A colleague recently asked me to recommend the best negotiation book ever – other than my own, of course (Gain the Edge! and The Real Trump Deal). Here are my top two general negotiation books plus my top two more niche-oriented negotiation books.

2. Influence: Science and Practice

by Robert Cialdini

The psychological underpinnings of the negotiation process drive success and failure in many negotiations. This book – another classic – describes the psychological tendencies that underlie human behavior in negotiation situations and cause someone to say “yes.”

What causes us to want to say “yes” to those we like (The Liking Principle)? What emotions come to the fore when we believe an item is running out of stock (The Scarcity Principle)?  Why do we feel like we should return the favor if they give us something of value (The Reciprocity Principle)?

This great book deserves to be studied by every student of human behavior – which means every negotiator. I highly recommend it.

3. Getting Past No: Negotiating Your Way from Confrontation to Cooperation

by William Ury

How can you turn what appears to be a win-lose negotiation into a win-win opportunity where you see great potential to add value for all the parties? This is especially challenging when your counterpart brings an old school adversarial mindset to the table.

And how do you maintain control in highly pressurized negotiations and defuse a counterpart’s anger and hostile attitude?

This book provides an easy-to-use template that will help negotiators succeed in these difficult situations. It has some great and relevant stories, too.

4. Built to Win: Creating a World-Class Negotiation Organization

by Lawrence Susskind and Hallam Movius

This book should be read by anyone managing negotiators or negotiating in or on behalf of an organization – large or small. It’s all about negotiation best practices and creating, implementing and scaling negotiation expertise across an organization.

This is easy to say, but extremely difficult to do. Training, of course, is critical. But there’s a lot more to it.

And while Built to Win doesn’t provide all the answers, it’s a powerful effort at addressing a huge unmet opportunity in the vast majority of organizations – systematically improving their negotiation results by getting their front-line negotiations to consistently negotiate strategically. 

Latz’s Lesson: You can’t improve your negotiation skills and results without learning what the experts recommend. Study these books, plus mine. It’s a crucial first step.