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Category: Personal Development

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Tips for Performing Under Pressure: The Resilient Mind

Over the past 35 years, I have worked with many high-achieving professionals – athletes, actors, dancers, speakers, and business leaders in a variety of fields. One of the common denominators that is true across the board, is as soon as we raise the stakes of the game and more is demanded of us, new skills and new perspectives are required.

It’s interesting to note that emotions are processed in the brain as predictions based on our past history. In other words, if we had a bad experience at an earlier time in our lives, our brain remembers that experience and expects the same result in the future. This is why telling ourselves to “just get over it,” doesn’t always work.

At the time of this writing, the Winter Olympics are just ending. What can we learn from these athletes about performing under pressure? A number of them have come back from heartbreaking defeats and devastating injuries. How do they work with their minds to overrule the brain’s natural tendency to avoid pain and danger?

There are many factors that go into that answer, but again, to play at a very high level, new skills and perspectives are required. We can summarize the needed qualities in one word: “Resiliency.” Some people are more naturally resilient than others. But resiliency can be learned and nurtured from a very early age.

Let’s look at three essential qualities of a resilient mind:

1. Attitude – Resilient people look back at difficult experiences as challenges to invent a new future. They see solutions, strength and inspiration. So, one’s attitude can mitigate the brain’s natural tendency to see the world as an unfriendly place. By changing your attitude, you are actually building new neural pathways, which now means you are writing a new story.

2. Positive Self-Image – Resilient people are constantly evaluating themselves from a NON-JUDGMENTAL perspective. What worked, what didn’t work? They are willing to make course corrections based on their objective analysis.

3. Sense of Purpose – in order to subject ourselves to the high demands and challenges that “going for it” requires, we need to have a powerful reason. Simon Sinek, in his Ted talk, called it “Your Why.”

When your attitude, your self-image and your purpose are in alignment, you have the magic ingredients to forge a new future. Even though your mind “remembers” past negative experiences, you are not destined to repeat them.

If you find that you “know” this information, but are still not able to let go of situations you feel are still holding you back, I invite you to take the Mastery Under Pressure quiz on your level of peak performance skills at www.masteryunderpressure.net.

And join our Facebook Community at Mastery Under Pressure Community, where you’ll learn more about strengthening those building blocks to greater resiliency and
peak performance.

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development Women In Business

The Attention Deficit Workplace – The Answer Starts with YOU!

You are a role model … to someone. The expression “tone at the top” is true. The example leaders demonstrate is often believed to be a requirement employees must follow. No matter what’s written in policy handbooks or said aloud, the traits leaders demonstrate others will implement as their own. Even though most leaders recognize this to be true, it’s easy to forget how daily behavior is observed and actions are emulated. When we use the word ‘leader’ we are referring to everyone, it doesn’t matter your title, responsibilities or what’s printed on your business card, everyone leads.

Consider this, distractions cost US businesses $588 billion dollars in productivity each year, according to the Information Overload Group. It makes me wonder, how many of these distractions are derived from your leadership “tone” and daily work behavior.

Let’s determine the answer with a pop-quiz.

1. Email:

  • Do you expect immediate responses to emails sent?
  • Do you pop into an employee’s office, send a text or call them within 30 minutes without an answer?

2. Phone Call:

  • Do you always take phone calls regardless of what you are working on or who is in your office

3. Devices:

  • Are you always seen carrying your cell phone?
  • Have you interrupted meetings or allowed yourself to be distracted in order to respond to messages or alerts?
  • Does your phone stay on and active throughout each work day?

4. Unannounced Visits:

  • Are you known for walking into an employee’s workspace unscheduled to discuss a project, question or need?

5. Open Door Policy:

  • Are you devoted to an open door policy permitting others to interrupt your activities throughout the day?

6. Schedule:

  • Do you allow for an open schedule of time that anyone can take to meet their needs?
  • Are you intentional about blocking off time throughout the day to work without interruption

7. Meetings:

  • Do you accept every meeting invite?
  • Do you require an agenda before attending or does the invitation merely imply your required attendance?

8. Priorities:

  • As other departments or peers make demands of your time or request non-priority essential tasks, do you take on their requests without scrutiny?

9. After Hours:

  • Are you known for sending or responding to after hour emails or texts?
  • Are you willing to interrupt your family time to take incoming work-related phone calls?

