Negotiating Skills

People use negotiating skills almost every day of their lives in many different ways to:

• Bargain on the price of a produce or a service
• Settle differences in a dispute situation
• Vary contracts, either formally or informally
• Agree on a goal or an outcome to aim for
• Arrive at comfortable terms to work together or to co-operate
• Find a compromise of some sort

All negotiating situations require two or more people to communicate with one another to reach a bargain or deal of some sort.  Negotiation uses a number of tactics and methods for communicating.  In an important negotiation, give time to reflect and ideally write down the outcomes or goals that we are realistically seeking.  These written aspirations will usually list

• what must be achieved
• what should be achieved and
• what would be nice to achieve

in the negotiation.  This preparation will significantly increase the chances of negotiating success.

 

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Negotiating Skills

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April 30, 2012 by Dr. Jon Warner

Learning Styles

Human beings are capable of learning many different things over a lifetime and can do so extremely quickly at times.  People don’t all learn in exactly the same way or at the same pace.  Some people have a preference for a particular approach to knowledge acquisition than others.  James Keefe define learning “style” as the composite of characteristic cognitive, affective, and physiological factors that serve as relatively stable indicators of how a learner perceives, interacts with, and responds to the learning” environment”.  Keefe is suggesting that we all have “stable” preferences as these relate to the way we think about, respond to, and interact with our environment.  An effort to appreciate learning styles will help when communicating with others.

 

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Learning Styles

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April 30, 2012 by Dr. Jon Warner

THEMES OF LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE

There is no definitive model of what might constitute leadership excellence.  There is several common themes of Leadership excellence:

• Driven from a strong set of values and ‘intelligence’ about peoples’ feelings
• Sees possibilities and potential that is often invisible to others
• Describes a vision of the future and illuminates paths to get there
• Encourages creativity, innovation and lateral thinking
• Enables individuals and teams or groups of people to manage personal change and reach for higher goals
• Starts and ends with the guiding of people’s relationships with one another
• Continually ‘walks-the-talk’ and listens and learns in the journey
• Often consists of extraordinary strength and persistence

This list is by no means exhaustive.  These leadership excellence themes helps in working out specifically what we should all be doing to become better leaders.  There are handfuls potential human behaviours when combined together will characterize good or effective leadership.

 

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Leadership and Management

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April 30, 2012 by Dr. Jon Warner

Goal and Objective Setting

Even in sports a person or team is aiming for a goal.  There is complete clarity about what we are aiming for and what constitutes success.  In commercial enterprise the concept of a goal is similar in being a target at which we should aim

In goal-setting, the target clearly described.  If the goals are vague, unclear or confusing, people will not be able to reach the goal or may become sidelined or distracted or, even worse, head off in a different direction completely.  Sub-goals or individual objectives are created in order to achieve complex goal which may need much coordination and cooperation between people in order to reach it.  Goal / Objective setting needs to be carried out with great care at all levels to make sure that people are “on the same page”.

 

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Goal and Objective Setting

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April 30, 2012 by Dr. Jon Warner

DIFFERENT GENERATIONAL WORKING GROUPS

The workplace has changed dramatically in recent years.  Many Boomers are in senior or management roles are increasingly considering retirement or part-time work.  Workers in their “prime”, the Generation X, should be taking over key roles as Boomers move on, but there are simply not enough of them.  This leaves a gap in the most vulnerable age range for management and leadership positions in organizations.   Employees in their 30’s and 40’s are in their peak working years.  Generation Y is found to be willing but most of them are not always ready to move into management and leadership positions vacated by Boomers.

Different generational groups working closely together can be challenging at times.  People from different generations and age groups generally have a rather different attitudes, values, beliefs and motivations from one another.  These differences can easily lead to:

• misunderstanding,
• miscommunication and
• even outright conflict in the workplace.

The way in which people see the world, has significant implications for the way in which we

• treat,
• work with, and
• value other people.

It is therefore very useful to appreciate how each of the different generations sees both the workplace and the world in general.

 

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Generational Management

Topic Cartoons

April 30, 2012 by Dr. Jon Warner