Winning from Within: A Breakthrough Method for Leading, Living, and Lasting Change

A must read for anyone wanting to negotiate deals. I loved this book.

Engaging read

Enjoy reading

Some fellow reviewers on Amazon have criticized Winning from Within because it is not a negotiating book. That is true, but not a cause for criticism. Winning from Within is not a book that is particularly directed to how to conduct a contract negotiation, how to buy a house or car, or how to sell your business. If you are looking for such a book, I will tell you a secret - the best negotiating book I have read is Smart Negotiating: How to Make Good Deals in the Real World, by James C. Freund, a since retired superstar mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Skadden. Despite Freund’s background negotiating mega-M&A deals, his book is focused on everyday life negotiations and is superbly practical and in my opinion even more insightful than Getting to Yes, the negotiating book by the founders of the Harvard-affiliated Negotiation Project who are/were Erica Ariel Fox’s mentors.Erica Ariel Fox’s Winning from Within, in contrast, is billed accurately as “A Breakthrough Method for Leading, Living, and Lasting Change.” The author focuses on self-awareness as a means to regulate one’s behavior to achieve optimal results. The book presents a helpful framework of varying personality traits, motivations and perspectives which it maps to the types of senior executives of a corporation - the visionary “dreamer” akin to the Chief Executive Officer, the strategic “thinker” akin to the Chief Financial Officer, the get it done “warrior” akin to the Chief Operating Officer and the people person “lover” akin to the Human Resources Head. Each of us, the author asserts, has all four traits within us, although one may be overemphasized to the detriment of others. The author posits that one should balance these traits through self-awareness and self-bargaining. This is achieved through our inner “lookout” which we can train to alert us when we take an unbalanced or misdirected approach, our “captain” which regulates the everyday manifestation of each trait, and our “voyager” which helps us chart our long-term direction in life.I found Winning from Within to be helpful in causing me to be more thoughtful and introspective in my business and personal lives, including for example in navigating towards a better result rather than trying to force a perceived “correct” resolution against another's wishes. I also recommend the book for others, especially if you are not self-aware (which ironically is hard to know of course). We are entering an era in which histrionics and unbalanced behavior in business increasingly is no longer acceptable. The partner who routinely yells at all his or her junior associates will, on average, not be as successful as one who is able to control his or her emotions in a productive manner. The negotiator who always aggressive will not be as successful as one who is able to equally bring to bear aggressive and collaborative negotiating demeanors when warranted. The same is increasingly true for interpersonal relationships outside the business world.The Kindle version of the book is well formatted and flows quickly. If any fault is to be found with the book, I believe it is that the author spends a little too much time quoting famous people.

I really like Erica's style for this book. I don't normally warm to self help books written by Americans.This book however is not too 'declarative' and is nicely interspersed with stories about her own experience and those of her clients along with some theory to back it up.I think it is a good way to understand how you can challenge your own reasons for reacting or not reacting in particular situations, but equally it gives insight into why other people might be acting in a particular way which you may not be able to fathom.