The Founder Bookshelf
Books founders recommend to each other. Browse by topic or by where you are as you grow, mark what you've read, and add what's next.
12 books on Negotiation & Influence
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Word of mouth, not advertising, is what really makes things spread.
Jonah Berger investigates the science of why certain products, ideas, and behaviors catch on through word of mouth. He identifies six principles, captured by the...
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Bad meetings are not boring by accident, and they are fixable.
Through a business fable, Lencioni diagnoses why most meetings are tedious and ineffective and proposes a cure. He argues that meetings lack drama and contextual...
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Self-awareness and empathy can matter more than raw intellect.
Goleman synthesizes brain and behavioral research to argue that emotional competencies, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill, predict...
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Use economics and psychology to negotiate smarter in business and life.
Neale and Lys blend behavioral economics and psychology to show how rational analysis and human biases both shape negotiation outcomes. They explain how to assess the...
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Turn confrontation into cooperation, even with difficult people.
William Ury picks up where Getting to Yes leaves off, focusing on how to negotiate with people who refuse to cooperate. He lays out a breakthrough strategy of five...
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Negotiate on the merits by focusing on interests, not positions.
Fisher and Ury introduce principled negotiation, a method developed at the Harvard Negotiation Project. They urge negotiators to separate people from the problem,...
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Negotiate with tactical empathy instead of splitting the difference.
Chris Voss draws on his career as an FBI hostage negotiator to teach a practical, emotion-aware approach to negotiation. He introduces techniques like tactical...
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Cut the noise and make every word earn attention.
The Axios founders teach a method for communicating in an age of overwhelming information overload. Smart Brevity favors a strong, direct first sentence, why it...
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Twenty-one timeless laws that govern how leadership actually works.
Maxwell argues that leadership follows consistent, learnable laws, each illustrated with stories and examples. From the Law of the Lid (leadership ability caps...
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Build effectiveness on principles and habits, not quick tricks.
Covey lays out seven habits that move a person from dependence to independence to interdependence, grounded in a character ethic rather than personality tactics. They...
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Five interlocking dysfunctions that quietly sink any team.
Told as a business fable about a struggling tech company's new CEO, the book lays out a pyramid of five dysfunctions: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of...
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The coaching principles behind Silicon Valley's most valuable mentor.
The authors distill the leadership lessons of Bill Campbell, the executive coach who quietly guided leaders at Google, Apple, and beyond. They show how Campbell built...
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