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What it argues
You Can Negotiate Anything is Herb Cohen's argument that negotiation is not a special skill reserved for diplomats and dealmakers but a basic life competence exercised continuously — in salary conversations, purchases, relationships, and workplace conflicts. Cohen, who spent decades consulting on negotiation for corporations and governments, builds his framework around three variables: power, time, and information. He argues that most people underestimate how much power they actually have in any negotiation because they think of power as an objective attribute rather than as a perception that can be shaped.
Cohen's central distinction is between what he calls Soviet-style negotiation — win-lose, positional, designed to extract maximum concession — and win-win negotiation, which seeks outcomes both parties prefer to no deal at all. He is not naive about when each style applies. The Soviet style, he explains, shows up whenever the relationship doesn't matter and the interaction is a one-time transaction. The win-win style is appropriate when you need the other party to feel good enough about the outcome that they remain a functional partner.
What it gets right
- 1.
Power in negotiation is mostly perception, not reality. If the other party believes you have options, you effectively have them — even if you don't.
- 2.
Time pressure creates concessions. People in a hurry make bad deals. Whoever appears least constrained by deadlines has structural advantage.
- 3.
Information is leverage. Before negotiating, find out what the other side needs, what their alternatives are, and what their real deadline is.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Herb Cohen is an American negotiator, author, and consultant who has advised corporations, government agencies, and individuals on negotiation strategy for more than five decades. He gained early recognition for his work with the FBI during hostage negotiation situations and later consulted for major corporations and the Carter administration. You Can Negotiate Anything, published in 1980, became one of the best-selling negotiation books of its era and remained in print for decades. His follow-up, Negotiate This! By Caring, But Not T-H-A-T Much, appeared in 2003.
