Manager as Negotiator - by David a Lax & James K Sebenius (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This fine blend of Harvard scholarship and seasoned judgment is really two books in one. The first develops a sophisticated approach to negotiation for executives, attorneys, diplomats -- indeed, for anyone who bargains or studies its challenges. The second offers a new and compelling vision of the successful manager: as a strong, often subtle negotiator, constantly shaping agreements and informal understandings throughout the complex web of relationships in an organization.

Review Quotes

Donald B. Straus past president, American Arbitration Association Every once in a while a book comes along that makes a complicated subject easier to comprehend. The reader says, 'Aha! That is how it works' "The Manager as Negotiator" does this for tomorrow's managers, and, indeed, all who deal with conflict. There have been books on how to WIN and books on how to COLLABORATE. "The Manager as Negotiator" weaves the art and science of doing both into a readable and comprehensive manual of how and when to do each. If ever there were a skill that might make tomorrow brighter, this is it.

Elliot L. Richardson Partner of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley, and McCloy; former Attorney General of the United States, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Commerce, and Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Both the seasoned negotiator and the novice will find in "The Manager as Negotiator" fascinating insights, a systematic approach, and a quality of realism that make it an extraordinarily valuable source of guidance.

Howard Raiffa Frank Plumpton Ramsey Professor of Managerial Economics, Harvard Business School; author of "The Art and Science of Negotiation" As a most interested third party, I have watched this remarkable book take shape over several years. If it were mainly intended as an analytical work on bargaining, it would be a great success, posing new questions, generating deep and original insights, and rigorously developing their implications. Yet "The Manager as Negotiator" transcends its roots in game theory and decision analysis, asking broader more realistic questions and addressing its exceptionally clear prose to a much wider audience. This book will give managers and negotiators invaluable advice. At the same time, it should profoundly influence the way scholars from many fields analyze negotiation.

Peter G. Peterson Chairman of the Blackstone Group; former chairman of Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, United States Secretary of Commerce, and president and CEO of Bell and Howell The ability to think through and carry out negotiations is vital to success in Washington, on Wall Street, and in the corporate world. I have long felt that there was an inner logic to the process, but until I encountered this book, I doubted that it could be so insightfully and persuasively set forth. Further, having worked closely with one of the authors and having seen this approach make major differences in significant transactions, I recommend "The Manager as Negotiator" to anyone interested in a sophisticated understanding of this subject.

Richard E. Neustadt Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Lax and Sebenius do themselves proud in this seminal book. They write as well as they think. They show not only how the world is, but how to affect it -- for doers and scholars alike.

Richard G. Darman Deputy Secretary of the United States Treasury Sophisticated managers know that the largest part of management is "negotiating, " not giving orders or unilaterally executing plans. This fresh work on negotiation usefully combines analysis and experience -- and goes far beyond the tired cliches of the "win-lose" or "win-win" approaches. I recommend it highly.

About the Author

David A. Lax is founder and co-director of the Negotiation Roundtable at the Harvard Business School. An Assistant Professor of Business Administration there, he teaches an extremely popular negotiation course. Educated at Princeton and at Harvard, from which he holds a doctorate in statistics, he has written extensively on negotiation. As a principal of The Negotiation Group, Professor Lax frequently acts as a consultant to business and governments. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.