Category: Negotiation

Leadership Development: Not Just For Women

August 4, 2013 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Leadership Development: Not Just for Women

As part of our leadership development, my Vistage groups frequently select a book to read as a group. Recently, my Vistage Inside group chose the book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, by Sheryl Sandburg.

On the day we discussed this book in my group, the first person to speak was a man. His comment was “This is not a gender issue. This book resonated for me and the challenges I have in my career”.

This book has garnered both praise and criticism and certainly puts to rest the question of whether a book can spark a debate.

The debate centers around two issues. First, given Sheryl’s wealth and position, is she truly able to advise young women? And, is she placing too much of the onus on women who are already struggling to fulfill impossible demands, and too little on government and employers to provide better child care, more flexible jobs and other concrete gains.

Having begun my career in the 1970’s, for me the book initially was a reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same. While certainly gender neutrality has occurred in many jobs, the executive suite is one where the numbers say otherwise.

That said, I wonder, is the question really about gender neutrality or is it about the challenges that women and men face as they navigate the path to career advancement?

I wonder if the real questions that Sheryl is suggesting we, women and men, ask are:

What is the path to a “seat at the table”?
What risks must I take?
What personal choices must I make to achieve career success (i.e. choice of mate, where I live, who my friends are)?

And, finally the most key question,

What must I give up, to get what I want?

For more on this topic, see previous post, Laws of Success: Perfection of The Life or Perfection of The Work

Elisa K. Spain

Do The Ends Justify The Means?

January 6, 2013 by Elisa Spain2 Comments

An age old question…

I saw Lincoln, Steve Spielberg’s latest movie, and came away from it with some questions, from a leadership perspective. Abraham Lincoln is renowned as one of the greatest presidents and leaders in United States history. In this movie, Spielberg tells the story of Lincoln’s last days, the time in which he worked to pass the 13th Amendment and end the Civil War. Both Lincoln and Thaddeus Stevens took questionable actions to advance their end goal of abolishing slavery. Lincoln sought to change the vote of house members and delay a meeting with the southern leaders, while Stevens modified his oratory to be more inclusive; shocking and disappointing his constituents.

And.. they won. The 13th Amendment was passed, banishing slavery for all time.

So, the leadership questions are:

When the goal is pure and the cost of not achieving it is high, do the ends justify the means? and
How do we as leaders make that decision that “this particular outcome” is one that qualifies?

A Timely Reminder Of Email Best Practices

December 9, 2012 by Elisa Spain2 Comments

I put this together some time ago. A compilation of things I have learned from experience and from others. The topic has come up a lot lately, so I thought I would share this with you.

Professor Albert Mehrabian’s research into verbal communication is often quoted in this simplified form:

Words – 7%, Tone – 38% – Body Language – 55%

Email, being only words without tone and body language, leaves the reader with fewer queues for interpretation. For this reason, recommended email best practices are:

Email is for communication, not conversation
Use Email for two purposes: transmit information or schedule meetings
Choose your words carefully, sometimes slang words, e.g. “yeah” can be misinterpreted
After 1 response – pick up the phone
Reply only to the sender
Reply to all – ONLY if sender requests or the information in your reply will benefit everyone on the distribution list
Only put in an Email something you would want to appear on the internet, on a billboard, in the news – you get the idea
Don’t send an Email when you are angry – see previous bullet
Never negotiate via Email
Never send an important Email w/o an advance phone call and a follow-up phone call to discuss and prevent/correct misunderstandings
Be brief, most people read Emails on their IPhone, Android, etc.
When sending an important Email, ask someone else to read it before sending it, with three questions:
- What would you think?
- How would you feel?
- What would you do?

Anything you would add?

The Answer Is In The Question…

December 2, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

One of the life lessons I have learned, since becoming a Vistage Chair six years ago, is the answer is in the question. By asking better questions, we enable others to come to their own resolutions. Most of us in business are problem solvers, and often the answer to someone else’s problem or challenge seems obvious to us. Therefore, we rush in with advice, without stopping and asking questions. What I have learned, and continue to be reminded of daily, is that by asking more poignant questions, the resulting answer may not only be better, it may also be different than what we perceived as obvious before we asked.

Following is a quote from one of my CEO members that, to me, captures the essence:

“I had a very interesting life lesson yesterday. Another member was leading and that was probably a little difficult for me to have someone else in charge. Once I accepted my role and decided to listen instead of work hard to offer my opinion, my perception of how I could add value changed drastically. I remember that Elisa said, ‘work to ask questions and not just offer suggestions’. I struggle with that as I always want to solve other people’s problems for them. It’s like counseling, the counselor never seems to tell you your problem, they just keep asking questions until you have the realization and state it yourself. That always bugged me. I now realize that until someone deeply understands their own problem, they will not take action nor will they truly support any action that they do take based on another’s understanding. I think I got more value out of the meeting than any other person in the room. That value was directly linked to not talking”.

Leadership Quote: I Am Part Of All Whom I Have Met….

June 24, 2012 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

This month’s leadership quote: I am part of all whom I have met. – Alfred Lord Tennyson.

One of the greatest lessons I have learned since becoming a Vistage Chair is this one. How many times do we as leaders say to ourselves, “I am different, they are different, that is the reason we cannot communicate.”

What if instead, we asked ourselves the following questions when dealing with a difficult communication challenge:

What can I learn about the person I am dealing with that will give me insight into them as a human being?
What life experiences do we share?
What personality traits, interests, passions do we share?
How might what we share, help us to communicate?

Sight Over Sound: When Face-To-Face Communication Improves Negotiation

November 1, 2011 by Elisa SpainNo Comments

Mode of communication matters! So say Kellogg School of Management professors Roderick Swaab, Adam D. Galinsky, Victoria Medvec and Daniel Diermeier.
In research described in the article below, the Northwestern University team discovered, not surprisingly, that face-to-face communication is critical to negotiation in two circumstances.

When two parties don’t know each other well
When two parties have a history of negative interactions

When the parties already know each other AND “have a history of cooperation” and positive interactions, face-to-face communication is not so important. In short, where there is trust, negotiating partners assume the best in each other.

Let’s start with this question: Why?

We easily understand the need for direct, in-person communication in the first two circumstances. What we are likely to underestimate is the need for personal exchanges with people we know, but with whom we just don’t have that storehouse of positive interactions.

While the Kellogg team’s research was specifically related to negotiation, my sense is that we can apply this insight to all of our business and personal interactions. After all, as Jack Kaine, our Vistage Speaker on negotiations, says, “Every interaction between two human beings is a negotiation.”

This study also prompts me to ask additional questions:

In each of our lives, what important relationships still require us to build a “history of positive interaction” before we can become highly reliant on written communication?
When we want to resolve a situation, is it worth pausing and asking ourselves whether we should continue using email — or would it be better to schedule a meeting?

Here’s the full article: http://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/index.php/Kellogg/article/sight_over_sound