Black Belt Negotiating: Become a Master Negotiator Using Powerful Lessons from the Martial Arts

Money is Not Always the Most Important Issue

Sensei Tabuchi says that the middle of the martial arts contest is where you should perform your fanciest moves, loudest yells, and most difficult techniques to accumulate the most points during the round. In a negotiation, it is also the stage where you try to be as creative as possible. Earlier in the proceedings, discussions over money tend to be fairly logical. Amounts of money go up and down, and that’s about it. Other issues are not quite so linear. If you are bartering with a collector who wants your doll collection in exchange for his baseball card collection, and you’ve had one of those dolls since childhood and don’t want to give it up, and he has an original Mickey Mantle card that his ...