Negotiation is necessary, always!

You get not what you deserve, but what you negotiate. 

Every moment of our life, either with ourselves or with someone else, we are negotiating. It’s not necessary that we are aware of this, yet the fact is that we are doing so all the time.

In managing our relationships with the other, we are always trying to maximize the principle of maximum interest for ourselves. Most of us, may end up with, “ I win, and You lose’. If one follows this strategy you would actually lose in the long term. You may win a couple of rounds but you damage the relationship forever. At all points, you need to ‘keep change for the other side, always’. 

In management training, if you and your opponent play a blind game of voting Yes and No, simply follow his lead. Simply follow the following rule: Play out his last move in the subsequent move. 

While negotiation, we always believe that one side is in opposition to the other: that may not be the case at all. What you ‘demand’ or ‘make concessions on’ may not be of the same value as perceived by the other. Most effective negotiators never give away anything without making a demand themselves, following the golden rule of, ‘If you xxxxx (give me) , then I zzzzz’(trade you). 

Effective negotiators recognize each stage of negotiation and quickly move across the argument stage rather quickly, to the other steps. An argument just begets and argument and is pointless.  Here is how most effective negotiators move through:

• Argument
• Signal
• Proposal
• Counter Proposal
• Bargaining
• Agreement
• Confirm Agreement
• Closure

But is negotiation necessary? Does it make you happier? Consider the following:

You meet an old friend at a bar, and casually while catching up he lets you know that he plans to buy a new watch and wishes to sell his current one. Curious you examine his watch, and take a fancy to it. When asked what is the price, he says, “Let me know what YOU will pay for it”. And you hesitate, and mention and amount (it does not matter what is the amount). He says Ok, its yours and you exchange money for the watch and shortly later you both leave.

Are you happy?

I bet not. Back home you tell your spouse about the incident and you narrate the event. Your spouse asks, ‘how much did your friend want?’. You have no idea. It was you who suggested a price and he readily agreed. You are now left in some doubt, if indeed the watch is worth the price you paid.

Is your friend Happy?

Similarly, your friend is asked by his spouse, “what was he prepared to pay?’ You state the price he offered and she enquires, “Could you have asked for a higher price?’. You never did. You let it go at the first price. You are left wondering if indeed you had got a good deal.

So both are unhappy right? Remember, when you negotiate, and effectively, both sides are happy.

Drop 'ism's !

·      Nationalism

·      Patriotism

·      Capitalism

·      Internationalism

Identification with an ‘ism’ is captivity. One has to move beyond. We move from one ism to another. All ism’s are a notion or belief. All beliefs are myths, created by us or for us to bring about a collectivity, to bind and to serve a purpose.

Man, unlike other animals, has the ability to create myths, to re-imagine, to envision more powerfully than other species. Through use of picture, dance and language, he has been able to express. Not just describing ‘what is’ but the ability to describe ‘what can be’ allowed this specie to leap forward.

A belief is beyond one’s experience: it is not known by the self. It is a notion. Everything we believe happens, only within us inside! The entire human experience is happening within each of us. To realize this, is discovery: its’ always been there. Truth exists, always has been.

Paying attention to awareness, is realizing the reality. Yet, we spend awful amount of time, studying our thoughts. Thought is an accumulative process. Or even in deciphering an experience: past or present. The experience of self is the boundary of our sensation.

Epigenetic study now reveals, what ancient scholars already know. Science is a series of realization itself: it discovers more and more and realizes the physical aspects even more. At some point, the physical moves on…to a wave, then nothingness. Then Science embraces Spiritualism: both come at it from two ends: both point to the same source.  

Yet, the unknown can become known: what about the Unknowable?

In short, be true to self, not to an 'ism'. 

East and West - ways of perceiving

East and West

East is east and west is west, and neither shall the twain meet

East or West is not referred to as a region or geography (though geography confirms this viewpoint). East is referred to a ‘way of looking’, which is different to an alternative way of looking (west).

West sees Nouns, East Verbs. East sees substance, whereas west sees Objects.  East looks for similarities in substance, while west sees them in shape. The west sees a collection (merger), while east sees it holistically as a whole, as a collage.  Western mothers tend to us more nouns, while Eastern mothers tend to use more verbs. English language (a western language) use a lot of nouns to describe things. Mothers in East talk about ‘doing’ – sit, run. Why is there the difference between a noun or verb focus? Would you like to drink more? (East) against westerns, “Would you like more Tea? (Stressing the noun tea). A noun in west is a being, while in East it is arising. 

Cause and effect in a western world is seemingly complex. Cause resides within the object. Atom for example is part of matter in western thought. It is thought that the property of an object lies within the atom of the object. The nature of the property determines its structure. So a rock sinks, because of the property of the rock against a piece of wood, which floats.  This holds the notion that the property controls the behavior. A person looks happy whether with happy people or sad people. There are indifferent to the context.

