There are many situations at work where taking extra time will pay off. It sounds funny to say because the scarcity of time is one of the biggest issues for all professionals. Availability of time is the root of most conflict between people.
The trick is to know when an investment of time will pay off in time saved down the road. It is up to leaders to make that judgment. What factors should they consider as they decide?
Factors that impact when taking extra time is a wise move
Observe the current use of time. You can judge for yourself the number of occasions where people are basically spinning their wheels. They get all worked up over an issue and spend inordinate hours arguing their case.
Check the alignment of activities. A large percentage of time wasted is trying to get various groups aligned. There must be a clear vision that is supported by all. You need to have strategies in place to achieve the vision. In addition, you need agreement on the tactics and measures.
Determine the level of trust. When trust is low, people spend a lot of time protecting their turf or fighting useless battles. Measure the trust in your group and see if you are satisfied. Take the extra time to improve the level of trust and it will pay off in time saved.
Don’t get blinded by the busy work. Sometimes the problems come in at such a rate that they begin to stack up like cordwood. There is no time to deal with yesterday’s problem because there are three new ones today.
Coach people who spread gossip and rumors. Many people spend more time spreading lies than doing their work. Identify these individuals and coach them to reduce that practice.
Assess the level of teamwork. When teams display parochial views and fight over what is right, it is time to intervene. An improvement in team cooperation will translate to major savings in wasted time. If people are resistant, it is time to do some form of team building.
Identify periods of time to work on the culture
I know many corporate situations where they are out of control with the use of time. When I suggest that they need to go offline for some soul-searching with a good facilitator they balk. “You have no idea how busy we are here. Taking time away from the daily challenges will bury us.” With that attitude, there is little hope they can break out of the cycle that is killing them.
Carve out time
The most productive groups have carved out at least 15% of their time to work on their culture. Doing this actually resolves the issues that make the groups inefficient.
Many groups play “whack-a-mole” with crises and problems every day. When one issue is resolved, another one pops up. This practice goes on day after day until it actually becomes the culture.
Conclusion
To break the cycle, earmark at least a day every month to step back and take the time to make changes in a thoughtful way. Seek out a coach who is not part of the chaos and can see what is going on. Making this investment reduces the whack-a-mole problem and allows groups to function better together.
Bob Whipple, MBA, CPTD, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, and Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations.
I frequently get asked how long it takes to build a relationship of trust with another person. My answer may surprise you. I usually say, “It can take from three seconds to never.”
I have a program entitled “Planting the Seed of Trust in the First 10 Seconds.” I actually believe it is possible to get a relationship off to a fantastic start of trust in just a few seconds.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book entitled “Blink.” Malcolm shares a characteristic about human beings that is normally true. He indicates that we have an amazing ability to size up another person and decide whether we should trust him or her in under 3 seconds.
Of course, that feeling of trust is just the first step. It takes a lot longer to have enough verification steps to constitute mature and lasting trust.
I stretch the analogy all the way out to ten seconds, but I have experienced it in my own life that I had a strong positive reaction to another individual upon meeting him for just a few seconds. The bond comes from a combination of several factors as follows:
Factors that Plant a Seed of Trust
Eye contact – upon approach and during the handshake (if there is one)
Posture and dress – an indication of education level and hygiene
What the person is saying with his face – how eager he is to meet me
Lack of distraction – the other person is focused on me
If that seed of trust is planted in the first few seconds, then the relationship will proceed toward mature trust at roughly ten times the rate than if the seed was not planted.
On the other hand, if the above elements are missing, it may take a l-o-n-g time for me to trust the individual, and if he fails along the way, we may never get to a state of real trust.
Example
I once met a CEO at a seminar I was doing. We shook hands but he made a concerted effort to look down and away during the handshake. He lost the opportunity for me to have initial trust in him, and we eventually parted ways without ever experiencing any kind of trust.
Full Mature Trust
It does take time to reach a full mature level of trust with an individual. It may take a year or longer depending on what happens between the two of you. It is very common to be building up some level of trust only to have it squashed by some inappropriate actions or words. Then you have to start all over at the beginning and with higher skepticism.
If you squash the trust a couple or three times in a relationship, chances are you will never reach full mature trust with that individual.
Bob Whipple is CEO of Leadergrow, Inc. an organization dedicated to growing leaders. Website www.leadergrow.com BLOG www.thetrustambassador.com He is author of the following books: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, and Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind
For the final few articles in this series on body language, I am highlighting some of the excellent content in a program entitled “Advanced Body Language” by Bill Acheson of the University of Pittsburgh.
In this article, I will summarize his Thinking on how we pick up twelve layers of information when we interface with another person. Most of the time the signals are processed by us unconsciously, but that does not mean they don’t matter to us.
The body language is most important when we are meeting someone for the first time. According to Bill, what we can observe in the other person is ten times more important than what we say.
The 12 layers are the management of: 1. Time 2. Space 3. Appearance 4. Posture 5. Gesture 6. Voice 7. Eye Contact 8. Facial Expression 9. Breathing 10. Touch 11. Smell 12. Congruence
Actually, in his recording he left off the 12th item, so I added the concept of congruence, because when one part of body language is out of step with the others, it sends a warning signal that something is wrong here, even if we cannot put our finger on it consciously.
When we see conflicting signals, the caution flag goes up in our mind, and we have a much more difficult time establishing a relationship of trust. That caution flag, even if it is subconscious means it will take substantially longer to trust the other person than if all signals were consistent.
