Getting More Begins With Finding Out Who You Are Asking

Stuart Diamond taught negotiation at the Wharton School. I first came to Getting More because the course had a reputation for helping people put the subject to work outside a classroom.

The book takes that material into stores, workplaces and family conversations. It was the smaller examples, the ones I could imagine encountering tomorrow, that first made me want to read it.

What counts as a negotiation?

There are negotiations you see coming and others you can pass through without calling them by that name. When a situation is awkward or the stakes look small, I often find it easier to accept what has been offered.

Diamond asks what might happen if you made a reasonable request instead. Even in a shop that displays a fixed price, you can find out what the store is able to do before deciding whether to buy.

The airport story

I remembered an airport story from the beginning of the book long after I forgot some of its terminology. The example made me want to go back and see how much of the method was already there.

Two people arrive after boarding has closed. One lets the weight of the bag drop and catches the pilot’s eye. Diamond presents what happened next as an example of getting another person to see the difficulty you are in.

The requests we make in an ordinary day

A salary discussion looks like a negotiation before it starts. The same skills can come into play in an exchange that lasts a minute.

A parent and child might agree on how long to play a game or how they will get ready in the morning. There are two people with reasons to care about what happens next.

A store discount, a hotel room change and a call about a service fee all ask for something different. The book keeps moving from one scale of negotiation to another.

What the book means by negotiation

Diamond uses negotiation in a wide sense. This is how I read his definition.

• It shares some of the work of persuasion, communication and selling.
• Try to understand how the situation looks to the other person.
• Then find a response that can move you toward what you came to do.

He also describes several kinds of result a negotiator might seek.

1. A person takes an action.
2. A person reaches a decision.
3. A person sees a situation differently.
4. A person feels differently about what has been proposed.

The situation can change while you are talking. Diamond keeps bringing the reader back to three questions.

1. What are you trying to achieve?
2. Who is across from you?
3. What would help that person consider what you are asking?

Who has to make the decision?

It is tempting to begin by assembling everything you know about the subject. Diamond would spend some of that time learning about the person who has to make a decision.

He cites experience in which trust, relationships and the way a discussion was conducted often mattered more to agreement than expert knowledge alone.

A good argument can get lost if you make it in a way that leaves somebody unwilling to listen. I took that as a reason to look after the relationship while I worked on the question.

It helps to spend enough time on the other person’s position that you can explain why it might look reasonable to them.

How to keep a conversation going

Here are some of the communication habits Diamond asks people to practice.

• Talk through the problem with the person involved.
• Listen before asking a question.
• Give the other person room to speak without blaming them.
• Summarize what you have heard and check it.
• Notice your emotions before letting them determine the response.
• Be specific about what you hope to achieve.
• Stay firm on the point while taking care with the relationship.
• Pay attention to small signals.
• Talk about the places where you see things differently.
• Find out how the other person makes and keeps commitments.
• Consult people before deciding on something that affects them.
• Put your effort into what you can influence.
• Keep the discussion on the problem instead of trying to win an argument about who was right.

Reading the list, I thought about how rarely I take time to repeat what somebody has said before telling them what I think. That small step can reveal a disagreement neither person knew they had.

Preparing in four parts

Diamond also offers a way to prepare before the discussion. It gives you somewhere to put questions that otherwise come to mind in the middle of talking.

He divides the preparation into four areas. Each asks you to look at a different part of the problem.

• 1. Define the problem and the goals
  • Identify your immediate and longer-term goals.
  • Name what is in the way.
  • List the other parties, the decision-makers and anyone else involved.
  • Ask what could happen if no agreement is reached.
  • Learn what you can about the other side before talking.
• 2. Understand the situation
  • What does each side need or care about?
  • How does each side picture the situation?
  • How do the parties communicate and what is their relationship?
  • What standards does the other person already accept?
  • Do you need to change your goal in light of what you learned?
• 3. Consider options and risk
  • List different ways to reach the goal.
  • Look for smaller steps that lower the risk.
  • Find out who else can influence the outcome or who faces a problem you share.
  • Describe what a useful outcome would look like and find a question that opens it up.
  • Identify another way forward if the first one fails.
• 4. Decide how to act
  • Decide what matters most and what you can give up.
  • Work out whom to speak to and how to approach them.
  • Give the agenda, deadlines and timing some attention.
  • Check the terms and incentives with the people involved.
  • Agree on who will do what afterward.

