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Category: Negotiation

5 TIPS TO CONFRONT YOUR BOSS

23/02/2022 /

Telling your boss that they are wrong is never easy. Most employees will not consider it, fearing professional suicide. However, not being able to face issues, speak truth, and learn has dire consequences. Wrong is a part of life and business, and (most importantly) the key to improvement.

The most successful CEO’s actively seek out staff who will stick their necks out and have hard conversations. Delivering the message is always tricky. It is important to deliver criticism in a way that will be heard, understood, and appreciated.

This article provides five tips in order to better confront your boss:

  1. Accentuate the positive: When delivering bad news, try always to finish with a positive spin. The positives, as well as the negatives, provide the complete picture. A balanced, constructive view does not focus on “what’s right and what’s wrong,” but instead tells us “what to do more of, what to stop doing, and what to do differently.”
  2. Use “I” statements: The “I” statements offer your perspective. There are different versions of the truth, and “I” statements leave room for discussion, interpretation, and alignment.
  3. Focus on common ground: When addressing a problem, remind your boss of the goals with a particular action or decision. Ground your discussion in shared objectives, and always make your case with good data.
  4. Ask questions: Before you point out problems, make sure you are likely right. Seek to understand the total situation. Opening a dialogue and asking useful questions may help bosses see that they are wrong before you even need to say it. If and when you do decide to deliver bad news, leave room for discussion; “Am I wrong on this?”
  5. Offer solutions: If you have an opinion, you have a responsibility. Even if the boss was solely responsible for a bad decision, everyone must help the company address the issue and move forward.

 

Image Source: Pixabay – Geralt

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to manage your emotions during a negotiation

09/09/2020 /

Are you able to keep your emotions in check when negotiating that big deal? According to Ananda Laberge – associate tutor for Scotwork North America – there are six proven strategies to help gain the upper hand in your next negotiation:

1. Thoroughly prepare
2. Draw the emotion out first
3. Give them what they want… on your terms
4. Watch for signals from the individuals
5. Don’t go into an important negotiation alone
6. When necessary, adjourn

Read the full article at: http://onforb.es/1mLPyb7

Image: Pixabay (CC0)

Find the Right Negotiation Style

02/01/2019 /

Persuading is a key communication skill that helps you to achieve influence with others. The ability to persuade can be developed and improved in order to  become a better negotiator.

The psychologist Kenneth Berrien elaborated the so called Persuasion Tolls Model.  In his studies of applied psychology in the 1940s, Berrien linked negotiation and persuasion style to emotional intelligence (EI).

According to the model, four negotiation approaches exist:
– emotion
– logic
– bargaining
– compromise

The article is meant to help you find the best negotiation approach to use on the base of your level of intuition and your influencing capabilities: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCS_80.htm

Image source: Diplofoundation

How empathy shapes outcomes of diplomatic negotiations

20/06/2018 /

Why do some peace summits succeed while other fails? In this work of Marcus Holmes and Keren Yahri-Milo, the authors highlight the importance of empathy between leaders. In fact, they first demonstrate that numerous findings suggest that empathy—the ability to understand the cognitive and affective states of others without necessarily sympathizing with them—is required for overcoming long-standing hostilities.

In this regard, they significantly report the words of the UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold: “you can only hope to find a lasting solution to a conflict if you have learned to see the other objectively, but, at the same time, to experience his difficulties subjectively”.

Hence, demonstrating empathy to your adversary is not a signal of weakness or vulnerability but a demonstration that you are negotiating in good-faith.

You can read more about this issue here

 

Image source: Yuriy Somov – Wikimedia Commons

Smile!

22/09/2016 /

During a demanding negotiation, when interests at stake are radically divergent and it seems that there is no more room for the dialogue, a radical shift in the approach to the pourparler could be the turning point of the whole negotiation, even in case of major discussions over national interests, such as the controversial right of the Islamic Republic of Iran to carry on the uranium enrichment process started in 2006.

