Start with NO

Camp attacks the win-win orthodoxy that dominates popular negotiating advice, opening with the blunt claim that win-win thinking will kill your deal, because it invites concessions dressed up as goodwill and hands the advantage to the better prepared side. His alternative is a decision-based system in which the negotiator controls only their own behaviour and never the outcome. The first weakness he names is neediness, the hunger to be liked and to close, which he argues leaks into voice, posture and pace and is read instantly by the other side. Against it he sets the idea of being deliberately not okay, a studied ordinariness he calls the Columbo effect, which lowers the adversary's guard. The title principle follows from this: inviting the other party to say no keeps the conversation honest and moves decisions forward, whereas chasing yes stalls them. The remaining tools build outward from a written mission and purpose, disciplined questioning, restraint in speaking, working the adversary's real problem rather than your own, budgeting time, energy, money and emotion, identifying the genuine decision makers, and running an agenda through the chaos of live talks.

Written from the library catalogue record for the Crown Business edition at the Internet Archive.

What this vault takes from it

Reliability

Not audited here. 2 notes in this vault draw on it.

People

• Jim Camp