Customer Reviews

Negotiating Skills (Essential Managers)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Tim Hindle's book is an easy-to-use introduction to negotiating. This is the first book on negotiating that I've read. It is divided into three main chapters: Preparing, Conducting and Closing. It has a common sense approach and offers lots of tips including countering tactics for leading questions, intimidation, bluffing, threats or insults. It contains graphics and photographs in a clean design that help convey the ideas. I found the book was written for high level business negotiators, but most of the tips would be helpful in dealing with car dealers, gas stations, banks, stores, utility companies, or even a significant other. The book is a handy size for tucking away and reading a few pages at a time. It was an easy read.

DK is a wonderful publisher, from their children's series on. This is another entry, in an "Essential Managers" series. The focus here? Negotiating skills. The book has scarcely 69 pages of text, so this cannot provide detailed consideration to negotiating.

But it does a nice job as a thumbnail sketch on the subject. It is also a small enough volume that one can take this anywhere (a truly portable book!). The book defines its aim thus (Page 5): "Negotiation involved parties who each have something that the other wants, reaching an agreement to exchange through a process of bargaining. 'Negotiating Skills' explains this principle of exchange and gives you the confidence and skill to conduct negotiations and achieve a mutually acceptable outcome." The book is organized around three stages of a negotiating process--Preparing for a negotiation, Conducting a negotiation, and Closing a negotiation.

Preparing for a negotiation? Sections address the concept of exchange, identifying one's objectives, assessing the person with whom you are negotiating, choosing a strategy (One lesson: Keep strategy simple and flexible), developing an agenda (sounds simple enough, but an agenda has real value in any decision making process), and even seating plans. Actually conducting negotiation? How do you make a proposal? How to you respond to the other party's proposal? How can reading body language help? How can you strengthen your position and weaken your "adversary's"? Finally--closing the deal. Subjects addressed include handling breakdowns, using a mediator or going to arbitration.

Again, very brief. If you want a detailed discussion, this volume won't work for you. However, if you want a brief "common sense" introduction, this would be useful.

This book is a very good introduction to negotiating. Though it is geared to business to business negotiations, it contains many useful tenants valuable in any type of negotiation, including home and car purchases, and to a limited extent job offers.

I found many of the important bullet points to be especially succinct and well written, and recommend this guide for them alone. The text is generally well illustrated, though a few of the diagrams are a bit superfluous and less than helpful.

This is an excellent compact guide and is handy as either an introduction or a refresher course on negotiating. I recommend it along with the rest of the series.

Tim Hindle is the founder of Working Words, a consulting firm specializing in business communications. He knows what it takes to negotiate and then close a deal. Negotiating Skills shows you how to start from a strong position and then find common ground. It also provides practical techniques to use when bargaining. The power tips included are helpful. You will find tips like:

"Do not concede ground unless you receive something in return." -pg. 49 "Be flexible-it is a sign of strength, not of weakness." -pg. 11

If you have been in a car accident and can't solve the case with your insurance company, you might want to look at the Arbitration section. If you need a third party, a mediator could also be useful. A section on body language enables you to determine the attitude of the person you are negotiating with.

A nice handy guide which you could give out to all the managers in your company. It would also be a nice gift for anyone who makes proposals to obtain new business. You will feel pretty confident after reading this book.

~The Rebecca Review