Easy question. What do you want?

Often times it’s not so easy.
There’s so much to choose! Maybe I want this one, Or that One! I can’t decide!! HELP!

Truth is many times we don’t know what we want.

And so: Rule #5 Know What You Want!

You’ll never be a successful negotiator – in any forum – unless you know what it is that your after!

A few years ago, I represented an employer at the negotiating table and I asked them this question:
ME:“What is it that you want?” THEM: Nothing!
ME: “Really, there’s nothing you want?” THEM: “No not really.”
ME:“Seriously?” THEM: “Well, lets just keep the status quo.”

Finally, they had told me! They wanted no changes!

So, I proceeded to negotiate under that mandate, no changes to the contract. UNTIL, near the end of our negotiations, my client decided they did want something….they wanted to impose An Employee Appearance Code on their employees! Something NO OTHER group of employees were subject to! If you’re wondering, this proposed change would determine: how long your hair could be (male and female); how long or short your facial hair, (sideburns, beards, mustaches – presumably male only) whether you could wear jewelry, (male or female) make up, etc. These employees already were required to wear uniforms, now we wanted to regulate how each employee groomed themselves!

I’m not saying this was a bad…or a good thing. I was fairly certain that someone back at the office had panicked and thought we had better be getting something big in this negotiation! However, we made our position weaker because by asking for our “had to have” proposal late in the game the union knew one thing was certain.

If we were to have any chance of getting what we now wanted, then by god we were going to have to pay for it. And we did. We ended up getting what we wanted but it cost us! Literally.

Why was this?

We weren’t smart about what we wanted and when we wanted to ask for it. We waited so long to make up our mind on what we really wanted, we made it more difficult for ourselves to get it. The other side knew how important it was to us so they determined we would have to give up plenty for it. We might not have had to pay as much if we would have started out knowing what we really wanted.

Bottom line for this employer: They were extremely happy to get the new grooming code but they were very less than pleased they had to pay for it. Not quite the win/win it could have been.

In life situations, we all think we know just what it is that we want. But do we really? I should know better, but I have started the day prepared to do one thing only to change course and go in a complete opposite way.
This sounded good, but so does this!

I’ve started so many things only to get interested in something else before I finished what I had originally started.

And when I do this..I end up NOT accomplishing anything! I never reach a resolution!

Life can throw us curves, right? Why do we throw ourselves curves as well?

So how do I know what I want?

When I meet with clients I always ask them:

What do you want?
What change would you like to see?
What is broken and needs to be fixed?
What costs/expenses needs to be addressed?
What do you need to operate more efficiently?

And since this works with them I ask myself these very same questions.

Getting the answers enables us to then plan our strategies: How to get from “A” to “B” in order to achieve “C”.

It’s what works for me to get what I want – to reach my particular resolution.

Think about it…..

Rule #5 Know What You Want

Key question: What Do You Want to Do??? click the link below.

JT