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Category: Best Practices

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5 Steps to Build and Develop Trust

Every good business relationship is built on trust. From creditors to employees, people need to trust that you’ll treat them the right way. Once trust is established and they know they can depend on you, they will extend their support even further, and may even make exceptions for you. This is essential to business success.

The sooner you show that you’re dependable, the quicker you’ll see the benefits, for instance commitment, devotion, priority ranking, extended credit, increased sales, and more opportunities. You must be proactive! Find ways to show your employees, creditors, and clients that you have their best interests at heart.

Here is our short guide for building and developing trust:

 

  1. Communicate. And communicate often. Be transparent when it comes to what you’re doing and why. Don’t leave anyone guessing what you’re up to—keep everyone informed! We suggest having regular meetings with suppliers, outsourced services, creditors, and your team. Share important information with them early and often. This alleviates their fears and allows them to feel valued. The more your team knows ahead of time, the more confident they are working with you.

 

  1. Be honest! If you purposely reserve information or harbor ulterior motives, you will destroy relationships and your reputation in your industry. Voluntarily discuss loopholes to assure the people you depend on that they will not be exploited. Make it clear that you’re a true partner who is looking out for them, not one who’s waiting to stab them in the back! Prevent them from keeping their guard up. Otherwise, you’ll get only the words of your agreements, not the spirit behind them.

 

  1. Create strategic alliances. Identify who gains if you gain, and treat them like partners. Share your ideas for growth and development with those who would prosper from a business relationship with you. Figure out how to advance their business while decreasing your need for money. For example, construct contracts for improved terms and free warehousing in return for longer term commitments.

 

  1. Take care of your customers. Nothing says, “Now that I have your money, you’re stuck with my products” like bad customer service. Customer service takes priority over what you’re selling. When you do your best to make that the sale is made, but can’t be bothered to prevent or fix an issue, you are asking competitors to take your customers. This is detrimental to your long-term business security. Without good customer service, your buyers won’t continue to buy, and they’ll tell others about their negative experience. Customers become devoted supporters when you treat them like a friend.

 

  1. Be responsible. Don’t try to play the blame game or cover up when you make a mistake. It will only worsen the situation, hurt your relationship, and lose you valuable trust. If you realize you’re going to miss a payment, contact your creditors right away. And be prepared! Develop a strategy that will bring your account up-to-date. This shows your empathy for the risk they’ve taken on you. Remember: You are not judged when everything goes smoothly. You’re judged by how you handle mistakes.

Long-term good behavior is the foundation for trust. In the first stages of a business relationship, trust can be lost easily. How you deal with an awkward situation tells your employees, creditors, and clients all they need to know. It could help them justify putting their faith in you, or it could lead them to regret the relationship. Trust is a lot more than saying, “Trust me.” And you can trust us on that!

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development Women In Business

Understand Before Seeking to be Understood

 

In your negotiations, how much attention to you give to really understanding the needs, wants, and desires of the other negotiator? Do you understand why he’s really negotiating with you per the mindset he possesses, his values, his sources of motivation? A lot of negotiators don’t really understand the mindset of the opposing negotiator and thus, they lead themselves down a path that infuses the negotiation with more angst than what otherwise might be the case.

In your future negotiations, be more mindful of the mindset of the other negotiator. Seek to understand him before you seek to be understood by him.

www.TheMasterNegotiator.com

 

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development Technology

Protecting Your Organization – How to Have an Engaged Cybersecurity Team 

In the first article of this series I provided an overview of the 5 pillars for creating an EPICC high performance teams. In this article we discuss the first pillar of the EPICC model – engagement.

Gallup continues to report that in the US, employee engagement is  around 30% and worldwide at only 15%. While we know this costs real money and affects the bottom line, it has an even bigger cost when we are talking about cybersecurity. When it comes to your cybersecurity team, 15-30% engagement can actually be dangerous to your organization. This is the team that has to be on their toes 24/7 to keep your network and data secure and you want — no, you need — them engaged.

Engaged employees are motivated and excited to do the work they are assigned to do and don’t have to be convinced to do a good job. They truly want to be at work, and want to do their best to contribute. They are looking for continual ways to improve and innovate and they go above and beyond, take initiative, interact with coworkers and management, produce high quality work products, and take responsibility.