In Eastern mind, the causes are outside the property of the object.  People can be kind and rude depending on the behavior of the other (the external cause). In contrast, Easterners see the opposite when the background is changed ( happier or sad collection of people). The property of the object changes depending on the field (the situation). 

Focus is on the object in the west, East spends more time on the background and try to determine the relationships. 

Western portraits have narrow backgrounds (the object is magnified), in East the background is balanced.  Easter children describe their homes from a bird’s eye view while western children draw from their own their own personal view. 

Panda and a Monkey may be grouped together (similar nouns) while a banana and a monkey go together in terms of relationships (an Eastern view). Easterners select a wooden cylinder to a rectangle of wood (same substance) while westerners select a wooden Cylinder to a steel cylinder ( as it looks similar). 

West sees the world as separate individual objects and use Collective nouns to group the objects. Categorizing supports building of knowledge. And leads to study of science. The beauty of an object comes from the proportion of each part: the golden ratio rule. Reason itself derives from the word ratio. For Easterners the world is a big field: all connected. Each one is expressed in each other. 

Emotional Agility

Emotional Agility.

In essence, we are at every moment handling emotions, both in ourselves and in others which are often negative at times. So how does one think about this?

Self Management

We often feel that given the circumstances and facts as we see it we have every right to feel 'hurt, bitter, indignant, angry, sad disgusted. That is so. Fact is that emotions are natural and we would feel what we do feel, and recognising this is critical.

However, rather than say, "I am angry, and mix self and anger together, an alternate would be to articulate this as, "I experience anger as an emotion right now on this issue". This allows the emotion and the self to be seperate. Then one can witness what one is feeling in an objective way. Often the anger and its intensity is so strong that it tends to overwhelm and take over. In moments like this what psychologist call the 'amygdala high jack, one is not able to even view oneself objectively.

The emotion needs to be honoured. It exists and should be graced. Allowing oneself to be aware of one's emotion is critical.

The next phase is to ask oneself. What is the appropriate response to My emotions? Am I seething, steaming, screaming, acting up with self or with others. Is the response the best way to handle the situation. Is there a need to work with the problem or to steer away and ask, "what is the outcome I would like now?"  Engaging in a conversation around what would it take to solve this is more energising than focussing on ' I did this  and you did that' etc. That would be just be going around in Circles. 

Rather than being argumentative one should move to proposals and in turn considering counter proposals. It is this bargaining around proposals that allow for a negotiated space. 

Management of others.

In converse we see negative emotions expressed by others.
Rather than negating the others emotion, begin by accepting it. Say, "I can understand you react the way you did. Question is could they have been a more effective response. And what is the outcome you wish. Is your current response getting you to the outcome you seek? What are the options you can deploy?

Often we rush in with our choices, not their. Imagine a child who returns from the playground complaining that others did not want to play with her. What should you do? You could jump in and say. 'Come let's play'. But is that what is wanted. Rather ask, 'what would help you at this moment- being left alone, take a walk or if you like my playing with you. Offer choice always. Do not assume. Often, we are so saddened with our child having a poor experience that we rush in with 'our best response'. Instead ask the child, what is it that he needs now: that is sensitivity. 

Emotional intelligence is ultimately the intelligent use of one's emotion for self and in interfacing with others. 

Personal reflections on being an Entrepreneur

Personal reflections on being an Entrepreneur

For about two years and a half, I worked as an Independent Consultant and sharing a few reflections I have.

