Bargaining For Advantage by G. Richard Shell
This book is amazing! The author teach negotiation at Wharton Business School, and he is in the field for years, teaching MBA students about negotiation.
The book teaches you on different styles, tactics, and counter-tactics at bargaining and negotiation. Examples are also provided, from far-far-away dispute resolution in Africa to famous American negotiation cases involving JP Morgan, Akio Morita (Sony’s founder), and many others.
I have not finished reading it though, (still got about 80 pages left), but this is a must read if you are an business owner, entrepreneur, commerce students, or you just simply want to improve the results of your negotiation activities in shops, office, etc.
There is however one annoying thing for me that the Author frequently uses complex matrix. While usually matrices and diagrams can help in understanding the context but in this case I found it annoying rather than helpful.
Overall I will give this book 4 out of 5 stars.
Read MoreLosing My Virginity by Richard Branson
His headmaster once said, “I predict that you will either go to prison or become a millionaire.”
Now his businesses range from airline, pop music, soda pop, e-commerce, telecommunication, and financial services.
Richard Branson is the founder of Virgin Group. I really admire him. He loves to have fun yet he is making billions of dollars before breakfast!
Hell, the boss of Virgin group even have his own island in Virgin Islands. He is often faced with problems, but he always face it and solve it, sometimes even with a very limited resource. His leadership style can be described in one word: FUN.
Things I learned from this book:
- not to give up when things get ugly
- sticking to my passion
- thinking big
- do not be afraid if you are right
- don’t forget to have fun!
and the most important of all:
I thought I was reading a novel when I read this book. But this is 100% autobiography which tell us how Sir Richard Branson build his business empire of VIRGIN group from a humble start. Throughout the book you will read about tough times and great times of his business journey. All of those things are factors of Branson’s success, and all of us can learn from that. One of the most surprising and interesting story is his story of fighting British Airways’ dirty tactics which resulted in highest award for damage in English history.
Things I like from this book:
- Very easy to read, yet very inspirative
- Wonderful story of how the small Virgin Atlantic fights the giant competitor British Airways who uses dirty tactics. It’s a modern David vs Goliath
- How Branson find that ideas are unlimited and how he created companies from them
- How Branson added FUN factor to his companies
- How did Branson promotes his companies or product in CRAZY ways
- No problem, how hard it is, is impossible to solve
- and many more..
I highly recommend this book if you: need an inspirational figure, is building a business/want to build one.
Have an awesome life!
Andrew