10. Social Media:

  • Do you pop on social media to respond to posts and comments throughout the day?
  • Do you actively share and communicate with others online frequently?

11. Vacation:

  • Have you been known to respond to messages while taking time off from work?
  • Do you regularly take time off to decompress, relax and refocus?

If you answered “Yes” to any of these questions (and I admit, I definitely did!), you are sending a message to your employees the same is expected of them. If you are unable to allow yourself time to focus without interruption, or if you are not proactively seeking ways to avoid disruption, others will fail to do so as well.

As the leader, you are the Attention Ambassador of your office. Lead by example. When you silence your phone, others will too. If you refrain from sending or responding to after-hours messages, others will feel permitted to do the same.

It’s up to YOU as the leader to prioritize your time and demonstrate that your team can feel empowered to do the same. As a result, employee productivity will soar, engagement will skyrocket and so will the profits that follow suit. When employees feel free to say “no” to other’s request for their time and attention, they can say “yes” to what matter most.

Choose to lead by example. Be the role model. Be a true leader. Be aware of the example you set. Change the expectations and remember – Attention Pays.

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Best Practices Growth Management Personal Development

A Useful Metaphor: An Organization is a House

Metaphors are useful. They help us to appreciate ideas, especially innovative ideas, by putting them into a context we already understand.  A useful metaphor for building a high-performance organization is to imagine building a house.

In 2016 an article in the NY Times outlined the alarming news that a sizeable number of homes have their foundations crumbling.  The homes are now worthless.   According to the NY Times, the cement used in these homes has an ingredient that swells and cracks with exposure to oxygen and water. (Foderaro, 2016)

An organization with a crumbling foundation is worth less.

The Foundation

A house, and an organization, must have a solid foundation or it could eventually be worthless.  In a high-performance organization, the foundation includes the Vision (an ideal picture of a future state), the Mission (purpose or aim i.e. why the organization exists), the Values (intrinsically important priorities), Management Theory (how the senior leadership thinks about problems and people), and Strategy (the long-term plan of action and priorities).  If each of these is clear and communicated to all employees, it helps everyone to make decisions quickly and implement the structure.

The Structure

The structure (or framing and walls of the house) of an organization is made up of all those things that puts the items in the foundation into action.   Because the structure is supported by the foundation, if the foundation is sound, the more effective the structure can be.  A weak foundation will cause the walls to crack.  The structure includes the policies, procedures (processes), competencies (skills), knowledge, learning, continuous improvement, problem solving, objectives, rewards, and measures.

The Roof

The roof protects the house from the external elements.  In an organization, the roof represents the results. The stronger the results, the more the organization is protected from the threatening elements of the environment.  These threatening elements include the competitors, the economy, the government regulations, the changing market conditions, the changing customer expectations and demands, etc. The results include, revenue, profit, employee engagement, customer loyalty and trust.

Leaders want results. Sometimes leaders want results so badly and so quickly they forget to look at the foundation. They immediately address weaknesses in the structure (e.g. changing the performance management policy) or fix holes in the roof (e.g. offer employees new benefits to address engagement issues).  Precious resources can be wasted by trying to fix the roof when the real root cause is a weakened structure caused by a weak foundation.  The results are poor and so they “repair the policies to plug a leak in the roof” and they do it over and over.  A better strategy is to reinforce the foundation, and then repair the structure because a lack of alignment on the elements of the foundation can create tremendous barriers to growth and quality for an organization.

A solid foundation must be more than just the creation of the Vision, Values, Management Theory, Culture, and Strategy for the organization. It is not enough to just clarify those items. A successful Leader must know how to align people behind these items and they must know how to have the patience to reinforce them capturing their hearts and not just their minds.  We must capture both hearts and minds to achieve commitment.  Alignment of all hearts and minds means people are willing to act, be creative, solve problems, be pro-active and have all those other characteristics or behaviors that CEO’s are looking for from their people.  It’s not about motivating people. It’s about creating an environment within which they can naturally be self-motivated.

The foundation must have all the “bricks” in place (Vision, Mission or Purpose, Values, Culture, and Management Theory) because they are interdependent.  The Vision tells us where we are going. The Mission (or purpose/aim) tells us why we want to get there.  The values and culture tell us how we are to behave and how we make decisions along the way.  The management theory helps us to think and solve problems and remove barriers we encounter. The strategy gives us our priorities.  Together they help us answer the basic questions i.e. Where, How, Why, When, with Who. When these questions can be answered by every employee, they act. They make decisions quickly.  They become like a self-organizing system.

