From a leading Yale expert and serial entrepreneur, a radical, principled, and field-tested approach that identifies what’s really at stake in any negotiation and ensures you get your half—so you can focus on growing the pie.
Negotiations are incredibly stressful and can bring out the worst in people. Wouldn’t it be better if there were a principled way to negotiate? Wouldn’t it be even better if there were a way to treat people fairly and get treated fairly in a negotiation?
Split the Pie offers a new approach that does both—a field-tested method that reframes how negotiations play out. Barry Nalebuff, a professor at Yale School of Management, helps identify what’s really at stake in a negotiation: the “pie.” The negotiation pie is the additional value created through an agreement to work together. Seeing the relevant pie will change how you think about fairness and power in negotiation. You’ll learn how to get half the value you create, no matter your size.
Filled with examples and in-depth case studies, Split the Pie is a practical and theory-based approach to negotiation. You’ll see how it helped reframe a high-stakes negotiation when Coca-Cola purchased Honest Tea, a company Barry cofounded with his former student Seth Goldman. The pie framework also works for everyday negotiations. You’ll learn how to deploy logic to determine truly equitable solutions and employ empathy to expand the pie and sell your solution. Split the Pie allows both sides to focus their energy on making the biggest possible pie—to have your pie and eat it too.
“At last, a way to negotiate with a higher purpose, something I have benefitted from over the years. With this book, you, too, can learn this ingenious new way to negotiate.”
—Indra Nooyi, former chairman and CEO, PepsiCo, and author of My Life in Full
“Barry Nalebuff literally wrote the book on negotiating (this one!). Through his use of real-world examples, Barry shares his tried-and-true strategies that will prepare you for your next negotiation regardless of the stakes.”
—Adam Silver, NBA commissioner
“In Split the Pie, Barry Nalebuff shows that what makes someone a highly skilled listener also makes them a good negotiator. I’ll be recommending this book to every couple that sits on my couch.”
—Lori Gottlieb, psychotherapist and author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
“Dispelling misconceptions about power and fairness, Nalebuff lays out a framework for changing the way people approach and facilitate negotiation—in business, politics, and personal relationships. It's a novel, logical method to divide the pie that shifts the focus to working together to build a larger pie.”
—Ken Chenault, chairman and managing director, General Catalyst; former chairman and CEO, American Express
“A remarkable 2,000-year-old yet entirely new approach to negotiation. Read this book and share it with the other side.”
—Herb Cohen, author of You Can Negotiate Anything
More books by Barry Nalebuff
About Barry
Barry Nalebuff is the Milton Steinbach Professor at the Yale School of Management, where he has taught for over thirty years. An expert on game theory, he has written extensively on its application to business strategy. His bestsellers include Thinking Strategically, The Art of Strategy, and Mission in a Bottle. This is his seventh book. He advised the NBA in their negotiations with the Players Association and several firms in major M&A transactions. Nalebuff has been teaching the Split the Pie method to MBAs and executives at Yale and online at Coursera. His Introduction to Negotiation course has over 350,000 enrolled students and a 4.9/5.0 rating. He is also a serial entrepreneur; his ventures include Honest Tea, Kombrewcha, and Real Made Foods. A graduate of MIT, a Rhodes Scholar, and a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, Nalebuff earned his doctorate at Oxford University.
Photo credit: Tony Rinaldo with digital editing by Dan Walter