Notes on Getting More by Stuart Diamond

Google's internal negotiation course uses the book Getting More by Stuart Diamond, so I figured it was worth a read. It was alright but definitely not the most useful book on negotiation I've read. I much more prefer the classic Getting to Yes, which was used in Stanford's and UCLA Anderson's negotiation classes.

I found Getting More to be way too heavy on anecdotes and stories. This was nice from the perspective of seeing many examples of the techniques in action, but it was overwhelming how many examples there indeed were in comparison to concrete explanation of the techniques and how to learn them. The book claimed at the beginning it would teach a highly disciplined and structured approach to preparing and creating a "List" and using techniques from a wallet card one can download, and I expected that explanation of all this would be the bulk of the book. Instead, this was glossed over in one chapter with barely any low-level explanation, and the rest of the book was devoted to applications throughout all fields of life from parenting to government. Also, I would've loved to read a lot more of the actual dialogues and transcripts of the example negotiations; instead, I read a sample phrase here and there but mostly just how a negotiation was concluded or a problem solved (instead of the full gory details of how the negotiator got there, which is what I would've preferred).

All that criticism aside, I did get some very useful bits of information from the book. I liked the emphasis on and many examples of trading items of unequal value and seeing the pictures in other people's heads. These two concepts seem very powerful.

Below are my full notes. I think the book was a nice complement to more structured negotiation reading and courses, but I don't think it's enough of a standalone guide to serve as a first book or introduction to the subject.

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