Kissinger the Negotiator: "How three Harvard professors captured Henry Kissinger’s negotiating genius"

From the Washington Independent Review of Books, August 6:

For those aspiring to excel in commercial, legal, or governmental affairs, an essential skill necessary to carry in the toolkit is being a shrewd negotiator. Deals get made only when the stars align and cause two or more parties to decide they’re more likely to prosper under the terms of a new arrangement than by maintaining the status quo, and it’s the negotiator’s job to manipulate the stars.

How to improve as a negotiator? Well, if one desires to enhance his golf game, it makes sense to study what Brooks Koepka does on and off the course. If one seeks to elevate his public speaking eloquence, then zero in on Lincoln’s and Churchill’s speeches. If one hopes to write bestselling novels, devouring John Grisham’s fiction would be time well spent.

Moving to the subject at hand, for the most logical choice as a top negotiator worthy of study and emulation, Dr. Henry Kissinger is on everyone’s short list. A few years ago, leading scholars in this field — James K. Sebenius (professor at Harvard Business School), Nicholas Burns (professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government), and Robert H. Mnookin (professor at Harvard Law School) — decided the time was right to write a book that not only would detail the particulars of the diplomatic kingpin’s most historic negotiations, but would also derive “actionable insights” which a reader can apply to his own efforts at horse-trading.

The triumvirate’s pedigree, approach, and goal so impressed Kissinger (who’s still active in his mid-90s) that he fully cooperated on their book and provided his observations and commentary throughout it, though having no editorial control. Lest there be any doubt about this masterwork’s having received Kissinger’s full seal of approval, he wrote its foreword.

The final product of this collaborative effort, Kissinger the Negotiator: Lessons from Dealmaking at the Highest Level, is a book to be studied and savored by all who want to up their game at the bargaining table. What sets it apart from other “how to negotiate” books is that the advice on how best to set up the field of play while away from the table, as well as tactics for optimum card-playing at the table, are all thoroughly buttressed by the authors’ vivid accounts and graphic diagrams of what Kissinger actually thought and did in his star-aligning negotiations with the leaders of the Soviet Union, China, North Vietnam, South Africa, Rhodesia, Israel, and other countries.

Kissinger never wanted to “zoom in” and sit at a table with a counterpart until he had “zoomed out” away from the table and done everything in his power to maximize the number and size of his bargaining chips. Before zooming out, though, he first had to assess and clarify his ultimate long-term objective. Once he’d identified that, the next step was to “map backward” to line up the most prudent sequence of prerequisites needed to be accomplished to reach the goal line....MORE