C-Suite Network™

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Negotiations Sales Skills Women In Business

You’re Always Negotiating

“If you seek greater progress in life, negotiate better and greater progress will seek you.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

Right now, you’re creating your future. And, you’ve done so in the past. That’s what created the environment that you’re in, right now.

My motto is, you’re always negotiating. That means, what you’ve done in the past has led to where you are today, and what you do now will lead to where you’ll be tomorrow.

If you’re like most people, you don’t understand how frequently you’re engaged in negotiations throughout the day. When you’re talking to an associate, you’re negotiating. When you engage in a conversation with a client, your superior, your spouse, you’re negotiating. The fact is in those situations, you’re giving insight into your thought process, your beliefs, and how you might engage in different situations. That’s a negotiation.

Why is it important to recognize that you’re always negotiating? The answer is, the more you’re aware of what you say and do, along with how you say and do it, the better you can shape your persona. By shaping how others perceive you, you can become more aligned with the way you wished them to perceive you in the future.

Here’s the point. Always be mindful that your actions are under constant observation and evaluation. To reiterate, that means you’re always negotiating. Negotiations occur in many places, not just at the negotiation table. Every time you engage in actions that detract from your goals, you’re detracting from them through your actions.

Raise your sense of awareness no matter the environment. If you feel the need to ‘let your hair down’, control the degree. Don’t expose too much of yourself by letting your hair expose too much of you. Once you raise your awareness that you’re always negotiating and align your actions with your future goals, you’ll be in a better position to achieve those goals. In so doing, you will have raised your dreams, hopes, and lights that lead to a better future. That will make living life more memorable … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

When negotiating, even good negotiators lose their cool. They display aspects of their demeanor that belie thoughts that would be better left unexposed; we’re all prone to being off kilter at times. Not so good negotiators fall into a deeper abyss by not recognizing that their self-constraint and reasoning has deserted them. Good negotiators distinguish themselves by regaining their composure quickly. They do so because they focus on their mental agility. They’re aware that they need to spotlight the long-term goal of the negotiation.

Progress never moves in a straight line. If you remember that you’re always negotiating, you’ll be more mindful of when progress has exited that line. Your attentiveness will serve as the alert to get the negotiation back on track.

Remember, you’re always negotiating!

After reading this article, what are you thinking? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

To receive Greg’s free “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#Mind #Brain #Thinking #Success #Emotion #Business #Progress #SmallBusiness #Negotiation #NegotiatingWithABully #Power #Perception #emotionalcontrol #relationships #liars #Mask #HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions

Categories
Growth Management Personal Development

Leaders Inspire Trust with The Learning Cycle

A systems thinker avoids expressing blame because it damages trust and does nothing to address the real root causes of mistakes or problems.

“Where the rubber meets the road” is a popular phrase that means “there is a point where a theory is applied.” What does a leader do when there is a mistake and/or poor results? This is where the rubber meets the road. How does that leader facilitate improvement? What does that leader do to protect trust and address the root cause?

Leaders need a problem-solving skill that addresses problems and protects trust. They need a problem-solving skill that gives them total confidence the problem will be addressed without micromanagement. They need a skill that reinforces a self-organizing, self-managing, environment. This skill must enable people to tell the truth, to manage trust, and to be optimally innovative.

Matchbooks have been around since the late 1800s. The first ones had the striking strip on the front of the book along with a warning “Close cover before striking.” Careless consumers would often set the entire book on fire because the other matches were easily exposed to a spark when one match was struck. The warning was an “easy” way to solve the problem. It put the responsibility on the consumer to follow instructions and to be careful doing it. This solution did little to solve the problem.

It wasn’t until 1962 that a true solution was found. The manufacturers moved the striking strip to the back of the matchbook, thus preventing a spark from igniting the other matches. This was a true solution to a problem. The solution required a significant change in the manufacturing process. It required innovation and an investment in time and money. It required thought and a predictable problem-solving method. It exemplifies how a change in the system will influence behaviors. This method is known as Plan-Do-Check-Act, the scientific method, and/or the learning cycle.

The learning cycle can be traced back at least as far as Galileo, who developed the idea of making observations, creating a hypothesis and then conducting an experiment. Edison used the method to test 6,000 materials before finding the one that proved to be most practical and cost effective for the filament for a light bulb.

Plan-Do-Check-Act is the recommended problem-solving method for leaders who want to protect trust. It requires the creation of an action PLAN including the steps of knowing what to improve, creating a hypothesis that offers hope for a solution, the identification of the current condition of the problem, and how to measure the success.

The DO portion is carrying out the planned experiment. The CHECK portion is about analyzing data to see if the hypothesis was correct. The ACT portion is about deciding to revise the hypothesis, revise the method, or to adopt the method just tested. The adoption of Plan-Do-Check-Act creates an environment where blame is unnecessary. Every member of a team can contribute their ideas and their effort to experimenting with new hypotheses and with new methods.

Are you using the Learning Cycle? Are you teaching and coaching it?  Are you team members using it?  These are the opportunities for leaders who want to inspire trust.

Adopting PDCA makes problem solving a fun exercise that can involve everyone. It creates engagement and improved quality for customers. Proper and frequent use of PDCA leads to great ideas like moving the striking strip. The adoption of PDCA starts with the C-Suite leader and that is why Dr. W. Edwards Deming once said, “Quality starts in the boardroom.”

The skill of using PDCA requires knowledge, the embrace of systems thinking, the appreciation of self-organizing systems, patience to avoid jumping to conclusions (the most obvious answer of the moment), the discipline to invest time and energy in experimentation, and the desire to teach others. It’s comprehensive.

Being a leader can go to one’s head, encouraging the belief one is omniscient. That belief will damage trust. Enabling everyone to use PDCA in their work boosts trust and engagement and avoids the trust-damaging belief that leaders must always be omniscient.

Wally Hauck, PhD has a cure for the “deadly disease” known as the typical performance appraisal.  Wally holds a doctorate in organizational leadership from Warren National University, a Master of Business Administration in finance from Iona College, and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania.   Wally is a Certified Speaking Professional or CSP.  Wally has a passion for helping leaders let go of the old and embrace new thinking to improve leadership skills, employee engagement, and performance.  See other resources here.

For more, read on: https://c-suitenetwork.com/advisors/advisor/wally-hauck/