Shaping the Game: The New Leader's Guide to Effective Negotiating

Having already addressed ways of making painless (and successful) upward professional transitions in his previous book, The First 90 Days, Watkins, a leadership consultant, hones in on what he calls the most valuable skill for the upwardly mobile: negotiation. Leaders, he says, should think of negotiation as a game of strategic interaction among intelligent players for which it pays to be prepared with a reasonable investment in research and analysis. The nuances are almost endless, and Watkins delves into them all, providing negotiation tips, frameworks, assessment tools and strategies. Helpful charts and checklists appear throughout the text, and his takes on the finer points of the many types of negotiations-one-time transactions, for instance, versus relationships in which future agreements loom-brim with insight. This logical, thought-provoking guide is a useful tool for leaders, new and old.