Top Highlights

• People lose sight of their real goals in competitive situations and pay far too much money, spend too much time, or sacrifice too many other interests for the privilege of saying they have won.
• To be good, you must learn to be yourself at the bargaining table. Tricks and stratagems that don’t feel comfortable won’t work.
• The best negotiators play it straight, ask a lot of questions, listen carefully, and concentrate on what they and the other party are trying to accomplish at the bargaining table.
• They see psychological and strategic currents that are running just below the surface.
• They look for opportunities to use what psychologists call the consistency principle to commit other parties to standards and then hold them to their prior statements or positions, and they know that the timing of a proposal is almost as important as its content.