Split the Pie

From a leading Yale expert and serial entrepreneur, a radical, principled, and field-tested approach that identifies what’s really at stake in any negotiation and ensures you get your half so you can focus on growing the pie.

Negotiations are incredibly stressful and can bring out the worst in people. Wouldn’t it be better if there were a principled way to negotiate Wouldn’t it be even better if there were a way to treat people fairly and get treated fairly in a negotiation

Split the Pie offers a new approach that does both a field-tested method that reframes how negotiations play out. Barry Nalebuff, a professor at Yale School of Management, helps identify what’s really at stake in a negotiation: the “pie.” The negotiation pie is the additional value created through an agreement to work together. Seeing the relevant pie will change how you think about fairness and power in negotiation. You’ll learn how to get half the value you create, no matter your size.

Filled with examples and in-depth case studies, Split the Pie is a practical and theory-based approach to negotiation. You’ll see how it helped reframe a high-stakes negotiation when Coca-Cola purchased Honest Tea, a company Barry cofounded with his former student Seth Goldman. The pie framework also works for everyday negotiations. You’ll learn how to deploy logic to determine truly equitable solutions and employ empathy to expand the pie and sell your solution. Split the Pie allows both sides to focus their energy on making the biggest possible pie to have your pie and eat it too.

About the Author

Barry Nalebuff is the Milton Steinbach Professor at Yale School of Management. An expert on Game Theory and Strategy, he has coauthored six books: Thinking Strategically, The Art of Strategy, Co-opetition, Why Not?, Lifecycle Investing, and Mission in a Bottle. He has been teaching the split-the-pie approach to MBAs and executives at Yale and to over 350,000 online learners at Coursera. He has advised multiple organizations, from small to large, including the NBA in their negotiations with the Players Association.

He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.