Winning negotiations need not mean winner takes all.

Negotiating Skills for Managers Steven Cohen McGraw-Hill Briefcase Books Series, [c] 2002 215 pages

I am not a born negotiator, nor do I enjoy negotiation. The very word conjures up confrontations with car salesmen who won't give an inch, or bosses who always have the last word. I am a believer in what author Steven Cohen calls the "myths" of negotiation. Everybody knows, for example, that negotiation is an adversarial process; the winner takes all, and you have to have some tricks up your sleeve to be the winner.

Cohen believes it doesn't have to be that way. In "Negotiating Skills for Managers," he proposes a collaborative negotiation method that serves as many of each party's interests as possible. Cohen is head of The Negotiation Skills Co. Inc., whose mission is to "advance the cause of civility." That's also a good way to sum up the perspective of this book. Negotiation is not a competitive sport; the winner does not take all. Rather, Cohen contends, negotiation is a mechanism for reaching agreement with a satisfying outcome for everyone involved.

This is a reassuring idea for me and probably for many other readers. It means that even it we aren't good at "shooting from the hip," we can be successful negotiators. But how do we get from being unwilling negotiators to becoming confident in our negotiation skills?

In 12 chapters, Cohen lays out a "negotiation technology." He leads the reader step by step through the stages of preparing to negotiate and the negotiation itself. A checklist at the end of each chapter serves as a good summation and review tool.

Cohen stresses the importance of preparing for negotiation. Preparation is everything in negotiation technology, and "information is the fundamental asset of negotiators," he writes. Each party should learn as much as possible about the subject of the negotiation. This includes examining their own interests and those of the other stakeholders before negotiations begin. A written agenda worked out ahead of time between parties can help all participants clarify what the negotiations are actually about.

Flexibility is another important concept in this kind of interest-based negotiation. Contrary to the myths, you don't have to go into negotiations intent on sticking to a fixed position. This strategy can leave you backed into a corner, and it doesn't allow for considering alternatives that may come up during discussions. Being flexible leaves you open to possible desirable outcomes you hadn't thought of on your own.

Cohen makes interest-based negotiation sound easy. Bottom line, he is championing a philosophy of best practices for life applied to the negotiation process: communicate clearly, be aware of your priorities, know your goals, don't be offensive, listen actively, have realistic expectations, know your bottom line, talk about your feelings, don't believe stereotypes and, above all, treat others with respect.

Nevertheless, as easy as it may sound and as helpful as this book may be to me eventually, my first reading of "Negotiating Skills for Managers" was somewhat discouraging. The actual negotiation process composed only one chapter. The rest of the book is dedicated to preparations for negotiating, including making a physical map of interests, as well as becoming psychologically ready for whatever comes. The book ends with "seven pillars of negotiational wisdom" to prioritize as an additional part of preparation! If I don't have time to absorb all 187 pages of techniques and make myself an "interest map," I feel I may be doomed to failure.

That said, however, "Negotiating Skills for Managers" can be a useful book for negotiators at all experience levels. Less experienced (and less willing) negotiators will want to read it more than once to take hold of the basic concepts, perhaps getting practice with them in their personal life, while those who negotiate for business on a regular basis will be able to use what they need to improve their current techniques.

It's also a good bookshelf addition for readers who may need a future memory refresher on interest-based negotiations. It's reassuring to know that negotiations with civility are being put into practice, and that ] may be able to survive negotiating after all.

Linda Davis works for Computer Sciences Corp. as a technical communicator at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is a graduate student in the communication management program at the University of Southern California and a member of the Los Angeles chapter of IABC.