Book Review: Getting Past No

Getting Past No: Negotiating Your Way from Confrontation to Cooperation by William Ury

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I am one who always reads with a pen in my hand... underlining and making notes in the margins.  Sometimes I even argue with an author, "Yeah, but what about...?"  My guess is that a lot of questioning and argument came from readers after Professors Roger Fisher and William Ury published Getting To Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. The blockbuster book spelled out an utterly simple and utterly sensible approach to negotiation the authors called "principled." It's based on establishing a mutual search for a win/win solution focused on interests rather than positions.  Brilliant.

Yeah.... but.... what do you do when the other side won't engage this way?  When there are no mutual interests?  When emotions are just too high to think clearly?  Well, that is when it is time to employ the strategies Ury gives us in Getting Past No.  This is the follow up book with more in-depth strategies for handling the hard cases, when difficult people, high stakes, or strong emotions are creating barriers to agreement. 

This book comes with a worksheet and a checklist to use when preparing for a negotiation.  I love the whole idea of principled negotiation and I am grateful to the authors and publishers for their years of research.  I'd like to live in a world where everyone has read Getting to Yes, but since I don't, I am glad that I read Getting Past No.  

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