occassions and have experienced the loss of a great deal of money based upon beliefs about the product not consonant with the market. Happily for myself and sadly for those who wouldn't listen to people like Don Farber, I wasn't the one losing the money.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Useless at best, September 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Common Sense Negotiation: The Art of Winning Gracefully (Hardcover)

I am the Business Development Manager for a large electronics company, and always looking to improve my business skills. I found the book was written without a market in mind. It is some how written for a person with no experience, or education in business, who is dealing with mutli-million dollar contract in the play business. I think that rules out pretty much every person. It goes in to the basics of negotiations like "you might need a contract", or "some things might be important", and then addresses these issues in terms of a person who would need to be the best in their field to approach such situation. Badly written, no focus market, probably paid to get it published.

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Negotiation and American Theater Culture, March 23, 2000

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Common Sense Negotiation: The Art of Winning Gracefully (Hardcover)

This book is a clear example of where business both American and world wide is going in its short-term employment and flexible contracts. As a company director it is my experience that the regular business world likes clean, rather aggressive and litigious contracts in an inextricably linear logic. These negotiations and contracts often leave residues of anger, some fear and the overriding sense that the product wasn't invented that couldn't be abandoned by its producer, especially if it has a flaw.

Responsibility, pride in product and a willingness to see a project through seems naive and out of date. Art both mirrors and projects the implications of societal forms and attitudes. Just as the movie "All That Jazz" exposed producers who considered the life blood of a great choreographer a simple product to be discarded when they could make more money from the company's insurance, so does the intelligent practice of Entertainment law promise a rescue from such a loss of values. Especially if the lawyer has, like Donald C. Farber, the long view.

In the third most populous nation on the earth, with 75% of the population of European origin, America sits firmly astride an artistic economic depression that has lasted since the last "great" depression of the 1930s. Graduates of America's professional arts schools subsist on part time employment, poor family lives and a gross failure to make a living. It's clear that America's arts business more resembles the poorest third world country or Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota than it does even the local dry cleaning business.

In the Arts the big winners are very big and the losers represent anywhere from 80 to 98% of the total college graduates in the field. Rather than lay this at the foot of education, we blame it on God (talent). Rather than blame the government for not economically stimulating a consciousness raising, educational, non-polluting, self-renewing, pleasurable, team developing profession, we blame it on consumer demand although the arts are regularly used to stimulate consumer demand through advertisement on television. Frankly this logic doesn't compute. Only the law and men like Donald C. Farber stand between this flawed format and total artistic cultural collapse.

Donald C. Farber's "Common Sense Negotiation, The Art of Winning Gracefully" belies a "Tiger" of a book. Complexity expert John N. Warfield states that "Nothing is complex to those who know how to solve the problem." Farber writes with a deft light touch walking amongst the mine fields and the failed careers of America's brightest talents with respect, humanity, compassion and toughness. I'm reminded of Deming's lectures or Senge's five disciplines. Farber has been dealing with and protecting free lance individual entrepreneurs since before the local corporations knew how to spell the word. Farber's sections on who the expert is, the importance of understanding the system, teamwork with your negotiator, clarity of intent, gracefulness under fire, the meaning of the deal and the mastery of it with an awareness of how to work right up until the final curtain, are well written and cleverly expressed. Unlike Senge who speaks more holistically than he writes, Farber writes as he speaks. That can be confusing to some who demand a more linear projection of reality. Such a view is not artistic and Farber has made his living from the beginning with artists. I would also recommend his "From Option to Opening, a Guide to Producing Plays Off-Broadway" as a practical companion to "Common Sense Negotiation."

He makes it clear from the beginning that even existing in the current climate is a success but his goals are higher than mere existence. He has a clear sense of the necessity for flexibility and an attitude that creates serious theatrical work rather than lost time in useless conflict. Like all lawyers Farber is no stranger to conflict but like the late Arthur Goldberg, he keeps things low key and points out that an agreement is only as good as the success of the product it produces. The goal is the project's success but all parties must survive to collaborate another day and that means that the project must be economically successful as well. The system of agreements is "Common Sense" or what anthropologist Clifford Geertz calls "local knowledge" i.e. cultural language that forms the basis for all agreements and is implied but not necessarily written. Farber explains these sub-texts in such a way that the actual document is clear across cultures.