The current management theory encourages this lack of alignment.  Most leaders want to evaluate each individual separate from the environment and this creates competition, confusion, and waste.

In his book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge describes the need for alignment in a team. (Senge, 1990)  A great jazz ensemble, a great sports team, or an orchestra are all examples of aligned teams or self-organizing systems.  The individuals have a sense of connection and interdependence.  They can make decisions quickly and interact with each other with ease and accuracy without wasted time.  They won’t do this without a solid foundation.

What is the condition of your “organizational house”?  Is the roof leaking?  Is the structure in need of repair?  Perhaps you need to start with reinforcing your foundation.  Perhaps it is time to find the root cause of the problem in the foundation and stop continuously repairing the symptoms.

Check out the interview on C-Suite Best Seller TV to learn more about how to stop leadership malpractice and replace the typical performance review: https://www.c-suitetv.com/video/best-seller-tv-wally-hauck-stop-the-leadership-malpractice/

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.

Foderaro, K. H. (2016, June 7). With Connecticut Foundations Crumbling, “‘Your Home is Now Worthless’. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/08/nyregion/with-connecticut-foundations-crumbling-your-home-is-now-worthless.html

Senge, P. M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline. New York, NY: Currency and Doubleday.

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Growth Leadership Personal Development Technology

Do You Know What Your Reputation Is?

Have you ever Googled yourself and been surprised by what you find?  I have a relatively common name, so I always find out things about the famous Tim Collins’s of the world… a Major League Baseball player, a British general, and more.  But one time, I came across something that I clearly did not want associated with my name.  I shared a name with a serviceman who involved in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.   The story and its search results have long since faded into the background, but it taught me a lesson about monitoring and managing my online reputation.

The majority of business interactions happen online, including interactions with Executives.   Most people will Google you immediately after meeting you.  This includes hiring managers and recruiters, employees and prospective employees, vendors, journalists, and of course, customers. First impressions matter, so make sure you give people the right impression.  The first step is being aware of your online reputation.

Google just your name.  If you have a relatively unique name, your results will be straightforward.   But if you have a common name like me, you will see results from others who share your name.  While it can be informative and amusing, it can also uncover negative news that could rub off on your reputation.  Imagine sharing a name with Monica Lewinsky, as more than a dozen women on LinkedIn do.

Google your name + your current company.  Double check that the results aren’t derogatory, particularly on the first couple of pages.

Google your name + your last company.  Your results can get interesting if your former company has had a bumpy ride since you departed.  For example, I left Wells Fargo just a few weeks before their account scandal broke.  More recent negative company news can get mixed in with your historical accomplishments, particularly if there are others still at the company with similar names.

Focus your attention on results on the first pages.   Over 90% of searchers never go past the first page of search results.  If there is something derogatory on page one, action is required.   But 99% never go past page three, so a negative result on page six won’t really matter.

What do you do if you’ve found something negative?  For many, one relatively easy task is to create content that pushes the negative results down, ideally onto the next page.  For some this could be as simple as participating in a popular podcast or YouTube video that features the key words that yielded the negative result.  For example, I might create a contemporary video about “What Tim Collins learned at Wells Fargo?” with content that has nothing to do with their recent troubles.  Depending on where the derogatory information came from, the video may have to be posted on a site with some level authority to displace it.

Since the search engines prioritize active personal social media presences, another solution is to create a robust social media presence that pushes down negative results  Walt Bettinger, CEO of Charles Schwab, has a robust presence on Twitter and LinkedIn, and these two accounts both pop up near the top of his search results, pushing other content down.  Contrast that with Morgan Stanley, CEO James Gorman, who is not socially active.

Of course, building a robust social presence is something that I can help with.  But with really challenging online reputation issues, with multiple derogatory results, a reputation management company is called for.  One that I can recommend is Blue Ocean Technologies. There are numerous others.

But the first step is awareness.  Google yourself, and hope that the results you see are positive.  If not, take action.  Remember, first impressions matter.

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Best Practices Body Language Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Negotiations Skills Women In Business

Do You Know Where to Look to Find Yourself?

