I am well on my way in the researching and writing of my fourth book, a comprehensive textbook on the current limitations of high-end commercial and political negotiation, and what we can do to break through to the next level of expertise and achievement.
The draft manuscript sets out the premise, and the goals, of the book as follows:
"We can then set out the premise of the book as follows:
(i) Existing elite negotiation best practices have reached the end of their developmental possibilities using previous methods and sources;
(ii) Exciting new possibilities, strategies and techniques can be gathered from a range of multi-disciplinary fields so as to significantly expand and improve the current state of the art of elite negotiation;
(iii) The most important work here lies in fully integrating elite negotiation with best practices in conflict management studies and practice, with other disciplines which we will study playing an important but secondary role in the upgrading of negotiation and conflict management;
(iv) When we do this, the end result is a significantly expanded, much improved, elite negotiation capability, with a significantly improved negotiation field, built on the foundations and traditions of earlier work.
My goals for you with the book are twofold. Firstly, I want you to be a meaningfully better elite negotiator when you are done reading the book. Secondly, I want to inspire you to see the book as a start of your new journey of continued self-education in expanding and honing your negotiation skills as you need them."
YOUR PARTICIPATION
We are all negotiators at some level, professionally or even personally. We all have a certain level of experience with negotiation, and we can all benefit from being better at this unique human skill.
So many interdisciplinary sources have become available to us, and in artificial intelligence we face a formidable ally and foe, depending on how we make use of this phenomenon in our negotiating practice.
With the publication of the book scheduled for early in 2027, we invite you to contact us here, or via andre@conflict1.co.za for questions, programs, coaching or just sharing your own political, commercial or personal negotiation experiences. I will be working with several individuals and teams in the completion of the book, and where relevant, and permitted, I will share and credit the experiences of others. This is an urgent project, and I would want to include as many voices as possible.
The working title of the book is Fulcrum: new synergies between elite negotiation and conflict management in business and politics
Join the team, and see where the next level of elite negotiation takes us.
Regards
Andre Vlok