Getting More – Stuart Diamond | Free Book Summary

Getting More – Stuart Diamond

The art of negotiation.

Small talk is good

You make small talk. Not just because you read somewhere that it’s smart to make small talk. You do it because you are interested in them. Because you want to try to find a point of connection with other people. It’s a way of approaching life.

Small talk helps open up and deepen connections. Don’t be above it.

Trust

Trust is the assurance that the other person will protect you. With a little trust, another person will assist you until it becomes too risky for them or a better opportunity arises. The other party will help you even if it hurts them if you have a lot of trust in them.

Trust can carry you further than most other things.

Frame and Be Incremental

It is much more persuasive to let others make the decision, instead of telling them what the decision should be. You want to lead them to where you want them to go, through framing and by being incremental. 

Framing and being incremental are two of the hardest things for people to learn. Most people want to rush ahead, and find it hard to break things up into smaller steps. 

The intangibles

In much of business, money is not the most important item of importance to either side, regardless of what they say. The price has to be reasonable, but so much more is required. Intangibles can bridge the gap between seemingly inflexible positions. 

It’s rarely just about maximizing the monetary outcome.

Be dispassionate

The best negotiators are dispassionate, and continue to ask for information. 

Emotion destroys negotiations and limits creativity. Focus is lost. Decision-making is poor. Retaliation often occurs. 

Your goal is not to be “right;” it’s to get the outcome you desire. Leave the emotions and ego at the door, and you will make fewer bad decisions. You’ll keep your eye on the prize.

Don’t say “calm down”

The more you tell them to calm down, the madder they get. That’s because telling them to calm down devalues the legitimacy of their emotions. And when people feel devalued, they become more emotional. 

Good negotiation requires valuing the other party and their needs. Telling someone to calm down fails to recognize the person’s perspective as legitimate, and more often than not, it will do more harm than good.

Understanding The Fundamental Attribution Error

We all think that everyone else has the same thought processes, set of experiences, and perceptual framework that we do.

We all imagine that others think as we do. We also attribute people’s behaviors to their identity instead of recognizing the importance of the specific events happening in their lives at the moment. 

This fundamental attribution error leads us to make poor judgments about people’s motivations and character.

The Power Of Relationships

‘Do I trust this person? Before I put my life, and my family’s life, in their hands, without recourse, who are they?’

This is the question that is asked by most of the rest of the world, outside the United States. 

The United States focuses more on punishment and contracts than on relationships. And this hampers the United States and its citizens in their negotiations with the rest of the world.

When Arguing With A Friend

Contextualize the argument, no matter how heated, with the following: “Hey, we’ve been friends for x years—over 1,000 or 2,000 days. Do you really want to toss everything out over one bad day?”

This will help put things in perspective and diffuse the issue.