David A. Lax - 3-d Negotiation: Powerful Tools to Change the Game in Your Most Important Deals

Praise for 3-D Negotiation from corporate leaders:

For many years, we searched for just the right firm and individual to find the best approach to enhance our senior executives negotiating skills, and after endless presentations of tired win-win and win-lose clichs, we began working closely with Dr. Jim Sebenius. His 3-D approach is in use at many levels of the Este Lauder Companies with excellent results. This down-to-earth book is packed with striking examples which help us to put his methods into practice.

William Lauder, President and CEO, the Este Lauder Companies

Following the clear and innovative concept of 3-D Negotiation has contributed invaluably... to many agreements that are critical to Novartis. These deals must sometimes accomplish conflicting objectives, be sustainable, and enhance relationships.

Daniel Vasella, MD, Chairman and CEO, Novartis AG

Lax and Sebenius understand better than anyone that the key to successful and sustainable agreements is to focus on those activities that take place away from the negotiating table, well before face-to-face tactics come into play. 3-D Negotiation is a brilliant and rigorous exposition of key bargaining strategy techniques from two masters of negotiation. Building on their previous reputation, the authors analyze recent corporate and diplomatic experience to provide new insights into the field. I have used their advice to great success in the complex health care environment.

Paul F. Levy, President and CEO, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

3-D Negotiation is simply the most sophisticated and practical guide to negotiation ever written. Its many fascinating case studies show you exactly how to apply its powerful method.

Mathias Doepfner, CEO, Axel Springer AG (one of Europes top media companies)

Praise for 3-D Negotiation from the financial elite:

Lax and Sebenius capture what Ive seen great deal makers take years to perfect. Silver tongues and tactics can be a sideshow. As chess masters know, success at the table flows from advance preparation and strategically positioning your pieces to maximize leverage.

Stephen Friedman, former Chairman and Senior Partner,
Goldman Sachs & Co.; Chair, Presidents Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board;
former Special Assistant to the President of the United States for Economic Affairs;
and Director, White House National Economic Council

We faced some of the firms most challenging and delicate negotiations during its startup period. Over those early years, we worked daily with Jim Sebenius, who was often very helpful with critical deals at key moments. He later returned to Harvard, armed with this intensive experience, to make the theory and practice of effective negotiation his life work. He and his colleague, David Lax, have now blended messy reality with elegant analysis to produce a first-rate piece of work. Readers facing tough deals, along with generations of Harvard MBAs and executives, will benefit greatly from this lucid book and its highly relevant case studies. I recommend it highly.

Peter G. Peterson, Senior Chairman and Cofounder, The Blackstone Group (one of the worlds largest private equity firms)

I have worked directly with the authors on some of the most challenging negotiations of my career. Their 3-D approach was important in helping to deliver hundreds of millions of pounds of value for shareholders.

Philip Yea, CEO, 3i Group plc (an FTSE 100 venture capital and private equity company that has invested more than 26 billion in more than fourteen thousand businesses)

Praise for 3-D Negotiation from thought leaders on negotiation:

In negotiation, the moves you make away from the table are as important as any moves you can make at the table. Nowhere has this insight been more brilliantly and practically presented than in the 3-D negotiation method developed here by David Lax and James Sebenius. This is a landmark contribution, valuable for any negotiator. My hat is off to them!

William Ury, coauthor of Getting to Yes , author of Getting Past No

At last, practical advice on how to overcome obstacles that prevent us from getting to yes.

Roger Fisher, coauthor of Getting to Yes

Every so often, a book comes along that sheds entirely new light on an old subject. Most negotiation books, my own included, focus too much on tactics at the table. Lax and Sebenius certainly draw on their extensive deal experience to offer plenty of battle-tested advice on tactics. Yet their striking new book opens up two new dimensions. Their chapters on the art and science of deal design go well beyond anything yet written on just how to create value on a lasting basis, including both the letter and spirit of the deal. And there is simply nothing like their systematic development of the art and science of moves away from table to set up the most promising possible situation for face-to-face tactics. Twenty years ago, Lax and Sebenius coined the phrase creating and claiming value and changed the negotiation field by making its implications the cornerstone of their first book. I predict that 3-D Negotiation will do it again.

Howard Raiffa, Frank P. Ramsey Professor (Emeritus) of Managerial Economics, Harvard Business School and John F. Kennedy School of Government, author of The Art and Science of Negotiation and Negotiation Analysis , and coauthor of Smart Choices

Lax and Sebenius provide scholars and frontline negotiators with new and important insight in 3-D Negotiation . The authors, influenced by their extensive deal experience and strong analytic backgrounds, provide a clever new organization of issues that negotiators need to consider in important, complex negotiations. Lax and Sebenius highlight aspects on the negotiation process too often ignored or given insufficient attention by other authorsmoves away from the table to set up and reset the negotiation most favorably. The result is both original and powerful.

Max H. Bazerman, Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School, and coauthor of Negotiating Rationally

Twenty years ago, The Manager as Negotiator by Lax and Sebenius raised the bar for negotiation theory and practice. With 3-D Negotiation , theyve done it again. With its highly original focus on away-from-the-table setup moves and sophisticated prescriptions on value-creating deal designs, 3-D Negotiation provides an innovative analytical framework that will prove indispensable for those seeking practical negotiation advice.

Robert H. Mnookin, Williston Professor of Law,
Chair, Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School, and
coauthor of Beyond Winning and Barriers to Conflict Resolution

Finally, the negotiation book weve been waiting forsophisticated, practical, multidimensional, and effective in the real world of commercial deals and disputes. Lax and Sebenius avoid the one-dimensional approach of the chest-thumpers, game-theorists, and idealists and demonstrate how the best negotiation results can be achieved by any serious bargainer who takes the time think through the problem, prepare, and apply a complete set of strategies and tactics. This is a giant step forward in the negotiation field, but also a magnificent contribution to those of us who work in the middle between negotiators who too often fail to find the deal or the best deal.

Eric D. Green, Professor of Law, Boston University; successful mediator in the United States v. Microsoft antitrust case and many other complex disputes; and Cofounder and Principal, Resolutions, LLC and EnDispute, Inc. (now JAMS)