Because that is what you are looking for in your cybersecurity team, let’s get to what it takes to have engaged employees. It takes a leadership team that knows how to create engagement by tapping into the key motivators that people have. As a leader, you can inspire your team to want to do more and be better, but you can only motivate them for the long run if you can tap into their intrinsic motivators. For more information on the following motivators, use the links to take you to a more in-depth article on each one.

Contributing fully through alignment – When you want people to contribute fully they need to align with the work they do in a way that allows them to contribute who they are to a task. When people are not aligned they get bored and find other things to do instead of the work at hand. If you ever feel that people on your team are slackers it could be a sign that they are not aligned with their work and as a result, not fully contributing. That is not a sign of a bad employee; it is a sign that they are doing work that is not aligned with who they are.

The Big Picture – People want to know how they fit into the big picture. How does their work help the organizations goals? Punching a clock or showing up to do a job with no meaning is not going to cut it anymore. Your most loyal, dedicated, and hard working employees will be the ones that understand and believe in the purpose of their role in the organization. As a leader and coach of your team it is your responsibility to ensure your team knows, understands, and is bought into the big picture. It is your job to keep that big picture and shared goals in front of them as part of the on-going conversation.

Continued Growth – As a leader, it is your role to ensure your team is getting continued growth opportunities. They want to learn and grow and they will be more appreciative and harder working when given these opportunities. My experience as an employee in several organizations where there were no growth opportunities lead me to be less motivated and look elsewhere for what I was missing. Plus, when you provide educational opportunities, you are going to have a smarter, more talented workforce, and when has that ever been a bad thing?

Feedback and Recognition – Here is a place where your team needs you more than anywhere else. Do you know that most people go through their days getting no praise, feedback, or recognition, not even at home or from those they love? When people are told they are doing a good job, they will want to do an even better job next time. When they don’t know how they are doing they often make assumptions and think to themselves, “oh well, no need to try harder, no one seems to notice around here.” However, don’t just provide recognition and positive feedback because you are supposed to. Do it from a place of sincerity, like a proud parent would when their child is walking across the stage at graduation or scoring the winning goal of the soccer game. Without proper feedback and recognition you are missing out on one of the greatest motivators of all.

One of your jobs as a leader is to inspire those around you so that they are motivated to contribute fully, which will result in improved engagement and in the case of your cybersecurity team improved protection of your organization’s network and sensitive data. See how you can use these tips to amplify their motivation and help create better results for everyone on your cybersecurity team, and in return, for your organization..

If you have questions or comments email me at sharon@c-suiteresults.com and for more resources visit www.c-suiteresults.com and/or listen to C-Suite Success Radio

 

 

 

 

 

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

How to Listen Better to Win More Negotiations

“When asking questions, listen to the response! Be sure to hear the meaning and any hidden meaning in the message you received.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

To win more negotiations, listen better. When you negotiate, how well do you listen? The better you listen, the more negotiations you’ll win.

… but he didn’t answer the question! Good negotiators are very adept at diverting questions that don’t serve their purpose. In some cases, they’ll give superficial responses that appear to answer the question, or like a good magician, draw your attention in another direction without you noticing that they’ve done so.

To enhance the probability of winning more negotiations, listen to how questions are answered, and listen to the words used to represent the answers. In so doing, you’ll gain invaluable insight into hidden meanings and the thought process behind those meanings.

Listen to how questions are answered:

Take note to what degree a question is answered, avoided, and/or modified. As an example, if you ask, “Is that your best offer?” You might receive several responses:

A.) In the past, that’s as much as we’ve paid.

B.) Due to our current ‘situation’, we have a ceiling on the amount we can pay.

C.) Other vendors/suppliers are accepting our price structure.

In each of the above answers, you received a response to your question but what you did not receive was a direct answer to your question. Depending on your alertness or how diligent you wanted to appear, you might rephrase the question, point out that you’d not received an answer to it, or accept the answer given in order to address the situation from another perspective. The course of action you adopt should be aligned with how you wished to position yourself and the person with whom you’re negotiating to enhance your negotiation position.

