Huh?  This doesn’t make sense, you say.

Let’s take a case study: the recent World Cup Soccer Tournament – THE  SINGLE BIGGEST SPORTING EVENT ON EARTH.

All the focus, drama, and hype is built around the “clash of titans”,  the winners and losers, the competition and struggle.

But what’s missing from the picture?  The structure surrounding it that makes this all possible.

By “structure”, I mean:

• The rules of the game;
• The definition of winning and losing;
• The agreement to enforcement provisions around the rules;
• The agreement about the existence and role a referee (i.e. arbitrator/judge).

ALL of this – the winners and losers, the competition, the sustainability – only works if “enemies” are willing to collaborate about HOW they’re going to compete.  Hmmm.  Strange contradiction, no?

If you stop to think about it, the same applies in business.  Take the banking industry, for example.  There are rules of the game, regulations, attempts to make the playing field fair. When these break down, we ALL lose.  Not just one financial institution vs another, but the customers, the government, the taxpayer: EVERYONE LOSES.

This also applies to life.  We have rules in place to protect the competing demands of citizens.  Even in WAR, there are rules of engagement.  Bizarre, but true.  Having said this, there are plenty of (very sad) examples where the rules of engagement in war have been broken.   All of war is a tragedy in my opinion (and a massive waste of energy and life), however things get even worse when there are no boundaries at all.

So where does all of this leave us?

My key message is that competition is fine and healthy, AND, it only really works well when it is bounded by/supported by a structure of collaboration.

Competition does not exist in a vacuum.  It coexists with cooperation (aka collaboration).  In almost any setting: a team, a family, a department in a company, a country – anywhere, competition coexists with cooperation.

So, don’t fight it.  Embrace it.  Acknowledge it.  Tell your customer or colleague that while it’s clear that some of your interests are in conflict, many more of them are actually aligned or just plain different.  Explain to them (and yourself) that you’ll all do better if you acknowledge the competitive aspects of your situation and manage them fairly.  This will give you the foundation to leverage the non-competitive components – which often vastly outweighs the competition in terms of its significance and value.

Let me end where I began.  Let’s tie this all back to the World Cup that just finished:

If people focused their energy on fighting (competing) about every little thing – all the rules, where it will be held, which player gets the glory, what time the games should start, what the rules of the game should  be, who gets to wear what colour jersey, and so on, the whole thing would not exist.

Said differently:

WITHOUT COLLABORATION,

THERE WOULD BE NO WORLD CUP “COMPETITION”.

Keep that in mind the next time you’re getting ready to beat up your counterpart in a business deal.

I remember participating in a course many years ago and hearing the course leader say this:

If you are powerful, you don’t need to use force.
and
People often use force when they don’t feel powerful.

This notion really resonated at the time, and since then I have seen this distinction play out again and again.  What do I mean when I use these words?

By power, I mean “internal” power: strength of character, integrity, credibility, a strong and positive reputation, a history of deeds matching words, quiet confidence, a deep sense of knowing, conviction, moral high ground, and so on.   These things are developed over time and generally have to be earned.

By force, I mean more of an “external” thing: money, political position, organizational rank in a hierarchy, physical strength, military resources, etc.

Notice how different these are?

Using force can produce a short term result in your favour, but comes at considerable cost and is often unsustainable over the long term.  We often use force because of our fear or our greed.

In contrast, power is often not used intentionally or explicitly.  The party in question simply “has” power because of who they are, what they have accomplished, how they have treated people, and what he or she has done to develop himself or herself as a person.  Thus, in their interactions with people, this power is simply present.  It commands respect.  It causes people to listen to and believe what they are saying.  It attracts people, often inspires people, and in fact often puts them at ease. It tends to be more sustainable, and produce more sustainable outcomes.

I invite you to observe yourself the next time you’re trying to influence someone or get something done in your life.  Are you being powerful in your approach, or are you using force?  What is the impact of each strategy?  What are the costs and benefits?

I believe you’ll see that investing in and building your power is worth your while.  You’ll appreciate the decreasing need to force your way through.

Two weekends ago I attended an AMAZING course led by a gentleman named Robin Sharma (www.robinsharma.com).  His specialty is leadership, but this course was about living the life you really want for yourself and awakening the best version of who you are: your authentic self.

It was a most inspiring weekend and contained many pieces of advice on getting back to the truest version of who you are, and living your life from that place.

