Chester L Karrass

The Negotiating Game               

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Chester L Karrass first published “The Negotiating Game” in 1970, and many editions have subsequently appeared,[1] and it is a useful addition to your negotiation library.  The Karrass organization (Karrass.com) is a large-scale provider of negotiation courses in the USA and you may have seen their advertisements in American in-flight magazines. 

The Negotiating Game focuses clearly on the actual practice of negotiation, it therefore differs from some of the books written by academics.  In my opinion Karrass takes a far more realistic approach to the subject of negotiation than Fisher and Ury did in Getting to Yes, in my view they wrote about negotiation from an essentially academic standpoint. However Karrass, like Fisher and Ury, writes almost exclusively from a US perspective and does not deal specifically with the problems of cross-cultural negotiation.  I also believe that he does not sufficiently stress the importance of understanding the people and organizations that you negotiate with, although he does insist on the importance of comprehensive preparation and of keeping track of the process of negotiation.

Karrass identifies the importance of the relative power between negotiators and the need for successful negotiators to use their power effectively, something that some writers seem to prefer to overlook.  He also undertook research which highlighted the fact that those (I believe that the research took place wholly in America, so it may not have universal application) with higher aspirations, or targets, won higher awards, and failed less, and that being unreasonable, by initially demanding more in a negotiation actually improved the probability of success, as it increased the room for maneuver and compromise. His research also showed that winners made smaller concessions than losers, and that losers made the first compromise. Karrass also quotes surveys which found that professional negotiators in the USA believed that seven traits were the most important success factors for individual negotiators:

1.                 planning skill

2.                 ability to think clearly under stress

3.                 general practical intelligence

4.                 verbal ability

5.                 product knowledge

6.                 personal integrity

7.                 ability to perceive and exploit power

Personally Karrass also stressed the need for every negotiator to think well of his, or her, self, to be tolerant of ambiguity and uncertainty, and have an inner desire to succeed.  Finally Karrass introduced his “Wheel of Negotiation” model, where the outer rim of planning, analysis, techniques and organization are supported by seven spokes; aspirations, power, anatomy, needs and goals, status, role, and persuasion and inoculation.  At the hub of his wheel is objectives.  Most of these terms are self-explanatory, but Karrass means by anatomy, an understanding of the actual negotiation and its processes (which he sees as fivefold: 1. share-bargaining, 2. problem-solving, 3. attitudinal bargaining, 4. personal bargaining and 5. in-group-bargaining), and by inoculation, he means inoculation against influence, the ability to resist persuasion from the other side. 

So Karrass stresses the importance of process, including preparation, and of the negotiator’s personal qualities in dealing with the pressures of the negotiation process.  He sees negotiation as being essentially a competition where the strength of the individual negotiator will secure better results than his opponent.  I agree with many of his conclusions, but also believe that there is a greater need to stress the importance of awareness of the negotiating environment and the importance of culture in determining the most appropriate negotiation style.  The competitive atmosphere in negotiations, which is normal in the United States, is not always as pronounced, or as appropriate in other cultures.

I also agree with his stress on the linkage between the assumptions that people have and the decisions that they make, and that unquestioned assumptions can lead to poor decisions, and I believe as well that negotiations are ultimately not about money, but about satisfaction; the satisfaction of a good deal, and of personal success.

The criticisms I have of this book is that it is almost completely focused on US surveys and the demands of the US market, furthermore the basic research was done over thirty years ago and it is not clear if there have been any changes in US business culture over this time-span.  Karrass also sees negotiations as a contest over power and authority, a basic competitive struggle.  While in many national and business cultures this model is valid, I do not believe that this view of the world is correct in all situations.  Like many other American books on negotiation, The Negotiation Game also virtually ignores the importance of cross-cultural, or international negotiation, something that we cannot afford to disregard at the beginning of the 21^st century, as we all operate in a truly global economy.