Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight

Written by Robert Mnookin

Narrated by Robert Mnookin

The art of negotiation—from one of the country’s most eminent practitioners and the Chair of the Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation.

One of the country’s most eminent practitioners of the art and science of negotiation offers practical advice for the most challenging conflicts—when you are facing an adversary you don’t trust, who may harm you, or who you may even feel is evil. This lively, informative, emotionally compelling book identifies the tools one needs to make wise decisions about life’s most challenging conflicts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Feb 9, 2010
• ISBN: 9781442304178

Robert Mnookin

Robert H. Mnookin is the Samuel Williston Professor of Law at Harvard Law, the Chair of the Steering Committee of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and the Director of the Harvard Negotiation Research Project. A renowned teacher and lecturer, Professor Mnookin has taught numerous workshops for corporations, governmental agencies and law firms throughout the world and trained many executives and professions in negotiation and mediation skills. Professor Mnookin has written or edited nine books and numerous scholarly articles. His books include Beyond Winning: Negotiating to Create Value in Deals and Disputes (with Scott Peppet and Andrew Tulumello) and Negotiating on Behalf of Others.

Reviews for Bargaining with the Devil

[Bert Martinez · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Very general no real strategy or techniques shared. Talk a lot about his framework, but doesn't actually go into his framework.

[David Anderson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A very good book in fact a must read about one of the most important things in business and life

[Cosmos Eliakim · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Sibling fight was a nice one. Really good book to read.

[schraubd · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is not scholarly. Its anecdotes are fun to read, and in terms of manipulating businesspeople to try to negotiate more often when their instincts say duke it out, it probably is decently effective. And that's a laudatory aim, so I give Mnookin credit for that, though I'd of course have preferred it if he had accomplished this goal via actual arguments rather than rhetorical sleights of hand.The book is very uncritical and non-reflective towards negotiation as a concept (it doesn't give solid examples of when it is bad to negotiate, and the example he gives with respect to Churchill is astoundingly self-fulfilling). Moreover, at times is astoundingly self-promoting. To the extent one is looking for a "serious" discussion of the issues Mnookin purports to raise, you're in the wrong place. It definitely falls less in the "important contributions to negotiating theory" box, and more in the "busy executive self-help box". Which, of course, is a useful box -- but one that I think is beneath Mnookin's considerable talents.

[gshuk_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked that this book explored dealing with opponents who you have a negative visceral response to. It seemed that the stories (which were very interesting) were longer than the few ideas presented here. While it fell short of delivering on the title it is still worth reading.