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The weaker your interest, the stronger your leverage.” Based on the Business Brilliant survey, Schiff says that 7 out of 10 self-made millionaires said they’d walk away from a business deal that wasn’t right, as opposed to 8 out of 10 middle-class participants who sided with win-win as the better strategy. Schiff starts off “Win-Win Is a Loser” by addressing the least-interest principle, which he explains as follows: “In any relationship, especially a business relationship, the person with the least interest in continuing the relationship is the one with the greatest power for setting its terms. Magazine’s Business Owner’s Council, has fittingly titled that chapter, “Win-Win Is a Loser.” I’m flattered that he refers to my work, as he demonstrates the downside of the win-win mindset. Lewis Schiff, the author of Business Brilliant and executive director of Inc. I titled my first book Start with No to make the point that all negotiation needs to be equitable.īecause so many people still erroneously believe that “win-win” is the guiding principle behind good negotiating, I was pleased to see that a new book, Business Brilliant (HarperBusiness), devotes an entire chapter to this outmoded and ineffective way of thinking. This scenario typically consists of the more powerful negotiator implicitly but strongly asking the less experienced and less powerful party for an early compromise. The built-in feature of win-win is hurrying to get the other side to say “yes” as quickly as possible and by any means necessary. But isn’t that win-win, you ask? Not at all.