Negotiation, Power and Persuasion
How do people get agreement when interests conflict, and what separates influence from manipulation?
Agreement among people whose interests differ is the everyday work of leadership, and much of it is negotiation in all but name.
This path begins with Schelling’s strategic logic, which explains why commitments and threats work, and then follows the practice of negotiation from Fisher and Ury’s principles through research-based and emotion-centred approaches. It then turns to the uncomfortable subject of power in organisations, and ends with the psychology of persuasion and a recent argument that people are harder to fool than we think.
The essay on app stores shows negotiation between very unequal parties, and the memos on Qwikster and the burning platform show persuasion within companies succeeding and failing.
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Schelling’s classic treats conflict as bargaining and shows the strange power of commitment, threats and focal points, ideas that apply as much to companies as to nations.
- Read it for
- Commitment, the value of limiting your own options and tacit coordination.
- Carry forward
- Where would binding ourselves in advance give us more power, not less?
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The foundational practical book. Separate people from the problem, focus on interests, invent options and insist on objective criteria.
- Read it for
- Interests versus positions, and the idea of the best alternative to a negotiated agreement.
- Carry forward
- What is our walk-away alternative, and have we improved it before we sit down?
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Shell adds research and realism: negotiators differ in style, and preparation, leverage and relationships matter as much as technique.
- Read it for
- The six foundations of effective negotiation and the chapters on ethics.
- Carry forward
- Which of my habits as a negotiator help me, and which do others exploit?
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Two Harvard Business School professors combine decision research with negotiation practice, showing how biases distort bargaining and how value can be created as well as claimed.
- Read it for
- Investigative negotiation, anchoring and negotiating from a position of weakness.
- Carry forward
- What information, if we discovered it, would let both sides gain?
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A former hostage negotiator’s account of tactical empathy, labelling and calibrated questions offers a contrasting, emotion-centred view of the same craft.
- Read it for
- Mirroring, labelling and how to hear what the other side cannot say directly.
- Carry forward
- What is the other side afraid of that they have not said?
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Pfeffer argues bluntly that power in organisations is acquired and used in ways the leadership literature ignores, and that understanding it is necessary even for those who dislike it.
- Read it for
- The sources of power, and the costs that come with having it.
- Carry forward
- Who actually decides the things that matter here, and how did they come to?
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Cialdini’s principles of persuasion appear in every negotiation and every organisation. Read here, they become tools to recognise when they are being used on you.
- Read it for
- Reciprocity, commitment, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity as defences as well as techniques.
- Carry forward
- Which of these levers moved me in my last important agreement?
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Ends with a corrective. Mercier argues that people are far less gullible than commonly believed, and that persuasion works mainly through trust and good arguments.
- Read it for
- Open vigilance, and why mass persuasion usually fails.
- Carry forward
- If people believe us, is it because we earned their trust or because we found a trick?
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