October 24, 2009

Three cups of tea - by Greg Mortenson

Three cups of tea - by Greg Mortenson
One man's mission to fight terrorism and build Nantions... One school at a time.
[I came to know about this book from my company's book list where many recommended this book. Folks gets motivated by something for something. Greg got obligated to assist his life saver (Haji Ali helped him during a trekking to K2(Karakoram) - world's deadlist peak) to build a school for Haji Ali's village which never had any school for the past 600 years. That was a begining of a great mission with the help of man with great vision, Haji Ali.
I am pasting some of the main clips, but I strongly recommend you to read this saga of humanity.].
Haji Ali spoke - "If you want to thrive in Baltistan, you must respect our ways. The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share a cup of tea, you become family and for our family, we are prepared to d oanything , even die. Dr. Greg, you must make time to share three cups of tea. We may be uneducated. But we are not stuip. We have lived and survived here for a long time."
There was an incident where a local crook tried to block the construction of the school, saying it is a work of a infidel/kafir and demanded 12 of largest rams from the villagers which Haji Ali gave without any thinking. It is equal to handing over the half the wealth of village to the crook.
Greg's comment - "Sitting there beside him, I realized that everything, all the difficulties I'd gone thoguh from the time I'd promised to build the school, through the long struggle to complete it, was nothing compared to the sacrifies he was prepared to make for his people. Here was this illiterate man, who hardly ever left his little village in the Koraoram. yet he was the wisest man I 'ver met".
Another incident that happened long after the first school has been built.
While Greg is discussing the school agenda with local tribe leaders, a pretty self-assured young womna burst into the room, stepped through the circule of thirty tea-sipping leaders sitting cross-legged and approched the man who built . Talking a seat boldly in fromnt of Greg, Jahan interrrupted the rollicking meeting of her village elders.
"Dr. Greg" she said in Balti here voice unweavering. " you made our village a promise once and you fulfilled it when you built our school. But you made me another promise the day the school was completed. I tol dyou my dream was to become a doctor one day and you said you would help. Well, that day is here. You must keep yuor promise to me. I'm ready to begin my medical training".
Here comes this teenage girl, in the center of a conservative Islamic village, waltzing into a circle of men, breaking through about six layers of tradations at once. She had graduated from the school and was the first educated woman in a valley of three thousand people. She didn't defer to anyone, sat down right in front of Greg and handed him the product of the revolutionary skills she'd acquired - a proposal in English to better hereself, and improve the life of her e village.

October 21, 2009

How to win any negotiation by Robert Mayer

How to win any negotiation by Robert Mayer
(Without raising your voice, losing your cool or coming to blows)

[ this book comes with day-to-day tricks and tips that we can use to gain upper hand in any negotiations - good one]

Winning is a is a mindset - the greater wallenda effect

Winning begins with your inner self.
The secret of how to influence others - the persuasion progression - are contained in the acronym LANCER
L - Linkage
A - Alignment
N - Needs
C - Control
E - Evaluation
R - Reading

Linkage:
People want to do business with people they like and with whom they feel comfortable. Linkage strategies are designed to humanize negotiations, bolster credibility, create a negotiating consent zone and make the other person more receptive to you and your ideas. Shaping tone and mood, personalizing, establishing rapport, developing a positive aura and creating involvement - all of these create linkage, a critical personal interfacing that makes it possible for you to lead and persuade.
" A man whose face is without a smile should never open a shop; He who goes softly goes far" - a Chinese proverb.

Underwhelm your opponent : relaxed people will be less resistant to you and your ideas.
Practice tip - people who are sitting down are more easily persuaded than people who are standing up.

Lighten up: Schmooze for a while about weather, traffic, sports event, .. some mutual acquaintance. Accept a cup of coffee/tea; tell a joke. Icebreakers shape a persuasive climate.

Personalize the process: Professional communications personalize constantly.(e.g. watch TV commentary where they use first name rather than company name or we..)

Establish rapport:people will like you if you are sincerely interested in them and their problems. Trust and reputation are established through reputation and expertise, but most often through rapport.

Create a positive aura" Persuasion is a function of attitude. Positive attitudes produce positive results. Your voice, demeanor and attentiveness should communicate concern, empathy, understanding and a desire to work side-by-side rather than toe-to-toe. pay attention to the little things; through them, other people read you.