Robin is author of the international bestseller “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari”, among several other books, and has many useful products and offerings on the topic of leadership and greatness.  He himself is authentic, grounded, humble, and walks his talk.  The world can use more people like Robin.

If you’re looking to take your game up in life and get back to who you really are, check out some of his stuff.  I recommend his work highly.

Sometimes in a relationship, you have to make the choice between being loyal to that particular person, or doing something that they won’t be happy about but you know is “the right thing”.

Likely, this will result in a conflict between you and them.  But, NOT doing the right thing will only result in a bigger conflict later.

I’ll use an example to explain what I mean.

Imagine you’re in a team working on a project with another team.  Over time, a pattern has developed where during project meetings, one of your teammates (Brandon, a long-time colleague and friend of yours) repeatedly attacks Sanjay, a member of the other team about an issue that keeps surfacing.  You agree with part of Brandon’s point, but you don’t like how he’s approaching the situation or how he treats Sanjay.

You’ve said something to Brandon about it before, but he hasn’t changed his approach and it’s really affecting the team dynamics adversely.  You know that you’re the one he will listen to most, based on your relationship.  But, when you raised the subject the first time, he responded pretty negatively and wasn’t very open to what you had to say.

You face a choice:

Stay loyal to Brandon and leave the issue alone

OR

Engage the topic with him, which you know will create a conflict between the two of you.

It’s clear that in any given moment, the downside of engaging the topic outweighs the upside.   But it’s also clear that NOT engaging the topic will cause the situation to continue deteriorating.  It’s time for action.

If you really think about it, though, the situation as it stands is not benefiting Brandon either.  His actions have already made a bad name for him in this project, and bad news spreads quickly.  Furthermore, he’s not getting the result he wants from the other side anyway.  So in a sense, you are being disloyal to Brandon if you don’t engage the difficult discussion with him.

Unchanged, everybody loses in this situation, but if you’re willing to take the problem on, everyone can win.

Negotiating over email is a train wreck waiting to happen.

If you look at your personal experience, you probably can find plenty of examples of this.

Research on where the information lies in communication bears this out.  One study says that as little as 7% of the total information resides in the words.  38% lies in the “para-verbal” – things like tone, manner, volume, speed.  Then the remaining 55% is “non-verbal”, commonly referred to as body language.  The exact percentages don’t matter as much as the pattern, and if you reflect on your own experience, the pattern probably resonates – it certainly does for me.

Just imagine, you’ve got a complex, sensitive, potentially emotionally-charged issue to address, and you do it over email.  The receiver(s) of the message have just 7% of the available information in that message, so they “make up” the rest (from their assumptions), and treat their interpretation like the truth!  Scary.

It’s especially scary because we tend to make worst-case assumptions about other people’s intentions.

So, next time you have a sensitive issue to address, think twice about whether email is the right medium for it.

As an aside, I believe that emoticons came about because people were trying to introduce more “information” into their email messages.   This also applies to improv emoticons like using the colon : and bracket ) to make .

Be careful with your email so as not to cause someone to feel

This post builds directly off of my previous one, about focusing on what you can control.

I was in Chicago last week working with fairly senior consultants in one of the world’s largest professional service firms.  I was amazed at how DISEMPOWERED  these people feel in their professional life (maybe personal life too?).

We had a number of discussions about negotiations with their clients over fees.  Through their questions, again and again the consultants showed their trepidation in pushing for fair payment for services rendered.  Wow.

This is somewhat explained by the tough economic times of the past 2 years, but I was still surprised at the intensity of this feeling.  I can understand a more cautious approach to business, but they were even hesitant to stand up for fees they had legitimately earned!

The most surprising example was a situation one of the participants raised, where an international client was balking at paying a fee they had previously agreed to.  The situation was one where the consultants had done outstanding work (as acknowledged by the client!), pulled all the stops out to help the client complete a significant transaction from which they made many millions of dollars, and yet the client was trying to get out of paying several hundred thousand dollars of a roughly $2 million fee (almost 1/3rd of the total fee).

We spent a considerable amount of time on this issue, discussing strategy, role-playing different versions of the conversation with the client, and so on.  Then finally, one of my colleagues asked the burning question: “How is it that the client sees this as FAIR?  And, has anyone asked the client this question?”  “No”, was the answer.

They were so intimidated by the fear of not getting future work with this client, no one had the courage to put this obvious topic on the table.

