UP: Influence, Power and the U Perspective: The Art of Getting What You Want.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Bookshelf - Book review

UP: Influence, Power and the U Perspective: The Art of Getting What You Want. By Lee E. Miller., with Barabara Jackson. Your Career Doctors Press, 214 pages. $18.95.

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Principal author Miller has distilled a number of ideas drawn from negotiation techniques and disciplines like sociology and psychology to introduce a relatively simple idea: to succeed, put yourself in someone's shoes--but not by transplanting your own values, but by understanding theirs (see feature article, "Gain by Understanding What Motivates Others," page 44).

That's not a minor distinction. Too often, Miller writes, executives, managers and other corporate employees tend to view a situation by trying to picture themselves in the other person's situation--but by approaching it from what would be important to them. Instead, Miller writes, they need to incorporate the "U Perspective" (UP), or what would the situation mean to "you," the other party.

"Trying to change someone's U Perspective is like trying to swim against the current," he writes. "No matter how strong a swimmer you are, you will usually exhaust yourself before you reach your destination. Even a persuasive...