Product Description

Whether you are negotiating a business contract or curfew with your teenager, emotions can get you in trouble. They also can help you get what you want. This book shows you how. Telling a negotiator 'Don't get emotional' is nonsense. We all have emotions of some kind - all the time - and these emotions deeply inform both what we want and how we go about getting it. In "Getting to Yes", master negotiator Roger Fisher helped readers understand the mechanics of everyday agreements and how to reach them while preserving respect and self-worth. Now, in "Beyond Reason", he and psychologist Daniel Shapiro share their expertise in understanding how emotions affect negotiations and, more importantly, how they can be used as a tool. "Beyond Reason" sheds light on five core emotional concerns we all feel during any interaction, whether between business partners or spouses. Do you feel unappreciated? Alone? Put down? Trivialized? Your autonomy impinged? Awareness of these "core concerns" gives you power. Fisher and Shapiro show you how to use them to generate positive emotions in others and in yourself, allowing you to set the emotional tone and to get what you each want more easily. You will even know what matters most to people before meeting them. Fresh, insightful, and engaging, "Beyond Reason" is sure to be viewed as Fisher's most important work since "Getting to Yes".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #99944 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

About the Author
Roger Fisher is the Samuel Williston Professor of Law Emeritus, Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, and the founder of two consulting organizations devoted to strategic advice and negotiation training. Daniel Shapiro, Associate Director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, teaches negotiation at Harvard Law School and in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital.

Customer Reviews

Powering Resolution through Building Positive Emotions
Anyone who has ever conducted a negotiation knows that everyone involved is tense. Some people become so tense that they are not able to operate effectively. Other negotiators seem to have the touch for relaxing everyone and quickly reaching an agreement that everyone likes.

Fans of Getting to Yes have probably run into attorneys and negotiators who didn't want to play ball. These people may have been hostile, manipulative and short-sighted. But it's hard to reason with these parties using the Getting to Yes principles if you do not have your own emotions under control.

Beyond Reason is a much needed and valuable resource for dealing with the emotional context for negotiations.

The process for taking the initiative (express appreciation, build affiliation, respect autonomy, acknowledge status, and choose a fulfilling role) is constructive, common sense methods that anyone will feel comfortable doing. As helpful as that process is, I found the most useful advice coming in chapters 8-10 which describe how to be ready for strong emotions, being prepared for negotiations and the case history of the border dispute resolution between Ecuador and Peru.

The examples in the book are well chosen to illustrate the principles and breathe life into those concepts. Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro have a light touch that defuses your apprehension as you address this subject.

I also recommend that you read Crucial Conversations, a good complementary book on how to address strong emotions in others and yourself when they arise unexpectedly and unpleasantly.

Terrific book on dealing with emotions in negotiations
This book by Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro has rightfully won a prize offered by the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution for the best book on negotiation. The book focuses on the important role emotions play in negotiations and offers a practical framework for dealing with them constructively. Throughout the book Fisher and Shapiro present recognizable examples, ranging for day to day situations we all encounter to political negotiations with huge impact for millions.

For me, the most interesting part of the book is were the authors explain five core concerns -- appreciation, affiliation, autonomy, status and role -- and their effect on decision making. They provide sensible advice on how to use these concerns as levers to keep negotiations constructive. Here is a quote from the book giving you an example: "Perhaps the most powerful way to soothe someone's emotions is to appreciate their concerns. There are three elements in appreciating someone. You want to UNDERSTAND the other's point of view; FIND MERIT in what they are thinking, feeling, or doing; and COMMUNICATE the merit you see." I think that is a terrific way to put it!

The content of this book is one thing that makes it worthwhile. Another reason why I like it is that it is exceptionally well-structured. I like it when authors do their very best to make it as easy as possible for readers to understand their core messages. Fisher and Shapiro succeed very well in this.

Guidebook for using emotions in negotiation
Far too many books treat negotiation as a rational process, as if the parties involved are calculating machines (or close to it). Authors Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro show that is not the case. They explain how emotions affect negotiating, and provide tools based on five core emotional concerns for dealing with powerful feelings at the negotiating table. This slender book is clearly written, and the authors illustrate each point in their theoretical framework with examples from their extensive experience. The result is an immediately applicable book that provides a host of practical tips. getAbstract recommends it to anyone who negotiates...and that means just about everyone.