Create involvement:to create interaction by asking for the other person's advice, help, assistance, suggestions, opioions or anything else that cause them to become involved in the scenario being played out.

Alignment:
To capture an elephant in the web of a spider, you must use the energy of the elephant. In the persuasion progression, alignment techniques play against and harness the pother person's energy while establishing a pattern of agreement.

It means moving with and using the other person's energy; aligning yourself with - rather than resisting - that energy.

here are the 24 soar points that will make a major difference in your effectiveness in dealing with people.

1. Don't complain or sulk.
2. Don't look back - your goal is an agreement not an admission or apology
3. Avoid absolute like always and never.
4. is there a major negative drawback in what you want to purpose? if so mention it
5. Pointing out selected negatives in what you have to suggest stimulates confidence and increase rapport.
6. Emphasis the aspects of your proposal that the other person seems t olike.
7. Don't use powerful words. What does work is speaking to the level of the other person you wish to influence.
8. Create hypothetical experiences. Suppose we were.. Let's assume. Hypothetical cause involvement and involvement is the persuasive forerunner to change.
9. Act in self-assured manner. Statement like 'I don't like asking you, but... forecast and prompt negative response.
10. Avoid judging another person's actions or thoughts. (wrong, stupid, crazy.. are judgmental words).such will promote defensiveness and resistance.
11. Let the other person know that their feelings and thoughts are as important as yours.
12. Build on the other person's words using their vocabulary. Make their thoughts/words the bridges to meaningful negotiations.
13. Suggest scrutiny of your ideas (what do you think of this idea...)
14. Don't maneuver the other person into a corner by pointing out discrepancies and showing them to be a liar.
15. Be persuasive one on one. Trying more than one person at a time only brings additional egos...
16. An approach that moves from agreement to agreement will produce better results than approaching that moves from conflict to agreement.
17. if you cannot agree on specific major issues, then seek an agreement in principle that can be a bridge to further discussion.
18. Express your positions as feelings. Expressed feelings are irrefutable.
19. When you must take a poke at a problem, offset it with a pat on the back. Starting with criticism followed by praise reinforces linkage.
20. Avoid hype that only build false hope.
21. Specific praise (I like the way you presented that point in this manner..) reinforces linkage as it looks more believable.
22. Asking 'what is your problem' weakens linkage.
23. Asking 'why can't you be reasonable?' is a question which will weaken linkage.
24. If saying it will make you feel good, then don't say it unless it will make the other person also feel good.

Needs:
In the quest to satisfy our needs, we are guided by emotion rather than reason. This request for satisfaction energizes the persuasive process.
The art of influence is the art of stimulating, reading and then satisfying other people's conscious or unconscious urges for feelings of goal attainment and self-esteem. Pushing the motivator button.

Masters of manipulation are expert at pushing motivator buttons, knowing that when we are satisfying our needs we are guided by our emotions rather than our reason.

1. A sense of goal attainment - the need for a sense of goal attainment is the need for self-actualization to be able to accomplish the big things we set out to do in life and the smaller things we set out to do in negotiations.

2. A sense of self-esteem - Our sense of how we appear to others is status. How we appear to ourselves is self-esteem. The need for a sense of self-esteem is the need for a feeling of competency and personal worth, a need for status, a need to be recognized and appreciated.

Control:
There is a quantum difference between the power of speech and the power of persuasion. Speaking is about giving out information. Persuasion is about the getting through. It is about control - actions control reactions. It is about engineering consent.

Persuasive listening:
Handling the speaker ammunition will cause him to look at you not as an enemy but as a collaborator in a common mission. Persuasive listening is helping the speaker clrify his or her ideas by repeating back or paraphrasing from the speakers prespective what has been said. Persuasive listening is listening our loud.

Talking out loud is a habit. Listening out loud is an art.

Questions that guide and direct: conversation are controlled by the listener through the use of questions.

The power of suggestions: being able to introduce a good new idea into a conversation is an art. (I read an article and the author thought it would make sense if...[author's thought is the hidden suggestion]

Channeling: channelize ideas /options as limited menu (that offered to limited people as special).

You are both the messenger and message: To simply express an idea or situation is power. It is all about what the other person hears/understands. Content is what is in the eyes 9and ers) of the beholder. Content is a totality made up of word signals (the text of your remarks) and body signals (Your demeanor, gestures, pitch and tone of voice, rate of speech and energy).

