About Negotiating with Giants

How do you negotiate with Wal-Mart? With America's President over going to war? An improved education for your kids? A cleaner environment? An ethical issue with an intimidating boss? An unequal personal relationship? A Super Bowl victory for a team of losers? A capital infusion for a start-up venture? Better healthcare for your family? The return of stolen treasure, lost rights or a canceled credit car? Your survival if you're taken hostage by an armed killer?

In this pioneering book, Peter Johnston surprises us with answers to these far-flung questions, laying out unique strategies and concrete steps we can all use to handle the growing number of giants in our personal and professional lives. As readers, we travel across time – through riveting, real-life stories – uncovering the secrets of successful smaller players.

We learn what giants care about, what makes them act, and how to: choose the best conditions for influencing them; attract our giants or penetrate giant organizations; use different helpers to get what we want; keep our ideas safe and protect ourselves; exploit the mainstream media or our own media; structure giant deals to create as much value as possible; increase the likelihood our giants will live up to their commitments; talk to our giants eye-to-eye in the most difficult circumstances; and take advantage of their strengths and our weaknesses.

Remember how David used an ancient, ragged slingshot to defeat Goliath with a stone? Well, that won't work anymore. Faced with the huge size and might of modern-day Goliaths, our slingshots must be golden – solid, malleable, polished and precise – aiming to work with our giants before getting aggressive. We won't use stones as ammunition. Instead, we'll use the piercing secrets of those who've already achieved success so we, too, can get what we want against the odds.