• Always keep abreast of trends and Industry
➢ Read, subscribe to google alerts – stay informed
• Network, Network wider, and Network even more
➢ Call, write, Socially network – stay visible
• Do pro bono work (at least 20 percent of time is fine)
➢ A lot of work came my way as a result
➢ Supports widening of network
• Live the Brand
➢ Being a consultant is ‘personal branding’ – you are always on camera. Act the part.
• Keep away from losers – empathize, but disengage
➢ They sap energy
➢ Be where the action is
➢ Also from those who envy you
• Stay positive at all times, let go off bitterness. Harbor no resentment.
➢ Akin to you drinking the poison and waiting for the other to die.
• Build relationships, Business will follow
➢ Either with prospective client or referral
➢ Be alive to the other – stay curious and interested.
➢ Practice being ‘nice’ and helpful
• Give away things when asked, nothing is worth hoarding
➢ Videos, Handouts, articles
➢ The more you give the more you get back
• Expect disappointments, setbacks, even losing one’s self esteem. Be aware of your ego and transcend.
➢ Pain is your stimuli: your very choice
➢ Your thoughts are YOU. Change that and you change the map
• Answer the questioner, not the question itself.
•
• Be aware of what you Project outside – its your subjective reality. Review transference and counter transference – reflect in every moment.
• Celebrate small and big wins with family
➢ Milestones are more important than destination
• Stay Spiritual – your greater self seeks to fulfill personal purpose. Stay meditative, pray full, grateful. Discover your inner abundance.
• Clients usually explain in ‘problem statements’ then invariably offer solutions
➢ Listen to the phenomena, don’t get mired in the vocabulary, stay focused and design for ‘root cause’ not symptom
➢ Respect clients space at all times
➢ Move with ‘client pace’
➢ When client is ready, Consultancy opportunities appear
• Success is not the measure: it is about doing the best. Be better today than you were yesterday.
• Stay away from Search firms – mostly they disappear in thin air
• Clarify your values: it is like a flower bees zoom in to.
• Be differentiated at all times – the 1% You is the 100 percent difference. 99% - is same or similar in any case.
• Cultivate Patience, Humility and compassion – easier said than done ☺ you don’t build patience, you become patient over time, as perspective widens.
• Every one has a unique Business Model that works – discover yours.
• Three questions that intrigued me when I started
➢ Who/What am I?
➢ What can I do and for whom?
➢ Why buy me?
• There is no ‘brief’, you have to create yours.
• I discovered to grow taller, one has to sink roots deeper
• Every conversation is a treasure – goldmine. Say Thanks.
• On charging fees – look in the mirror and state an amount. If you can look yourself in the eye, it is fine. Your fees is your self value. Don’t discount, say you will give more of yourself in your work. Negotiate hard, over deliver on quality.
• Life Life Kingsize – make everything Big!
• Differentiate between hunger and appetite – one satisfies the other is insatiable.
•

Oddity of HR

The oddity of HR

Having spent over 30 years in the field of HR, I have often reflected on the function itself.

Unlike most functions, HR does not have a unified coded theory that allows guidance to what one needs to do when influencing and impacting people. Well, it does have a set of rules around compensation benchmarking , and principles around OD designs and learning interventions, but at broad principle levels only. Not that I am saying, this is a setback. Not at all. It is for this reason that it is fascinating. 

Fact is that if you read, 7-8 chapters of any book, the subsequent chapters become easier. In HR, it gets even more complex. More astounding, even bewildering.  In behavioral science as you go deeper, newer insights emerge. I am amused when some amateur Leader remarks, “people are simple: either this or that, or to be seen, by this X axis and that Y axis, as if one or other quadrant make up the entire world. Even worriedly, when someone says, ‘I am an ENTJ (MBTI Type) and he is and ISFP, etc. Interestingly, some even use MBTI as a basis to hire people, the ultimate abomination of ignorance.

Models are akin to maps. The maps can be a mere sketch or highly detailed, and as you go deeper, the embellishment is awesome in what unfolds, as if every texture, tone, dimension and element unfold to the keen eye. Almost like Dhyan (full concentration) and Dharana (contemplation) when they come together provides for a wider perspective. In a highly structured analytical world, demand is placed on causality: do this, and the expected phenomena is observed. Every effect has a cause. Not so with human beings, who do not respond to causality.

Human behavior is a function F (I, C), where Behaviour is a function of the identity (self) in the Location. Self evolves to identity (persona) while location offers normativeness around role taking, prescribed by self or by community.

As a result no two individuals feel alike, think or act alike. Yet, at the gestalt of all evocations, one sees an array of similar emotions: love, disgust, joy, but the tone, notes, and context, and intensity varies.

For example, a woman who discovers her husband is having an affair may not necessarily respond with the expected “ feeling betrayed”, and a large segment would obviously do. A plethora of possible responses exist:

1.     Good for him, off my back.

2.     I’ll do the same and get my revenge

3.     That poor thing ( referring to the new girl friend)

4.     I could not care. I like the comfort I am in, so its cool

5.     And so on….

The point is, there is no causality: were it so, it would be a science. It would be predictable, made repeatable and lend itself to correlates of validity and reliability quantification.

Another interesting dimension of the world of HR is that learning happens when the events happen: there is no prefix or suffix. The prefix or preface does not accurately reflect the phenomena ahead, nor can the suffix, be the real experience of the event. At best it would be a ‘remembered memory’ not the ‘experienced memory’. Daniel Kahneman, writes quite a bit on this for those interested. All we can recall is the remembered memeory, and not the actual experience itself.

Learning takes place within the gestalt of the phenomena. The micro, macro and alter ego looms largely and ever present, exorcising its will over the event. This is the psychodrama, often exaggerated by the ‘shadow’ for the protagonist.

At a phenomological level multiple substratum’s emerge: initial defined as a problem, seen at the interpersonal level, then reflectively, emerges the intrapersonal level of self introjects, introjections , splits and projection, of transference and counter transference.

