Negotiating Globally: How to Negotiate Deals, Resolve Disputes, and Make Decisions Across Cultural Boundaries, Jeanne M. Brett

A solid how-to manual for negotiations. It walks you through the fundamentals of negotiations and the various differences in negotiating styles across the globe. It also tackles advanced topics such as dispute resolutions, negotiating in team, multi-party negotiations, and negotiating with governments.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition, Robert Cialdini

No book has given me as much day-to-day management utility as Influence. If you’re looking for ways to be more persuasive without resorting to simply brow-beating everyone around you into submission, Cialdini is your man.

Whenever anyone asks me how to improve his/her ability to manage teams, this is the first book I recommend.

Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade, Robert Cialdini

If the priori entry didn’t make it clear, I’m a huge fan of Robert Cialdini. And his long awaited follow-up to Influence does not disappoint. Pre-Suasion is about setting the stage for influence – how environmental factors like the pictures on the wall or the temperature of the mug in your hand or the weight of a book can subtly shift your perceptions. What is salient is important and what is focal is causal. And Pre-Suasion is about how you can use these dynamic on yourself for a positive outcome as much as you can on those you are trying to influence.

Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, Kim Scott

In most circumstances, I tend to be skeptical of self-improvement books that are based entirely on anecdotal evidence. But Kim Scott wields such an overwhelming amount of emotional intelligence (not to mention a staggering resume) that you’d be foolish not to heed her words. An invaluable tome on how to manage people with honesty, compassion, and integrity, full of Scott’s unvarnished accounts of her own successes an failures.

The Power of a Positive No: Save The Deal Save The Relationship and Still Say No, William Ury

Ury is a luminary in the field of negotiations. The Power of a Positive No focuses on a very specific element of negotiations and dispute resolution: how to refuse unacceptable offers or demands without burning bridges. It’s a short read and an elegantly simple system that has gotten me out of a couple of scrapes in the past.

Managing the Millennials: Discover the Core Competencies for Managing Today’s Workforce, Chip Espinoza, Mick Ukleja, and Craig Rusch

Millennials. Everybody love to hate them. But, guess what? They make up an increasingly large swath of the workforce. If you find interfacing with Millennials frustrating, this book will tell you why and how to manage them more effectively.

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