Lessons in Staying Positive – #9

Words: 702. Reading time: 2 minutes 21 seconds.

Tough times are regulated neither by the state of the economy, nor by the state of society. For an individual, tough times can occur on a much more personal level, such as injury, illness or lay-off, irrespective of the wider context. And while not actively sought by most, tough times can still be turned to advantage when they do show up – as an opportunity to recalibrate.

It strikes me that in tough times we need to separate the essentials from the clutter in our lives. In this setting clutter includes doing too many things, doing things for insufficient reasons and doing less productive things while more productive ways of investing our time are neglected; that’s besides the physical clutter of too much stuff we don’t need and stuff we do need being buried beneath a mess of other stuff.

Tough times give us the chance to be more resourceful, even though we often have fewer resources. We can learn to “live” off less - use fewer resources to live an even richer life.

Exactly what makes for a richer life turn on our beliefs and values. Getting clear on those is at the forefront of making the shift necessary under tough times. What really matters to us? What qualities do we want to have? By what principles would we be happy to live our lives? Who do we love? What do we love doing? The answer will be different for each of us, but that is no reason not to ask the questions.

If we want to make real change then there is a tough question for tough times: “What am I willing to change right now?” This is not another wish list, it’s an action point. It’s not something that might be nice to do in the future; it’s absolutely essential to the process of changing the present and it’s something that we can start work on this minute.

For the transformation to fully take hold might take a while. As the saying goes “Rome was not built in a day”. But it was built, which means that someone had to start by laying one brick on top of another.

We may not even know what the final edifice will look like. It is unlikely that the Roman builders started with a master plan. And even if they did, it is doubtful that what eventually emerged conformed to the initial set of drawings. But they did being and they adapted as they went along. And as any schoolboy will tell you, the rest is history – literally.

To help us get started we can begin talking frankly about the dangers and challenges we see facing us. We can start an honest dialogue that involves authentic give and take about tough topics, rather than engaging solely in social gossip that keeps real issues safely at arm's length.

We can seek greater clarity by asking people to explain what they mean, rather than just assuming we know. We can ask what sources they're using to get their information, check those for ourselves and compare them to others we learn about.

Once people get a taste of honest, good-natured, substantive discussion that doesn't come with an agenda, they tend to find it addictive especially when you don't do all the talking and none of the listening. Good listening leads to good ideas, especially when they come from those who are doing the heavy lifting.

When our world appears to be unravelling the healthiest and most restorative response is an open mind, honest curiosity and bold action. Embrace the unknown. That way, we can make permanent uncertainty a sustainable way of life.

From the dialogue a decision will emerge. That’s the whole point. And once a decision is made, we commit and go for it. If we never commit, all we will ever do is change course. Continual second guess is not allowed.

In time, if we have to change course, then we have to change course. Yet, the secret rule is that when the time for a decision arrives, then we decide quickly and, once the decision is made, we change our mind slowly – not the other way round. That just adds to the uncertainty.

Negotiation is normal

Words: 932 Reading time: 3 minutes 6 seconds

It’s most odd. Life calls for negotiation, but some advise that our first tactic should be to avoid it altogether if possible. Well, it’s neither possible, nor desirable – ever. And here are a few reasons why.

Negotiation is everywhere and everyday. It isn’t confined to the realms of industrial disputes and international discord. It is also about the mundane — who does the washing up.

One lady I was discussing this with thought she had avoided any negotiating over the washing up by buying a dishwasher. She had not registered the negotiating it had taken to reach that decision in the first place and the subsequent negotiating over who filled it and who emptied it. Those jobs still needed doing. Negotiation could not be avoided.

Negotiation is not a one-time event. It goes on even when most people think they have finished.

Just imagine that you buy a cabbage from the market. The stallholder was happy with the price, you were happy with the cabbage. That is, until you got it home, cut into it and discovered that some bug had eaten away the inside. At this point you may decide to return to the market and recommence negotiating.