 Listen to the words used to answer questions:

Words are the representation of the thoughts being conveyed. In the above answers, the word choice conveyed additional insight per how that person was thinking. In response ‘A’, the information conveyed is stating, “That’s our norm.” It could also be perceived as, you shouldn’t consider going outside of the norm. Conform to our standards.

In response ‘B’, the subliminal message is, “We’re in a challenging time, please bear with us. Help us by being understanding.” If you acquiesce, you might attempt to acquire chits that can be used in future negotiations. If you do so, attempt to instill in the current negotiation when and how you might use such chits. Keep in mind, you’ll also be setting a precedent to ‘help them’ again in the future, since you did so this time.

Depending on the value of your offer, you could position it so that it’s seen as ‘added value’ that warrants a ‘higher investment’ on the part of the purchaser, or one that you can fit into the current pricing structure because of the reason that’s best suited for the situation and your purpose. The point is, after you’ve gleaned the additional information based on how your questions are answered, you have a better understanding of how to position yourself.

You make decisions based on your interpretation of the situations you’re in. Then, based on your interpretation, you decide how you’ll act and react to situations. Thus, you and only you control your actions in a negotiation. So, to control more of the aspects of the negotiation, listen to the meanings and hidden meanings in the answers given by the other negotiator. Your reward will be in winning more negotiations … and everything will be right with the world.

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

 

 

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Accounting Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Personal Development Taxes Technology

What Does It Mean to Be a Leader in the Age of AI? Part 1

With the advent of artificial intelligence (A.I.) and machine learning, it’s time to re-evaluate how we hire, train and lead our employees.

The ability to do a job faster or cheaper will no longer be what sets an organization apart from its competitors, but rather the ability of organizations and its human component to critically and strategically think for the organization and its customers.

With improved critical thinking, machine learning and A.I., an organization will be able to move faster and more effectively than its competitors making it both more interesting and challenging for its human workforce and valuable to its customers.

In an A.I. environment, co-workers will be expected by its customers and the organization to work in teams, improve communication with customers, come up with original thoughts and strategies, explain how A.I. came up to its conclusions and implement their strategies. Objectives of the organization and its customers probably will not change (e.g. enhanced customer and trusted relationships, bottom and top line growth). However, the way the organization uses its human components will change dramatically.

What does it mean to critically think? According to the Foundation for Critically Thinking.org you and your co-workers should be able to:

  • Raise vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely.
  • Gather and assess relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively.
  • Come to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards.
  • Thinking open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as needs to be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences.
  • Communicate effectively with others (in teams) in figuring out complex solutions.

How to go about implementing and dealing with co-workers who are unfamiliar or unable to cope with the new paradigm?

  • Link their compensation and future to these management objectives so they realize the importance of these new organizational directives.
  • Identify your stars who understand and employ “critical thinking” methods and encourage them to lead by giving them authority and autonomy to do so.
  • Recognize, embrace and communicate this as a cultural shift that will enhance the well- being and livelihood of everyone involved.
  • Be prepared to promote team members that exhibit these skills and counsel out those who can’t adopt.
  • Prioritize these skill sets as a core competency of new hires.
  • Make it as a top goal for your organization.
  • Hire the right professionals.
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Best Practices Management Marketing Personal Development

People Want Entrepreneurial Culture!

Suddenly, entrepreneurial culture is in demand by C-Suiters of large corporations. Why? They see small companies doing what they aren’t—moving fast and seizing opportunities. They see more and more start-ups taking industries by storm with innovative products, groundbreaking services, and fresh takes on consumer demand. And they want to do the same.

Large businesses are under pressure from stockholders and board members to make entrepreneurial culture happen, and they don’t understand why that culture is off-limits in their own companies. Slowly, they realize where they went wrong. They learn that their rigid structure, strict processes, and scale of standardization they’ve polished over the years have actually worked against them. Their own employees have become discouraged and disempowered.

