CPO Bookclub - December 2025

Essentials of Negotiation by: Roy Lewicki, Bruce Barry, and David Saunders

This month I read, Essentials of Negotiation which provides a clear, practical framework for understanding how negotiations work and how to manage them effectively. For a Procurement Leader, the book reinforces that great negotiation outcomes come from discipline, preparation, and understanding human motivations.

It provides a roadmap to help procurement teams negotiate with confidence, protect value, and build stronger supplier relationships. The key message: negotiation excellence is a capability you build across the function, not a skill a few individuals happen to possess.

Key Takeaways for Procurement Leaders

1. Preparation is the real advantage

The authors stress that negotiation success overwhelmingly comes from what happens before the meeting. For procurement, this means your BATNA work, supplier research into motivations and trends, cost models, and market research determine your true leverage.

2. Go beyond positions to understand interests

Suppliers often start with rigid positions (“We can’t lower price”), but real movement happens when you understand the underlying interests (“We need stable volume” or “We’re absorbing higher input costs”).

3. Use the right negotiation style for the situation

Lewicki clarifies the difference between distributive (value-claiming, competitive) and integrative (value-creating, collaborative) negotiation.

How to align negotiation approach with the right style depending on supplier, this prevents misaligned stakeholder expectations and relationship damage.

4. Power comes from options

Power is about the level of dependence between parties. Procurement’s leverage improves when dependence decreases.

5. Communication skills drive outcomes

Negotiation is ultimately a conversation. The authors highlight the importance of listening, effective questioning, framing, and the strategic use of silence. How to use framing to position proposals as mutually beneficial solutions, not demands.

6. Ethics and trust build long-term value

Procurement works with the same suppliers repeatedly. Reputation matters.

How to build trust, leading to smoother negotiations and better supplier performance.

This book will reinforce some things you know, remind you of some things you forgot and give you new practical skills you havent tried before.

A recommended read

GROUP CPO

December 2025