“A sense of uncertainty arouses the senses of being lost. Avoid the lost sense of uncertainty by truly knowing yourself.” – Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

As we go through different phases of our life, we seek assurances that we’re within the confines of society’s norms. Then, we use that feedback to adjust our actions and the way we interact with others. At some point, we find the wherewithal within ourselves to venture on a path of life that states, we know what’s best for us. That process may take years and sadly, some never discover it.

Some never discover the fortitude within themselves that states they have something of value that’s needed by others. Some never discover the quality about themselves that states that they possess more insight and knowledge than others give them credit for. Some never discover that they are more of what the world needs more of. The reason they don’t or can’t embrace that reality is that they don’t know where to look to find themselves.

No matter what phase of life you’re in, you have a sense of uniqueness that’s of value to someone. Look deeper into the values of those that need your uniqueness to find more of yourself. No matter what setbacks you may encounter, look deeper into how those setbacks occurred, in order to discover the uniqueness that lies within you. No matter what you encounter, look at those encounters for the value they possess. Look at them as a value-add to your life. Then, and only then, will you find that elusive place where you discover more about who and what you are. That will also be the tipping point when you discover more of what you want to be … and everything will be right with the world.

What does this have to do with negotiations?

In a negotiation, you may be besieged with doubt about the strategy you’re implementing. You may ponder the right course of action to adopt due to unforeseen occurrences in the negotiation. During such times, don’t allow despair to surround you. It will stifle your train of thought. Don’t allow hopelessness to engulf you. It will deter you from moving forward. Don’t let fear deride you, it will make you stop dead in your tracks. Instead, when you find yourself perplexed by the thought of inaction, seek attunement with the inner you. Explore the possibility of why what’s occurring is happening and the meaning of it. Be mindful to give the meaning you assign a positive perspective. That will be the doorway that leads from the disruption of darkness into the light. That will also be the doorway that allows you to find more of yourself.

Remember, you’re always negotiating.

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

To receive Greg’s free 5-minute video on reading body language or to sign up for the “Negotiation Tip of the Week” and the “Sunday Negotiation Insight” click here http://www.themasternegotiator.com/greg-williams/

#HowToNegotiateBetter #CSuite #TheMasterNegotiator #ControlEmotions #Psychology #Truth #Perception #rejection #leadership

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Best Practices Health and Wellness Human Resources Management Marketing Skills Women In Business

Use Project Management Principles to Accomplish More

“The project is 10 months behind, you need to deliver it in two months and raise $10 million dollars. Can you do it?” That’s the questions my boss Phil asked me. This was totally outside the scope of my existing role in the oil industry, but I had developed a reputation as someone who could get things done. Oscillating between excitement and terror that I’d been selected for the challenge, of course I said, ‘YES!”

Admittedly, I didn’t sleep for two months but I did deliver the project, on time, and within the budget with 100% compliance from the stakeholders.  It was one of my career highlights and it reminded me project management principles could be applied to every aspect of your life.

Project management has been around for thousands of years. I’m picturing some fabulous Egyptian leaders standing around debating the process for delivering stone blocks for the pyramids. Can’t you just see that?

Let’s take a look at nine project management principles that will help you in business, and in life.

1. Have a project management mindset. Start with that 30,000-foot view. Evaluate what you need by way of budget, time, milestones and deliverables for every project.

2. Be budget smart.How much time and money does your project require?

3. Timing is everything.Put a timeline in place from start to finish.

4. Put it in writing.Outline your milestones and mission plans and write them down.

5. Organize and order. Create the checklist and timeline for the progression of tasks.

6. List the stakeholders. This helps keep you focused and on task.

7. Appoint a project sponsor. This might be your mentor, your boss, or colleague. This person will assist you progress the project, help handle any challenges you might face, and help you be accountable for deliverables

8. Create a folder for every project with the following structure:

  1. Project chassis (overview)
  2. Budget
  3. Communications
  4. Meeting Notes
  5. Miscellaneous

9. Focus on the outcome. Keeping your eye on the prize helps drive personal energy. Especially when you are in the thick of things, tired, and need to be inspired!

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Personal Development Women In Business

Want To Advance Your Career? Find a Mentor

Lux was a top performer. In the 20 years before I met her she was always considered a high potential employee. In her two decades in the IT department of a large financial institution she progressed slowly but steadily through the ranks. If there were a complex problem to resolve –Lux would get done.