Body signals will have a far greater impact on the listener than word signals. Words impact the listener's intellect. Body signals impact the listener's emotions because they reveal not only your doubts, fears and deceptions, but more importantly, the kind of persons you are.

Practice tip: Your eyes are the magnets that will cause the listener to connect and stay connected with you.

Which part of your negotiations pitch will be best remembered? beginning, middle or end? People remember only what is simple and meaningful that pushes their motivator buttons. First and last part are remembered over middle. First is remembered over last.

Evaluation:
Your medium of communications is in and of itself a negotiating tactic. Telephone caslls are prone to shirtcuts, so make sure you have all the necessary data and inforamtions in front of you.
A persuasive proposal is one that sets forth your best ideas rather than all of your ideas. (trouble with Hong-Kong is i can never seem to find Chinatown).

Reading.
The art of winning begins by reading yourself. It is advanced by knowing how to read others. To persuade you, it is not enough to know who you are. I must also know what you are. To be able to persuasively present your ideas and prevent resistance , you must read how the other person makes decisions. and how they make sense of things.

Remember the other person is not you.
People conclude facts from their gut impressions, perceptions and assumptions. Reading people is about developing insight that goes beyond the obvious.

Reading the roles people play: roles lead predictable responses (policeman, parent, lover, ..)

reading personality traits: a person who is stingy today will not be a big-time spender tomorrow.
Reading priorities: learning to look and listen for what the other person considers critical will enable you to discover motivator buttons or to grant or request concessions accordingly.
Wishful listening trap: hearing only what htye wanted to hear.

Containment: Finessing people who insist on being right rather than reasonable is the art ( say, yo umay be right..OR if I were in your shoe, I think I would the same way..)

Break sore spots into component parts - break big problems into smaller problems that can be reckoned with individually.

A Problem well-stated is a problem half-solved.

never ever lead with a threat
never ever make a threat without first first casting it as warning
never ever make a thread you don't want to carry out
never ever use a big threat in furtherance of a small gain
never ever make a threat that is inconstant with the attitude you previously displayed.

probing questions are the keys to revitalizing dialogue - 5 keys to chose from
1. Questions that are not questions - partially paraphrased Qs are nto questions(e.g. it is not possible -> it is not possible?)
2. What not why - Why elicits a general 'because' respond. What produces a more specific response that better reveals true needs and interests.
3. What if? - such Q pose soft-touch hypothetical possibilities.
4. Statement Q - (e.g although this is good, it may not be a good idea to you)
5. What will it take to convince you?

The art of finesse is influencing and controlling outcomes with a soft-touch, but a firm goal. The persusasion progression is about bringng tgeh other person around to see thngs your way. Analystics are the dynamics you must consider when you determine your negotiating objective. In every instance, you will achieve more and will face less resistance if your hard bargain is delivered with a soft touch.

When a deal is too easy, they assume that something is wrong. Use a long pause to avoid an impression of eagerness. Quick response are not demonstrative of a hard-driven bargain.
Happiness is relative to expectations. You can make the other person happy by first disappointing him. A person expects less and receives less will be more satisfied than the person who expects more and receive less.
people bargain when the quoted amounts are round and easy. Because odd numbers sound less susceptible, more real and more like the result of considered deliberation , people are less inclined to negotiate any changes.
Bad breadth - 'I have a better proposal from your competition' -> Every buyer since the dawn of humanity
' Price will be increased momentarily.." -> Every seller since the down of humanity.

If you are tough in doing out concessions, you will dampen the other person's bargaining aspirations. Granting quick concessions is a sign of insecurity and weakness. The other person will gain self-confidence and will become tougher and more demanding.

Small fish look bigger in a teacup than they do in a pond. When you need to give discount on two products, give big discount on small item which looks big (2 items valued $10,000 & 100 - instead of giving 10% discount on the first item, provide 50% discount on the second item)

The bleeding edge: A roller-coaster drop in your negotiating expectations when the other person:
Constantly reschedules your appt.
Keeps you waiting in a reception
Uses an esoteric vocabulary
Makes adverse comment about you, your company or your products
Praise competition

People who are uneasy are not at their negotiating best and will grant concessions to extricate themslves from an uncomfortable situation. In making these concessions, they will be guided by their emotions rather than by their sense of reason.

