(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best business negotiating books

Though Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma has been getting rightly kicked around lately, it raises an issue that many dominant players in the market face.

A monopolist has very little reason to invest in R&D and innovation. They already control the market and have the size and power to keep out competitors in their target markets. Any investment in developing new products is money that could instead go to shareholders by any rational analysis. This leaves them vulnerable to competitors who can create disruptive innovations that totally rearrange the market and reduce the value of the monopolist's old market.

Take the example of the US auto industry in the 1970s and 1980s. It wasn't a monopoly, but it was a Oligopoly based around 3 main competitors. In the 1970s the Big 3 were dominant with very little outside competition. As a result, there was very little product or process innovation within the industry: new models were introduced every year of course but there was little investment in making them more efficient to produce or drive.

There were a few economic shocks in the 1970s that changed the structure of the market. The Oil Crises of 1973 and 1979 drove customer demand away from the big cars produced in Detroit towards smaller, more fuel efficient models.

At the same time, Japanese competitors were starting to enter the US market. Initially this penetration wasn't a concern, since again the Japanese were producing smaller, more fuel efficient cars that the Big 3 didn't think were very profitable. However, the Japanese firms had developed particular process innovation, like Toyota's Just-in-Time Production systems that allowed them to produce high quality cars at much lower prices.

These twin crises — oil and Japanese competitors — invalidated the Big 3's previous market. Their existing production infrastructure of big, centrally-controlled Fordist factories didn't fit into a new industrial model that required quick, responsive production. This led to huge battles with the unions over plant closures and relocations, which further drove up prices and reduces quality.

Now, it's hard to say if any level of innovation within the auto companies would have prevented this. In the 1970s their major factories were at the end of their investment cycles while Japanese auto plants were newer, the old infrastructure having been destroyed in WW2. However, it is very clear that their lower levels of innovation were caused by their dominant market position, which left them vulnerable to these kinds of crises.

For more information, consult your local UAW office to hear tales of mismanagement or read The Cultural Crisis of the Firm by Erica Schoenberger

This?

And this?

Made me think of a recent thread which referred to this topic:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hypnosis/comments/594lig/hypnosis_books_hypnotic_influence_by_teppo/dezkfnj/

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The author pulled their book on Hypnosis and rebranded.

Here's the book:

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Influence-Increase-Without-Bullying/dp/069283916X

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https://www.amazon.com/Drift-into-Failure-Sidney-Dekker/dp/1409422216

A lot of professionals are fans of Tom Sant while others speak highly of the Shipley approach.

Personally I think the best advice is this: know your audience. The more you know, the more you can tailor your content so that it speaks to their goals, and addresses their pain points. So while I'm not client-facing, I rely on sales/account managers to tell me all they know about the prospect/client. At the start of every project, I'll ask them questions so I can get an idea of how we got to this point, and what their key motivations are.

As for moving over from non-profits, I think the skills are transferable, but you may have to target Bid Coordinator roles before you can make the jump to Bid Writer or Bid Manager roles. You may have more experience than me, in which case ignore my advice!