And then she got stuck. She couldn’t understand why she was overlooked time and again to achieve a top position. The reason was simple – she never asked. Sometime being good at what you do can be what prevents you from getting ahead. Why would anyone advance Lux further when she was doing such an excellent job just where she was? And for her part, she never let anyone know that she had her eye on a very senior position. The game changer for her was the suggestion to find a Mentor. She chose the CFO of the organization who was both flattered and interested in being her guide. Within a very short time, after expressing her interest in moving up the ladder, and following her mentor’s suggested roadmap to success, she achieved her objective of being a senior V.P.

And now it’s your turn. A mentor is a wise and trusted counselor and guide. In “traditional” corporations an executive or senior person is assigned a “high potential” to assist in his or her development.  A Mentor has a body of knowledge that a Mentee would like to learn. For example, in an accounting firm, information regarding technical matters and professional development are often transferred from Mentor to Mentee.

There are many reasons why having a Mentor can accelerate your career. Here are three for you to consider:

1. Guidance regarding how to navigate corporate politics. For women, it sometimes helps to have a Mentor who is also female. Your role as a Mentee is to be open to the feedback, suggestions, and critiques that are offered to you. This will maximize the effect of the support you receive.

2. Assistance finding connections, the “whos” who can help you get where you’d like to be more quickly. The question to ask is “who do you know who….”

3. And thirdly, guidance in how to improve your skills. Within the context of a mentoring relationship the Mentor assists an individual fill a particular knowledge gap by learning how to do things more effectively.

In your search for a Mentor, it’s a good idea to choose someone working in the same functional area as you are, as well as someone who shares your values. Professional organizations in your field, whether they offer formal mentoring programs or not, can be excellent sources of Mentors. Test the waters by asking for advice first. Be open to sharing your concerns and fears. Mentors are most likely to invest themselves in those in whom they see a little of themselves.

Don’t think that you, as a Mentee, get all the benefits from the relationship. In my experience mentoring is a rich and rewarding experience and I’ve learned more about technologies from my Mentees than I would ever have learned on my own! Having a well chosen Mentor to guide you can be a game changer in accelerating your career. Do it now!

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Entrepreneurship Marketing Personal Development

Four Myths and Five Truths About Value and Pricing

Does your price communicate something about your value, or does your value inform your price? Is it either? Or, is it both? Spoiler alert: “both” is closest, but the truth is more interesting than that simple answer.

I’m building a reputation inside my company as “The Pricing Guy”. Actually, I’m the “The Value-driven Pricing Guy”, a difference many of my clients appreciate. Nobody is a hero in his hometown, I suppose. However, the glass is more than half full: it’s good identify a simple-to-close gap. Readers of my blogs and my upcoming book, however, need not wait for internal company perceptions to catch up with reality. I am passionate about helping companies grow more profitably now

Let’s separate some common myths about pricing from facts.

Myths Concerning Price:

Price is just another feature to trade away.  This myth may threaten your company’s future more than any other. Fail to understand how customers actually think about price, and your people may end up donating your company’s profit dollars to your customers profit lines.

You should charge your full value premium. Ask Martin Shkreli (the “pharma bro”) if the still thinks it’s a good idea.  In the long term, customers only pay a price premium willingly; give them a perception of overcharging, and your price premium is temporary. Use caution with pricing consultants (who often charge a “shared profits” fee) with no contractual incentive for retaining customers at a higher margin.

Customers prefer complex calculations when justifying your price.  Has anyone every bought right into the assumptions built into any ROI calculator ever created by the selling company? Rather, is “the battle of the assumptions in the model” a sale unto itself? Humans use shortcuts whenever we can. Use a value/pricing justification that mirrors one of the common shortcuts, and you’re far better off — so are your customers.

Pricing is a useful incentive. Some companies build a sterling reputation for not discounting. Others teach customers to expect profit-killing end-of-quarter and end-of-year discounts. Inside one such company, I and my team developed a reputation for being the ones who produced high revenues and high profitability—with some work, we weaned our customers off of the discounting bottle, and my superiors off of the end-of-period discounting addiction. If you recognize this behavior in your own company, we need to talk: the profits you’re flushing away each quarter are probably far less than you’d pay me in a year…probably less than helping you through the first year of a full sales performance transformation.