In effect, this article highlights how a radical shift of the Iranian negotiators’ approach to the nuclear dossier, which opposed the Islamic Republic to the international community, led to the signature of the so-called Vienna Agreement in July 2015.

By shunning the bombastic and confrontational language that had become the hallmark of the Islamic Republic’s officials, Mr. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iranian Foreign Minister and chief of the Iranian delegation,  build up a personal relation with foreign diplomats thanks to his easy smile and mastery of English.

In conclusion, when the negotiation is stuck and all options seem inconsistent, a “smile” approach to the negotiation could be more useful than a simple force demonstration, and, in some cases, it could even bring to make an agreement over a nuclear issue possible.

Smile

Image source: Flickr – wewiorka_wagner  (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Getting around the limits of empathy

14/07/2016 /

Although empathy is considered to be at the heart of several crucial sectors – from product development to customer service, including also leadership, failing to recognise its limits can impair individual and organisational performance.

As Adam Waytz brilliantly describes in its article there are three main problems you can run into when dealing with empathy, and luckily three valid recommendations for getting around them.

Problem #1: It’s exhausting

Being an heavy-duty cognitive task empathy depletes our mental resources.

Several studies on health and human professionals, as well as those who work for charities and other non profits, show that empathy is exhausting, in any role in which it’s a primary aspect of the job.

Problem #2: It’s zero-sum

Empathy doesn’t just drain energy and cognitive resources – it also depletes itself.

The more empathy we devote to one aspect of our life, for example our job, the less is left for others (family for instance). Moreover the zero-sum problem leads to another type of trade off: empathy toward insiders – people in our team or organisation- can limit our capacity to empathise with people outside our circles.

Problem #3: It can erode ethics

Empathy can cause lapses in ethical judgment. Extreme loyalty toward insiders may push us to take their interests as our own and to overlook transgressions, or even worse to behave badly ourselves. With actions like cheating or stealing to benefit those in the immediate circle people put empathy for a few before justice for all.

So how to rein in a land of excessive empathy?

As a manager there are a number of things you can do to mitigate these problems.

1. Split up the work

2. Make it less of a sacrifice

3. Give people breaks

Despite its limitations, empathy is essential at work.Understanding and responding to the needs, interests and desires of human beings involves some of the hardest work of all. Managers shouldlook for ways to give employees breaks,Encourage individuals to take time to focus on their interests alone. When people feel restored they’re better able to perform the demanding task of listening to what others need.

Empathy

Image source: Flickr – AleKsa MX (CC-BY 2.0)

 

 

Image source: https://locallocale.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/empathy-schmimpathy-why-bother-nathan-mctague-empathy-parenting-advice/

Dealing with different cultures

15/03/2016 /

The same things can be seen in a different way from people belonging to different countries. This fact could treathen your work team and impair business relationships with your partners.

In an article by Paul Sanders and Donnie MacNicol, you can find ten steps for dealing with different culture:

  1. Learn about how your values, attitudes, behaviors and communication style may be perceived by someone from another culture
  2. Relate to each person as an individual and not as a stereotype
  3. Understand who can make what decisions as it may be at a different level than in your own organization
  4. Identify if their management style is more typically masculine or feminine―assertive and competitive or modest and caring respectively
  5. Understand if they have a short-term or long-term view as this will affect the way and the speed at which projects are assessed, justified and decisions made
  6. Identify their need for structure and certainty as this may vary and affect the level of control, definition, risk taking and governance
  7. Develop your empathy skills and show people you are making every effort to see and feel things as they do
  8. If you are unsure what is appropriate, be more structured and have more explicit communication rather than less
  9. Ask each person how they would like to be addressed and treated
  10. Assume nothing―a smile and handshake are not necessarily an agreement, “yes” can mean “no”, unsmiling may not mean unfriendly, silence may not mean disagreement

Read the full article

Dealing with different cultures

Image source: Wikipedia (CC-BY-SA 2.0)

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