A good sales deal by a street seller.
sales person: 'Madam, will you buy a souvenir painting for $60?'
Lady: 'No'
Sales: 'How much will you pay?'
Lady: $10
After some emotional charged bartering, she paid a 'for-you-lady-special-price of $43. Lady got pulled-in to the back-and-forth of haggling..

Answering following Qs may be hazardous to your deal
"Don't you trust me?"
"Don't you believe me?"

Don;t get into that trap by saying 'it is not the matter I don't trust you, but...'

Don;t get into auction negotiating: If you find yourself in an action, stop and grasp the realities of the situation. It usually goes into race situation where you will pay more to 'WIN' the auction rather than buying it for cheap.

Whenever you rent a aprt or lease a car, always there is a 'standard' policy statement which forces you to admit all the conditions the seller wants. There is no such std. policy and you shoudl scratch out terms which does not suit you.

Negotiating is a process not an event. The difference between process and event is time. Time can be your worst enemy or your best ally.

(When you go for shopping, make sure you invest the sales person's time much on the negotiation. After spending so much time, he will be forced to provide more discount otherwise his manager will be angry with him for spending too much time on a deal that did not work out.

For buying car, go to the dealership around the end of the month as they are eager to have a better sales report for the current month!

Salary bargaining: Don't bring up salary in the first phase. When you have a job offer, negotiate better deal. Reduce your wish list to few items (salary, bonus, vacation, moving expenses, starting bonus..) When the main question asked (what is your expected salary), don't throw out the first number. But say something like "I believe that my skills and experience place me within the salary range the company has budgeted for the position or ask what is the range you have budgeted...)

If the quoted number is different, then say (I am disappointed. For someone with my ability and experiecne, I feel that that a salary in the range of ... would be fair.


Books refereed in this book: How to win any argument (Career press,2005)







October 19, 2009

US Deficits and the Chinese Challenge

US Deficits and the Chinese Challenge.

Debt can become a real liability for a superpower. Recall what happened to postwar Britain.

[This info taken from WSJ and pasted here as I find it interesting.]

Consider what happened in 1946, when a cash-strapped Great Britain turned to the U.S. for a loan. For 30 years or more, the British had been consumed by the threat of a rising Germany. Two wars had been fought, millions of lives had been lost, and the British treasury was dramatically depleted in the process. Britain survived, but the costs were substantial.
.........
...........
Unable to take no for answer, Britain explained that unless it received funds the government would be insolvent. The Americans came back with a series of conditions. They would lend Britain $3.7 billion at 2% interest, and the British government would have to abide by the 1944 Bretton Woods plan, which made the dollar rather than the pound sterling the reference point for global exchange rates and required Britain to make the pound freely convertible. Even more significantly, Britain had to end its system of imperial preferences, which meant no more tariffs and duties on goods to and from colonies such as India. These were not mere financial penalties: Taken together, they meant the end of the British Empire.

Within two years, Britain had left India and was on its way to decolonizing throughout Asia and Africa. Unable to compete with the United States economically and no longer able to reap the benefits of colonial trade, Britain's military shrank and its commerce contracted. It quickly receded from its dominant global position and entered several decades of economic malaise. In the 1980s, Britain finally emerged as a prosperous country, but it was a shadow of what it had been in its heyday.


Similarly, can it happen with Chinese with US?

More details -
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574469073847604010.html


October 5, 2009

Just Listen - Mark Goulston

Just Listen - discover the secret to getting through to absolutely anyone - by Mark Goulston

[This book is really good, providing what are the questions to ask at whaThe t time. I think, i will buy this book.]

The persuasion cycle:

People have their own needs, desires and agendas. they have secrets they are hiding from you. To cop up with their stress and insecurity, they throw up mental barricades that make it difficult to reach them. the technic to get through their minds is what the author call the "Persuasion Cycle'.

[Similar work on the same idea is mentioned in ground-breaking work and ideas of James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente in their 'Trans-theoretical Models of Change'. The other notable bookis William R. Miller & Stephen Rollnick's 'Motivational Interviewing']

1. From resisting to listening
2. From listening to considering
3. From considering to willing to do
4. From willing to do to doing'
5. From doing to glad they did and continue to do


The three-part brain:
Our brain has three layers that evolved over millions of years; a primitive reptile layer, a more evolved mammal layer and a fianl primate layer. They all interconnect, but in effect often act like three different brains.

