From the Author
I’m the author, and I would like to tell you the background to Tork & Grunt’s Guides to Business Skills. As a writer working in the field of corporate communications, I have a substantial library of business books. Some are heavy with academic research and theories and others are light-weight and can tend to trivialise. When I decided to write about different aspects of inter-personal communication, I wanted to create something that was solid on theory and yet eminently accessible and entertaining. As I mused about scenarios for my first book, which was to be about negotiations, I suddenly had this image of two hungry cavemen, in the jungle, arguing over the spoils of their hunting. It was such a perfect example of traditional confrontational negotiation, that I adopted my caveman characters, Tork and Grunt, and developed a range of scenes which illustrated different aspects of negotiation.
At the same time, I introduced some modern characters because, obviously, I didn’t really feel that talking about house purchase with the metaphor of a semi-detached cave would be credible! Hence, in addition to property transactions, I was able to introduce examples of salary negotiations, home improvements, career progression and domestic disputes.
The principal theory behind the book stems from the Harvard Negotiation Project, which is expounded in William Ury’s renowned book “Getting to Yes.” I see two essential styles of negotiation: confrontational and directional. Working through a number of scenarios I show how the parties to a negotiation often discover that their positions are not opposing, and on investigation the parties can find that their objectives can frequently be compatible.
At the end of the book on negotiation, Grunt is persuaded to stand for election as chief of the tribe, but he has never before stood up to make a speech. Fortunately for him, Tork has a good idea of what is involved and the second book, on presentations, deals with structuring, illustrating and delivering a presentation – and I’ll write about that separately. For more information, the website should be fully operational on September 1st 08 at torkandgrunt.com where you’ll also find my blog on all aspects of inter-personal communication.
From the Back Cover
Tork & Grunt’s Guide to Effective Negotiations
Tork & Grunt’s Guides to Essential Business Skills cover a range of communication skills for modern life. This book is a practical guide to negotiations. Much of the story is told through the lives of Tork and Grunt and their fellow tribes-people because people have negotiated since cavemen fought for food. You negotiate at home and at work, at school and in retirement, but time and again this leads to conflict and disagreement because you can’t see a way to find a mutually beneficial outcome.
In this book you’ll discover how Tork and Grunt develop their Mammoth Strategy, which not only works for them and their tribe, it works in modern-day scenarios – Robert and Rosemary in their house purchase, George and Mary planning their holiday and Bradley, negotiating with an employee who is looking for promotion.
It’s all about communication. Negotiation isn’t about compromise. It’s about listening to the other person and working out what they really want to achieve as well as being clear in your own mind about what you want. You will get what you want by finding a way to give the other person what they want.
The Mammoth Strategy includes:-
* Three rules and four criteria for successful negotiation
* The difference between positional and directional negotiation
* The six steps in the negotiation process
* The when, why, what, where and how of preparation
* How to establish your WAO- your walk-away option
* Working with issues, not personalities
* Effective tactics and rules for when the other side plays rough
* How to negotiate as a team
About the author
Bob Harvey has gained a reputation as an expert communicator, working with some of the world’s top multi-national corporations to help them get their message across through his company, Messages into Words.
He is a graduate of the University of Sussex, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and is a former UK & Ireland public speaking champion.
About the Author
Bob Harvey is a specialist in business communications and business skills. He runs workshops and seminars for companies from different industries around the world.
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