In the end, a very senior consultant had a conversation with the client’s CEO and the full fee was paid.  But it’s amazing to me that the conversation was allowed to go on for that long, and that the client would even dare to try getting away without paying the fee.

I always say to clients: “People will treat you the way you allow yourself to be treated.”  So if you don’t want to be taken advantage of, don’t allow it!  The one caveat I will add is that sometimes you feel you don’t have enough good choices (or “power”) to do so.  Ok, I’ll grant you that.  I’ve been in that situation too.  But the key is not to let yourself stay there.

If you keep accepting what you’ve always accepted
You’ll keep getting what you always got

Beef up your “Plan B”, stand up for yourself, and remember, you ALWAYS  have a choice.  Sometimes the choices aren’t attractive in the moment and in the short term, but you’re still making a choice.

In the long run, we all have to live with the choices we make.

As adults, the buck stops with us.

My last two blog postings came as a result of the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland.

While they might have seemed mostly philosophical in nature, there is in fact a direct connection to the advice I provide to CEOs and other Senior Executives to produce top-notch results in their negotiations:

Focus On What You Control.

What does this look like in practice?  It means the following:

• You can’t control “external events”
• You can’t control the economy
• You can’t control someone else’s behaviour (much as we might like to)
• You CAN control YOUR behaviour (most of the time anyway)

So if you’re unhappy with how things are going in a current negotiation or how they went in a past one, LOOK AT WHAT YOU CAN DO DIFFERENTLY.

For example, few things are more powerful than modeling the behaviour you want to see in others.  Said differently: walk your talk.

I tell clients all the time that, despite the fact that I’ve been doing this work full-time for over 14 years and using the principles in business for 19 years, I am still (pleasantly) surprised by the amount of change I can produce in others by changing what I do.

It’s easy to point the finger at others and blame them for your failures and frustrations.  But that’s usually a cop-out, and it’s definitely disempowering.  So next time you’re not happy with how things are going or how they turned out, have a look in the mirror and see what that person can do about it.

By the way, I’m talking about this in the context of individual negotiations, but I give the same advice for how to manage a relationship.  If you REALLY want to try this out where the rubber hits the road, try it in your most significant relationships: family.  You might surprise yourself with what you can achieve.

BUT THERE’S ONE HUGE CAVEAT TO ALL OF THIS:

YOU CAN’T FAKE IT (SUCCESSFULLY).

What I mean is that if you change your behaviour as some kind of “technique” you read about in a cheesy blog, good luck.  Most of us are experts at sniffing out inauthentic behaviour, and then we punish people for it.

For this to work, you have to change your behaviour because you feel it’s the right thing to do.  And THAT shift – the mental and emotional one – is usually where most of the work needs be done.  But you need to have the guts to try it, and the guts to be wrong and (perish the thought) admit it.

Try it out and see what you can produce.

I’m still in France as I write this – and the odds look very good now that I’ll actually get on a flight departing tomorrow.  Yippee!  I won’t count my chickens before they’re hatched, but I am indeed quite optimistic after reading the latest newspaper reports.

I’m writing this quick entry to highlight a point I referred to in passing in my last posting.

For me, one of the reminders this experience brings with it is just how powerless we are in the face of nature’s great forces.  I’m reminded of the famous quote:

Life is what happens while you’re busy making plans.
– John Lennon

So true indeed.  This volcano, or the recent earthquakes in China and Chile, or the massive earthquake at the beginning of the year in Haiti, or any other natural “disaster” shows us time and again who’s really in charge – Mother Nature.  I think it’s healthy for us to remember this, and to maintain a good dose of humility. After all,

The planet does not belong to us; we belong to it.

This is a quote I read somewhere quite recently, from an aboriginal leader.  Unfortunately I can’t remember his name at this time.

We humans get all high and mighty too often, thinking we’re the ones who run the show, thinking everything is up to us.  I think we have plenty of evidence to the contrary.  This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make plans, set goals, etc.  I’m a huge fan of doing that and I have used it to accomplish great things in my life so far.  But, I think it’s a good idea to keep in mind that there are many variables we don’t have control over, and we will have to adjust along the way.

To healthy humility.

I’m writing from France where I just spent the week teaching at an Executive Education organization.  It was very enjoyable and went very well.

I am now “stranded” as a result of airport closures in the wake of the volcano’s eruption in Iceland.  If all went according to original plan, I would be in the air right now on my way back home.  But, Mother Nature had other plans for us!