Reptile layer: this is all about acting and reacting without lots of thinking
Mammal layer: it's where powerful feelings- love, joy, sadness, anger, grief, jealous, pleasure-arise.
Primate layer: this collects data from the above two layers, sifts it, analyszes it and makes practical, smart and ethical decisions.

To reach someone, you need to talk to upper brain (primate layer). If you are talking to your boss, wife, children whose lower brain is in control, you are talking to a cornered snake.

Monkey see, Monkey do or mirror neurons.
[When one monkey watched other monkey tossing a ball, the first monkey's brian react as if, it had tossed the ball]. By mirroring with the person, we are getting into his way. Everyday life, we will meet people who have 'mirror neuron receptor deficits' because world is not giving back to them what they are putting out. Understanding a person's hunger and responding to it is one of the most potent tools you'll ever discover for getting through to anyone you meet in business or your personal life.

The nine core rules for getting through to anyone:
[The key to winning is poise under stress - Paul Brown - Cleveland coach]
To understand how stress interferes with your power to reach people, you need to know the mental steps you go through in a time of stress or crisis.

1. Oh F#@$ (The reaction phase - this is a disaster, I can't fix it .. sort of it
2. Oh God (The release phase - this is a huge mess- this happens to me ..
3. Oh Jeez (The recenter phase - I can fix it, but it won't be fun..
4. Oh Well (The refocus phase - I am not going to runin my life /relationship/my day and I am going to do this way..
5. Ok (Th reengage phase - I am ready to fix it

When you become consciously aware of these stages and can mentally identify each one as it happens, you can manipulate your emotional response at each stage. As a result, you will eb abel to say all the right things and avoid saying the wrong ones.

How many filters we have:
We usually categorize people instantly in the following sequence:
Gender
Generation (age)
Nationality (or ethnicity)
Education Level
Emotion

Understand the influence of this filter in mind and it'll help you to spot subconscious filters that keep you listening to and reacting to other people.

Usable Insight: If you want to open the lines of communication, open your own mind first.

The steps to making another person felt:

1. Attach an emotion to what you think the other person is feeling(such as frustrated, angry or afraid, etc..)
2. Say," I am trying to get a sense of what you are feeling and i think it is----. is that correct? If it is not, then what ar eyou feeling? (wit for the person to agree or correct you)
3. the say, "How frustrated (or type of feeling ) are you? (Give the person to respond; be prepared and be calm)
4. next say, "And the reason you are frustrated(or feeling0 is because -- (let the person fill it)
5. Next say, "Tell me - what needs to happen for that feeling to feel better?
6. Next, say, " What part can I play in making that happen? What [art can you play in making that happen?

The above script can be adjusted to the situation.

Usable Insight: Inside every person, is a real person who needs to 'feel felt' . Satisfy that need and you will transform yourself from a face in the crowd to a friend or an ally.

Be interested than interesting:

[Jim Collins is the author of 'Good to great - one of the most successful business books of all time. 'My golden rule - Business 2.0 article]

If you want to have an interesting dinner conversation, be interested. If you want to have interesting things to write, be interested. If you want to meet interesting people, be interested in the peopl eyou want - their lives, history, hobby, story, etc.

The more interested you are in another person, the more you narrow the person's mirror neuron receptor deficit.

Usable Insight: the measure of self-assurance is how deeply and sincerely interested you are in others; the measure of insecurity is how much you try to impress them with you.

Make people important: good people in your life deserve reassurance that they are valued and the annoying people may not server it, but they need it evenmore. Give both of them waht they want - a feeling that they are valuable and matter- and they will give you what you need.

Help people to exhale emotionally and mentally:

When you are confronting a person (dean, boss, wife, kid), follow the action plan
1. Give the person plenty of time to express their feelings
2. Don't argue or break in between
3. after he vents he will be exhausted (you too by listening :))
4. pause after he unloaded on you and then simply say " tell me more". Doing this has several positive effects.
a. When it turns out you are not going to get into a debate with the person, it disarms him. There is no need for the person to fight you, if you don't engage in a fight.
b. Tell me more' shows you were listening and heard what really bothereed the person. It also lowers his parania
c. When you are not fighting or debating with the person, the other person exhale. You will see it in the person's face, expressions.

few sample Q for kids to exhale.
What is the most furstrated you have ever felt with your mom/dad or me?
How bad was it for you?
What did it make you want to do?
What did you do?

