The Power of Nice

How to Negotiate So Everyone Wins - Especially You!

Ronald M. Shapiro, James Dale, Ambassador Ronald M. Shapiro, Ambassador James Dale

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781118969625
• eBook ISBN: 9781118969663
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Business Communication

Learn to get what you want without burning bridges

In this revised and updated edition of the renowned classic The Power of Nice, negotiations expert, sports agent, New York Times bestselling author, attorney, business leader and educator, Ron Shapiro, shares the key principles of effective negotiation through a combination of a time-tested process, anecdotes, and exercises. Drawing on his unparalleled experiences from the worlds of sports, law, business and politics, as well as dealing with life issues common to us all, Shapiro takes you through the steps of his systematic approach: The Three Ps, Prepare-Probe-Propose.

Learn how to use the process to empower you in negotiations. Regardless of your level of experience or the extent of your confidence, you will get what you want while building stronger relationships for the future. This updated edition contains:

• Significant new material including an expanded view of its applicability to a broad array of business and life challenges
• a new streamlined version of the Preparation Checklist
• a more precise understanding of the concept of WIN-win
• forewords by Cal Ripken, Jr., and Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, and an Epilogue highlighting negotiation lessons from the life of Nelson Mandela

The book also provides a link to reinforcement of its lessons through the website of the Shapiro Negotiations Institute.

Whether you are negotiating with, among others, a customer or client, a boss or government official, or even setting a teenager's curfew or getting a last seat on an airplane, this invaluable guide will help you read the other side and bring the power of human psychology and a time-tested process to the negotiating table. If you're tired of uneven "compromise" and the feeling of being manipulated, turn the tables for good with The Power of Nice, and learn strength from the master himself.

Chapter 1
Negotiation

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Let us never fear to negotiate. But let us never negotiate out of fear.

—John F. Kennedy

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Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

—Madame Marie Curie

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“I'll Burn That Bridge When I Come to It”

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Early in my career, I had a law partner who loved his work. He was smart. He knew the law. He always had his clients' best interests at heart. And he liked nothing better than the challenge of negotiation. He had no fear of the other side. In fact, he relished confrontation. He paced outside a conference room like a blitzing linebacker. He had that same hungry look in his eyes, pacing and revving himself up for the kill. He couldn't wait to charge in and nail the quarterback (or the other lawyer) to the Astroturf (or the deal he was after). If a few bones were broken along the way, so be it…or so much the better.

He often got what he and his client wanted. But he only got it once. Nobody wanted or could afford to deal with him twice because he left nothing on the table. Winner take all. Why take a share of the profit when you can take all of it? Why have investors when you can have sole control? Why pay commissions? Why give concessions to a union when you can break the union? Why not squeeze all suppliers to rock bottom? Why not drive all offers up to the last dollar? Why negotiate when you can dictate? My partner literally destroyed the other side, and he reveled in it.

One day he strutted out of yet another of his “eat-the-opposition-for-lunch” meetings, fresh blood dripping from his teeth, having dismembered yet another adversary in the name of dealmaking. Instead of congratulating him, I asked him a question that took him by surprise. “What did the other side want?”

He looked at me with a combination of curiosity at my naiveté and astonishment at the irrelevance of the question. “I don't know, but they didn't get it,” he answered.

I persisted, “Maybe they could have gotten what they wanted and you could have gotten what you wanted. What would have been wrong with that?”

Then he sighed like a wise old tobacco-chewing veteran and laid it out for the rookie who just didn't understand how to play the game. “Don't you get it? We won.”

“Yeah,” I protested, “but what if, some time in the future, the tables turn and the other side gains the upper hand and then they're in a position to change the deal?”

That's when my wise old veteran partner put his arm around me, took a long, dramatic pause, and said, “I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.” That wasn't just his snappy comeback. He meant it. It was the embodiment of his negotiation philosophy.

That's the way a lot of people look at negotiation. Two S.O.B.s locked in a room trying to beat the daylights out of each other and may the biggest S.O.B. win. Even way back then, I thought there was a better way to make deals.

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Over the years I practiced and perfected what made sense and worked for me: You can be “a nice guy” and still get what you're after. In fact, embracing the systematic approach of this book gives you the power and allows you to get better results, achieve more of your goals, and build longer-term relationships with even greater returns.

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The Power of Nice Philosophy

The way to get what you want is to help the other side get what they want.

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Your First Deal

What matters in negotiation is results. Everything else is decoration. To get results you must have parties who want to make a deal, each of whom has something to gain. Never forget, everyone who sits down at a negotiating table is there for one simple reason: They want something the other side has.

You picked up this book, so you must feel you have something to gain. As authors, we have already gained by making the book sale. So, have we won and you lost? Hardly. As you'll learn, we don't want a one-time deal; we want an ongoing relationship (your recommendation of our book to others, visiting our website, attending our programs, and buying our next print or digital book). You don't want a one-time deal, either. You want to learn to negotiate every deal well. Therefore, reader and authors have a common interest (another point I'll be making later) and that is to make you a better negotiator.

To achieve that end, we each have to make a commitment. Yours is to answer two questions with complete candor (even if it hurts). Ours is to deliver on four objectives that will make you an effective negotiator.

1. What negotiation have you handled recently that has not gone or is not going w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for The Power of Nice, Revised and Updated
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Foreword to the Revised Edition: You Can Be Nice, and Purposeful
• Foreword to the First Edition: Can You Say “Agent” and “Nice” in the Same Sentence?
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Why Change What Works?
• Chapter 1: Negotiation
• Chapter 2: I Win–You Lose Negotiation—An Exercise in Flawed Logic
• Chapter 3: WIN–win Negotiation
• Chapter 4: The Three Ps: A Systematic Approach
• Chapter 5: Prepare…or Else
• Chapter 6: Probe, Probe, Probe
• Chapter 7: Propose–But Not Too Fast: Getting the Other Side to Go First
• Chapter 8: Difficult Negotiators
• Chapter 9: Negotiating from Weakness
• Chapter 10: Unlocking Deadlocks
• Chapter 11: Building Relationships
• Chapter 12: Putting It All Together
• Epilogue. : Nelson Mandela—When the Power of Nice Changed a Nation
• Reinforcement Tools Link
• Post-Negotiation Assessment Questionnaire
• Negotiator's Toolbox
• Index
• End User License Agreement