An employee can’t be forced to feel inspired and invested, and C-Suiters can’t develop entrepreneurial culture overnight. This takes long-term commitment—it is not a fad or an item on a checklist. The basics of entrepreneurial culture contradict some sacred corporate cows, such as structure, compliance, and compensation. This shift will require you to introduce 3 new wild horses:

  1. Work like a two-division company. If your customer is at the top, how can customer service and sales be at the bottom? No matter how an entrepreneur’s company and office are organized, there is a permeating two-division attitude and structure. These are sales and sales support. Sales is on top, and everybody else works to support sales. This includes production, marketing, and administration. Even the CEO is in sales support. Why? Because every entrepreneur knows that employees are paid by the customer, through sales. To ensure that departments such as marketing and production do their best, keep them informed and in the loop. Sales and customer service know the most about the market, so why not use them to keep everyone relevant and updated?
  2. Pay for performance. This might be difficult for a large corporation to implement. Your employees will be doubtful of this shift unless they are already paid according to performance. But, in order to foster entrepreneurial culture, a portion of their pay must be measured by profitability, growth, and sales. You need to make sure that your employees are driven by much more than a stable paycheck. Paying your employees just for attendance tells them, “Whether or not the company makes a profit, you’ll get paid the same, so relax!” Dedicated members of an entrepreneurial workforce are eager to gamble their pay on personal productivity.
  3. Be mindful of the legal department. Corporations can suffer from the restraint of legal departments. Hidden in their good intentions to protect against liability is a tendency to halt creativity. In our opinion, legal should develop a system where strict compliance reviews simply are not necessary. Part of their pay should be based on growth, sales, and profitability, just like everyone else. Why should their pay stay the same no matter how competitive the company is? Their challenge should not be “Can we do this?” It should be “How can we do this?”

In our book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways to Engage and Empower Your People, you’ll find the tools we used to create entrepreneurial culture at Barefoot. These tools can be applied to corporations of any size. Released in 2014 alongside Jeff Hayzlett’s on-demand C-Suite TV, it is the ideal companion to our New York Times bestselling book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. Check ‘em out!

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development

So, You Say Your Company Wants an Entrepreneurial Culture

Anyone who owns or manages a business or organization can say they want their employees to be invested in the company’s mission. They can say they want to hire natural entrepreneurs. Of course, it is doable to hire the crème de la crème. Aside from entrepreneurship college graduates, you will find and interview people whose core values exhibit those of self-sufficiency, resourcefulness, imagination, and responsibility, but your company environment is what will either keep or frustrate those bright-eyed new hires. It will be impossible for them to identify with the company’s goals without the proper environment.

It can be quite the paradox. Job security is a top-priority item for all employees, but for those who are met with office politics and petty status issues, job security can become the only reason to go to work. How can these people be imaginative and empowered at work when they have a career to worry about? Before Barefoot Wines was conceived, Michael was a government employee. He was motivated, like most college grads, to be productive and move forward in his field. But the negative office environment gave Michael a wake-up call. He did not want to become an employee who was detached from his actual job, only going to work because it was his duty to show up. From then on, he was determined to avoid working for any such organization.

In part, Barefoot Wine is due to what Michael learned from his stint with the government. As a company grows, it is further and further removed from accountability for the customer experience, and sales. Any employee may think, “Sales is someone else’s responsibility. I’m going to get paid regardless.” This leads to people becoming comfortable in their specialty. Why does their individual job matter in terms of customers and sales? This thought process is even worse at the governmental level, where many are so detached from customer responsibility.

Simply put, sales is the foundation from which entrepreneurial culture grows. If two people start a business together, they both know that sales need to happen to guarantee them a job the following day. As the business grows, new departments develop, and the two owners are not as close to sales as they once were. Here, you can see how easy it is to lose an entrepreneurial culture. Maintaining an entrepreneurial culture is more important than building it! As a company grows, compliance and fear can replace productivity and sales. Employees are no longer dedicated to responsibility, ownership, and empowerment—their basic checklist is simplified to attendance and status.

So, before you interview and hire for people who are natural entrepreneurs, you must first make sure your company environment will keep them there. Whether it is a startup or an established company, it is essential for any organization to create a culture of acknowledgement, respect, ownership, and enthusiasm. Always keep the customer experience first in mind. This, instead of organizational politics, must be most important.

Get in tune with the company’s foundation and what got it all started—sales. Sales must be the motivational factor that drives and fosters a proper entrepreneurial culture. How can you maintain a proper environment if you’re out of touch with your core goals? When your employees understand that they are appreciated and are capable of making a difference, they will be devoted to delivering the best customer experience!

