It might seem like this post is in direct contradiction to the “Just Do It” post I wrote the other day.  But it’s not.

“Just Do It” was about the distinction between “trying” to do something and actually “doing it” – the difference between an intention and an action.

This post is about making sure that what you’re doing is:

1. Worth doing;
2. Moving you in the right direction; and
3. Something that actually serves meets your goals and matches your values (this is what I mean by “right direction”).

In key negotiations, in conflicts, and in life, this can save your backside.

But, in this crazy “always on, always available, 24/7, Crackberry/iPhone push email world”, I see examples everyday of where people do not stop to hit the pause button, and pay the price for it.

They end up doing busywork instead of good work.  Busywork instead of the right work.  Or, they just plain make a really poor choice.  What a shame.

All of us have to wrestle with this – myself included.  I’ve built systems to manage this – and big one is the very simple tool I’m talking to you about right here – the pause button.

When to use the pause button:

• When you’re not sure about something;
• When your “Spidey Senses” are tingling – something just doesn’t feel right;
• When you feel pressured to make a choice and you just don’t feel ready;
• When it’s a big decision that will impact a number of people; and
• Just because.

The research is very clear: multitasking produces a lot of poor decisions, as does rushing.  Google about this and you’ll find lots of info on it.

I’m not saying that every decision needs to take a long time.  Sometimes all you need is 30 seconds or a few minutes – but even that tiny bit of time can DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE the quality of your decision.

Try it – you’ll like it.

Nike struck gold when they picked this tag line, and there’s a reason for that: it’s really really good!  Succinct, powerful, action- oriented, profound – in 3 words.  Wow.

So that’s my recommendation to you today:  Just Do It.

Do what? You ask.

Something that moves you toward a good outcome for all parties in a conflict or a negotiation you’re involved in, or in any relationship that matters to you.

I was reading Robin Sharma’s excellent book “The Greatness Guide” this morning and came across a great line of his: “The smallest action is worth more than the noblest intention.” Amen to that!

Talk is cheap; actions speak loudly.

In my work with clients we make a big deal about the distinction between your intent vs your impact, as follows:

WE JUDGE OURSELVES BY OUR INTENTIONS
OTHERS JUDGE US BY THE IMPACT OF OUR ACTIONS.

Never forget this.

I believe that while your intention IS important and DOES matter, what matters even more is the impact of your action.

So here’s my challenge to you:

Take a good step today.
DO something positive for someone.
Don’t just think about, don’t just talk about it,

Today I read a great quote from Monday’s Globe and Mail newspaper:

“She’s an overnight success, built over years.”

This is what Simon Whitfield said when interviewed about Canadian triathlete Paula Findlay’s recent victory of the women’s triathlon in the World Championship Series Circuit (her second consecutive win – the only woman to do so this year).  FYI Simon Whitfield is the Canadian triathlete who gained fame at the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics when he became the first person ever to win an Olympic gold in this sport (2000 was the first time it was added as an Olympic sport).

So what’s the link to negotitiation and conflict management?

Simple.  As with elite performers in any field, developing these skills to a world-class level takes YEARS of investment and deliberate effort. Sure, some event typically catapults the person to fame, but the effort, investment, etc often does not get factored into the equation.  People just celebrate the success and then say either, “Wow, aren’t they lucky”, or “Well that person has a special gift.”  True, they may have a gift, but they aren’t lucky.  As the old Chinese Proverb says, “Luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity.”

If you want to become a world-class negotiator, you’ve got to make the same investment.  So much of what you do in negotiations and conflicts is “unconscious” behaviour – it’s just autopilot.  If you want to improve it, you’ve first got to become aware of what you do that works and doesn’t work, and then you can invest the time and energy to change it.  The good news is, you’re negotiating all the time, so you’ve got plenty of opportunities to practice.

Sure, you can get quick improvements in a short time-span by boosting your awareness and focusing on a few key skills, but true mastery takes years and years, and is a never-ending process.

Here’s to world-class negotiation success.  Everyone wins with a truly  world-class negotiator.

Hi folks – I’m back after some time off.  Hope all of you in the Northern Hemisphere are enjoying your summer!

A number of years ago I remember reading the quote:
“Good fences make good neighbours.”

When I first read it, I didn’t like it.  In fact, I still don’t like it that much.
Apparently, neither did poet Robert Frost.

This quote comes from Robert Frost’s 1914 poem Mending Wall, wherein Frost questions the notion.  Upon doing a little bit of research, it seems this proverb has been around for at least a couple hundred years.  Benjamin Franklin cited something similar in Poor Richard’s Almanack (a yearly pamphlet he published for about 26 years in the early to mid 1700′s).  He said, “Love your neighbor; yet don’t pull down your hedge.”

I’m talking about something  a little different than this, however:

By boundaries, I don’t mean physical boundaries.
And, I’m thinking of all kinds of relationships – not just neighbours.

What I’m saying is that it is useful for both (or all) parties in a relationship to have boundaries, and to know where those boundaries lie.

Here are some of the kinds of relationships where I think boundaries are helpful:

• Between colleagues who are also friends;
• Between a boss and his/her subordinate;
• Between a parent and child;
• Between family members who do business together;
• Between husband and wife;
• Between one business unit head and another;
• Between the legislative, executive, and judicial branch of governments.
• the list goes on.

In some of my past relationships, I have been too flexible about this, and it has caused problems for all parties involved.  I’m not advocating all kinds of rigid constructs that create artificial and unnecessary distance between you and another person.  But I am talking about practical, clearly delineated boundaries that help define roles, responsibilities, and yes, places where you can and cannot tread, figuratively speaking.

I’m also not talking about yet another form of power and control.  I’m talking about respect of the individual and his or her role and identity.

To great relationships.

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.