According to Malcolm Gladwell in the book “Blink,” human beings have a remarkable ability to size each other up in a heartbeat. He estimates that we form a first impression of another person within the first three seconds. He calls the phenomenon “thin slices” after the analogy that if you slice something, like a cucumber, thin enough, you can actually see through it.
Near the start of his program, Bill shares some data he took when working with a group of 600 business woman. His question was, “In a business setting, how do you know when a man cheats on his wife?” The top 7 responses were all body language.
In the video Bill shares the top two responses. The first was if a man wears too much cologne or aftershave. The second giveaway, mentioned by 70% of the women, is if the man is wearing a pinky ring. What male would have guessed those two responses?
Another fascinating statistic has to do with trust. The research shows that 97% of the women he polled said they do not trust a man who wears more jewelry than they do. I suppose that one seems pretty obvious.
In his program, he makes several general observations comparing men and women. Bill is always careful to point out that these observations do not hold in every case, but there is enough of a trend to make them a valuable tool.
For example, he has measured that of out of all the emotions, there is only one emotion that men project with far greater accuracy than women. That emotion is guilt. He suggests that if women experience guilt, they usually do it to themselves.
I hope you have enjoyed these few articles summarizing the entertaining and sometimes startling research of Bill Acheson. I hope that you are interested enough to pick up a copy of his program. You will find it fun, entertaining, and insightful.
This is a part in a series of articles on “Body Language” by Bob Whipple “The Trust Ambassador.”
What is the biggest waste of time at your place of work? For most professional employees, the answer is, “meetings.”
Each of us has experienced frustration with ineffective meetings. Most of these are face-to-face situations where a bunch of people gather around a conference table with an objective to accomplish something.
Meetings also happen on the phone and online; the venue does not matter. It feels like the “process” is painfully slow, and the progress is difficult to appreciate.
If you have not experienced this, check your pulse; you may be dead.
More productive Meetings
Let me start with a question. What is the most precious commodity in the world? Stop reading and think about this question. I really want you to ponder what is precious. Is it “love,” “money,” faith,” “family,” “freedom,” “health”? Give it some real thought before you read on.
To answer the question, how would you define “precious?” You might equate it with value in terms of intrinsic or extrinsic reward. You might view it in a social or family context.
I believe there are two factors that make something precious: how difficult it is to obtain, and how important it is. It is the old “supply and demand” analysis. If something is in great demand, but is extremely scarce, it will be incredibly precious.
Take diamonds, for example. They are highly prized by human beings (not sure why) and they are extremely difficult to find (because they look like regular rocks in their natural state and there are so few of them.)
For example, there is a story told by Earl Nightingale about a poor farmer in Africa. He was unable to sustain his family because the soil on his farm was too arid. He tried to grow crops for years and tried to irrigate the land, but the soil was too weak.
Finally, he heard of the discovery of diamonds in a mountain region in another area. He sold his farm and moved to the mountains to prospect for diamonds. He never found any and his family perished.
Meanwhile, the person who bought his land for a pittance found an interesting rock that he took home and placed on his mantle. A couple years later, a visiting geologist recognized the kind of rock and asked the farmer if he knew what it was.
To his amazement, it turned out to be the largest diamond ever found in Africa. Further, the property was replete with similar rocks. It turned out to be the richest area for diamonds in the country.
So, the original farmer was literally surrounded by “acres of diamonds,” but did not realize it. He went to seek his fortune elsewhere and perished with his family due to starvation.
Leaders in the workplace are also surrounded by acres of “diamonds,” but we may not realize it. The diamonds are the people in the organization.
If treated right and exposed to the right environment (like polishing) nearly every person will turn into a valuable gem for the organization. The trouble is, most leaders, just like the original farmer, fail to realize the incredible value that surrounds them every day. What a crime.
If you will accept the “supply and demand” argument for what makes things precious, let’s explore what is the one thing in this world that is truly scarce. What is it that we cannot get more of no matter how we try.
Is it love? No, we can get more of that. Is it money? Certainly not. Is it any kind of metal or mineral? No. Is it faith? No, we can increase that by changing our viewpoint. I submit it is time.
Oh sure, we can increase our total time on earth by improving our health risk factors, but I am talking about the time we each have every day. We each get exactly 24 hours every day. Nothing we can do will increase that. No one gets less, and no one gets more.
We all want more time desperately, but none of us can get more of it on a daily basis it. It is fixed. Therefore, by the law of supply and demand, time is the most precious commodity.
What does this have to do with meetings? Well, if you are like most people, one of your top time wasters is meetings. We need to make them more efficient and productive.
If we do this well, we have more time for the other important things in life. In fact, by increasing our effectiveness at meetings, we can actually “manufacture” time for later use. We can “Save time in a bottle,” as Jim Croce put it.
Would that be worth it? Well, that is probably the easiest way to get some more of the most precious commodity for yourself and your team. Let’s examine some of the typical time wasters in meetings and suggest some antidotes. We’ll start with the granddaddy of them all.
Griping
Griping is the most significant time waster in meetings. Think about it. You know the routine. Everyone arrives at the meeting with their head full of issues and problems they are dealing with in their working world.
As the “early birds” are patiently waiting (by the way, having people arrive late is another huge time waster) for the late members, someone says something like, “Can you believe they are increasing our medical deductions again?”
