Project management is among a top skill to master in any business; especially one wanting to grow.
Why?
Because without project management, business owners will unnecessarily run into common issues:
You often get derailed by "the unexpected.”
It’s inevitable.
You get interrupted an unexpected number of times daily. Those interruptions come at unexpected times. They each take an unexpected amount of time with which to deal.
That’s why it’s "the unexpected."
These interruptions kill your flow, destroy your focus, and force you to work on the urgent instead of the important.
So how do you deter, prevent, and deal with the problems these unexpected interruptions incur?
I was shocked, hurt, and felt like my idea had been stolen. Though I had the idea first, Nintendo would be the star. Nintendo would make $millions. It took years before I was old enough to recognize the important lesson in this experience...
Are you second-guessing your next great idea? Are you downplaying the value you could provide to others? Are you upset that you found a competitor in the market who seems to be offering everything you want to (and seems to be finding great success doing it)?
It might be time to step back and realize a few important things.
For small business owners, finances are nearly always in limbo. If you are running into stressful money moments, there are some steps you can take to make those moments less frequent and taxing on your business and your sanity.
What follows are four tips for small business owners who find themselves strapped for cash a little too often
When a conflict arises, most people have a default approach for how they handle the situation. Many of us are not conscious of our conflict style; we respond automatically without giving thought to the circumstances.
This is significant in the context of negotiations. A negotiation is a type of conflict – a situation where your concerns and interests are not aligning with those of another person, and you are actively seeking a solution.
Understanding your tendencies in responding to conflict, and how you may need to adjust them, will give you an advantage as you work through a negotiation. If you can assess each conflict and negotiation situationally, you can intentionally utilize the style that will be most beneficial to you.
So far in this series, we have explored several common mistakes that can harm negotiations as well as tactics you can employ to avoid negotiation pitfalls. This post is about re-framing the way we view negotiations, especially regarding how we look at the “other side” that we are negotiating with. The idea is to achieve a satisfactory result without damaging relationships.
Negotiations can be tough.
They are often high pressure, high stakes situations with tight deadlines and demanding stakeholders. Opinions and interests can differ widely among parties, and strong emotions may come into play. When we are under this type of pressure, we often find ourselves stumped. Our thinking narrows and our creative muscles feel constrained.
The Principled Negotiation Method defined in Getting to Yes suggests several strategies to counteract this. The premise is that “The key to wise decision making lies in selecting from a great number and variety of options.”
Preparation is essential to effective negotiation. If you wish to reach a fair and satisfactory deal, you need to enter the negotiation with a clear understanding of your interests, options, comparative data, and objective criteria.
One of the most important data points to consider is your “Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement”. This serves as your “Plan B” to the negotiation. In other words, it is the best option you have and the one you will live with should you leave the negotiation without an agreement.
If you don’t know your best alternative to a negotiated agreement, you may end up taking a deal that is worse than your backup option, or you may walk away from a deal that is better than your backup option.
In this podcast, we will give you some simple steps to create your best alternative to a negotiated agreement and use an example to drive the point home.
Negotiation is a back-and-forth communication that is designed to reach an agreement among parties that have both shared and differing interests.
We all deal with negotiating each day, whether on simple matters like what to eat for dinner to complex decisions involving high stakes business matters with multiple parties.
The purpose of negotiations is to produce wise agreements as efficiently as possible while maintaining or strengthening relationships.
In this brief podcast, we specifically look at what “Interests” are, and what it means to focus on interests (not positions) to get better results from your negotiations.