As I scanned the various world newspapers this morning, I kept seeing headlines like “Travel Misery as thousands stranded across Europe”.   I couldn’t help but thinking: why does it have to be seen as misery?  Sure, for people caught at airports earlier in the week, it would have been a major hassle, but still, WE CAN ALL CHOOSE OUR RESPONSE TO THE SITUATION.

Which response would  you rather choose?  Do you want to spend your time being annoyed, frustrated, disappointed, angry?  OR, would you rather let that go and instead focus on how you can MAKE THIS A FUN ADVENTURE?  Sure, I’d like to be home to see my family.  I miss them and I want to be with them.   I really would like to be on my way there, but the situation is beyond my control.

So, I have a choice:
Spend my time being miserable; or
Accept what I can’t change and focus on what I CAN change -
my attitude and how I use my time.

I’m taking Option # 2.

To be fair, there are far worse places (and times) to be stranded than a nice small town near Paris in the springtime.  Absolutely.  But even here, I see lots of frustrated executives around me, spending all their time trying to book this train or that, find this option or the other.  It’s worth investing some time in that, but how much?  And, even while they invest the time, how about managing their emotional state differently?

More importantly, a broader level I think there’s a good reminder in here for all of us.  We humans think we’re so high and mighty.  We think WE run the show on earth.  This volcano is yet another example of how we really don’t.  The more we accept that, the better off we are, I believe.  Mother Nature has just sent us a little message, “Hey people, don’t forget who’s REALLY in charge”.

So I’m off for a walk into town.  I’ll do some reading, do some errands, and focus on enjoying myself and making it an adventure.

I wish the same change in perspective for the  many thousands who are fighting against the situation instead of accepting it.

Yes, you can live a life that yields the same kind of outstanding, inspiring results achieved by the leading athletes at the recent Olympic games.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the recent winter Olympics in Vancouver, and have also taken time to see some events from the Paralympic Games under way currently (finishing March 21st).

During the Olympics in particular, I was pleased to see how much emphasis our Canadian Broadcaster (CTV) placed on the psychological components of the athletes’ success.  After all, when interviewed and asked about the impact their self-management from a mental and emotional standpoint has on their success, athletes often state it is very significant.  In particular, the athletes that win the medals use this actively.

In one recent interview I heard with gold medalist from previous winter Olympics, she attributed at least 50% of her success to applying what she learned from her sports psychologist.

What kinds of things do they use?  Visualization (of successfully doing their event and of winning), and positive self-talk seem to be most common.  Meditation is also used by some athletes to focus the mind and calm the nerves, and visualization can be done during meditation.

So why am I talking about this on my blog?

Because these same practices can be applied to ANY
aspect of your life to produce great results.

In fact, many of the management or personal effectiveness gurus recommend this and offer specific strategies to use these tools.  I use them too, and they do make a difference.

I remember seeing an interview with a leading sports psychologist who described how they took these practices and applied them to the NASA program with great success.  In their research using them for Olympic athletes beginning in the 1970′s, they would hook athletes up to sophisticated biometric feedback sensors while they were practicing their event.  These senors monitored things like heart rate, body temperature, muscle activity, and so on.

Then, they would leave the biometric sensors on and ask the athletes to rehearse the event in their mind.  To their amazement, they discovered that the same muscles fired in the same sequences when the athletes ran the event in their mind as when they actually physically ran it.

Their conclusion (now considered “old news” in these circles), was that the mind could not tell the difference between what was real and what was imagined.  This rings true intuitively.  All you have to do is think back to the last time you awakened from a vivid dream.  When we awake, startled, excited, or puzzled, sometimes we have to spend a few minutes reminding ourselves that it was “just” a dream before we really return to our previous state.

If you imagine or visualize success,
you reinforce the notion that you CAN achieve it.

I’m not saying you should do this about every aspect of your life.  But if you’re trying to accomplish something that is important to you, it may be worth investing some effort in visualization and positive self-talk.  After all, you’re already investing considerable effort in trying to achieve the result or goal, so why not support your ability to achieve it by doing this?

If you’re really honest with yourself, probably more than you think you are giving yourself negative self-talk as you hit hurdles along the way.  In fact, you might not even notice how much you trash-talk yourself sometimes. I know I’ve done it.

In my client work, I often ask groups I’m working with how often they denigrate themselves or express internal doubts about their ability to achieve something.  Consistently I get confirmation that they do it.  We all do.  In fact, we are often our own worst critics.

Here’s to supporting yourself in the achievement of what matters most to you.