By Brit Grosskopf,
Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University.

This wonderful new book is entertaining and practical for both the experienced negotiator and the novice in the field. Deborah M. Kolb and Judith Williams go beyond traditional views and the mistake of seeing negotiation as bargaining for a fixed pie and the mere issue of how to split it. While we do learn how to enlarge the pie being negotiated, this book offers much more. The authors remind us that the parties to a negotiation are not emotionless creatures who optimize the situation in a purely rational way—far from it! Every negotiator must deal with human beings with their individual egos, prejudices and values. Any negotiation, even among the most amicable players, is often charged with emotion and anxiety.

One of the many contributions of this book is to clarify the need to distinguish interests and values in a negotiation. They are often assumed be the same thing, but they are not. We can bargain over differences in interests, but differences in values require another order of understanding before we can move forward.

Deborah M. Kolb and Judith Williams show us that making room for relationship building is a prerequisite for a collaborative negotiation. How a conversation is conducted is as important as the content of that conversation. In the shadow negotiation, bargainers determine how they feel about one another. The book takes us to a deeper level of negotiation, a level where masked attitudes and hidden agendas play out. If we do not recognize the subtle—and sometimes not-so-subtle—impact that interpersonal communications can have on the outcome of a negotiation, we are left digging our heels into the ground and reducing the potential for constructive dialogue.

In their engaging and accessible style, Deborah M. Kolb and Judith Williams make it very easy to understand that to launch constructive dialogue (where we can use and apply our traditional negotiation knowledge), we must first create a friendly atmosphere through our words and actions. The setting of a negotiation – both physical and psychological – has an impact on the process. Dialogue doesn’t just happen; trust and respect must be nurtured before others feel safe to speak their minds or even want to bother. The book reminds us that we must work (sometimes hard) to change the perceptions that people bring into the negotiation and to cultivate a climate of openness and mutual respect.

I highly recommend this book to any manager. Its implications are indispensable for any modern organization, especially in the face of globalization and diversity. We all know that it does not take much to shut people down during a negotiation. The high art, however, is to get them talking again. Everyday Negotiation provides practical advice on how to prepare and position ourselves to successfully negotiate our interests. It teaches us to manage the perceptions others have of us and to carefully review the perceptions we have of others. We are reminded that negotiation happens between people regardless of their gender, ethnic origin, or status. Bargainers don’t just deal with issues; they deal with each other.

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