Getting other people to do what another person want is a useful skill. Whether you are seeking a job, negotiating a deal, or angling for that big promotion, you are engaged in strategic thought and action. In such moments, you imagine what might be going on in another person's head and how they will react to what you do or say. At the same time, you might also tries to pick the best way to realize your goals, both with and without the other person's cooperation. This book teaches its readers how to win that game by offering a fuller understanding of how strategy works in the real world. As we ... More

Getting other people to do what another person want is a useful skill. Whether you are seeking a job, negotiating a deal, or angling for that big promotion, you are engaged in strategic thought and action. In such moments, you imagine what might be going on in another person's head and how they will react to what you do or say. At the same time, you might also tries to pick the best way to realize your goals, both with and without the other person's cooperation. This book teaches its readers how to win that game by offering a fuller understanding of how strategy works in the real world. As we all know, rules of strategy are regularly discovered and discussed in popular books for business executives, military leaders, and politicians. Those works, with their trendy lists of pithy maxims and highly effective habits, can help people avoid mistakes or even think anew on how to tackle their problems. But they are merely suggestive, as each situation we encounter in the real world is always more complex than anticipated, more challenging than we might have hoped. This book shows how to anticipate those problems before they actually occur—by recognizing the dilemmas all strategic players must negotiate, with each option accompanied by a long list of costs and risks.