Author: Quick Business Tips

Still in the business world, and happy to share.

Negotiating as a staring contest

· 1 Comment ·

Negotiating is difficult to master.  There are so many factors on so many levels, from negotiating in a trust relationship to preparing to negotiate with a new partner to a one-off negotiation.

Years ago I was in a car dealership to purchase a used car, and the discussions were not progressing well.  Salesperson brought over his manager. I finally stood up and told them: “According to Kelly Blue Book I should not be paying more than $3800 on this car”.  It was listed higher, and they didn’t seem convinced. As I stepped towards the exit I said: “And I was not going to pay cash, but to go with your financing”.  Car interest rates was at 8% back then, they were making good money out of it. So that lead to a deal with their financing but 3 months later I paid the balance in full to avoid additional interest charges.

An animal trainer once taught me that one key difference between lizards and snakes (besides the obvious: legs vs no legs) is in the eyelids.  Lizards have two movable eyelids and wink while the snakes have no eyelids. The animal trainer concluded: “You could try a staring contest with a lizard but don’t try it with a snake, you are going to lose”.  The best negotiator would have the toughest time if the other party didn’t blink. We always need to study and understand what type of negotiator is on the other side of our staring contest, and what motivates them to reach an agreement.

Do you have an interesting negotiation story to share?

Who is going to win this staring contest?

Managing change and the paper towel dispenser

· Leave a comment ·

From time to time businesses hire new executives for a fresh perspective and to drive change.  The new senior executive joins the company and announces a “re-org” to “better align my organization to company objectives and respond to changes in the market”.  This re-org can be anything from moving employees to another manager, promoting a manager over a larger team, laying off some employees to reduce cost, changing the work processes and business tools (software packages and/or production equipment), implementing additional cost cutting measures or sometimes all of the above.  The re-org announcement can immediately raise everyone’s anxiety. There could be winners and losers. There could be serious re-adjustment for some employees.

Change is inevitable and can be good for a business while employees are typically concerned of any changes that impact their work process and work relationships.  Change can be made drastically and abruptly, which could seriously impact team morale, or more gradual, incremental, step by step with explanations and justifications, with employee input and buy-in.

For those managing the change, it’s like using the paper towel dispenser in the restroom.  It says: “pull with both hands” but you’re in a hurry and pull quickly with one hand, breaking off just a small paper piece and leaving you frustrated that you need to do it again, slower and more focused this time.

Have you ever been affected by a company or department re-org? What was your experience?

Abrupt change vs slower/focused change

A lesson for the business world from Vanilla Ice

· 2 Comments ·

The business meeting just became more intense and conflictual, with the meeting organizer justifying the chaos with the usual theories, this is a new team, maybe this is normal for now, one day we’ll achieve harmony. But were we doing our best to make this a productive meeting? Probably not.

Enter Vanilla Ice rapping words of wisdom from his Ice Ice Baby:

1 – All right stop, collaborate and listen! – this is fundamental, we need to pause and sharpen our listening skills. Collaboration, that’s deep, that’s listening, contributing, sharing, all bundled together for creating a great work environment.

2 – Anything less that the best is a felony – are we giving our best effort to work on a solution? If not, Vanilla Ice says we’re committing a crime.

3 – If there was a problem, yo, I’ll solve it – how many times people come to our office for help, only for us to direct them to another coworker? When can we get to that training level and customer service level where the buck stops with us?

4 – Quick to the point, to the point no faking – are we being concise to help the meeting flow? Why are we giving a 45 seconds reply to a yes/no question?

5 – My style’s like a chemical spill, feasible rhymes that you can vision and feel, conducted and formed – are we paying enough attention to the product design? Is this design well formed? Do we have the vision for it? Vanilla Ice apparently does for his rhymes.

6 – Let’s get out of here – Yes it’s 7 pm and we’re still in the office working on that deadline, on that presentation for tomorrow. Where is the work / life balance?

This song to me was an unlikely source for business advice and I thought to share.

Have you come across a song with lyrics related to teamwork or maybe making a profit in business? Please post a comment with any song-based fun advice for the business world.

(c) 2019 Quick Tip Business Blog