Alternatively, should the cabbage look wholesome you will cook and eat it. Is that the end of the negotiation? Not if you are subsequently violently ill as a result. That would almost certainly affect your negotiating stance.

But suppose, instead, that you really enjoyed your cabbage. You decide to buy another next week. Now a negotiation that was ‘finished’ is affecting future actions. And the enjoyment of your cabbage will affect the price you are likely to pay when next dealing with that vendor. Negotiation over? I don’t think so.

With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that negotiating over things like pay and conditions is a continuous process; even when no union is involved. Every day that you go to work you are asking yourself, sub-consciously, if the reward is worth the effort.

We negotiate with ourselves. The examples given so far involve another party. That is always the second step. Before we reach it we will have already negotiated with ourselves. Some people appear to be good at this; they are tagged as ‘self-disciplined’. Others appear to be not so good; they are tagged ‘weak-willed’.

As the working presupposition is that every behaviour is motivated by a positive intent how one classifies the eventual outcome from this is unclear. Steve McDermott puts it this way, “if you set out to fail and you succeed, what have you done?”

Practice makes perfect or, as Vince Lombardi had it: “Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.” If we accept that negotiations occur over and over in our lives in an endless stream, then we will get a better outcome each time if we work on improving our performance. That means getting into the water, not sitting on the side.

We get a better result when we do. Although it takes two to create a relationship, it takes only one to change its quality. Could you influence the quality of your relationships and improve the results you get by negotiating? Absolutely; in the right conditions (negotiation) we get better results when we work with other people (negotiation) than when we work against them or when we work alone.

Good negotiation isn’t about winning and losing. If the negotiation is handled well, then both sides come away with more than they started out. If you don’t satisfy the other person’s needs as well as your own, it’s not a good agreement. As former US President Jimmy Carter put it, “Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.”

As bizarre as it may sound, that means that all parties to a negotiation have to be aware of the wants and needs of the other party and work as hard to satisfy those as they work to satisfy their own. Good negotiation is about sitting together on the same side of the table and tackling the problem together. Adversarial negotiation is a poor second cousin by comparison.

Advice that runs “if you give away a concession without asking for something in return, the other side will carry on asking for concessions until you say no...” takes a depressing view of humanity and its relationships.

Would you rather have 10 pence given willingly, or 50 pence given begrudgingly? I thought so. And the same is true of everyone. If you paint your negotiating partner as ruthless and without scruples, then guess what you are going to get?

This goes to the heart of good negotiation and, perhaps, one of the biggest fallacies that so many in the field choose to perpetuate: negotiation is about compromise. It isn’t.

Compromise is the dirtiest word in negotiation, because in negotiation compromise isn’t the goal. It’s the fallback if nothing better can be achieved.

When you start with compromise, you’re tacitly inviting everyone to give up something important in order to reach an agreement. That’s no place to begin, because there are other highly effective ways to approach negotiating that have little to do with compromise.

If you define personal and business negotiating primarily in terms of compromise, you create a pattern that’s all about giving up and horse-trading. That’s not the greatest foundation on which to build any long-term relationship.

So, what is my key tip for negotiating? It comes from Tammy Lenski: “To resolve an argument someone has to be the adult. And if it’s not the other person, it had better be you.”

People buy from people? Give me a break.

Words: 654 Reading time: 2 minutes 11 seconds

You may feel the same as me. When I find the tired, foot-sore and weary still being dragged from the back of some damped, dark cupboard, dusted off and pressed yet again into unconsidered service I have one of two reactions. Either I feel resigned (not again), or I feel exasperated (good grief).

As my previous posting was on the tired, foot-sore and weary idea of people staying in their comfort zones this posting will look at the equally drained, drawn and discredited idea that “people buy from people”.

Do they? Do they really? What, all the time? Every time? I don’t think so.

Let’s look at an entirely fictional, yet believable week for you and me.