At a intra psychic level, one comes to gain insight of one’s own perceptual filters, and sees the canvas in quite a different way: the observed is the observer himself. Else, there is no observation.

Even deeper is the intra existential level, the athmic self ; the Brahmi Sthithi, the true intelligence of the self that sees beyond the absorptive nature of the senses, that is beyond attachment, desire, anger, bewilderment and ignorance and wherein misery awakens. (refer Bhagwad Gita for more on this).

No two individuals are alike: there is no comparison possible: no better or worse. Each is unique, so how do you compare two unique things – on what parameters? The choice of the criterias itself is subjective bias: that is the fallacy. Yet we are always comparing, contrasting, role modeling, aligning with….

No wonder Socrates said, ALL I KNOW IS THAT I KNOW NOTHING.

Few of my favourite things.... reunions

few of my favourite things.... meeting old friends. 

Am sure we all have had occasions to meet with someone from our past. Someone from school, or from our childhood neighbourhood. Someone, with whom we lost touch, occasionally just heard about. 

Enabled by facebook these past years have provided me with an opportunity to reacquaint myself with old friends. 

Honestly, my experiences have been mixed. At some level, re engaging once again, confirmed to me, why I never kept touch. Perhaps a part of me was happy to let that relationship drift, even if meant to oblivion. What was it about that person then, that kept me at some distance, crystallised for me, several decades later. Almost like, 'been there, done that, now past that'. Time to move on. 

Yet,I have seen changes in attitudes. Someone who appeared once boisterous and boastful, now came across more amenable, perhaps influenced by life experiences that influenced both in between. 

I remember a 30 year old reunion event a few years ago. It was as if I was in a  'movie I had been before'. Then in a sudden moment of epiphany, I realised the gestalt of my being at campus: my propensity to act or not to act in a particular way. 

We never really change, we just evolve one personality covering another, all persona exists within us, waiting to be peeled, reminding me that the core of our being, is ever present. For some of us, we learn to cope with life's vissicitudes, but ever so often we get mortgaged to our past, with memories that traumatise, yet those experiences have made us even more insightful and better enabled to cope with situations that we face further in our lives. 

For many of us, we learn to 'live with' embracing those experiences as being our very own, carrying it with responsibility, not shrugging off, but being thankful, for that which was, and for that which helped us bring us to this path we now find ourselves in. 

Re unions are one my special things I treasure. Like finding a long lost 'treasure' in one's attic. It reminds you of lovely memories , made even more fonder with passage of time. All the ordinariness of it, gets edited and what is remembered is pure joy. 

The trepidation of youth, and the anxiety once held, of a future uncertain now lies behind. It like you have come to a better end of the movie and you can savour in catching up with the scenes missing, and fill in the gaps. 

You realise that life is not just what happened 'outside of you' but more importantly what happened within. Wiser now, more self assured, but with a touch of quiet pain, of sagacity born from an anvil of adversity and striving. 

Then the re union is one of deep connection, with a relatedness that is deep. There is always a measure of love in every relationship: those that fade, and the ones that grow. Both with friends and with foe: love exists even if with a meagre spec. 

And this loves surfaces, even when catching up with a failed relationship: of that which was possible. A potentiality that never occurred. That is the regret. Often that is the pain.  

As the years roll by, you realise life has been like the river: youthful at first, then more measured, then even more poised and sanguine with time. One has been in many waters, amongst many rocks, swirling areas and witnessed many banks. Often drifting round and round, the rushed and moved headlessly forward, then slowing ambling lazily with the sun overhead, moments caught with torrents, the cacaphony of thunder and zagged streaks of lighting: we seemed to have seen it all. 

And when I think this, I recall with a lump in my throat, the song sung by Frank Sinatra, I made it my way'. I made it my way. I made it my way. 

Look at the picture for a full minute!

Now how would you describe what is happening in the picture?

A motive is an ongoing need, want or concern at an unconscious level. It predisposes one to perceive and think about people in a predictable way. These motivates drive us towards our goals, which in turn orders our behaviour: across meaning making, role taking, choice making and actions taking.

Need theory, also known as Three Needs Theory, proposed by psychologist DavidMcClelland, is a motivational model that attempts to explain how the needs for achievement, power, and affiliation affect the actions of people from a managerial context.

As you describe the people in the sail boat the interpretition you provide is a projection of your own motives. The observed is the observor said Jiddu Krishnamorthy. Someone may call out friendship and relationship (need for affiliation), while another may talk about directing the crew in a competeitive race (need for power) while a third person may descrive the picture as a new sail boat with improved technology being tested ( need for achievement). The filters we bring in viewing a picture is what is important. In NLP, the map is not the territory but the experienced reality is that of the map being the territory itself. Using this objective coding system, by two assessors, the Three Needs Theory was developed.

What is your unconscious motive? Ever wonder what drives you?