That gets someone else to chime in on how unfair it is, and pretty soon the floodgates are open. Out pours fresh steaming venom onto the table.
When everyone has finally arrived and the group is immersed in self-pity and derogatory remarks about the cost of medical insurance. If gone unchecked, this can go on for most of the meeting, completely usurping the original agenda.
The antidote to this waste of time rests with the leader. He/she is responsible for keeping the agenda and not letting the meeting lapse into a gripe session. An easy technique is to acknowledge a need for the group to do some venting, but put a “stop loss” on it.
The leader might say, “It looks like there is a lot of energy around the medical deductions. How much time do we want to spend on this subject before we launch into the positive things that must be accomplished in this meeting?”
The group might agree to spend 5 more minutes venting. It is now up to the leader to stop the discussion after the 5 minutes and say, “OK, we all agreed to move on after 5 minutes. Any more gripes about the benefits will be done outside this meeting. Let’s move on to the agenda and make some positive steps toward our vision.”
If people persist in venting, it is up to the leader to shut this down.
Have an agenda
An agenda is very important for any meeting. If it is worth getting everyone together, it is worth a few minutes to set the topics and objectives for the meeting. This can prevent wasting time when the team wants to wander off topic. Again, it is up to the leader to keep the group on task.
Summarize frequently
An often-ignored technique in meetings is the periodic summary of decisions. This can be a real time-saver. After 10 minutes of discussion on the new safety policy, the leader might say, “Let me summarize this discussion. We seem to be agreeing that we will set a new goal of zero lost time accidents for the next quarter. Is everyone on board with this decision?”
If the entire group agrees, then move on to the next topic. Have the notes indicate a decision was made by the group. If this step is omitted, there is no firm commitment to the decision.
People will talk around and about a topic and everyone will have their own opinion of the outcome. You can leave a meeting with wide variations in people’s minds about what actually happened. Summarizing each point as it is made, prevents this problem.
Summarizing also puts a cap on each topic, so the group moves through the agenda efficiently. The role of the leader is to facilitate the process. Done well, this will maximize the benefit of the time spent together.
Handling opposing views
Disagreements can create an incredible waste of time. A point is made, then someone offers a counterpoint. This lapses into a discussion back and forth about the issue. It can, and often does, become acrimonious.
As people “dig in their heels” to defend their position, the argument becomes more intense. Often it gets personal with statements like, “you are always trying to harpoon everything we are trying to do in this team.”
The crime is that, many times the individuals are not that far apart. They are just not listening to each other. I have been in meetings where two individuals spend a lot of time in “violent agreement” with each other, but neither of them realizes it.
Reverse roles
There are two antidotes for this problem. First, get the opposing parties to express the position of the other person in their own words. That will uncover if the argument is a “tempest in a teapot.” It also ensures that each party really understands the opposing viewpoint.
Agree to Disagree
The other technique is the “Rule of Three.” If the point- counterpoint goes on for three iterations, it is unlikely either party is going to “win” the argument. This is the time for the leader to say, “I think you two should agree to disagree on this point. It is evident that neither of you are going to sway the other, so let’s table this discussion or take it outside so we can get back to the agenda.”
Using the Rule of Three can save huge amounts of time in meetings.
Be Punctual
The leader is responsible for starting and ending each meeting on schedule. It is impolite to arrive late for meetings. As a leader, you can stop this behavior simply by not waiting for the lagers.
Make sure there are some important decisions at the start of the meeting. If someone comes in late, do not go back and review what was already done; let the inconsiderate person catch up after the meeting.
I use a technique in my on-ground classes where I go over the hints for the next week’s assignments at the start of the class. Once I had a tardy student turn in the wrong assignment. She came to me and complained that I did not explain the rules well. I told her that the rules were explained at the start of the previous class, but she was not in attendance at that time. She quickly got the message.
The same rules apply in the online environment. If you make a commitment for the start of a meeting at 8 pm, be there at 8 pm. Recognize that there are family or personal emergencies that can make that impossible in rare instances.
The problem is that some people have a tendency to excuse themselves from their obligations on a regular basis. This behavior needs to be extinguished by the team. We need to be sensitive to real emergencies, but intolerant of those who habitually make excuses for holding up others.
These are only a few of the rules to make better use of time in meetings. Most of these are common sense ideas, but they are often forgotten in the normal work environment. The best way to make sure you are not wasting time is to remember how incredibly valuable it is, and act that way.
The preceding information was adapted from the book The TRUST Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, by Robert Whipple. It is available on http://www.leadergrow.com.
Robert Whipple is also the author of Leading with Trust is like Sailing Downwind and, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online. Bob consults and speaks on these and other leadership topics. He is CEO of Leadergrow Inc. a company dedicated to growing leaders.
In my leadership classes I always ask the participants, “Who is your worst critic”? It is no surprise that nearly 100% of the people say, “Myself.”
Only once did someone blurt out immediately, “My Wife!” Even he had to agree that he is also pretty hard on himself.
When we engage in negative self talk, even at the unconscious level, it often undermines our self esteem and can lead to physical and mental ailments.
It is good to be realistic about our shortcomings so we can improve performance as we learn and grow, but it is not a healthy thing to constantly beat up on ourselves for not being perfect.
If you are 48 years old, you have likely spent 48 years practicing negative self talk that limits your performance and may even shorten your life.
The good news is that we humans have a remarkable ability to retrain the brain in a short period of time to form new habits. Research has shown it takes only about a month of conscious effort to permanently change a lifelong habit.