Usable Insight:Forget about music. If you want to soothe the savage the savage beast get the beast to exhale.

Check your dissonance at the door:

Ten most common misperception that cause dissonance are the following:

Believe you are When others perceive you as:

Shrewd Sly
Confident Arrogant
Humorous Inappropriate
Energetic Hyper
Strong opinions Opinionated
Passionate Impulsive
Strong Rigid
Detail oriented Nitpicking
Quiet passive or indecisive
Sensitive Needy

One way to overcome the dissonance-creating traits you identify is to use what renowned leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith calls 'feelforward'- Identify the dissonance and change it. The great book on this process is well explained in Goldsmith's 'What got you here won't get you there".

When all is lost, bare your neck:
when you are afraid or in distress, don't pretend that you are not. Instead identify the people you are trying to hide your emotions from - and then tell them the truth. When you suspect that someone else is afraid or in distress, encourage the person to tell you about it. Then let the person know you respect him for having the guts to say ' I'm scared or i made a mistake.

Steer clear of Toxic people
[A toxic person robs you of your self-esteem and dignity and positions the essence of who you ar e- Lilian Glass, Psychologist]

They come in different colors
Takers: they are the ones who hit you up every day for a favor. The best remedy is ask for a return favor
Narcissists: these people aren't hurt you , but they don't give a damn about you either. - except as an audience for their own wonderfulness. They don't mirror your feelings and emotions. However they are huge success in life and going along for the ride can be a heady experience. Sometimes it will get you to hig places and other times, it will humiliate you. But don't expect a fifty-fifty relationship if you stay.

Psychopaths: They are cold-blooded, ruthless people, who seems to lack some key pieces of what makes us human. One on every 100 is a psychopath. and they are mostly very successful business leader. Not-so-bright ones ends up in prison, but smarter one ends up in CEO. So recommendation is to get away, go run...

Usable Insight:if you are afraid to say 'no', you may be neurotic. If you are truly afraid to say 'no', you are probably dealing with a toxic person. And if nobody ever says 'no', to you, that toxic person could be you.

12 quick and east ways to achieve buy-in and get through:
Usable Insight: Invite people to tell you what they think is impossible and they will lower their guard to consider what's possible.
Ask someone at home/office to name an impossible ggoal the person would like to accomplish. respond with ."I agree with you. that sounds impossible, so what would make it possible?' The help the person brainstorm the steps to turn the goal into reality.

The magic paradox: Shift another person from resistance to listening - from 'nobody understands' to 'you understand'.

[do the unexpected. The expected is boring. The expected is tuned out - Steve Strauss]

When you start a conversation by saying 'No', for anohter person, it opens the door for them to say yes.

Usable Insight:You can't be curious and on the attack at the same moment.

To make empathy come more naturally to you, give yourself an Empathy jolt every day or so. For instance, when a coworker you don't like much is on the phone with a difficult customer, observer the situation and ask yourself," How would I feel, if I were him right now? Would this conversation make me angry, frustrated or unhappy?

Usable Insight:An oounace of apology is worth a pound of resentment and a ton of acting out by underperforming.

Usable Insight: Before you worry about solving someone's problem, find out if there is a problem.
Next time when a person starts in on an overheated rant, simply let it slide off your back. Then [ause for a count of five and say, " Do you really believe that?" Watch the person backpedal and tehn pin the person down about the details of the actual problem (if one really exists).

Usable Insight:Don't go defensive, go deeper.
calm a person who's upset or angry moving the person from resisting to listening and then from listening to consdiering - the power of hummm... (hummmm= tell me more..)


Usable Insight: Show poise by openly expressing the misgivings people have about you and they will be more likely to give you their positive and undivided attention.

if you know that something about you makes other people uncomfortable, practice ways to describe what the problem is and how other people can respond to it. Rehearse in front of a mirror until you are sure you can do this comfortably in public.

Usable Insight: Cause people to look up and rflect on what you've asked them and when they look back down at you, the conversation will never be the same again-- it will be better.

The next time when you are struck, in one of those transactional conversation ruts with a partner or family member- say arguing over who's going to do the laundary or take out the trash,- stop, smile and say, " What's something fun or important that you think you and I should do within the next five years? Then see how fast you move from 'it is your turn to do dishes' to a new and better life plan.

To create life changing event, you need to move beyond transacting to relating. How? By asking questions that let the other person tell you. "This is what I think", "This is who I am', " This is what I want to achive", or "This is how you can play a part in making my life bettter".

"To help me better understand if an dhow i can help you, tell me what your company and specially your dept is trying to accomplish that is cruical and important and why your company selected that goal"
What is one thing you are produst of accomplishing"
"If there is one thing I can do to help you move more quickly towards your goals, what would it be?
"If you could cahnge one thing about the direction of your company, what could it be?'

Ask questions that can move a person from tranactional to transformational. Ask the right question of yourself and you will find your eyes moving up - a clear sign that your midn is opening up to new posibilities.


Usable Insight:When you can't get through face to facve, try side by side.

If you are a manager. use the side-by-side technique to find out what's going on with your productive employee and see, if you can uncover ways to make that eprson even happier about working for you. The turn around and use it with your best productive employee and see, if you can discover any clues about why the eprson underperforms.

Usable Insight: Direct questions make people think you are talking at them. Let them fill in the blanks and they will feel you are talking with them.

e.g. You ar ethinking of hiring someone like me becasue you want to....." let the other person fill it up.

Usable Insight:Until someone says 'no' to you, you are not asking for enough.

if you are in sales , think of the last sale or deal you made. Now take a perice of paper and writ ethe ans. to this questions. "What more could I have asked for, and possibly gotten a, if I hadn't been scared of hearing no?

Usable Insight:The more often you say and sincerely mean, "thank you", the less you need to pay your people. The more often you say and sincerely mean, "I am sorry" the quicker your people will get back to work.

It is never late to give a Power Thanks You or Power Apology if you really mean it.

Usable Insight:Assemble the ebst team you can, and them became the eprson they - and you - would want to lead them

Usable Insight:Visualize yourself in the job that you want; then actively plan to get there.

Usable Insight:Good clients and customers raise the bar. bad ones just keep hitting you over the head with it.


Usable Insight: Focus on 'What is it in for them" and reciprocators will soon eror later ask,"what can I do for you". Focus on "What is in it for me" and they will ask themselves, "how do I make this eprson go away".

Usable Insight:If soemone can't or won't listen to you, get him to listen to himself.

The six step pause:

1. Oracitce physical awareness - identify sensations like tension, a pounding heart, a craving or lighheartness. Pinpoint them and give them a name. This will help you control them.
2. Practice emotional awareness - attach an emotion to the situation you ar efeeling. Naming your feeeling will help prevent the amygdala hijack
3. Practice impusle awareness - Say to yourself"This feeling makes me want to ---". Being awar eof your impulse will help you resist it.
4. Practice consequence awareness. Answer this Q."If I follow through with this urge, what is likely to happen"
5. Practice soltuion awareness. Complete this sentence ." A better thing to do would be ..."
6. Practice benefit awareness. Say to yourself. "If I do that better thing the benefits will be..."

Usable Insight:During tough times, say unto yourslef what those who care about you would say unto you... and then believe it. Otherwise you are dishorning the love they feel for you.

Usable Insight:Inside the most untouchable VIP who's wary of being 'hit on' is a person who is aching to be touched in just the right way.

To succedd in your career, it is less important what you know or even who you know than who truly knows you and how they know you.

In order for this, create one-on-one situations; make virtual allies; write blog about positive about that person(VIP), Reach gatekeepers (Assistant to teh VIP), join linkdne, facebook,etc..
[When you trying via gatekeerps, make sure, you are bosting gatekeepers while communicating to VIP as gatekeepers would be reading your communications).



[Some of the other books, that I am planning to read from the same author, are:
breaking down Silos
The best life possible - how to make it happen
Potential is a terrible thing to waste - how to get out of your own way (an dhelp others do the same)
Be courageous (come out from the comfort zone - discover how to change that now and grab life by the horns)
Avoiding Something or someone? How to confront anyone about anything, anywhere anytime.