The Lifelong Learner :: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are -Roosevelt ::

Good negotiating skills is a valuable tool to have. It comes to use whether you’re negotiating for a new car, a new job, pay raise, or anything else that you want to get a good price for. The bottom line, it will come of use sooner or later. What is the best technique? Walk away.

I agree. I bought a car for my wife using this technique. The salesperson did not want to go down in price. He went down a little but not enough for me. I told him my last price. He said no. I was walking away. He said, “hold on.”

In this article, The ONE key thing to know about negotiation, Eric Sink explains the technique very well.

In negotiation, the one thing that really strengthens your position is the ability to walk away from the deal.That’s it.

Sounds simple, right? It should be, but people still get themselves into all kinds of trouble. Most people think the key to negotiation is figuring out how to manipulate the other person’s perspective. I’ll admit that those tactics can be somewhat effective, but the genuine ability to walk away from a deal is far more powerful.

ReferenceThe ONE key thing to know about negotiation, Eric.Weblog() — Eric Sinks’s blog

Do you want to be successful? Or maybe you already are, in that case, do you follow a pattern?

I have to say that I have been successful in most of the things that I have tried to achieve. But I don’t necessarily have a process. After reading the article, more below, I think that I might have a process: I think of an idea — a goal — and then I stay determined and try to achieve it, over time I look back and see if it was successful. But I don’t really have a structure and the process is mostly common sense, I guess. Scott H Young, in the Patterns for Success article, explains his process. He claims he follows it all the time and it has worked for him. It consists of three steps: Ideas, Implementation, and Review.

This is an excellent article, so I’ll take the most important points from it (read it all, though).

Patterns for Success

(1) IdeasIn order to improve, you need to know how you want to improve. You need to have ideas of where you want to be in a month, in a year. How do you get these ideas? By reading books, listening to audio tapes, he suggests. You can also do it, I think, by going to conferences, and even talking to friends: anything new that you would like to accomplish might be considered an idea. Scott suggests spending “no more than twenty percent” in this phase (interesting).

(2) ImplementationIt’s the most important step in improvement, he suggests “at least sixty percent” in this phase.

Generating ideas is easy, implementing them is the hard part. But without implementation “you can never experience any growth,” says Scott. “Growth occurs only after you have taken your ideas and set them into reality.”

(3) Review“Review is critical to long-term success.” Allocate around twenty percent for this activity.Review helps you “to ensure that you are improving in the direction you want.” It’s a test to see whether you are growing. “Ignoring this step would be like trying to drive a car with opaque windows,” says Scott.

ReferenceIntroduction – Patterns for Success (Series), Scott Young

This is a great advice from lifehack.org blog: Take The Sword In.

You probably haven’t re-read your copy of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People lately, but there’s a great part in Habit 5 (Seek first to understand, then to be understood) that talks about confrontations. I use that advice often, and almost always to the effect that Dr. Covey promises.

Good! You See it Differently

When confronted by a difference of opinion, especially when the person who disagrees with you sounds almost hostile about their opinion, or dismissive, what’s expected is a confrontation. The person arguing with you lunges forward with a criticism. She speaks with no regard for your feelings or ego.

In the audio program, there was always something so genuinely happy in Covey’s voice when he replied to his attacker. The script was like this: Sashi is arguing with Enrique. Sashi says, “This part is all wrong! There’s a big mess here. Things haven’t been taken into consideration.” At this point, Enrique could let his feelings get hurt, but instead, he chooses to say, “Good! You see it differently. Tell me what you think.”

The expression is magical. It takes the attacker off guard. It “takes the sword in.” Thing of someone lunging forward with a sword. Instead of countering with your own blade, you grab theirs, and pull it towards you. Imagine how off-balance one would be if one expected you to strike. Everything would be jarring to him because his bodyweight and strength was geared for a return conflict.

Check Your Ego

The prime ingredients to managing this kind of communication experience are a strong belief that you will eventually be heard, and also the ability to check your ego, to relinquish that sense of having to defend your thoughts and feelings to this other person. If you are strong in your spirit, you can do both. You can wait to make your point. If you execute the interaction well, anyone observing the interaction will most certainly score you higher than you’d imagine. It takes guts to let someone else stomp all over your idea, especially in public, but it takes almost superhero-level powers to reply with, “Good! You see it differently.”

But I’ll tell you: the reward of taking that sword in, of getting the person so off-balance that they accidentally become your ally and help you make the original idea better, is worth more than gold.

ReferenceTake The Sword In, lifehack.org (great, filled with practical advice blog, btw)