Here is a simple three-step process that can quickly change the quality of your life, if you give it an honest try.
Step 1 – Catch it
My mental image here is that we all have a kind of beehive of thoughts about ourselves in our subconscious mind. Most of these thoughts are negative.
This mass of energy is whizzing around all the time, and we are not even aware of it.
Every once in a while, often for no reason we can identify, one of these negative thoughts about us jumps up into our conscious mind. We are aware of our inadequacy and thinking about it.
For most of our lives these thoughts have made us feel kind of sick as we muse on why we are not more perfect. Finally the thought is supplanted by some other thought or a phone call or something, and the episode is over.
But what if we decided to be proactive and actually catch the thought when we are first aware of it? My mental image here is one of reaching up with a catcher’s mitt and catching the thought – plop – there it is. We have it firmly in hand now. Step one is completed.
The fascinating part of step one is that by simply reading this article, you will have increased your ability to catch the thought while you are having it (that is the key) . In essence, this article is giving you that catcher’s mitt.
As of now, if you start a stopwatch it will be less than one hour until you have caught your first negative thought using this procedure. By the time you go to bed tonight you will have caught from 3 to 12 of these in your mitt. Wow, that is 3 to 12 opportunities to go on to step 2!
Step 2 – Reject it
I need to be careful here and clarify that not all negative thoughts should be rejected. There are times when something you thought or did was truly wrong or unkind. In those instances, you need to hold yourself accountable and not pretend there was no violation. Understand the problem and resolve to do better in the future.
The majority of times we beat ourselves up it is just being negative about our imperfections. In those cases, rejecting the negative thought can help shape the future.
Here I use the mental image of hitting the thought with a tennis racket back into my subconscious mind. I reject the thought just like a tennis player serves the ball over the net. As many tennis players do, I often grunt while doing this using the words “No! I am not doing that any more!”
Of course I only utter the words verbally when I am alone, like in the car or out mowing the lawn. If I am with people, I utter the words silently, but I actually use the words just the same. This has a profound effect because I am training my mind to form a different thought pattern.
Step 3 – Reward yourself
This is the most important part of the approach, because this one gives you the impetus to do more of it in the future. Think to yourself, “Hey, that was a good thing. I am actually growing here in my capacity to think more positively. That feels great!”
That is all there is to this simple method of self improvement. Now you just wait for the next negative thought to come along and repeat the process.
The impact of doing this
At first, this will feel awkward or hokey. Do it anyway because you have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain. If you can do it for one day, that will give you enough momentum to do it on day 2.
Similarly, by the end of day 2 you will feel some exhilaration as you praise yourself and continue through day three. By day 4 it will be pretty easy to keep doing it.
If you persist using this method for 30 days, you will have permanently changed your thought pattern about yourself. You will use this method instinctively for the rest of your life.
Here is the likely result. If you can do this for 30 days, sometime during that process someone you love or work with will say something like this, “You have changed. I can’t put my finger on what is different, but you really are a changed individual and you wear it well.”
Of course the most important person to notice a difference in you is yourself. You will feel better because you really are better. You have beaten a life long habit of thinking negative thoughts about yourself.
Yet you still maintain the ability to see your true flaws accurately and learn from your mistakes. It is just that you have stopped punishing yourself over and over for not being good enough. What a burden lifted!
I urge you to try this simple three step approach. Look at it this way, it takes almost no time to do this, it is uplifting and fun, it improves the quality of your life, it is easy to do, and you can do it privately so nobody else has to know.
So, for no expenditure of cash or even effort, you will be shaping yourself into a new person. Once you see the benefits of this method, don’t hoard it for yourself. Teach others the wonderful relief of this technique, for as you help others you also help yourself.
The preceding information was adapted from the book The TRUST Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, by Robert Whipple. It is available on http://www.leadergrow.com.
Robert Whipple is also the author of Leading with Trust is like Sailing Downwind and, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online. Bob consults and speaks on these and other leadership topics. He is CEO of Leadergrow Inc. a company dedicated to growing leaders. Contact Bob at bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585-392-7763.
All of us receive blessings and good things in our life. We also find ways to give back to others. This article is about making a conscious choice about your give back ratio.
What is “Giving Back”?
Many people see giving back as contributing to the church, United Way, or some other specific charity. Monetary contributions are just one way to give back to society. I will outline some other ways that you will recognize. The challenge is to add up all the ways you are giving back and decide for yourself if is the right ratio for you.
Volunteering your time
We all have done some service to others in the form of donated time. How do you put a value on that sacrifice? Clearly you could calculate the hourly wage that your employer pays and multiply it by the number of hours you donate to others. I think that is a little simplistic.
What you need to do is forget about the monetary value of your time but add up the, percentage of how much time you are actually donating to help other people. It does not need to be an organization, such as the Red Cross. You might be helping to educate youth in a Big Brother Program or serve hot meals to homeless people.
The list of potential ways to donate time is nearly infinite, and you can often lose track of just how much time you are donating. My advice is to be alert to the level of contributions you make on an annual basis and decide for yourself if you are giving back enough of your time.
Contributing your talent
When you agree to help an organization work toward the betterment of the community or mankind with no remuneration, you are donating your precious talent for a good cause. It might be as a Scout Leader, or it could be helping with a fund raising campaign. Whenever you are using your mind to help further the cause of an organization, that is a contribution of your unique and special talent.
Feel good about these contributions and know that they are making a difference in the world.
Helping Others
Contributions here include visiting sick people or helping in a rehab facility. They also include helping friends and family members manage their way through their own minefields. As you coach others to improve their lot in life or survive a tragedy, you are really giving of yourself with no thought of what you will be getting back in return.
The universe has ways of keeping track of these altruistic activities, and you gain in your personal esteem by engaging in them.
Giving of your treasure
There must be a billion ways to contribute cash to help out efforts all over the world. You may be contributing to save starving children or even animals. You may be giving to your alma matter so that future students can benefit from the education you enjoyed. You may be setting up a trust to help your family members after you are gone.
There seems to be no end to the number of requests to contribute money. The one irony is that when you give to some charities, somehow others find out about it and your phone rings a lot more along with a lot more letters to appeal for your money. You need to establish some kind of formula for how you are going to deal with all of these requests so that you feel good about your giving pattern but are not bled dry.
Putting it all together
I am not suggesting any particular level of giving to others is the correct one. I am asking you to take a look at your giving pattern from time to time and ask yourself if it is the right level for you. For me, when I did the exercise I found myself dissatisfied, so I made an increase in my pattern of giving back, and now I feel that my level is more appropriate. That review will now become a part of my annual “renewal” process where I examine my life so far and plot my plan for the next year. I think that is a healthy exercise.
This is a part in a series of articles on “Successful Supervision.” The entire series can be viewed on www.leadergrow.com/articles/supervision or on this blog.
Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of four books: 1.The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals (2003), 2. Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online (2006), 3. Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind (2009), and 4. Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change (2014). In addition, he has authored over 500 articles and videos on various topics in leadership and trust. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at www.Leadergrow.com, bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585.392.7763
Supervisors do a lot more negotiating than they may realize. My observation is that supervisors negotiate all day every day.
If you want to be a more effective supervisor, study up on your negotiating skills.
For most supervisors, negotiations usually involve resources. Obtaining the right level of staffing or a specific piece of test equipment would be typical negotiation discussions.
Also, the budgeting process is always a time of great challenge for most supervisors.
In the day-to-day activities of the operation, getting people to do the right thing at the right time is a form of negotiation challenge. If the standard break time is 15 minutes, how are you going to get people to adhere to the rule?
This article highlights some tips I have learned over the years in courses and in practical applied leadership in a large organization. Before sharing some tips, let me dispel a myth; negotiating is not a win or lose situation.
Great negotiators realize that to reach an agreement, both parties need to believe the deal in question is better for them than no deal at all. Both parties must “win” to have a successful outcome, although both individuals may not get everything they wanted.
Basic Negotiation Principles
The objective of any negotiation is to reach a fair deal that is not abusive to either party, and it is accomplished by a process of discovery and revelation.
Let’s first look at a few basic principles and then describe some of the more popular negotiation tactics and their countermeasures.
1. You have more power than you think you have
Human beings have a habit of undervaluing their hand and overvaluing the hand of their opponent. Information is power in any negotiation, so seek to understand as much as possible the forces that are putting pressure on your opponent.
Withhold some of the critical points about your own situation so the other person is not aware of your constraints.
For example, if you share a time constraint that you need an agreement by the end of the day, your opponent can use that pressure to make you compromise just before quitting time.
Know as much about your opponent’s constraints as you can; and be judicious with sharing things that are impacting you.
2. Plan your strategy
In any negotiation, if you have a plan you will do better than if you play defense and simply react to the offers made by the other party.
It is amazing how many supervisors will go into a negotiation and simply “wing it” to see what the other person is proposing before formulating an offense.
There is going to be some give and take going on in any deal. Be flexible to move off an original plan if conditions warrant it, but at least have a null hypothesis or case to beat before going in.
3. Leave room for the other person to win
We all know that if we want to sell a car ultimately for $1000, it is best to price it at something like $1300 at the outset. This allows the seller to make some concessions and still arrive at an acceptable end point.
Recognize that both parties will be playing the same game on opposite sides, so test the validity of any offers along the way. Do not take at face value any statement made by the other person. Assume there is a lot more latitude available than the other person is willing to share initially.
4. Identify your “walk away” position and be prepared to use it
Your opponent will seek to maneuver you into a position that may be untenable. Identify beforehand what you are not willing to settle for, and do not budge off that position. The walk away technique is often very effective at gaining a concession.
5. Look for win-win and compromise ideas
Always ask, “What else will do the job here?” This technique is particularly useful when you seem to have reached an impasse.
Simply step back and look at the roadblock from a higher perspective.Often there can be a better solution that has not even been considered.
For example, suppose the supervisor is negotiating with another supervisor trying to transfer a key resource into her crew. The other supervisor is intransigent and the discussion gets heated. The supervisor might break the impasse by volunteering to take on some difficult tasks from her opponent.
Negotiating Tactics
Now let’s take a look at some typical negotiating tactics that people use. View these ideas as both offensive strategies but also be aware that they may be used against you and pay attention to the countermeasures, if you need them.
1. Use of time
Time is the ultimate scarce resource, and smart negotiators use it to gain advantage in a negotiation.
For example, if the supervisor is not having much luck selling her yearly budget to her manager, she might schedule a meeting with the manager to discuss the details.
When she arrives, she could mention that she has set aside three hours to go over the details of the budget for full understanding. This would normally put time pressure on the manager, or he could turn it around to put time pressure on her.
A good countermeasure for time pressure is to reverse the logic. In this case the manager might say to the supervisor, “Oh this is too important to limit the discussion to just three hours; I am prepared to work with you all day, if necessary.”
2. Good guy/Bad guy
This tactic is a version of the good cop/bad cop technique when interrogating a suspect. The bad cop is nasty and aggressive when interviewing the suspect, but the good cop comes in and is much more reasonable and often gains a confession.
Whenever you are dealing with more than one person, be aware of the tendency to use this technique to gain leverage.
The antidote to this tactic is to call the people on it directly. Say something like, “You guys seem to be playing good cop/ bad cop, and that doesn’t work at all with me.”
3. The Bogy
A bogy is a statement that we simply do not have the resources to give, so the point is moot. Suppose a supervisor is approached by a manager who insists that she loan the services of a mechanic for the remainder of the shift.
She could use the bogy and say, “But I only have one mechanic on duty today, and loaning her to you would leave me with no way to fix my equipment.” The implication is that I would like to help you, but the well is dry.
The most common bogy in any organization is the budget. Suppose the supervisor needs a new optical comparator for her inspection operation. She goes to her boss with her request and he says, “I would love to help you, but that is simply not in the budget.”
The countermeasure to a bogy is to point out the reality of a false constraint. The supervisor might say, “I know it is not in the current budget, but we need the comparator to do our job. Besides the budget is just an initial guess we made out at the start of the year. Surely we can move some items around in the budget when we need to, or maybe we have to overrun our budget this year and factor that in next year.”
4. Use of silence
Silence is an effective tactic in any negotiation. In western society, people become very nervous when the other party just stops talking.
We tolerate silence for about 30 seconds and then simply have to fill the void with some words, often they are concessions. If you are at loggerheads with another person, just stop talking and watch the person squirm.
The countermeasure to the silent treatment is to refuse to break the silence. After a while the stress will shift onto the other person.
I used this measure when negotiating with a Japanese businessman, and it worked like a charm. It was his turn to counter offer, but he just stopped talking.
Because I know the tactic, I just sat and looked at him, since it was his turn to speak. At first he thought he had me on the ropes, but after 2-3 minutes of silence, he realized I had out-silenced him and he made the concession.
Try this little trick with a car dealer sometime. It’s a riot, and it really works. Very few people can make it beyond one minute of silence.
5. Breaking an impasse
You will occasionally reach an impasse situation where it seems there are no further options. When this happens, simply change the time shape of money.
We are used to the logic in everyday life but often forget the tactic at work. You say “I cannot afford $10,000 for that car.” I ask if you can afford $5,000 and you agree to that figure. So I counter with “OK let’s do $5,000 now and $1,000 a month for 5 months.”
These are some of the more common negotiation tactics and the countermeasures. Make sure you are alert to when others are trying to use these on you and do hone your skill at using them effectively yourself.
Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of four books: 1.The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals (2003), 2. Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online (2006), 3. Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind (2009), and 4. Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change (2014). In addition, he has authored over 500 articles and videos on various topics in leadership and trust. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at http://www.Leadergrow.com, bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585.392.7763
In my seminars on trust, I always do an exercise that illustrates the pivotal importance of trust in any organization.
In this experiential exercise I split the group up into small discussion groups and give each group a different dimension to work on by answering the following question: for your dimension, can you contrast what it is like to try to accomplish it if you are working with a high trust group versus a low trust group?
I could think up dozens of dimensions to explore, but to keep the exercise bounded in terms of time, I use only nine dimensions with groups. Here is a list of the nine dimensions along with my comments on the contrast of trying to do them in a high versus low trust group.
1. Solving Problems
In organizations of high trust, problems are dealt with easily and efficiently. In low trust organizations, problems become huge obstacles as leaders work to unscramble the mess to find out who said what or who caused the problem to spiral out of control.
Often feelings are hurt or long term damage in relationships occurs. While problems exist in any environment, they take many times longer to resolve if there is low trust.
In addition, the creative ideas of people are more readily accessible to the group when people aren’t afraid to speak their minds.
Sometimes a lack of trust can cause small problems to bloom into first class disasters.
A good example of this progression is the Challenger Disaster in 1986. The Rogers Commission (1987) found that NASA’s organizational culture and decision making process were key contributing factors of the accident. Technicians who were aware of a problem did not feel it was safe to bring it up due to low trust levels.
2. Focused Energy
People in organizations with high trust do not need to be defensive. They focus energy on accomplishing the Vision and Mission of the organization. Their energy is directed toward the customer and against the competition.
In low trust organizations, people are myopic and waste energy due to infighting and politics. Their focus is on internal squabbles and destructive turf battles.
Bad blood between people creates a litany of issues that distract supervision from the pursuit of excellence. Instead, they play referee to a bunch of adult workers who often act like children.
Trust leads to constancy of purpose as well as focus. In Managing People is Like Herding Cats (1999), Warren Bennis wrote: “A recent study showed people would rather follow individuals they can count on, even when they disagree with their viewpoint, than people they agree with but who shift positions frequently. I cannot emphasize enough the significance of constancy and focus.” (p.85)
3. Efficient Communication
When trust is high, the communication process is efficient, as leaders freely share valuable insights about business conditions and strategy.
In low trust organizations, rumors and gossip zap around the organization like laser beams in a hall of mirrors. Before long, leaders are blinded with problems coming from every direction. Trying to control the rumors takes energy away from the mission and strategy.
High trust organizations rely on solid, believable communication, while the atmosphere in low trust groups is usually one of damage control and minimizing employee unrest.
Since people’s reality is what they believe rather than what is objectively happening, the need for damage control in low trust groups is often a huge burden. Not only is verbal communication enhanced by trust, all forms of communication including e-mail, body language, and listening are improved by trust.
In A Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, Steven B. Sample (2002) discusses the concept of Artful Listening which enables a leader to “…see things through the eyes of his followers while at the same time seeing things from his own perspective” (p.22). He calls this skill “seeing double.” Sample stresses that Artful Listening is enabled by trust.
4. Retaining Customers
Workers in high trust organizations have a passion for their work that is obvious to customers. When trust is lacking, workers often display apathy toward the company that is transparent to customers.
Most of us have experienced this apathy while sitting in a restaurant where the service is poor. If there is a low trust environment, we feel an uncomfortable tension that discourages our future return to that establishment.
All it takes is the roll of eyes or some shoddy body language to send valuable customers looking for alternatives.
5. A “Real” Environment
People who work in high trust environments describe the atmosphere as being “real.” They are not playing games with one another in a futile attempt to outdo or embarrass the other person.
Rather, they are focused toward a common goal that permeates all activities. When something is real, people know it and respond positively.
When trust is high, people might not always like each other, but they have great respect for each other. That means, they work to support and reinforce the good deeds done by fellow workers rather than try to find sarcastic or belittling remarks to make about them.
The reduction of infighting creates hours of extra time spent achieving business results.
6. Saving Time and Reducing Costs
High trust organizations get things done more quickly because there are fewer distractions. There is no need to double check everything because people generally do things right.
In areas of low trust, there is a constant need to spin things to be acceptable and then to explain what the spin means. This takes time, which drives costs up.
In The Speed of Trust, Stephen M.R. Covey relates that when trust is low, organizations pay a kind of “tax.” This tax increases costs and reduces speed (Covey, 2006).
7. Perfection not Required
A culture of high trust relieves leaders from the need to be perfect. Where trust is high, people will understand the intent of a communication even if the words were phrased poorly.
In low trust groups, the leader must be perfect because people are poised to spring on every misstep or misstatement to prove the leader is not trustworthy. Without trust, speaking to groups of people is like walking on egg shells.
The irony is that leaders should be glad when people are vocal about apparent inconsistencies between actions and values. People will not do so unless the leader has created an environment of trust.
This phenomenon was described by Noel Tichy (1997) in The Cycle of Leadership as follows: “The truth is that the leader gets nailed to the wall for failing to live the values only if he or she has created an open and honest shop. More often, people simply become demoralized and ignore the values just as the leader does” (p. 43).
8. More Development and Growth
In low trust organizations, people stagnate because there is little emphasis placed on growth. All of the energy is spent jousting between individuals and groups.
High trust groups emphasize development, so there is a constant focus on personal and organizational growth, as described in Treat People Right (Edward Lawler, 2003).
9. Better Reinforcement
When trust is high, positive reinforcement works because it is sincere and well executed.
In low trust organizations, reinforcement is often considered phony, manipulative, or duplicitous, which lowers morale. Without trust, attempts to improve motivation through reinforcement programs often backfire.
The trick is to get people to want to do the right thing through reinforcement.
Ken Blanchard (2002) in Whale Done wrote “Instead of building dependency on others for a reward, you want people to do the right thing because they themselves enjoy it” (p. 56).
Once groups wrestle with these nine dimensions and contrast what it is like to operate as part of a high trust group versus a low trust one, they understand the immense impact that trust has on every aspect of how an organization operates.
Simply put, if you have high trust, all aspects of the organization work well, but with low trust, nothing works as expected.
Seek to build trust at every level all of the time. If trust becomes compromised for any reason, move swiftly to repair it (the subject of a future article).
Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of four books: 1.The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals (2003), 2. Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online (2006), 3. Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind (2009), and 4. Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change (2014). In addition, he has authored over 500 articles and videos on various topics in leadership and trust. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at http://www.Leadergrow.com, bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585.392.7763
From time to time, we all get overwhelmed with activities, and most of us turn to a “To Do” list to manage the priorities. There are several systems that help keep people organized and assist them in making the most of their time. In this article, I suggest that having a specific “Stop Doing” list can be just as helpful at managing time as having a “To Do” list.
Time is the most precious commodity we have. What makes something precious is comprised of two factors. The thing must be of intrinsic value to us and it must be scarce.
Diamonds and coal are chemically identical and both have intrinsic value to us, but diamonds are very hard to find, so their value is infinitely higher.
Time has value to us because it is all we have to live with, and nobody can get more than 24/7 each day. Therefore, time has extremely high value; it is both important and scarce.
The world serves up a huge smorgasbord of activities every day. I am sure that each person reading this article has a huge number of things to do today. Carving out a couple minutes to absorb this information means that something else is not going to get done.
We normally make decisions on our use of time thousands of times a day. Most of these decisions are unconscious. It becomes more critical to make the right decisions in times of peak load.
I am pretty sure you have not had a day this year in which you could just kick back and do whatever you wanted for the entire day. So we manage the time by prioritizing the things we must do or want to do.
Rarely do we take an objective look at the time-burning habits that are not really logical. Sometimes we do these by rote and don’t think about it. An example of this might be putting on makeup. For me, I have a habit of checking my blood pressure ten times in a row each morning and average the numbers to arrive at a data point for today. One time would probably be sufficient.
If we had a system of bringing our time-consuming habits up for conscious decision often, we might be able to purge several things off our list. It is a gut reaction to sort the things we want to do in terms of priority, but it takes specific effort to focus on time wasters and cull out the ones we can live without.
In the past month I joined our local Rotary Organization. It has been on my agenda to get involved in Rotary for a long time because I believe in their work, and it is in my DNA from my father and great uncle.
The problem is that Rotary takes a lot of time if you are going to be fully involved, so before joining, I stepped off a Board of Directors that I had been active on for the past decade. I have a firm rule not to serve on more than three boards at any time. So now I am on two boards and have added Rotary. Time will tell if I can handle that load with my regular business demands, teaching, and personal life.
Try this experiment. Sit down in a quiet place and try to identify at least 10 things you could stop doing this week. If you find the exercise helpful, you might want to make a date with yourself a couple times a year to hone your “Stop Doing” list. You will have a wonderful feeling of really managing the most important commodity in your life: your time.
Bob Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust. He is the author of: Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change, The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind, and Trust in Transition: Navigating Organizational Change. Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations. For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at http://www.Leadergrow.com, bwhipple@leadergrow.com or 585.392.7763
This time of year, we naturally think of giving gifts. Whether with family or friends or in the work environment, we want to show our affection for each other with tangible presents.
At work, we often see some kind of bonus or financial benefit that has been baked into the compensation package long ago. It arrives during the holiday season by design. While welcome, if the bonus is expected and predictable, the impact as a gift is muted.
How can leaders combine the habit of giving gifts with a resolution to do things better in the future. Do you have a way to figuratively place “gifts” for the people who you interface with on a daily basis? I am not thinking of the tangible gifts, but rather presents of a different kind. Here are a few of the gifts you might consider giving more often to people at work, or at home.
Time
The most precious thing for all people is really time. Reason: scarcity and value are what make something precious. Time is scarce because it is fixed (24/7), and it is valuable because we are all habitually short of adequate time.
You can give time to people by thinking through how you can be more considerate of theirs. For example, you can have shorter meetings, cut out some Mickey Mouse work, reduce conflict, lower the e-mail load, prioritize better, eliminate redundancy, communicate more clearly, and so forth. There is a never ending supply of ideas to save people time at work.
The other way we give time to people is to make ourselves more available to them. We are all pulled too many ways and find it difficult to balance our own needs with those of others.
People do recognize and appreciate when you take time for them if they need it. Giving the gift of time means demonstrating with your calendar that you are accessible.
Trust
When you give people the gift of your trust, it multiplies and then comes back to you with more trust. Real trust is essential for people to function as they were designed to do.
So many people dwell in an environment of extremely low trust at work every day. In most environments, the extension of more trust is the most effective way to uplift the culture and improve the work experience. For example, reducing the tendency to micromanage is a great way to demonstrate higher trust.
Attention
In the rush of daily activity, it is easy to take people for granted. We get wrapped up in the stresses that consume our day and forget to acknowledge other individuals who are striving to do their best. See them work, and recognize their effort and dedication.
Care
Empathy for what others are experiencing is the best way to have people realize you care about them. If you show an interest in their challenges and triumphs in life, they will see that love and reflect it back to you. The visceral feeling of being cared for is part of the human condition that is essential: like the air we breathe or the food we eat.
Support
Strongly linked to care is the notion of support. We all need help from time to time, and the gift of our physical or emotional support can make a huge difference in the quality of another person’s day. Be proactive with your support. Be more like Santa and less like Scrooge.
Recognition
Reinforcing people in an appropriate and thoughtful way when they do good work helps improve their self esteem, and is always a welcome gift. Recognition triggers their intrinsic motivation to do more good things. It enables empowerment and is kind of a liberating force that encourages people. Thus, recognition is a force multiplier.
This list could get very long if I let it, but I will keep it short to give readers the gift of brevity. My present to you this holiday season is the idea that with very little time and effort, you can have the wonderful spirit of giving gifts every day in your work and home life.
There are many situations at work where taking extra time will pay off. It sounds funny to say because the scarcity of time is one of the biggest issues for all professionals. Availability of time is the root of most conflict between people.
Posted by trustambassador 
I frequently get asked how long it takes to build a relationship of trust with another person. My answer may surprise you. I usually say, “It can take from three seconds to never.”
For the final few articles in this series on body language, I am highlighting some of the excellent content in a program entitled 
What is the biggest waste of time at your place of work? For most professional employees, the answer is, “meetings.”
In my leadership classes I always ask the participants, “Who is your worst critic”? It is no surprise that nearly 100% of the people say, “Myself.”
All of us receive blessings and good things in our life. We also find ways to give back to others. This article is about making a conscious choice about your give back ratio.
Supervisors do a lot more negotiating than they may realize. My observation is that supervisors negotiate all day every day.
In my seminars on trust, I always do an exercise that illustrates the pivotal importance of trust in any organization.
From time to time, we all get overwhelmed with activities, and most of us turn to a “To Do” list to manage the priorities. There are several systems that help keep people organized and assist them in making the most of their time. In this article, I suggest that having a specific “Stop Doing” list can be just as helpful at managing time as having a “To Do” list.