Ask for More: 10 Questions to Negotiate Anything

An instant Wall Street Journal bestseller and “a joy to read” (Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen, authors of Difficult Conversations), Ask for More shows that by asking better questions, you get better answers—and better results from any negotiation.

Negotiation is not a zero-sum game. It’s an essential skill for your career that can also improve your closest relationships and your everyday life. Still, people often shy away from it, feeling defeated before they’ve even started. In this groundbreaking new book on negotiation, Alexandra Carter—Columbia law professor and mediation expert who has helped students, business professionals, the United Nations, and more—offers a straightforward accessible approach anyone can use to ask for and receive more.

We’ve been taught incorrectly that the loudest and most assertive voice prevails in any negotiation, or otherwise, both sides compromise, ending up with less. Instead, Carter shows that you get far more value by asking the right questions of the person you’re negotiating with than you do from arguing with them. She offers a simple yet powerful ten-question framework for successful negotiation where both sides emerge victorious. Carter’s proven method extends far beyond one “yes” and instead creates value that lasts a lifetime.

Ask for More is “like having a negotiation coach in your corner” (Linda Babcock, author of Women Don’t Ask) and gives you the tools to bring clarity and perspective to any critical discussion, no matter the topic.

Alexandra Carter is a Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Mediation Clinic at Columbia Law School. She has spent over a decade helping thousands of people improve their negotiation skills. She is a world-renowned negotiation trainer for the United Nations, where she has taught dozens of negotiation workshops to hundreds of diplomats from more than eighty nations. Carter graduated with honors from Georgetown University, was a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan, and received her law degree from Columbia Law School. In 2019, Carter was awarded Columbia University’s highest teaching honor. She lives in Maplewood, New Jersey, with her husband and daughter.