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

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Best Practices Growth Leadership Skills Technology

7 Methods to Achieve Successful Business Connections

Thanks to text messages, tweets, and limited attention spans, society has become all about instant gratification—we look for the quickest way to share a thought.

This is okay when captioning pictures of cute puppies, or when letting your friend know you’ll be there in ten minutes, but it’s a hindrance in business communication. Especially when you’re doing business with services that rely on specific instruction, a minimalist approach is counter-productive.

The generation now entering the workforce has taken technology for granted—they grew up with it and have grown accustomed to fast communication. They assume a minimalist approach translates to business, but they couldn’t be more wrong. They are surprised, dumbfounded, and amazed to see their projects come back completely wrong, which can lead them to blame the outside vendor.

Business communication should not be minimized—it should be maximized! Taking the effort to consider the ways your words could be misunderstood will save you time, embarrassment, and retaliation.

We use the following guidelines to help eliminate misinterpretation:

  1. Set clear deadlines: Be very specific. Set up reminders at certain points along the way. You can say, “Just wanted to see if you needed anything else on my end,” and then, “Does the deadline still work for you?”
  2. Say it both ways: Be clear. Let them know what you want and what you don’t Ask them to confirm their understanding. You can say, “What is your understanding about this project? I just want to be sure I didn’t miss any details.” You will be floored by what they didn’t understand. Good thing you asked!
  3. Call ‘em up! Don’t depend on email alone. Explaining what you want over the phone will have a larger impact. Record correspondence through email. Don’t forget to say, “If you have any questions or problems, please call me.”
  4. Don’t assume: Assumption leads to misunderstanding. Look at your message objectively—think how it could be misunderstood. We like to repeat our business communications aloud before we send them out. More often than not, we’re shocked by what we hear!
  5. Be specific: The more specific you are, the less room for “creativity”. If you’re not specific about design, wording, and even typeface, the recipient may feel they can do what they want, disregarding the complexity of your whole project.
  6. Give some wiggle room: Provide a cushion, both for yourself and the vendor. Do not leave anything waiting until the last minute. How much time do you think they need? Double it! Make sure your deadline is several days after theirs. This way, you’ll have plenty of time to review their work, and, if necessary, plenty of time to fix it.
  7. Recognize a job well done: If they get the work done right, let them know exactly what you liked about it. And don’t forget to thank them! Next time, they will be much easier to work with, they will make your assignment a priority, and they’ll ask better questions. 

To communicate successfully in business, you must think about what might go wrong, how to meet deadlines, and what might be misinterpreted—all before clicking the “Send” button. Take just a few more minutes to think about what you really want! This will save you tons of time in the long run.

For more, read on: http://csnetworkadvis.staging.wpengine.com/advisor/michael-houlihan-and-bonnie-harvey/

 

 

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Best Practices Growth Management Skills Technology

The Importance of a High Performance Cybersecurity Team

In this six-part series I am going to address five pillars for creating a high performance security team. we are starting at a high level in this article and then each week I will go into more detail on another pillar.

Because cybersecurity professionals face a lot of adversity and burnout it is incredibly important for their leadership to understand what it takes to create a high performance security team.

If you are the type of leader who is striving to make big things happen for your organization, protect your organization’s data, and possibly create a competitive advantage through security, a high performance security team is the answer. If you are reading this and you don’t have a security team at all, then forming one or bringing in security consultants is the place to start. As you build that team you can incorporate the lessons from this series in order to build a high performance team from the ground up.

High performance teams in general get more done with less effort and with better results. They have less drama and more creative ideas. A High performance security team is one of the cornerstones of your competitive advantage because when you have rock star security talent that isn’t going to leave, you have something your competition probably does not, which puts you in a leading position.

You are probably intimately familiar with teams that are not high performing from your own experiences throughout your career and so am I, that is why I wrote The Corporate Detox. Therefore let’s dive right into the signs of a high performance team because so you can start focusing on what you want vs. focusing on what you don’t want.

