Negotiations w/ Stuart Diamond

Today we wrapped up our two day Negotiations class with Prof. Stuart Diamond. For two full days, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, the professor took us on a journey that will forever remain engraved in our minds.

I negotiate with our partners daily. Every other email and phone call involves a negotiation. Some are easy to handle while others are not.  Some partners are friendly while some clearly hate you like hell! I have always thought of myself to be an average negotiator. Little did I realize that I could be totally wrong. The course helped me analyze my negotiation style and pointed out areas of improvement. Believe it or not, I was only getting it 20% right earlier!

Today, at this very hour, I can tell you that I am 10 times better than I was two days back.

Thanks to Prof Stuart, Mair & ofcourse, Google!

Thoughts on Leadership

I am not a management guru. Have never been to management school either!

I work with people, young and old, experienced and inexperienced alike and am fortunate enought to have lead teams comprising of such individuals. I have had many failures and successs.

Leading is not an easy task nor is it for the faint hearted. As a leader, you will have to take some tough decisions, trust your gut feeling and sometimes be disliked by all. Sometimes, time is your only friend.

Below are some tips that I follow in my personal and professional life. As mentioned earlier, these are from my experience and may prove useful to you too.

1. What you see is not what you get – Often, we tend to judge people and situations based on parameters that are mostly superficial by nature. We have built these parameters into our frame of reference and tend to rely on them without analyzing their applicability to the situation at hand. Nothing can be more dangerous.
2. Never underestimate the power of experience – Experience is a powerful thing. Always keep an ear out for those who speak from experience. never take them lightly.
3. Decisions should be made based on long term vision – I can’t stress the importance of this. Always know what you are aiming for. Know what the results should look like. And most importantly, strive for long term goals. Your short term objectives should align and lead towards your long term vision.
4. Not all decisions can be made with prior knowledge – Every once in a while, a situation may arise where you have no prior knowledge on how to handle it. The good news is that this is very common. Even the greatest of leaders face such situations. Rather than panic, good leaders follow their instincts.
5. Even the best of leaders, need someone to look upto and learn from – You are so wrong if you think that you have learnt all that there is need to be learnt. Great leaders learn from everybody. Even a small child can teach you valuable lessons. Also, no matter how high you rise, there should always be someone out there from whom you can take advice. Always take advice. Ask for opinions. You do not necessarily need to follow the advice, but knowing it will provide you with a context to analyze a different viewpoint.
6. Lead from middle, neither from the front nor from the back – As a leader, are you not supposed to lead from the front? Some think that a great leader should lead from the back! I think that leaders should lead from the middle. When you lead from the back, you are burdening your team. They may feel that you more of a follower than a leader. If your team has to take all decisions and use you only as a sounding board, you are not leading! Lead from the front and you become a dictator. Your team will consider your decisions as divine providence and will never question them. Either team is weak and will breakup fast. Lead from the middle. Let your team take some decisions while you take some. This way, your team will learn more and will be less of a burden on you.