George Kohlrieser High Performance Leadership Takeaway 7-9

1. The break-through will only come from understanding each other’s pain points first.
2. People want choices.
3. Craft bull’s eye transactions

Let’s zoom in on Takeaway 8.c.: Craft bull’s eye transactions.

“The whole process of negotiation follows dialogue and talking. It’s a relationship: you have to form a bond, separate the person from the problem, know what you want and know what the other wants. Get a goal clear, look for options and proposals, go through the process of getting a contract and finally reach some agreement where the relationship continues.

Positive conflict is turning a negative conflict into a constructive solution. So, we do need to provoke conflict, if necessary, but we turn it into something positive. We should not be afraid to hold people accountable, give tough feedback and have those difficult conversations. To find constructive solutions, you have to like conflict, or if that’s too strong, you have to like solving conflicts. You need to get in the right state. Use empathy. Think in terms of common goals and collaboration. Because conflict management and negotiation are all about collaboration and cooperation. Learn to see beyond the frustration, disappointment, negativity and rejection; see the benefit of the outcome. It can be tough solving a conflict. Putting that fish on the table and going through the bloody smelly mess of cleaning it can be a real challenge. So, you have to be able to see beyond all of these negative parts to what is the outcome you want.

Ask yourself whether you like dialogue. That is, to discover a greater truth. There are people who don’t like to dialogue because they think they have the whole truth. They think they’re the smartest. They want to prove they’re right. Dialogue means you have to be curious what is in the mind of the other person. Ask questions. Inquire, paraphrase (repeat what you’ve heard). Be inquisitive. Dig into why the other person is in a close-minded state, specifically asking them what they feel about this and what they feel about changing their mind.

Be proactive in de-escalating. So, if you know you have to deliver pain points, you need to know who the personality is that you’re dealing with. This is often misunderstood. We tend not to take time to know who is the personality, what are their triggers, how important is this to them, who are they as an individual? This is part of helping the other person also get what they want. That’s a good mindset. The best negotiation tactic is to be in an authentic state in which you communicate ‘I’m trying to help you get what you want, I hope you’ll help me get what I want, and let’s see what we can actually do here.’ Then negotiation becomes a relationship, not a transactional process, but a relationship.’

And when you have to deliver pain, be honest about it and leave the other person a choice. Don’t use power, leverage or manipulative tactics. Because when someone feels like a hostage—feels powerless—their fight-flight reflex will be activated in all possibility. That’s where they say and do things they later regret. So, powerlessness is very destructive. It’s better to use a hostage negotiation technique instead: Don’t deliver threats, deliver consequences. Tell the other person what you need from them, and what the consequences are if they don’t deliver: ‘If you choose to do this, here’s what may happen’. Be honest and give them a choice.”  – George Kohlrieser PhD, IMD Lausanne

The last point from George’s X-over session that resonated with me was the importance of emotions. People are emotional beings first. Their responses are based on emotions. So the key to being an effective leader in strategy execution lies in my ability to deal with emotions. My own first of all, but also my team’s. To be effective leaders, we must strike a balance between daring and caring, between challenging our team and dealing with their emotions even-handedly. We need to know how to stay positive, without being fake. Let’s take a closer look at Takeaway 9: