Confidence consists of positive expectations for favourable outcomes. Failure and success are not events—they are self-fulfilling pathways.

To every action that we take, there is a corresponding outcome. Failures and successes are judgements given to outcomes in relations to our intents. There may be outcomes that appear which have no relation to our intents, however, we could learn from as they may things we have not thought of. It is in this sense that I read Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s self fulfilling pathways.

Confidence is the word. One of the elements I found that  probably is the cause of so much pain suffered by the poor of the poorest of the Mauritians society, after working for a couple of years with the ONGs is precisely the lack of self esteem and self confidence in the capacity to progress. The poor of the poorest nurture the self fulfilling prophecy of their inability to get out of their conditions.

At Caritas, with a team,  we worked out schemes to enhance the self esteem of the poor by starting a listening service. On a second phase we then slower worked towards  enhancing their self confidence.

We would be far from the winning streaks titled by R Moss Kanter but surely we would be heading in the right direction.

Winning Streaks

ROSABETH MOSS KANTER

How do winning and losing streaks begin and end? Using research and case studies, I came up with a surprising answer—confidence. Confidence is the pivotal driver behind high performance, successful relationships, and teams that consistently win. I use the expression “water walkers” to describe people with high potential who are destined to gain top positions.

Confidence consists of positive expectations for favorable outcomes. Failure and success are not events—they are self-fulfilling pathways. Each decision, each business quarter, each school year may seem like a new event, but the next performance is shaped by what happened last time—unless something breaks the streak.

Three Critical Behaviors

My investigation of success and failure in companies, nonprofit institutions, athletic teams, and political races discerns three critical behaviors in people who work in cultures of confidence at high-performing organizations:

· They are accountable. They want to share information, take responsibility, and seek feedback and self-improvement because they are committed.

· They collaborate. They want to work together, help others, and feel a sense of belonging that makes them committed to the success of the entire enterprise.

· They take initiative. Since they believe that what they do will make a difference, they offer ideas and suggestions and feel empowered to foster innovation.

Moreover, these confident leaders institutionalize confidence by giving people a chance to tackle projects, succeed at those projects, and feel that they have made a major contribution. That makes people feel valued. It makes them feel that their contribution is worth something. And that feeling gives them the energy and motivation to go forward. It provides leaders with an opportunity, grounded in reality, to recognize and applaud people. Positive accomplishments lift everybody’s spirit.

And yet many performance evaluations tend to be based on personality and chemistry rather than on achievements. That’s a problem in terms of building confidence, because it makes too many things dependent on favoritism—who happens to be liked by whom. On losing teams, coaches tend to play favorites. On the winning teams, you get what your performance merits.

Of course, some leaders try to project external confidence to cover up problems. They resort to bravado or swagger to hide problems—usually when confidence has slid into that danger zone of overconfidence or arrogance.

Real confidence is grounded in three cornerstones—accountability, collaboration, and initiative. If accountability starts to slide because leaders cover up the facts or manipulate the numbers, then they are not being accountable. And if they don’t admit it and solve the underlying problems right away, they are not being accountable. So, whatever appearance they project to others is not true confidence grounded in the substance that would make success likely. It’s a false presentation of self, and I don’t think it’s the self-confidence of a leader anyway. The projection of charisma on the part of the leader who makes the difference is whether the leader creates a system that is accountable, that allows people to get together quickly to solve problems and take initiative to act on potential shocks or surprises. That’s what Enron lacked—they started to hide certain information.

I talk about confidence as the “sweet spot” between despair and arrogance. It’s that sweet spot that says, “We’ve got to work for a positive result; and when we do the work, we are confident we’ll succeed because we’re confident in the data, confident in the responsibility people take, and confident in each other. We have a collective goal, and people are not making side deals behind the scenes.”

Many people tell me that they feel that they are on a losing streak—losing people, losing capability, and losing viability. They are sliding away from confidence toward insecurity and feeling that “there is nothing we can do about it.” Leaders must guard against arrogance and over-confidence on one hand, and the feeling of hopelessness and helplessness on the other.

In my study, I found many examples of successful turnarounds. Turn-around leaders tend to be one of two types: 1) people who slash to the bone and save the organization financially, but leave nobody standing; or 2) people who realize that cost-cutting is a temporary solution and start rebuilding. Turnaround leaders must make tough decisions, but also believe in the potential of the organization and give people a vision of that potential.

One of my favorite leaders is Jackie Jenkins-Scott, former president of a community health center (she is now a college president). She came in to turn the center around when it was in bankruptcy. A receiver appointed by the court was busily trying to cut costs; morale was low; and the quality of the service was getting worse. First, Jackie convinced the judge to get rid of the receiver. She saw potential where he had only seen things to cut. She saw a way to raise revenues. For example, the center had historic buildings, and so she got those designated as historical landmarks and reached out to new donors. She believed in the people, so she gave the people a better work environment. They returned her faith by boosting productivity and by finding new sources of revenue—people who could pay for services, for example.

You either find somebody who cuts costs and slashes to the bone and just accepts the fact that sales are declining and plans around a smaller organization, or you find somebody who says, “There is great potential here. There are new services we could offer. Yes, we must get costs under control, or we won’t survive; but we’ll do that against a vision and long-term goal, because I have confidence in our future.”

Leaders build confidence and advance to victory. They see the potential and get other people to see the potential while they are making tough moves. But when they make a tough decision, they have the support of the people, because it’s done with a vision of success in the future.

Consistently successful leaders treat losses as temporary events rather than descents into downward spirals. They have resilience, and resilience separates winners from losers, because even winners lose games, have bad quarters, see temporary slips in sales.

Resilience is the ability to deal with those issues. If confidence is not just a belief in the minds of the people but also the culture of the organization, you can bounce back quickly. If people are communicating, sharing performance data, and knowing the facts of the situation, they can solve problems faster because they are collaborating. Everybody can do their part if they trust and respect people in other departments, and they have an experience of taking initiative through small projects and new ventures that build an ovation. Such people spring into action and make a difference—often without being told to do it.

When power went out in the Northeast for two days in August 2003, and every other airline canceled hundreds of flights—thereby losing millions of dollars—Continental not only kept flying but ended up making money in the disaster. Their employees rallied together to do whatever needed to be done to keep the airplanes flying. That freed up top executives to ask, “Are there any other services we could provide during this period?” They offered extra flights for all the stranded passengers and ended up making money.

That is a dramatic example of where a company wins because they had created a culture of confidence.

To the extent that the organization succeeds, it’s easier to attract and retain exceptional talent, because they want to be associated with success. Make sure they understand that their success and reputation are enhanced when the team wins. Show these stars that they will gain more and have more impact if they also support other people, build stronger relationships, and help the team win consistently.

December 2008

The above text from Leadership Excellence,  is an article which would summarise  her 2004 book: “Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End”.

I am so pleased that I picked up an article where  my old friend Jay Owens is mentioned.  I have not seen for over 5 years: since my last visit to South Africa.

It looks like Jay is still active in training and running seminars and conferences.

Before retiring, Jay was running the Covey Leadership center in  Park Wood ,South Africa. He was of great help to me, he was sorting out the profiling of the participants of the Covey week end seminars I was conducting for a number of years. The center in South Africa was very convenient, the processing was faster and cheaper that sending off the documents to Utah, USA.

Thanks to Jay that I was given the opportunity to run a Covey seminar in Guinea Conakry. I took up the challenge of conducting a seminar with half of the audience speaking English and the other half speaking French. The Malaysian Telekon had taken over the national telephone company in Guinea and wanted to train all its managers on time managment the  Franklin Covey way.

Resolving business issues through crucial conversations

There are crucial conversations that we all tend to avoid. Our lives are poorer and our businesses less profitable because of it.

The need for crucial conversations in business covers a wide area of possibilities. They are the many topics we would rather avoid. In your place of work they could look something like this:

• Issues that involve gender, racial, cultural or other controversial factors
• Dealing with the poor performance of a subordinate, like giving an unfavourable performance review
• Talking to a co-worker, perhaps a manager, who behaves offensively or makes suggestive comments
• Disagreeing with a management decision
• Dealing with a serious disagreement between two or more departments in your business
• Resolving a serious disagreement between business partners
• Critiquing the work of an equal or someone senior to you
• Confronting a partner or manager who is contravening the company’s financial code
• Talking to a colleague who is hoarding information or resources
• Dealing with a difficult BEE or employment equity decision.

Most of us would rather avoid this sort of thing altogether. That is the comfortable route to take, but we follow that path to the detriment of our businesses and our relationships with other people.

The authors of Crucial Conversations – Tools for talking when stakes are high, say that no more than 10% of our daily conversations cover crucial issues. These are the pivotal issues, which if handled well make an immense difference to any organisation.

When facing difficult issues people react in one of three ways: we avoid them, handle them poorly or face them and handle them well. Jay Owens of The Human Edge, who will be hosting a Crucial Conversations workshop later this year, suggests three factors in which crucial conversations are most necessary. They are: high stakes matters on which results depend, differing opinions on which the parties involved feel strongly, and other matters that produce high emotions.

“Powerful emotions are the cause of most inability to communicate well,” says Owens. “Physiologically we don’t handle strong emotions well. To overcome this inherent human weakness a distinct skills set is needed. There are a few people who have it naturally. Most of us have to learn it.”

Owens teaches that our ability to influence other people, and therefore important outcomes, depends on how well we hold our crucial conversations. “Too often when crucial matters are raised people go over to silence, not contributing to the group’s understanding of the problem.”

Some endure the silence until eventually they can no longer contain themselves. Then they go over to violence, trying to control, compel and coerce others into their way of seeing things. “Silence and violence are the twin enemies of the productive sharing of information,” says Owens. He talks about the silence in the meeting room, followed by the violence in the corridor – people who do not contribute in the meeting, gossiping about the resultant decisions in the corridors.

The objective of Owens’ training is to create an environment where the best ideas can be put forward without fear. And fear is the fundamental problem when trying to get to the core issues that are holding back a company. People are afraid that the ideas they raise may meet with ridicule, tarnishing the image they have. Some may not want to leave a meeting to attend to something else that may have arisen for fear of being blamed while they are not in the room. Everyone may hold back on suggesting a new project for fear of it failing. Better for someone else to go first – in case it turns out to be a disaster. Under these conditions when people do not feel safe enough to air their views an environment exists in which people do not contribute towards the development of the company.

“An environment has to be created in which people feel free to put forward their best ideas,” says Owens. “We must guard against the reasons for silence in any staff member. This is the barrier that stops him or her from contributing.”

According to the authors of Crucial Conversations, two vital elements in resolving any issue are mutual respect and mutual purpose. Without the former, any sort of dialogue will be artificial and without the latter there is no point in even resolving the issues.

Owens’ first step towards holding a crucial conversation is to identify where you are stuck. Ask what the issue is that you are dealing with, that you also had to deal with yesterday and the day before yesterday. Once you have identified it, step away from the issue and ask yourself what the conversation is that we are not holding.

Once you have stepped out of the issue and into the process of dealing with it, three hard-hitting skills are recommended.

1. Apologise when appropriate. When you have made a mistake that has hurt others, start with an apology.
2. Contrast to fix misunderstanding. When someone may feel disrespected, but that was not your intention, step away from the argument and use a skill called contrasting. In it, you confirm your respect for the person and clarify your real purpose.
3. Employ CRIB:
   • C – commit to seeking mutual purpose
   • R – recognise the purpose behind the strategy
   • I – invent a mutual purpose
   • B – brainstorm new strategies.

In all of this the word purpose comes up again and again. Without a mutual purpose, there is no point in resolving anything.

If agreement exists on a mutual purpose, you will almost certainly need crucial conversations to deal with the issues that are bound to arise among human beings. Even the most talented among us need the co-operation of others.

Source: Succeed Magazine, www.succeed.co.za

Tomorrow, the 4^th June will be the twenty years since the Tiananmen Square Massacre occurred according to the western world press. China recorded the happenings of this incident as the June four incident. Is it a euphemism on the part of the Chinese? Or is it the naming of this event according to one’s view and reading?

Twenty years since the much reported incident with hind sight view what can we deduct? The proponents and defenders of Human rights, the western world press definitely has a different view of the killing of unarmed student protesters by the Chinese army to the reading of the Chinese authorities who then ordered the end of the protest.

What were the reading of the Chinese government of the situation of this protest and the impact of it on the state?

I read with keen interest the back ground atmosphere leading to the killing of these protesting students and I invite you to do so, on Wikipedia.

The Party elders believed that lengthy demonstrations were a threat to the stability of the country. The pressure on the Chinese from within the country as well as from other nations was mounting to become unbearable by the authorities.

How many persons were killed? 5000 or 7000 persons were eliminated according to different sources.

This 4^th June Tiananmen Square event has certainly impacted the course of history in China. Foreign loans to China were suspended and tourism to China decreased and embargo on arms were reactivated. The Chinese economic reform as planned by Deng Xiaoping was delayed.

I read through this event the fundamental cultural difference between the intrinsic values of the western and Chinese. In the west, the individual rights are primary whilst in China the nation’s rights override all. What is good for the community is good for all.

Tiananmen June 4^th was a mere incident in the very long history of China; it may well be one of the many massacres perpetrated. The killed individuals were collaborators of the history.

Our beliefs shape our vision?

I just love this article written by CATHY L. GREENBERG & JOHANNA DILLON. This is very much what I have been trumpeting through my work career and still is by signing my email ‘be happy’.

Last thursday,after some 8 years, I revisited Rogers House, the place I have toiled for decades. I had the joy of meeting  some old colleages and be reminded of the days where we were a happy group and enjoying benefits for us and the owners.

How eventful, when today my heart is filled with joy as I celebrate the day when our Lord Jesus has risen from his tomb, signifying the victory of life over death for all mankind. As an Easter gift I would like to share this with you.

Any company can profit from a natural resource it already has—happiness. The secret is to engage your best talent through whole-brain function to overcome fear with appreciation. It’s teachable and transferable. Use happiness to improve performance—and deliver profit-providing useable insights.

Whole-Brain Function

Think of something that makes you smile—for example, praise from a trusted mentor. Now, think of something that makes you frown—for example, your mentor goes away from your life tomorrow. She is your favorite co-worker, the one who believes in you and pushes you to be your best, but she’s dying and leaving work today. Hold a visual of your time together and the threat of her leaving forever, both at the same time. Can you balance joy and fear in your mind?

If you say yes, I won’t believe you. It’s impossible to feel fear and appreciation simultaneously. You can’t feel hope or appreciation while experiencing sorrow, guilt, or anger. You can’t experience positive and negative emotions simultaneously. Whole-brain function is required to make decisions, but first you must engage your emotional state before taking action. Unfortunately, you will only use that portion of your brain that is available; in many cases, that state is fear, anxiety, or grief. In the best of all worlds, it’s appreciation—an attitude of gratitude.

As a behavioral scientist, executive coach, and business consultant, I want everyone to know that being a happy company is the single greatest transformation a company can take to retain talent, improve its competitive position and top-line revenue.

Let’s start with five HAPIE principles:

• H – Heartfelt, humble, inclusive, inspirational, innovative leadership
• A – Adaptive, enthusiastic, emotionally intelligent employees
• P – Profit for all who contribute to return on people (ROP), in addition to ROI
• I – Invigorated stakeholders, vendors, and clients who market the company
• E – Engaged, constructive, community partners who share their success

From these five traits emerge a set of behaviors that create a positive, transformational climate of inspiration and happiness. When applied together, they pave the way for a culture of appreciation or a Happy Company Climate.

Happy Organizations

Few leaders understand the importance of engaging energy like “happiness”. In a hard-nosed, numbers-based business, they misinterpret happiness to be a time-waster that doesn’t support bottom-line results. Cynics imagine everyone singing “Kumbaya.”

Here’s the truth.

• Corporate happiness is a deep commitment felt when people engage their sense of purpose while contributing to a fulfilling corporate mission.
• Happy companies see reality through a positive mindset, even in adversity.
• It perceives the market as a place of abundance with many opportunities.
• Great leaders choose optimism over pessimism because a positive culture inspires creative, pragmatic approaches and draws out the best in people.
• Honesty pervades a happy company, infusing it with personal respect, appreciation, and trust and contributing to business success.
• Every stakeholder and community respects and appreciates happy companies because of their constructive force that enhances the quality of life.

Happy companies create optimal conditions that enable the ultimate engagement of our mission at work. They are best prepared to succeed long term. Everyone wants to work in a profitable, happy company.

The Truth Really Hurts

Why do few companies apply these principles and achieve “happiness = profit”? They focus on reacting to problems and fear, which blocks their ability to engage happiness factors.

Most companies are only vaguely aware of their fear-based state because they spend more time trying to focus their energy on solving problems rather than building on the success of their strengths. Management does not know how unhappiness severely hurts performance. Why? Because they lack skills to perceive, measure or change behaviors known as happiness factors to bolster success, or how unhappiness causes failure. Leaders of unhappy companies know they are struggling and get stuck. Despite their best efforts, they can’t match their competitors. Employees work harder, even though they try to work smarter—”the faster I work, the behinder I get!” Unhappy companies only sustain positive energy for short bursts (during a crisis) but fear poisons productivity with politics.

The best leaders know you can’t run a successful, dynamic business based on fear. Fear prevents people from contributing their best and hurts profits through increased absenteeism, turnover, and redundancy.

In many organizations, fear is a dominant management technique.

• We fear missing a deadline, losing a sale, or receiving unfair treatment (even if we make the numbers).
• We induce fear based on unknowns in business; we fear many things—our competitors, their high-quality or low-price alternative, missing profit projections, even successful growth that may be too much to handle.
• We have financing fears: of interest rates, bond rates, exchange rates or a downturn in the capital markets.
• We have conflicting fears: management fears spiraling wages, healthcare, and possible strikes; labor fears abusive management and low raises.
• We even fear weather that might disrupt our production, our delivery, or our customers’ buying patterns.
• And some fears haunt us all: terrorism and the cost of war.

Fear has many immeasurable costs—talent, wellness, and energy. Yet, fear is everywhere. It so saturates our spirit and cultures that we accept it as “normal.” But does fear motivate us to perform better? No. Fear is a limited motivator because it triggers a state of activated stress which results in a limited set of responses: freeze, flight, or fight. These old-brain behaviors limit whole-brain function. Often the reaction is fear-based hostility, a primal, reactive reflex. Fear is great for split-second survival, but it thwarts long-term prosperity because it “short-circuits” higher thought, shutting down the part of the brain that enables us to see possibility. Fear drains both the individual and the franchise of energy and imagination. Instead of motivating us, fear depresses our spirit of innovation and can even kill us physically through stress-related illnesses like high blood pressure, heart disease, alcoholism and diabetes.

What’s the good news? We can beat our wiring, even though fear and imagination still operate in different parts of our brain. Fear-based management behaviors mimic our caveman ancestors; biologically the behaviors are identical. Our primal emotions are the same, since fear trumps reason.

Try this exercise. When we see a lion about to pounce is our fear-based reaction healthy? Are we dreaming of a peaceful coexistence with nature? Think again. Those in the past who pondered such crises often died.

But if fear wins every time it is activated, then in today’s world, where wild animals wear suits, live at desks with access to unlimited information, commute on planes, and join boards and committees, how can we overcome our biology?

Happy people and healthy companies think before they react and apply enabling coaching techniques to explore and engage the best in everyone. They learn to recognize fear and apply HAPIE principles of positive psychology. Primal emotions, while required for survival, short-circuit the higher emotions needed for performance as a competitive weapon in the war for talent. Emotions and thought are closely entwined. While fear can drive us down, optimism can elevate us because it reshapes behavior and enables us to bond, find strength in numbers, feel appreciation, achieve creativity, and create a sum greater than our parts.

Happy companies succeed because people engage using positive, reinforcing emotions that maximize their diverse strengths. Their people constructively work together, find meaning and satisfaction in their work, and deliver high-quality service and products that positively contribute to their franchise and society. Profits follow naturally. Now, you can see now how Happiness = Profit!

I am invited to  a HR seminar on next Friday  3rd April at the Hilton hotel. Some 150 professionals will flock to discuss the challenges of HR in Mauritius for the coming years with the background of greater mobility of the work force and the economic and financial adjustments of the world. I am told that the liberations would be pod casted live.

Perhaps  one of the main theme in HR could be the hiring of people. Matching people to jobs which have been clearly defined.

Stephen Covey had much to say with his laws of hiring in my work active days.  The fundamentals  are still valid,one needs to adjust and supplement  Stephen Covey’s ideas  with today’s reality. I am a great believer of  “you are allowed to copy me provided you improve on me” as we shall not start reinvent the wheel all over again.

10 Laws of Hiring

How do you break those bad hiring habits? Here are my 10 laws of hiring.

1. First, realize that hiring is more important than training. Most executives hire on the basis of urgent need. Because they desire most earnestly to fill the position or solve a pressing problem, they believe most easily that virtually anybody will do. They read resumes and interview candidates with eyes and ears of hope, but hope, writes John Updike, “reads a word where in fact only a scribble exists.” They don’t explore in depth the complete track record of that person. They don’t find out the pattern of that person’s motivations. And when they don’t pay the price in the hiring process, they pay ten times the price later with the problems that come down the road. They may then try to train, mentor, coach, and counsel people in an attempt to compensate for bad hiring decisions.

2. Pay the price to know each other well. Let them know you and the mission of your organization, so they have to make a decision before you ever hire them. Take the time, even if it takes a few weeks, to go in depth with the person. Let them know you and your vision and mission. They need to feel in harmony long before they make the decision. Also, you need to know them, particularly in the gap areas of their lives—those things they don’t write in their resumes. Pay the price to get to know these people. Don’t be in a rush.

3. Start with the person’s early life, and ask him or her, “What is it that you did very well that you loved doing?” You might ask, “What did you really enjoy doing when you were in grade school?” “What did you do well?” “What made you feel good about yourself?” “What did you really love about your childhood?” “Tell me a little about the paper route you loved.” When he or she talks about the paper route, you may discover this person is very proactive and took much initiative. Ask, “How did you collect the money you received?” “Did your parents drive you around?” “Did you get yourself up early in the morning?” “What did you do well that you loved doing, starting from your early years?” Then ask about high school and college, and you will see what the pattern of their life has been.

4. Study the life pattern, and you will begin to discover their deepest motivations. You may find, for example, that the pattern is one of independence, not one of interdependence. That teaches you a lot. It may be a pattern of self-glorification rather than contribution, or the opposite. When you see eyes light up, you begin to realize this is what excites this person. When you ask him or her about high school, college, graduate school and first jobs, you begin to see patterns that persist over time. Now, people can break those habit patterns if they are sufficiently self-aware, have strong desire, exercise their talents, set themselves on a new path, and surround themselves with a strong social support group. Still, it’s not easy.

5. Determine if the person’s habit patterns, motivations, values, and lifestyle fit well with the culture of your organization. Generally, I find that those motivational patterns persist in the future. You can tell if people are independent or interdependent, selfish or service oriented. You can begin to see the totality of their lives. You can then better determine if they will fit well with the culture of your organization.

6. Allow team leaders to hire and fire. To take the time to hire right in every position at every level would be difficult, if not impossible, unless you allow team leaders to hire their own people. The personnel department or human resource department shouldn’t do any hiring. They should do the announcing, screening and processing. The people who should be hiring are the team leaders. Candidates should come before the teams, present themselves, and get to know each team member. When people approach me for a job, I tell them, “I don’t do the hiring. You’ve got to sell yourself to these people, and they are going to get to know you.” Even when my personal friends approach me, I say: “You have to go through the process.” Most of them are not hired. It’s also the team that does the firing. If some people aren’t pulling their oar, it’s the team that throws them overboard, not the helmsman.

7. Seek to build a complementary team in an interdependent culture. If you are trying to develop an interdependent culture, you don’t want to hire independent-minded people because the fit isn’t there. You have to decide, “What do I need and who do I want on my team?” The natural tendency is to clone yourself rather than to set up a complementary team where one person’s strengths compensate for your deficiencies. Since likeness attracts, you clone yourself, and your strength becomes your weakness, rather than saying, “Where am I strong, and what are my deficiencies? I’ve got to hire for strength in my areas of weakness. That means I need to hire people who are different from me. That means they are going to do things differently. Am I emotionally prepared to go in that direction?” Most entrepreneurs are not. But entrepreneurs and corporate managers alike must learn: don’t clone, complement. That takes a lot of emotional strength, and a lot of self-awareness.

8. If you must choose one among many good candidates, invite those who aren’t hired to keep trying. If all six hiring choices are good, you say to the other five, “Keep us in mind. Keep at it. Now is not the right time, but come back in six months.” When people make a second, third, fourth, or even fifth attempt to get in, they usually do. That’s a measure of the power of their motivation. People who are highly motivated usually get the job they want. They begin to adapt themselves; they learn the culture; and they learn how to make an effective presentation.

9. Avoid being shocked and surprised at entry or exit by having clear criteria. Train the people who do the hiring to use the same criteria you were hired under. Set guidelines and criteria for team leaders to work with when they are hiring their own people. The criteria should come from your mission statement. If the culture buys into that mission statement, then the criteria is written in people’s minds and hearts. Our own Client Services Group is a good illustration of this. They have inside themselves these criteria for hiring.

Also, departure should not surprise or shock an organization, yet it often does because managers fail to practice preventative hiring, nor do they anticipate turnover and attrition. So, they allow a key position to go vacant for six months. The more all members of the culture have the criteria of the mission statement inside them, the less shocked they are with hiring and firing decisions. The less members of the culture have those criteria, the more shocked and dismayed they are when someone departs. They wonder “What is happening around here?” Then they wait for the next shoe to drop. “When is it going to happen to me?” They feel guilty or depressed about the person being laid off—and that usually robs them of their highest level of motivation and contribution.

The more all team members share the criteria of world-class performance against world-class standards, the fewer people are shocked when someone leaves the organization. The more the criteria is based on performance rather than the politics, on principles rather than the principals, the more congruent your hiring and firing is with the concept of principle-centered leadership.

10. Create a covenant, not just a contract, and have a few ceremonies. Remember: when hiring, you’re creating an economic marriage, hopefully one based on covenant, not contract. In a covenant relationship, both parties give 100 percent instead of 50-50. In a covenant relationship, there are really two decisions: the decision of one party to hire, and the decision of the other party to be hired. That produces a powerful covenant.

In a typical employment contract, only one party (the person who is doing the hiring) is making a decision and commitment; and so both parties feel that the relationship could end at any time. The relationship is transactional, not transforming.

Also, when entering into a covenant relationship, you expect to pass through some sort of ceremony, symbolism, initiation, or rite of passage. Consider: what ceremony would best symbolize the “covenant” that comes with joining this organization? For example, many churches baptize their new members; many clubs have an initiation ceremony; many schools have an orientation; many families have a celebration with the birth of a child. In some way the new person gets inaugurated into the society.

Being Hired Right

The proactive person is smart about being hired right. To be hired right means knowing full well what you are coming into, having common expectations, and hammering out clear performance and compensation criteria. Ambiguous expectations lead to disappointment, because people act in good faith in the beginning, but as events transpire, and expectations are violated, they get into an accusatory spirit, defensiveness, and adversarialism. Then they look for evidence to support their claims, and, of course, they find the evidence. It’s just a self-fulfilling prophecy.

To clarify the expectations up front, create a win-win performance agreement, a mutual understanding and commitment regarding expectations in five areas. First, identify specific desired results in terms of quantity and quality, targets and timelines, allowing people to select the best methods and means. Second, set guidelines in terms of principles—go light on policies and procedures to allow for individual initiative and judgment. Third, identify available resources, including yourself, to assist people in meeting goals. Fourth, define accountability—performance standards along with evaluation criteria (usually a combination of measurement, 360-degree feedback, and discernment). Fifth, agree on consequences: rewards, compensations, and possible punishments.

Take the time and make the effort to hammer out those guidelines and the criteria for assessment. Before you make the decision to be hired, get to know the organization—its leaders and its vision, mission, and values—and know how you will be evaluated. Then think about it; talk it over with your spouse, mentor, or advisor. Ask yourself, “Am I really prepared to give myself to this?” If the answer is yes, you come onboard well prepared to succeed.

The hiring process should be one of the best proofs of the win-win spirit of your organization.

I am lucky to have been exposed to on-line communications for over three decades. The airline industry as far as the early sixties communicated on line: first with telexes then later through a network of computer terminals. This form of communication is quite distinctive to the normal written letter and mail mode. Communicating through emails which is now the most common way requires different reflexes. Texting and SMS are invading our communications sphere. What are the rules to obey? Do you consider the usefulness of the message sent to your addressees?

This recent article, entitled ‘Mere Words’ from the web highlights some aspects we have to watch out in particular with the internet.

Mere Words:

How to improve your online communication

by Barbara Neal Varma

You’re trying to figure out why your wife’s brother just sent you a flaming e-mail-at work, no less-when a message pops up from your boss with only question marks in the subject line, (that can’t be good), your daughter texts you to ask for permission to stay overnight with her “BFF,” whatever that is, and you’ve got close to 200 e-mails all with red priority flags like ants on your screen. You rub your gritty, glare-strained eyes and wonder: When did simply communicating get to be so hard?

You’re not alone. With today’s popularity in e-mailing, blogging and texting, more than half of our conversations are written instead of verbal. While convenient, experts say confusion can easily occur when the usual visual cues such as facial expression are not present. “It’s easier to spot signals when meeting someone face-to-face,” says Dr. Will Reader of Sheffied Hallam University in his recent study on online social networks. “It’s harder to spot signals online.”

So how do we get our messages safely across the virtual divide? Follow these easy steps to make your electronic communication more clear and comprehensible.

At Work

Get to the Point – Ever receive an e-mail so long it made your Starbucks turn cold? Or do you stop reading after one paragraph? Studies show that the attention span of online readers is significantly shorter than those reading printed material. “In research on how people read Web sites, we found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across,” says Web page usability expert Dr. Jakob Nielsen. He recommends using half the word count or less than conventional writing when composing electronic messages.

Another good habit to practice: write in active, not passive voice; “Jill promoted Jack” instead of “Jack was promoted.” The latter begs the question, by whom? Busy business folks don’t have time for mysteries.

Begin your message with your main points: your question, your answer, your researched information then fill in the details behind instead of starting with a yawner of a preamble. Think of any follow-up questions your recipients may have and address them in your original message to avoid a rush of return e-mails.

Get it Right – Every social scientist or hiring official will tell you within the context of face-to-face communication, appearance means everything. Political correctness aside, people tend to form quick impressions based on others’ outward appearance, the golden rule for every dress-for-success seminar. Don’t let typos or sloppy grammar ruin your good image online. Remember, your e-mail has the potential to be shared with every other colleague and client in the company. Avoid leaving a legacy of cyber errors with your signature at the bottom. Don’t depend on Spell Check to catch every spelling mistake. Some misspellings make perfectly spelled words by themselves and, therefore, don’t generate a red squiggly line alert.

Keep it Professional – Hey, no one likes to be YELLED AT. Using all caps in your message means you are shouting, and if your recipient is the company vice president or an important client, he or she might not appreciate your uppity tone. Remember, your readers are not seeing you on their computer monitor, they are seeing your words; guard them and your reputation well. “My e-mail is a piece of professional communication that speaks to the person who wrote it,” says Human Resources Director Diana Clark during a recent career readiness seminar. “Don’t use slang,” she advises. “Don’t use capital letters. Don’t use inappropriate dialogue with a co-worker. Somebody else is going to see that, then it goes to the boss.”

And save the winsome daisy background and jumping graphics for your MySpace page. There’s no crying in baseball and there’s no room for emoticons (smiley faces and their winking cousins) in business e-mail. Using cartoons to punctuate your prose just looks, well, cartoonish.

At Home

Think Before You Send – “Susan” stared at the computer screen, not believing her eyes, but there it was: a flaming e-mail from her brother listing everything he felt she’d done wrong regarding their elderly mother’s care. His words were harsh; he said things she had no idea he was thinking, let alone willing to say. But that’s the point: he hadn’t said them at all. He’d e-mailed her instead.

Social psychologists liken these e-mail eruptions to the “road rage” phenomenon when otherwise calm folks suddenly become avenging drivers, exhibiting symptoms of outrage and anger not consistent with their everyday behavior. The key and catalyst in both road rage and e-rage is the perceived sense of privacy and power the car/computer conveys.

So what to do if you are on the other side of a hostile e-mail? First, like in any good emergency, stay calm. Your options are to respond in kind (tempting…), respond with calmer words to explain your side of things, or ignore the e-mail but pay attention to the sender and give them a call. You might discover there was more emotion to the message than sincerity and with a verbal conversation, you can better figure out the core problem. If the message is truly an attack on you, your family, or your golden retriever, simply delete it without reply and perhaps restrict your interaction. You’ve learned something about this individual and how they prefer to handle stress-by venting at you.

Be Versatile – Sure, you may yearn for the good old days when talking to someone meant they were actually in the same room, but with today’s variety of virtual communication, you might just as easily have a conversation with your friend in Timbuktu as you do with your next door neighbor. Instant messages, Web blogs, Facebook, MySpace; today’s technology has advanced our ability to stay in touch almost to the point of Star Trek’s famous “Beam me up, Scotty” communicators. Cell phones, especially, have become the new communicator to the current generation of teens and twenty-somethings, bringing forth a whole new cyber-lingo with enough acronyms and abbreviations to seem more code than conversation.

Take a computer course, learn how to use the latest e-mail programs and read that instruction manual for your cell phone that you’d tucked away thinking you already know how to use a phone, right? As you become more proficient at the many and varied ways to communicate today, you will not only expand your circle of friends and family ties, you’ll be opening up opportunities for connecting with others on a world-wide scale.

Practice Safe Text – On the one hand, e-mail lets us be ourselves. There’s no worry about spinach stuck in teeth or a lock of hair out of place. Men don’t even need to shave first. For those interested in meeting a potential dating prospect online, all this lack of posing and pretense makes e-mail conversations particularly personal: It’s just you and your chat partner with nothing between you but mere words.

But it’s that very bubble of easy intimacy that makes the Internet a virtual land of opportunity for imposters. Every year thousands of Internet users fall victim to identity theft, lulled like Cyrino’s Roxanne into believing that the message sender is who they say they are: a long lost friend, an enticing new acquaintance. A new-found love.

If you’re meeting new people online, practice the art of privacy until you are sure he or she (do we really know which?) is who they write they are. Don’t disclose your shoe size, your favorite American Idol candidate or your social security number to someone you don’t know well, and communicate via computer only in those contexts where you feel safe. Add a little restraint to your online chat and don’t fall for good-looking Subject lines suddenly appearing in your inbox. The person behind the prose might just well be a wolf in e-clothing.

Creating a sense of ownership has been a gained battle for me at Rogers.In 1986 the idea was mooted following a strategic brain storming with Eric Mafat of  the planning  department and the plan was rolled out in 1988.

I recall articles written by Bob Nelson I read, which encapsulated my road map to enhance the sense of ownership at all levels. It was thrilling working thereon and I had great satisfaction deploying the strategy. The guys acted as if they owned the SBU’s where they were working. This was particularly satisfactory when the large Air Cargo organisation was reorganised in autonomous smaller SBU’s and smaller SSU’s – support service units.

My motto was small is magic, and small is empowering. SME.

I regretted that later  after I left this division, the new management policy was based on economy of scale.

Eight Factors of Ownership

We have identified eight factors for creating a sense of ownership. These elements empower and motivate people in any size or type of organization, although they are perhaps easier to cultivate in smaller organizations.

1. Having the thrill of the flame. When workers are highly connected to the products, processes and services of the organization, they are “close to the flame.” They have a passion and excitement about their jobs and what the organization is trying to do. This is easiest to do when all employees can easily understand, relate to, and agree with what the organization is trying to achieve. Thus, it becomes important to have clear, simple and widely communicated goals.

When a business is started, this passion exists for the entrepreneurs. As the company grows and as the management and ownership of the company are separated, it becomes more difficult to keep the flame blazing. A growing organization becomes a more diverse and complicated entity, due in part to having more people, locations and products.

In large organizations, the connection to the flame must be systematically made through communication and delegation. Work units need to be small and autonomous so that people understand how they fit into the organization and so that they feel they play an integral role in the company.

2. Understanding personal impact on profit and loss. Every person in the organization needs to understand how his or her job and department relate to the profit and loss of the organization. This involves knowing how you directly or indirectly help the organization to generate income—that is, how what you are doing relates to how the company self-perpetuates itself through further earnings. Understanding the current profit-and-loss nature of the business gives employees a sense of pride when they know they can do things better or cut expenses and thus make more money for the organization.

To give people a greater sense of profit and loss, make sure they know the financial priorities of the organization and use that information as a criteria for making decisions. Emphasize current data over year-end data. Having timely information allows employees to have influence more frequently and to feel more direct involvement in the business.

3. Having autonomy and independence. People feel autonomous when they feel supported in what they do, recognized for who they are, and treated with respect. Individuals have the right to live their lives and be themselves in the organization. They have the right to do what they need to do to be effective and productive without being constrained—as long as they do not negatively affect job performance, client relationships, or invade other people’s rights.

Related to independence is the degree of risk that comes from being given responsibility and authority to make things happen. In the best-run companies, you can take risks. There are no rigid guidelines, only parameters for getting things done. There is room for you to innovate and come up with new ideas and an open environment for listening to new ideas.

Risk is an important element of an ownership system. In new and small companies, people take a lot of risks. There isn’t a lot of “covering up” or systems in place to minimize risk. People are encouraged to take appropriate risks to get their jobs done.

4. Being self-reliant. Related to autonomy and independence is self-reliance. People who have a sense of ownership have a lot of control over themselves that extends beyond the organization. They tend not to be guided by reams of rules and regulations, but instead prefer to have self-responsibility. They are treated as adults, with a sense of fairness and equity by the management of the organization, yet also with a distinct individuality.

Well managed organizations encourage employees to have more control, accountability and responsibility for what they do. In such companies, people are motivated to understand the programs, products and processes and to assume more self-accountability and responsibility—and thus become more self-reliant.

5. Having pride of association. When pride exists in the organization, people are more committed to what they are doing. When pride exists, people understand what the organization stands for, its values and fair dealings; they feel highly committed to what they are doing; they have enough information to do it well; they are accountable for their actions; and they look forward to going to work everyday.

While such pride is particularly evident in organizations where you can see and experience the product, it may also be evident in service organizations. Nordstrom, for example, demonstrates high commitment to the client through outstanding service and employee empowerment. Nordstrom’s employees are expected to use their best judgment to help the organization reach its stated goal of providing exceptional service to every customer.

6. Being able to influence others. Having the ability to influence others means that you can make things happen both inside and outside the organization. You develop a personal network based upon your ability to influence people—not just because of your official organizational title or position.

Your ability to influence determines, in large part, what you can get done. In your department, for example, your ability to positively influence others to be excited about achieving the department’s goals is a significant part of effective team building. Outside of your immediate area, there is a network in the organization of who you are, what you have accomplished and how you make things happen. This serves both as a means to obtain results, but also as a way to develop positive working relationships that will be of further value to you in the future. Outside of the organization, you have a resource and contact base that you can draw upon to help meet organizational needs.

7. Having personal accountability. Personal accountability means defining your job in such a way that you are accountable for it; you can take pride in it; and you are very responsible for it. Getting work done is driven by an internal forces and motivations when it is very clear who is responsible for results. Risk is allowed and encouraged because individuals are held accountable for their actions. Yet penalties within the organization are consistent with risk taking. Individuals who fail at various tasks have to be handled carefully so that there is not a nitpicking about mistakes. The overall perception in the organization must be that risk taking is encouraged and that the individual is still valued even if he or she fails at a task.

8. Recognizing individuals and giving credit. If you want to build a sense of ownership in your organization, start recognizing people individually for outstanding achievement. Since you want to encourage workers to have high association with the organization, recognize them when they excel. Recognition is best when it is individualized. Specifically use the person’s name in a group setting, write individual letters of recognition and make specific references in communication media.

Recognizing people in print is important because is it so very personalized. In the movie industry, for example, everyone involved on a movie is mentioned in the film’s credits. An innovative form of individual recognition is found at Esprit in their use of employees to model clothes. By the photos are the names of the employees and their job in the company.

In addition, organizational successes need to be celebrated in a corresponding manner to the size and level of the success. A new contract signing might serve as an ideal opportunity to gather everyone who assisted with making the contract possible for a thank-you lunch, whereas the exceeding of annual profit goals by the company might call for a day of off-site celebration by all employees.

I was watching THE SECRET, DVD lent to me by a friend. It is about the law of attraction.

Any idea was it is? The movie was made based of the book authored by Ronda Byrne. It has to do with the power of Positive thinking. Whilst working ‘towards’ better mental strength is excellent on the other hand, as taught by my NLP experience, we require also to draw from the ‘away’ elements.

Cultivating positive thinking is great to maintain and develop one’s mental growth. How would you fend away the negativity that is all around?

*** Article: How to Stop Absorbing Other People’s Negative Emotions – By Judith Orloff, M.D. ***

————————————————————

In my new book, “Emotional Freedom,” I emphasize the importance of learning how to stay centered in a stressful, highly emotionally charged world. Since emotions such as fear, anger, and frustration are energies, you can potentially “catch” them from people without realizing it. If you tend to be an emotional sponge, it’s vital to know how to avoid taking on an individual’s negative emotions or the free-floating kind in crowds. Another twist is that chronic anxiety, depression, or stress can turn you into an emotional sponge by wearing down your defenses. Suddenly, you become hyper-attuned to others, especially those with similar pain. That’s how empathy works; we zero in on hot-button issues that are unresolved in ourselves. From an energetic standpoint, negative emotions can originate from several sources. What you’re feeling may be your own; it may be someone else’s; or it may be a combination. I’ll explain how to tell the difference and strategically bolster positive emotions so you don’t shoulder negativity that doesn’t belong to you.

This wasn’t something I always knew how to do. Growing up, my girlfriends couldn’t wait to hit the shopping malls and go to parties, the bigger the better — but I didn’t share their excitement. I always felt overwhelmed, exhausted around large groups of people, though I was clueless why. “What’s the matter with you?” friends would say, shooting me the weirdest looks. All I knew was that crowded places and I just didn’t mix. I’d go there feeling just fine but leave nervous, depressed, or with some horrible new ache or pain. Unsuspectingly, I was a gigantic sponge, absorbing the emotions of people around me.

With my patients, I’ve also seen how absorbing other people’s emotions can trigger panic attacks, depression, food, sex and drug binges, and a plethora of physical symptoms that defy traditional medical diagnosis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that more than two million Americans suffer from chronic fatigue. It’s likely that many of them are emotional sponges.

Here are some strategies from “Emotional Freedom” to practice. They will help you to stop absorbing other people’s emotions

I have been reading a number of articles on the present world financial crisis and the looming recession the countries are going through.

How deep into the recession shall we have to go before we are back to growth? How long will it last? What should be done during this period to experience minimum damage? What should be the behaviour of an enterprise or and individual during the recession?

Since the expansion is not prevailing, there is little use in trying to expand your market. Would it be proper to take the time to review your internal operation in seeking savings and improvement of your efficiency? Innovate and seek better ways of performing. More output with less input.

In every threat there is an opportunity. In time of recession, cash is King. The shake of the economy may probably bring down the fragile enterprises. There might be opportunities in taking over enterprises with future potential which have not resisted the wake.

I have extracted from the Quarter review of Mc Kinsey, the interesting and relevant article to the crisis:

What does the future hold?

Despite the shared features of the past century’s financial crises—usually, excess leverage somewhere in the financial system and then a breakdown in confidence—the recessions following them were quite different. What determined the length and severity of those recessions was how governments responded: in particular, whether they managed to restore confidence among consumers, companies, investors, and lenders.

An economic crisis becomes a catastrophic recession only if it blocks the provision of capital to businesses long enough to generate widespread corporate failures. This blockage is what made the Asian financial crisis so devastating. Net capital inflows to the region, $93 billion in 1996, turned into net outflows of $12 billion in 1997. Local banking systems just couldn’t provide the capital to plug this gap, foreign banks weren’t prepared to extend credit, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) moved too slowly. As a result, businesses couldn’t finance working capital, let alone investment, and failed to obtain the export financing these countries needed given the high share of exports in their GDPs. Once the flow of credit had been restored, the economies affected by the crisis recovered quickly.

Similar dynamics were at work during the Great Depression, when a combination of bank runs and limited federal controls undermined the financial economy. From 1929 to 1933, almost half of the banks operating in the United States before 1929 either failed or needed government assistance, as a result of falling prices, the doubling of the country’s debt-service ratio, and the default of more than half of US farm debt.¹² Many of the companies with the strongest credit couldn’t obtain long-term debt capital in the years after the crisis. Moreover, capital had minimal cross-border mobility in the 1930s. With businesses starved of funding, corporate investment fell by more than 75 percent from 1929 to 1933, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

Under less extreme conditions, with the right kind of government intervention, economies can weather even sizable credit crises. From 1981 to 1983, for example, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) data show that 258 US banks failed or required assistance. Nonetheless, nonresidential US investment fell by less than 1 percent in all. During the entire 1980s, almost 750 banks failed and more than 1,500 required assistance, as opposed to 35 during the preceding decade. Yet corporate investment increased by an average of 4.5 percent a year in the ’80s.

Today, the real economy goes into the recession surprisingly well prepared: US industrial companies had lower leverage and higher interest coverage than they did going into the dot-com bust, the S&L crisis, or even the oil shocks of the 1970s. How the real economy fares will depend greatly on the way the current policy debate plays out over the next few quarters.

What should companies do?

We do not yet know how the current crisis will evolve. The confidence of consumers, corporations, and investors—a key factor—cannot be forecast. Nor can government policy. Yet research shows that in past recessions, companies pursuing a purely defensive strategy fared less well than their more active counterparts.¹³ As the economy enters what will probably be a difficult downturn, companies should prepare to seize their opportunities.

Examine the patterns

Although recessions differ, it’s worth understanding how different industries performed during past downturns and what factors determined the speed of recovery. In coming months, as the focus of government policy shifts from fire fighting to economic stimulus, this kind of research will help companies understand the implications for themselves and assess how the evolving macroenvironment will affect them in the next few years.

Overprepare

Most companies already have contingency plans, but few plan as aggressively as they should. It’s worth preparing for the worst—for example, major customers filing for bankruptcy, capital expenditures needing to be cut in half quickly, or a country sales operation losing access to local-currency working capital. What seems improbable now could become a reality sooner than you expect.

Scan for opportunities

Managing downside risk shouldn’t blind executives to potential upsides. Despite the current turbulence, in most industries it isn’t hard to identify either the companies that will find themselves under pressure or which consolidation and reshaping scenarios might emerge. Instead of reacting to situations on short notice as they arise, invest time now to understand how such forces might affect your industry and what role you want your company to play.

About the Authors

David Cogman is an associate principal in McKinsey’s Shanghai office, and Richard Dobbs is a director in the Seoul office.

All of us definitely are required to perfect our communications skills.  I continuously need to sharpen all my skills, of all the skills, the one of  persuasion would yield instantaneous and the largest pay back. I was lucky to have known this fact early in my life career and later joining the Toastmasters club was delightful.

Perfecting Your Powers of Persuasion

The Persuasion Process
Simply stated, persuasion is the ability to sway others toward a different perspective. It takes careful preparation and the ability to frame/reframe, offer concessions, communicate one’s position through evidence/logic, and to correctly match the other party’s emotional state.

The starting point is credibility. It is your expertise, your relationship, your reputation in the organization, and your ability to be proactive when dealing with others. Trust is the foundation of persuasion and is manifest in certain behaviors: honest communication, body language that displays interest, listening and questioning, and so on.

The content of one’s message and the way the content is delivered is also important. The content needs to focus on the goal that is common to both parties and on the need to reach that goal mutually. This makes the message attractive to the other party
and generates reciprocity on the other side. In other words, if your message is constructed correctly, the responding message from the other party will be something you can build on.

As with any message, yours must be supported with evidence and rationale. This may take the form of an analogy, statistics, or even a reference to a value the other party has. For example, when you are trying to persuade an employee to change performance behaviors, you may discover that he or she values working alone (the reason for the lack of proper performance behavior). Wanting to work alone is validated by reframing it as having a strong personal work ethic. This, in turn, establishes a discussion that takes this issue and reframes it as a value that would benefit others in the organization. This may persuade the employee not to work alone as often so that others can see his or her strong work ethic.

Finally, a skilled negotiator is quick to assess the emotional state of the other party and to respond to that state. This requires on the part of the negotiator a high self-esteem level and emotional balance when handling conflict. Having self-esteem allows the
negotiator to display passion for reaching agreement, while the emotional balance makes certain that the passion is not over- or underwhelming.

How to Be More Persuasive
Most people use only facts to persuade. This is unfortunate, because facts only justify a position if you tend to agree with that position. Persuasion is a complex art. It involves a careful blend of feelings, logic, WIIFTs (what’s in it for them), and values. Because people feel differently about different material needs and situations and because WIIFTs vary from person to person, persuasive techniques must be adapted to each person in each situation.

To successfully persuade someone, you must appeal to them on three levels:

1. Emotion (opens the mind)
The use of emotion in persuasion must be planned carefully. You need to be enthusiastic and confident about your plan, idea, or settlement (emotion really does open the mind). However, like garlic in stew, too much of an emotional appeal will fail as surely as no emotional appeal at all. You need to find ways to keep the other party emotionally involved in the discussion. You will notice a distinct lack of energy at the table if you or the other party is emotionally uninvolved.

2. Logic (justifies the recommendation)
Logic is the rational, factual, reasoned discourse about the merits of an idea or settlement. Logic is a core part of persuasion. Emotion opens the mind and logic justifies the position you are taking.

3. Values (seals the deal)
The final part of persuasion is the appeal to values. Values are beliefs that guide behavior. Each of us has values that are unique to us and values that we share in common. You should make your persuasive appeal within the context of the other party’s “dominant receptivity mode.”

“Dominant receptivity mode” refers to predominant values that the other party holds dear. Perhaps the person you are dealing with is a conservative traditionalist favoring the status quo. You would not persuade such a person to buy your product by pointing out that your item represents state-of-the-art technology used by entrepreneurs. Instead, you might position the product as one that will help him/her preserve assets that increase the efficiency of the workforce. You market your product or idea to match the other person’s dominant receptivity mode (i.e., value system).

How, then, do you use this persuasion model in everyday negotiations? You can use the model in this way:

• Appeal to emotion—State a claim
  A claim is an opinion unsubstantiated by fact. The claim is generally the vehicle by which an emotional appeal is made. An effective claim stimulates the interest of the listener—it opens the listener’s mind. For example: “I could show you a way to increase your sales by 18 percent. Would you be interested?”
• Appeal to logi—State facts to support the claim
  A fact is information that can be verified by independent sources or proven through empirical investigation. Facts must back up claims and be verifiable by independent sources. Facts are the logical part of persuasion. For example: “In a carefully designed and controlled study in two organizations similar to yours, those who took this course in negotiation settled on average 18% higher in their sales efforts than those who did not take the course.”
• Appeal to values—Assign a meaning/WIIFT
  A meaning is the personal benefit that someone can make of the claim or fact.
  For example: “What all this means is that you’ll have increased profits in your
  division.” You can demonstrate a personal WIIFT meaning at this point, speaking to the issue in
  terms of the party’s dominant receptivity mode. For example: “John, with increased profits you will be in a position to negotiate increased commissions for you and your staff.”

Listening
In any negotiation, it’s important to remember to listen to the other party. This involves:

• Responding to the person rather than to the concepts
• Following the other party’s claim, facts, and meaning rather than trying to go to areas you think should be explored
• Clarifying what the other party is saying
• Acknowledging the feelings being expressed by the other party

Text printed from AMA web site to whom I am indebted.