Book Review: Negotiating The Impossible

As I was busy preparing for job interviews, it was being a long while since my last post. And today I am going to talk about the book that I have just finished reading - Negotiating The Impossible. The book is broken into 3 parts, Framing, Process and Empathy. In each of these 3 parts, the author delved further to explain each of them with examples.

In the first part - The Power of Framing, he explained various techniques to reframe the issue to resolve deadlocks. One of them is "Be firm on substance, flexible on structure'. This means that don't be rigid on the how to achieve your goal. There exist multiple ways to achieve the same thing. I wish that I have read about this part before my negotiation for my job offer with one of the reputable investment bank. Instead of sticking to an increase in the annual compensation, I should have negotiated for a higher role with the same annual compensation.

In the second part - The Power of Process, he highlighted the importance of preparation before a negotiation. At the same time how to use process to keep the negotiation going by lowering the bar. He used vietnam war as an example in this part of the book. South Vietnam was not flexible with the process that caused the negotiation to stall for a long time. This gave North Vietnam enough time to fight their way to Saigon while the negotiation is progress (During the period of negotiation, US agreed to cease the airstrike on North Vietnam.)

And in the last part - The Power of Empathy, he emphased on the importance of putting oneself in the other side's shoe. Gaining the perspective of the opposite side will allow one to strategize better, and uncover what the real underlying issue that is blocking the negotiation is. Thus able to address the issues better.

In conclusion, the author used very appropriate examples to substantiate the techniques that he had mentioned. On top of that, you get to learn some world history which is one of the reasons that kept me reading.