The signs you have a high performance team:

  • Team members genuinely like spending time together and trust each other
  • Everyone is working towards a shared goal and vision
  • Projects are completed on time and on (or under) budget
  • Assigned roles are based on individuals strengths and interests
  • Team members communicate with each other and with you (their leader)
  • Everyone talks about what is working and what isn’t working
  • During brainstorming sessions no idea is ridiculed
  • Everyone is encouraged to participate in discussions
  • Feedback is provided in real time and in a constructive way
  • There is no finger pointing or blame when things don’t go as planned
  • Roles and accountability are openly discussed
  • No one is “just hanging in there” and counting down the days until Friday

If your security team is missing some of these signs, it’s okay, you can turn it around, and I’m going to provide you a roadmap to do this. In this series, each article will discuss one of the five pillars of not just high-performance teams, but EPICC high performance teams:

EPICC Teams are Engaged, Productive, Have Integrity, Collaborate and Communicate.

Now between reading this and next week’s article, I encourage you to conduct a review of your current security team. How many of the signs that I described in the above checklist can you say your team embodies? How many need a little work? How many are non-existent? Don’t pad your answers; be honest because this will help you focus on what you want. When you see areas that you are not happy with you will better know what changes you need to make.

Sometimes it’s easier to identify what you don’t want in order to more clearly identify and define what you do want. In looking ahead to next week’s article in which we will discuss the first pillar, Engagement, start to think about the times you have been most engaged and the times you have been least engaged at work.

In the meantime you can always reach out to me at sharon@c-suiteresults.com to discuss this topic, security teams, or security strategy. If you enjoy podcasts you can listen to C-Suite Results Radio to tap into the wisdom of other successful business people who know the path you’re traveling.

 

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Personal Development Women In Business

Expert Advice on How to Negotiate With a Bully

 

“To be fearless against a bully display what he fears.” -Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

 

“Expert Advice On How To Negotiate With A Bully”

Follow this expert advice to negotiate with a bully.

  1. Differentiate between a bully that may be controlling versus bullying. Some people don’t see themselves as bullies. They may be the type that likes to be in control of situations and display overly aggressive means to maintain that control. The two perspectives possess different mindsets.
  2. Identify the personality type of the bully you’re negotiating with (you’re always negotiating). Thus, even in your first encounter with a person (and after that time), you should assess that person’s traits, demeanor, and characteristics. Doing so will give you the insight needed to formulate a negotiation strategy.
  3. Determine the best environment to negotiate with a bully. He may be stronger in one environment as the result of resources surrounding him or those he has to ‘save face’ for; this may also tend to make him cockier than he’d normally be. If that’s the case, get him out of his environment; this should be done physically and/or psychologically. In doing so you’ll dilute his psychological powers and weaken him mentally in the process (i.e. power is perceptional).
  4. If addressing a bully on a one-on-one basis doesn’t achieve your objective(s), marshal forces to use as leverage against him. Depending on the situation, let those that he has more respect for take the lead on your behalf; never let a bully know how strong your forces are. You must be prepared to send in a second, third, fourth, etc., wave that’s stronger than what preceded it. For maximum effect, the timing of your next foray should occur just when the bully thinks he’s squashed your best efforts. In normal situations, over time you’ll wear the bully down and he’ll acquiesce to your wishes. Be mindful of the bully that won’t acquiesce over a period of exhaustive negotiations when forces have been marshaled against him. You might be dealing with a bully that’s willing to destroy himself for the sake of denying you any kind of victory. To prevent from making too many concessions, establish exit points that indicate when you should depart the negotiation. Always be mindful that, the longer you stay engaged in a negotiation, the likelier you are to make concessions to your disadvantage. This is due to the psychological need to see the negotiation to its end. This could be to your severe detriment.
  5. Once you’ve achieved your objective(s), over a period of time reengage the bully from a polite perspective and observe how he interacts with you. To the degree the relationship is important to you, be prepared to let him win an encounter, but never let him bully you again. Your prior actions should be engrained in his mind to the point that he’d not want to experience the prior encounter that you two engaged in.
  6. As further insight into the affects your engagement has had with a bully, note how those closes to the bully engage with you after an encounter. Their actions will allow you to assess the degree of sting that still resides in the bully.

Bullies only pick on those that they perceive to be weaker than themselves. Don’t let a bully perceive weakness in you and he’ll have no target to attack … and everything will be right with the world.

What are your takeaways? I’d really like to know. Reach me at Greg@TheMasterNegotiator.com

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

#HowToNegotiateBetter #HowToNegotiateWithBully #PreventBullying