Truths About Price:

Price is about differences. Your price level isn’t nearly as important to a customer as your price premium. Similarly, all of the bells and whistles on your product/service are clutter—surrounding your value differences.

Customers weigh the precise vs. the ambiguous, if you let them. Price and price premium are precisely measured in real-world numbers with dollar (or your own currency) signs attached – I’ve even seen prices with precision to the fourth decimal place. Conversely, your value premium exists only inside a customer’s mind, and unless you influence them into forming concrete (even monetized) thoughts around value, that value persists in a nebulous form.

Value is inherently based upon available options: Competitor, do it yourself, do nothing (status quo), do it later. Your proposal’s value must exceed the value of all of these other options.

Pricing communicates value… to customers, price is part of your messaging: Your price tells them what you think you’re worth. A lost deal feedback from my early Miller Heiman days that still stings (after we were told to skinny our proposal way down): “we didn’t think you understood the complexity of our problem, and didn’t think you could possibly do the amount of discovery we need for that price”.  My clients often recognize this ugly truth: when you lower your price, you concurrently send all kinds of bad messages about what you believe you’re worth.

Pricing discipline isn’t just for setting prices of custom and semi-custom products and services. It’s useful for setting and defending standard prices against discounting. Finally, it can become the objective framework used for discussing pricing exceptions (in contrast with “the best whiner wins the discount dollars” systems I encounter occasionally).

In Summary

Because pricing discipline is value discipline, it helps sellers discover full value by probing for all connected value; I use a tool called value network building, to analyze all of the places “where value could land” at the customer. This tool helps inform great conversations about value discovery long before pricing is discussed, and yields the right kind of “pricing courage” to conduct win-win price negotiations.

Want to know more? Ask questions below, or reach out to me privately. I am happy to add value to any issues you’re wrestling with.

To your success!

#MillerHeimanGroup,#MillerHeiman, #MHIGlobal, #customercentric, #customerfocus, #Perspectiveselling, #salesperformance, #valueselling, #valuepricing, #valueculture, #value, #sales, #discounting

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Best Practices Entrepreneurship Management Personal Development Women In Business

Warning – People Will Always Be Your Competitive Advantage

It doesn’t matter whether you have just developed the best product ever created. It doesn’t matter if your software or technology improvement will promise to change the world. If you don’t have the right people and the right culture, chances are your dreams of success will fall by the wayside as do those of most companies. Stop and consider this -would you enthusiastically rehire all the people in your company?

Right People, Right Seats, Doing the Right Things

In Jim Collins seminal book, Good to Great he talked about having the right people on the bus. What he meant by that was that WHO you have on the bus, the essence of the team, is more important than the skills and experience they have. Put the right people on first and then develop your strategy from there.

Once you have determined who the right people are, the next task is to make sure you have the right “seats” i.e. the right roles to accomplish your goals. One person and only one needs to be accountable for a role. If you have two people in the same role chances are fingers will be pointing to that other person when something doesn’t get done. Filling the right seat means that a person has the skills and hopefully the experience, necessary to accomplish what needs to be accomplished in that role. Lastly, the people in the seats need to be doing the “right things”. Their energy should be spent working on the priorities that best support the company’s goals. Are your people wasting their time and energy on tasks that are not a priority at this time?

How to Find the Right People

Every company has a culture – it’s the way “things are done”. Culture is a very important discussion to have related to finding and retaining the right talent. The two important components are Core Values and Purpose. Many companies find a set of words to describe their values: Integrity, Responsibility and Innovation are three common ones. The test of a real value as opposed to an aspirational one is whether or not stories can be told that support the value. If you can’t tell stories about leaders or employees who exemplify a value, well then – back to the drawing board.

One way to promote values and at the same time have a tool to onboard new employees is to have what we call “Our Little Book of Emails”. Let’s say Samantha did a great job creating the ultimate customer experience. Imagine reading an email from the CEO to Samantha that congratulates her on living a value that is critical to the company – “We strive to offer the ultimate Customer Experience”. On the first day of work, a new leader reads the little book of emails and comes to this page. Isn’t this more impactful than a bullet point on a sign on the cafeteria wall?