Twelve ideas to keep in view

1. Keep the goal in view.
2. Try to see the situation as the other person sees it.
3. Pay attention to how people feel.
4. Learn what is particular to this exchange.
5. Proceed in steps.
6. Trade things the parties value differently.
7. Use standards the other party already recognizes.
8. Be truthful.
9. Make sure people understand what has been said.
10. Look for obstacles that have not been stated.
11. Make room for differences.
12. Write down what you need to prepare.

What the cases show

The later chapters put the ideas into situations a reader might recognize. I sometimes used the contents to find an example before reading the chapter around it.

The subjects include work, shopping, parenting and disputes that involve a much wider group of people.

I kept noticing the work Diamond does before asking for something. A policy can be a reason to say no, but it can also give you a question to ask about how the same policy has been applied elsewhere.

It also matters that a person can hear the request as coming from somebody who recognizes their work. Giving someone credit for helping can make an exchange feel different before either party agrees to anything.

• Finding work and working with other people
  • Getting into the company you want to work for.
  • Choosing what to say in an interview.
  • Using a standard the company recognizes.
  • Imagining an option the other side has not considered.
  • Knowing when somebody else could help.
  • Working through a worst-case outcome.
  • Negotiating in an ordinary workday.
• Prices and purchases
  • Working with the other party’s stated standards.
  • Keeping the exchange human.
  • Understanding what a potential customer is worth to the seller.
  • Buying a new or used car.
  • Talking to a credit card company.
  • The small details that can change a result.
  • Dealing with a family business.
• The relationships behind an agreement
  • Giving the relationship some attention.
  • Recognizing a problem the parties share.
  • Finding value that does not have a price.
  • Listening for tone and attitude.
  • Choosing how to present information.
  • Making a useful conversation possible.
  • Inviting a third party or mediator.
  • Looking for a next step in an extreme dispute.
• Talking with children
  • Preparing before a difficult conversation.
  • Trying to see the situation as a child sees it.
  • Taking the child’s individuality seriously.
  • Working on a habit that causes trouble.
  • Building a relationship before a crisis.
• Asking for a service
  • Asking for a service you can use.
  • Talking to the person who provides it.
  • Finding a sentence that changes the frame.
  • Learning the standards in advance.
  • Making a request to a public official.
  • Looking for something that can still be done.
  • Planning a trip with alternatives in mind.
• Negotiating in everyday life
  • Principles for ordinary requests.
  • Negotiations over a home.
  • Using a standard in an everyday disagreement.
  • Understanding what the other person values.
  • Asking for help.
• Disputes that reach beyond two people
  • Making room for a face-to-face conversation.
  • Learning what your opponents think they are doing.
  • The book’s discussion of terrorism and prevention.
  • Trying a smaller agreement first.
  • Paying attention to emotions in a dispute.
  • Using standards and finding another way to frame a question.

Diamond’s proposal for a joint business

The book was written years before the recent Israel–Hamas war. One passage revisits Diamond’s own earlier proposal for Israeli–Palestinian cooperation.

He describes proposing a jointly owned pharmaceutical business in the 1980s. The idea was to give people on both sides a practical reason to keep working together. It was never adopted.

Diamond hoped work and economic stability could reduce some of the conditions in which violence takes hold. The proposal is one illustration of his preference for a limited undertaking that parties have reasons to sustain.

I wondered what such a project might have made possible on its own terms. The record can tell us why he proposed it. The outcome of a project that did not go ahead remains unknowable.

An episode from Daewoo

Diamond also writes about Daewoo. He contrasts founder Kim Woo-choong’s appetite for a deal with what he saw as a reluctance among some executives to take the initiative in negotiation.

The collapse of the Daewoo Group had causes wider than the choices of any one negotiator. I read this episode as a narrower question about what happens when an organization depends on one person to do the asking.

The person who has to hear the request

The book left me thinking about the person who has to hear a request. What do they know that I do not? What would make an answer possible for them? I find those questions easiest to remember in the ordinary conversations Diamond starts with.

Book details

Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World

Author

Stuart Diamond

Korean edition published

June 9, 2022

ISBN-13

9788933871904

View on YES24

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