Military Review English Edition March-April 2016 | Page 126

GETTING MORE: How You Can Negotiate to
Succeed in Work and Life
Stuart Diamond, Three Rivers Press, New York,
2012, 416 pages

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very reader who wants to learn how to get
more of what he or she personally values, from
improved stability in an Afghan village to a child
eating dinner without a fuss, should read Getting More:
How You Can Negotiate to Succeed in Work and Life.
Stuart Diamond is one of the world’s leading
negotiation strategists, and he has advised corporate
and governmental leaders in over forty countries;
academic and military leaders also trust his advice.
He currently teaches negotiation at the University
of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School, and he
previously taught negotiation at Columbia, New York
University, Berkeley, Oxford, and Harvard. Retired
Adm. William McRaven, former commander of U.S.
Special Operations Command, included Getting More
as one of only fourteen books on his 2014 reading list.
Diamond’s thesis is that every interaction in life
is a negotiation. Consistently using the strategies
discussed throughout the book results in a marked
improvement toward getting more of what the
reader values. As Diamond explains his negotiation
techniques, he illustrates his points with anecdotes
about real-world successes from his students. Those
stories are concise and appropriate. Each illustration
lends practical credibility to Diamond’s theories.
Collectively, they motivate the reader to try the negotiation tools explained in the book.
Diamond organizes Getting More into three primary topics. First, he contrasts his theory with other
well-known negotiation styles. For example, he strongly
disagrees with using leverage to coerce other parties
in a negotiation. He also shuns purely logical win-win
arguments. Instead, his negotiation approach centers
on building relationships, situational relativity, and
incremental progress toward clear goals.
Second, he explains the details of his many strategies
to progress toward one’s goals. One of his primary techniques is trading items of unequal value. Diamond explains, “First, find out what each party cares and doesn’t
care about, big and small, tangible and intangible, in the
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deal or outside the deal, rational and emotional. Then
trade off items that one party values but the other party doesn’t.” Only creativity limits negotiations.
Another technique uses the other party’s standards
to frame the situation. Diamond’s students showed
scores of convincing examples using this technique:
from negotiating with Comcast about poor customer
service to buying sponsorship rights from a professional
sports team. In addition to techniques like these, he
also explains that no individual technique is flawless in
every situation. The cumulative goal is improving one’s
batting average, not total victory.
Third, Diamond shows how to apply his many negotiation techniques in a variety of settings. Constantly
prepare. Understand the other party’s needs, and keep
asking questions to refine one’s understanding of those
needs. Always stay focused on one’s own goals. Through
the myriad settings and student examples, the reader feels overwhelmingly convinced of the validity of
Diamond’s techniques.
The only weakness in Diamond’s strategy is that it requires the reader to practice, as success depends on one’s
effort. One must use the techniques and work to master
them. Luckily, Diamond’s approachable writing style motivates the reader to try. Throughout Getting More, he
proves how commonplace negotiations are in daily life.
Diamond’s strategies teach the reader how to get more of
what each reader values, and the student examples show
the reader success is possible. If one wants to get more in
life, reading this book is a good place to start.
Maj. Christie Downs, U.S. Army,
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas

THE RUSSIAN ARMY IN THE GREAT WAR: The
Eastern Front, 1914-1917
David R. Stone, University Press of Kansas, Lawrence,
Kansas, 2015, 368 pages

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he centenary of the First World War has
been met with a flood of commemorative
scholarship and events, helping us to reassess
the causes and course of the war. David Stone’s The
Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front is
a very necessary reexamination of the Eastern Front.
This is the first English language general work about
March-April 2016  MILITARY REVIEW