Taste Note - Amazon Negotiating Best Sellers
Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate and When to Fight
A Kurums Book Taste review of Bargaining with the Devil for legal and executive teams facing adversaries they distrust - litigants, hostile partners, aggressive competitors - and deciding whether to settle or fight.
Why this book fits Kurums
Most negotiation books assume you want an agreement. Mnookin, chair of the Harvard Program on Negotiation, starts earlier: should you negotiate with this adversary at all? Through detailed cases - from Churchill in 1940 and Nelson Mandela to bitter family business feuds and corporate litigation such as IBM versus Fujitsu - he builds a disciplined method for that decision.
For the Kurums Law audience the book is directly applicable to litigation strategy, settlement decisions, and disputes with former partners, where emotions, moral outrage, and sunk costs push teams toward a fight that may not serve the client's interests.
What the book argues
The first argument is that the decision to negotiate should be made by systematic analysis rather than by instinct or moral reflex. Mnookin identifies traps that distort judgment: tribalism, demonizing the other side, dehumanization, moralism, the call to fight, and the opposite errors of excessive optimism and conflict avoidance. Naming these traps is the first defence, because both the urge to punish and the urge to make peace can lead to bad decisions.
The second argument is the method. Analyze interests on both sides, the alternatives available if no deal is reached, the potential deal that could satisfy those interests better than the alternatives, the likelihood that any deal will be implemented, and the costs of negotiating - including reputational and precedent costs. He also advises getting input from people who do not share your emotional stake and holding the presumption in favour of negotiation, while being willing to overrule it when the analysis demands.
The third argument comes through the cases, which show that the right answer varies. Churchill was right to refuse talks with Hitler; Mandela was right to negotiate with the apartheid government; some business feuds are best settled and some must be litigated. In the IBM-Fujitsu dispute, arbitration and a structured commercial arrangement replaced years of hostility. The general lesson is that bargaining with a devil is sometimes the wise choice and sometimes a betrayal of interests and values - but it should always be a deliberate choice, made with eyes open.
Key ideas, translated to your desk
Name the emotional traps
Before deciding to sue or settle, list how anger, moral outrage, and sunk costs are shaping the team's view. Then test the decision without them.
Compare deal against alternative
Score the best achievable agreement against your walk-away option on interests, cost, implementation risk, and precedent - in writing.
Bring in an unaffected adviser
Ask someone without a stake in the dispute to review the analysis. They will see the costs of fighting that insiders have stopped noticing.
Use it at work
- Add a structured negotiate-or-fight assessment to every major dispute file before litigation strategy is set.
- Quantify the full cost of continued conflict - legal fees, management time, reputation, and lost opportunities.
- Use an independent reviewer for high-stakes settlement decisions involving strong emotions.
- Document implementation risks for any settlement: who enforces it, and what happens on breach.
Read it if
- You manage litigation, partner disputes, or high-stakes settlements.
- Your organization tends to fight on principle or settle to avoid discomfort, without analysis.
- You liked Getting to Yes and want guidance for adversaries you do not trust.
You can skip it if
- You need tactics for routine commercial negotiations - try Getting More or Negotiation Genius.
- Political and historical cases feel too far from your business disputes.
- You want a short checklist; the method is clear but the cases are long.
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