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.  

Click here to be linked to a free download of my two-page summary.

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Book Review: The Opposable Mind

Opposable Mind: Winning Through Integrative Thinking by Roger Martin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I named my consulting business "Creative Option C" which is what I call the alternative people must create whenever they feel themselves to be deadlocked between bad choice A and bad choice B.  For example, in Washington DC - one of the most dysfunctionally polarized places in the world - House Republicans insist that lowering taxes and cutting entitlement spending is the only way to reduce the deficit and grow the economy.  President Obama and Senate Democrats say that ending tax cuts for the wealthiest among us and investing more in the middle class in the short term is the path to the same end.  Both have staked out their positions and dug in for the battle.  But both sides want to achieve the same goal.  We need them to co-create an option that works for everybody.

I believe that option always exists.  I call it Option C.

Hegel called it Synthesis.

Covey called it the Third Alternative.

Fisher and Ury called the process for getting there "principled negotiation."

None of these methods involve "compromise" or "hard trade-offs." They involve commitment to the relationships, commitment to the shared desired outcomes, and a creative process.

From the University of Toronto comes a renowned business professor who has studied the decision making styles of great leaders and concluded that the best ones avoid making trade-offs.  They don't panic when presented with apparently opposing viewpoints: they investigate, look for common ground, and invent something new. There is a method to this kind of process, a method that can be taught and learned. Dr. Martin brilliantly weaves storytelling with analysis to provide us all with a great how-to.  Thanks, professor.  Somebody should send a couple dozen cases of this book to the US Capital!

My two-page summary is available for free download here.

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Creating Option C

One of my favorite authors, Lawrence Susskind, father of the Consensus Building Institute, wrote a blog yesterday about "winning in a win-win context." Apparently it is the theme for his new book, which I just added to my reading list, and refers to the idea that negotiators always do best when they are invested in the success of their counterparts across the table - even if they aren't versed in or prepared to do "Principled Negotiation."  The notion of prevailing in a negotiation seems to have gotten under the skin of some win-win purists, but I agree with Susskind that they should go back and re-read Getting to Yes, the classic work that describes the method and process for creating new options to satisfy all parties.  There's nothing wrong with winning. There is a problem with forcing the others to lose.  Link to his response here.

These guys are the masters of Creating Option C and Professor Susskind's new book is a good excuse for me to revisit two of my favorites:

Breaking Robert's Rules: The New Way to Run Your Meeting, Build Consensus, and Get Results by Lawrence E. Susskind

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Robert's Rules probably helped large deliberative bodies make decisions together back in the 19th Century when they were developed, but this system for managing meetings is highly inappropriate for a group of eight volunteers working to plan a community event in 2014.  So why does nearly every non-profit organization embed a reference to Robert's Rules in their bylaws?  Habit.  Not knowing how else to do it. Somebody in the group liked how another group's structure worked and they attribute it to Robert's Rules. The lawyer said we should. Whatever the reason... Professor Susskind has a better way.  If you serve on any kind of board or committee, run to the nearest bookstore and pick this one up.  Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

My summary for this one is six pages long because it contains a four-page chart outlining the essential steps of consensus building. Download it for free with a quick click here.

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Here's a great read for anyone who has ever found themselves locked in a battle of wills they didn't ask for, who is simply trying (from their own perspective) to get another to accept what is fair or right.  The book was a best seller in its day, and is now a classic from the Harvard Negotiation Project.  Accessible, practical, and clear, Getting to Yes provides the step-by-step how-to of negotiation for those who have no interest in playing hardball.  But also for those who don't want to cave in just to maintain a relationship with the person on the other side.  It's a process for win-win, and it works.

Click here to download a two-page summary written by me!

I reserve the five-star rating for books that changed my life, and Getting to Yes certainly qualifies.  The name of my consulting business, Creative Option C, expresses my highest value in organizational development, the idea that there is always a way to create an option that works for everybody.  The "A" people don't have to defeat the "B" people to get their way... they have to work with the "B" people to invent a new option that everyone loves.  When both are committed to the relationship, and when they work a tried-and-true process, they can always, always, always succeed.  Fisher and Ury gave us the process back in 1981. 

This book is worth going to again and again.  I recommend it to one and all.  In fact, I am taking 13 copies of it to meeting tomorrow.

Book Review: Breaking Roberts Rules

Breaking Robert's Rules: The New Way to Run Your Meeting, Build Consensus, and Get Results by Lawrence E. Susskind

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Robert's Rules probably helped large deliberative bodies make decisions together back in the 19th Century when they were developed, but this system for managing meetings is highly inappropriate for a group of eight volunteers working to plan a community event in 2014.  So why does nearly every non-profit organization embed a reference to Robert's Rules in their bylaws?  Habit.  Not knowing how else to do it. Somebody in the group liked how another group's structure worked and they attribute it to Robert's Rules. The lawyer said we should. Whatever the reason... Professor Susskind has a better way.  If you serve on any kind of board or committee, run to the nearest bookstore and pick this one up.  Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. 

My summary for this one is six pages long because it contains a four-page chart outlining the essential steps of consensus building. Download it for free with a quick click here.



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Book Review: Getting to Yes

Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Here's a great read for anyone who has ever found themselves locked in a battle of wills they didn't ask for, who is simply trying (from their own perspective) to get another to accept what is fair or right.  The book was a best seller in its day, and is now a classic from the Harvard Negotiation Project.  Accessible, practical, and clear, Getting to Yes provides the step-by-step how-to of negotiation for those who have no interest in playing hardball.  But also for those who don't want to cave in just to maintain a relationship with the person on the other side.  It's a process for win-win, and it works.

Click here to download a two-page summary written by me!

I reserve the five-star rating for books that changed my life, and Getting to Yes certainly qualifies.  The name of my consulting business, Creative Option C, expresses my highest value in organizational development, the idea that there is always a way to create an option that works for everybody.  The "A" people don't have to defeat the "B" people to get their way... they have to work with the "B" people to invent a new option that everyone loves.  When both are committed to the relationship, and when they work a tried-and-true process, they can always, always, always succeed.  Fisher and Ury gave us the process back in 1981. 

This book is worth going to again and again.  I recommend it to one and all.  In fact, I am taking 13 copies of it to meeting tomorrow.


View all my reviews