Build Your Virtual Bench

Don’t wait until hiring becomes a matter of urgency. Create relationships with potential employees way before you need them. Ask your customers and vendors who they might know who would be a good fit to join your company. Talk to the candidates and let them know you aren’t ready yet, but sometime in the next few months a position might open up that fits their qualifications. Stay in touch and keep them informed.

Hire Slow Fire Fast

Jack Welch was the former CEO of General Electric – Jack was a very successful CEO for many reasons and perhaps one of the most important was his approach to finding, coaching and retaining the best performing business leaders in the world for GE.

When Jack was building his strategy to grow GE, he identified two key areas where he could develop a competitive edge:

  1. Develop a process that would increase the success of hiring the right executives the first time and retain them for several years after they joined GE.
  2. Create an ongoing executive education core competency within GE that would keep GE leaders among the sharpest and highest educated in the world.

Jack Welch engaged Brad Smart to come into GE and help develop a program and process to increase executive hiring and retention success from 50% (industry average) to 90% (GE standard). It is out of this best practices project (and process) that Brad Smart wrote “Topgrading,” and it has become a bestseller and standard in many successful growth companies.

What discourages A players, those employees who are high in Core Values and Productivity, is tolerance for C players – those who are low in both. It is important to regularly assess your talent and remove those who drag down the level of excellence in your company.

Take time to interview carefully and make sure that the core values of the prospective employee matches that of the company. For excellent interviewing practices and questions read Geoff Smart’s book – “Who”.

Learn from the best – and make your people a competitive advantage for your company.

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Best Practices Body Language Economics Entrepreneurship Human Resources Management Marketing Negotiations News and Politics Women In Business

5 Ways to Hack Your Way to Winning Negotiations

“Hacking is a way to discover new value. View the value in what you have for multiple purposes.” –Greg Williams, The Master Negotiator & Body Language Expert

When you hack something or a process, you discover new ways to use new insights to obtain new values. In a negotiation, you can hack your way to winning negotiations by using techniques, strategies, and tactics in different ways.

Hack 1: Define your words. In the above statement, I gave the definition of how I was using the word ‘hack’ in this article; it means to uncover ways to negotiate better by using existing techniques and strategies in different ways. Since the word, ‘hack’ can have negative connotations (e.g. “he’s a hacker”; meaning, he’s not good), I needed to define it for you so you’d understand my intent. Thus, even if a word or procedure has an existing meaning, you can alter it to serve your purposes in a negotiation. If you’re successful, that will give you greater control of the negotiation. It’s akin to the wizard behind the curtain changing the color of the day to suit his needs.

Hack 2: Consider how you can spin an outcome to appear favorable to your position (e.g. after losing a point badly – “they didn’t win. we were positioning ourselves so we’d be in a favorable position for the next phase of the negotiation.”) When spinning an outcome know your intent. If not, you run the risk of appearing foolish or completely out of touch with reality, which in some cases can prove to be advantageous for you, too (e.g. “I don’t know if he’s crazy, or crazy like a fox.”)

Hack 3: Depending on the severity of a negotiation, think of how you can frame someone (i.e. how you wish them and/or their position to be viewed/perceived). In really tough negotiations, some negotiators will take their opponent to the school of dirty tricks. By doing that, they determine how the opponent and/or their position will be unfavorably perceived; you see this occurring more in high-level institutional negotiations, but you also see it occurring in negotiations between individuals that have winning as their sole source of motivation.

Hack 4: Confusion will usually lead to inaction. If you find you’re losing a point that’s vital to your position, try confusing the issue. You can do this by citing sources of disinformation; in a best-case scenario, you would have fomented the disinformation prior to the negotiation. If nothing else, confusion will slow the negotiation down. It can also serve as a bridge to a point that’s more favorable to your position. To be effective, plan how and when you might use confusion as a tactic in your negotiation. Hack 4 can also be incorporated into hack 3.

Hack 5: If you’re knowledgeable about reading body language, there are ways you can send nonverbal signals that enhance or detract from what’s been said. You might intentionally want to introduce doubt into a statement made by the other negotiator, even if you believe what he’s said to be true; do this by tilting your head to the side in an inquisitive manner. Then, allow him to convince you that he’s sincere. Psychologically, he’ll feel good about convincing you, which means you can use his good feeling to keep him endeared to you.

There you have it. Five hacks that you can use to enhance your negotiation efforts. Try them out and observe how your negotiation win rate soars … and everything will be right with the world.

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

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