On a Monday morning we leap out of bed at the first peep of the alarm clock ready and raring to go. Freeze frame…

That bed; do you know the people that constructed it? And your alarm clock; that was your local watchmaker, wasn’t it? What about the building you’re standing in; any idea who…?

Moving on, after your shower using the water provided by that nice man from the local reservoir, you tuck into your breakfast. Of course, you’re not really sure who made the bread for your toast and the cereal in your bowl, but hey, you’re only eating them after all; there’s nothing really important about buying from people here.

Then you get dressed (your personal tailor at M&S is so good) and head off safely in your car at 70 m.p.h. (built by Joe, the guy at the motor works on the corner) using the road constructed by the boys you always hang out with in the bar of The Pick & Shovel. You may smell the flowers in your front garden as you pass, the seeds all lovingly harvested and grown by Betty at the nursery in the next village.

At the office it’s lucky Mr Dell has already delivered your computer, together with a little note offering to meet you for coffee, because you can’t wait to log onto the internet provided for you by…well, you can’t quite remember them all. There were so many at the Christmas party last year; but nice people.

Are they nicer than the people who made the pen in your hand, or the paper you’re about to write on? You can’t quite decide as you take an aspirin, a drug made by people in Malaya who you have never met, are never likely to meet, and a drug the strength and constituent parts of which you haven’t checked and don’t know who might have done so on your behalf.

Let’s stop. It isn’t even ten o’clock on a Monday; how many people have you bought from that you actually know?

People buy from people? Give me a break.

People buy from supermarkets, from Amazon and EBay, from slot machines and petrol station forecourts, from serve-yourself tills and McDonald’s. Most people buy anonymously. They buy as much as they can, as often as they can, without having to interact with anybody. People scare them. A soap on the TV is about as close to real people as they want to be.

So, what is it people are buying, if it isn’t from other people?

People are buying minimum inconvenience and as much certainty as they can with as little precious cash as they can spare.

Now as a person you can supply some of that certainty by building empathy and giving reassurance. If you can convince the other party that you are a nice person, that you want to help them and are not trying to rip them off, then you might make some progress.

People only buy from people when they actually help to increase certainty. Thinking that people buy from people is like being fooled by a three-card trick. You’ve missed the essence of the transaction by concentrating too closely on the players involved.

Giving Up Our Comfort Zones

I was listening to James Knight yesterday. He was giving a brief talk on colour styles - an entertaining variation on personality types - and he mentioned comfort zones. That is a familiar concept, but how well does it represent what is going on?

The idea is that where we are now is comfortable; where we want to move to involves effort; so we tend to stay where we are, rather than go through that struggle. Effort = distress.

Well, that's not right.

If we have habits we enjoy, that's great. If we have habits we barely notice, they are not a problem. But if we have habits we actively want to change - that's your discomfort zone (DZ). At that point the habit you wish to acquire represents your new comfort zone (CZ). And the hurdle of effort between where you are and where you want to be is your effort zone (EZ).

To represent the desired state as somehow scary seems wide of the mark. That is where we want to be, for goodness sake!

Moreover, telling someone they are in their "comfort zone" with a habit they are struggling to break will certainly detract from the effort needed to move away from it. The old "comfort zone" concept is no help at all! Little wonder that those fed such a disabling mental diet are often sabotaged by the very ideas that are supposed to help them.

Even the suggestion that effort equals distress is not a universal truth. Some folks enjoy the process of change - like the person that soaks up knowledge like a sponge on their journey to academic excellence, or in the process of acquiring a particular skill.

For some people in some situations effort is distress. They stay in their Discomfort Zone when the distress in making the effort exceeds the discomfort of staying where they are - the dog laying on a nail syndrome. They reach their Comfort Zone when the distress of the Effort Zone is less than the discomfort of staying where they are.

Thanks James, your talk got me thinking.

So, shall we tip the old notion of comfort zones on its head? Or shall we preserve some of our current income stream and leave our clients struggling to make the changes they want?