Aleksandra Carter - 10 Questions to Negotiate Anything

Simon & Schuster

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Copyright 2020 by ABC Resolutions, LLC

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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition May 2020

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Interior design by Ruth Lee-Mui

Jacket design by Jason Heuer

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Carter, Alexandra, author.

Title: Ask for more : 10 questions to negotiate anything / Alexandra Carter.

Description: New York : Simon & Schuster, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019051712 (print) | LCCN 2019051713 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982130480 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781982130497 (paperback) | ISBN 9781982130503 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Negotiation

Classification: LCC BF637.N4 C368 2020 (print) | LCC BF637.N4 (ebook) |

DDC 302.3dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051712

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019051713

ISBN 978-1-9821-3048-0

ISBN 978-1-9821-3050-3 (ebook)

To Greg and Caroline

I couldnt ask for more.

We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers.

CARL SAGAN

What made you pick up this book?

Perhaps you want to negotiate more or feel more comfortable doing it. Youd like to negotiate for a promotion or a raiseor both. You want to feel confident asking for what youre worth.

Perhaps youre an entrepreneur and want to grow your business. Youd like to create more loyal clients and get more value from your deals. Maybe youre contemplating a career transition and want to find your calling.

Or perhaps the reason you picked this book up has nothing to do with work. Youve been in conflict with someone, and its eating up your mental energy. Youd like more understanding in your relationships.

Whatever youre facing, you now hold in your hands the tool to help you break through: Ten questions that will help you negotiate anything.

It might seem counterintuitive to learn how to negotiate by asking questions. Twenty years ago, before I first studied conflict resolution, I assumed that negotiation meant winning points, or making demands. But two decades later, Ive learned something remarkably simple from having resolved hundreds of conflicts as a trained mediator: you get more value in negotiation by asking than you do from arguing.

When you ask the right questions, of yourself and others, you open a window to create value far beyond what you can imagine. Leading your negotiation with questions not only helps your bottom line, but it helps you connect to people in a way that can transform relationships, personally and professionally.

When you change your questions, you change the conversation. In this book, well discuss the power of questionsand not just any questions, but open questions. An open question can become your new negotiation tool to unlock deals and possibilities.

Asking for more also means you start negotiations at the beginningwith you. The first negotiation in any situation is the one you have with yourself. When you spend time asking yourself questions first, before sitting down with someone else, youll get more value and more enjoyment from the negotiation process and be more prepared. Ill walk you through the questions to ask yourself so that you can walk into any negotiation with confidence.

Finally, this book will change the way you think about negotiation itself. Ever read a negotiation book and think, Thats not me? Think again. Im going to give you a new definition of what it means to negotiate, one that takes negotiation beyond corporate boardrooms and politicians trading soundbites and into everyday lifewhere we work, live, and dream. One thats more about listening than performing. One that allows you to be yourself while also creating more value out of every interaction you have. One that takes you far beyond a handshake and helps you create a lifetime of value.

Too often, we are taught that negotiation means talking instead of asking. Making your arguments. Controlling the conversation. That negotiation means having all the answers and getting your way to prevent the other person from getting their way. And if we do ask questions, we should only ask questions to which we already know the answer.

This performative concept of negotiation not only turns a lot of people off, leading them to avoid it, but its also ineffective. You dont prepare to become an expert negotiator by looking in the mirror and rehearsing your arguments. Thats not negotiationthats public speaking. And when you sit down with someone else and lead with those arguments, the other person is less likely to hear you, and prone to give what you say much less credit.

Having worked with thousands of negotiators over the course of my career, I can tell immediately who the experts in the room are. Expert negotiators know that their greatest source of strength in negotiation is not bluster but knowledge. Expert negotiation requires you to understand yourself and someone else well enough to conduct a conversation that produces value for both parties. But most people dont ask the right questions to acquire that knowledge. Research shows that only 7 percent of people ask good questions in negotiationeven when sharing information about themselves, or getting the right information about their counterpart, could greatly benefit them. If you start negotiating by launching into your arguments, or asking the wrong questions, you not only miss the chance to create understanding across the table, you may end up settling for less.

But it doesnt have to be that way.

When I set out to write this book, I surveyed hundreds of people from many professions and more than a dozen countries about their definition of negotiation, with a sneaking suspicion that most would have negative connotations around the word. In fact, many of the people who answered the survey defined it as something akin to a back-and-forth discussion to get to an agreement, with half using the words compromise or concessionwhich mean, in effect, a loss. For the people we surveyed, negotiation was analogous to giving up or giving in.

In other words, most people see negotiation as something you do only when youre trying to get a specific result. And that you have to lose something when you do it.

Everywhere we turn, whether in a dictionary or a book or on a television show, you get a similar picture. People arguing politics or trading numbers, to try and reach an agreement. For example, some dictionary definitions include: