Get to Yes by Getting to Know

When you want to get to yes. Get to know.

If you really want to get to know someone better and thereby strengthen the relationship for the right reasons, be proactive. 

Here is where you start; Ask what they do and why (the why is more important than the what)  where they grew up and where they went to school, what they like, what they pursue, their passion what they would like to do, their hobbies, what they dislike, whom they admire, what they read and what they read recently, their family and more of what you can sincerely learn. Ask; "If we do build (or strengthen) a relationship can we sincerely share expectations?"

There is a world of information available about people and their professions to they who are willing to devote the time and truly desire to know more about what really matters. The very best source is of course the person themselves. 

Not much matters in a relationship if there is not a sincere desire to learn. 

An amazing thing happens when you strive to get to know someone better. People open up, overtime. Ask questions and listen to answers. 

I could write an entire piece (and likely will) on what should happen when you ask a question. So here is what has to happen; listen. 

Listen with a desire to learn and that means you are not listening while thinking of a response as most people do. 

It is amazing what people will share with you if you ask and they know that you really do want to know, and you really do care about them. 

In a business situation take notes. It is hard to remember what you had for lunch yesterday much less the important stuff a decision maker just shared. 

When you really want to get to yes, you will get to know!

Learn To Read-Read To Learn

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I am a reader. 

 

The reason I am a reader is not just because I am in the newspaper business. Yes, I do read the newspaper daily. 

The reason I am a reader is because I have learned, by reading, that leaders are readers. 

There is a building in downtown Lawton, Oklahoma and hundreds of other cities and towns in America, that prominently displays that it is a Carnegie Library. 

Andrew Carnegie was a self-made, rich-man. A total of 2,509 Carnegie Libraries were built between 1883 and 1929. All of them were built with Andrew Carnegie's money!

Andrew Carnegie believed that the knowledge contained in books would provide the “industrious and ambitious” the knowledge they needed to succeed in whatever they chose to be successful at. He was not interested in helping those that did not want to be helped. 

You must learn to read, and you must read to learn. There is no short cut to this prescription for accelerating and sustaining your success. 

Most of my reading is business and self-help books. I read with a highlighter and the more relevant and impactful, the more I highlight. I can then revisit the books and reread the highlighted portion to reacquaint myself with those messages that meant the most at the time I was reading. 

A business book I recently read is:

The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni.

“Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business”

What I learned from The Advantage;

1. Companies must be smart and have great organizational health

(Health is the way the author describes companies that have a strong culture) 

2. You have to slow down to go fast

3. People in healthy organizations learn from each other

4. Leaders must overcome the tendency to run from discomfort

5. Conflict must occur, and trust must be established for that to happen

There is much more I highlighted, but this is a great look at what I learned in just this one book! 

Currently I am reading a collection of Harvard Business Review articles on Mental Toughness and it is very enlightening. 

Not all of my reading is business. I just finished The Lords of The Plains by Max Crawford. Max Crawford is an amazing writer. 

There are thousands of sources to choose from that deliver edifying reading material. It is probably a good idea to be somewhat selective in your reading material, but read something, daily. Ask your friends what read and what they have read recently. 

The positive benefits to reading are too many to list, but an expanding vocabulary is surely near the top of that list. And if you don’t know what a word means, look it up!

Learn to Read-Read to Learn.

The Only Thing Tougher

The only thing tougher in professional football than winning your first Super Bowl, is to win the next Super Bowl.

The only thing tougher in professional baseball than winning your first World Series, is to win the next World Series.

The only thing tougher than winning your first NBA Championship is winning the next NBA Championship.

By now you know where I am headed.

The best time to win is after you just won. Why then, does it so rarely happen? 

During my career I worked at several newspapers varying in publication frequency from 1 to 7 days a week. What I learned at the once a week publication is that you work like crazy to get the weekly edition out, then, the day after, you can hear a collective sigh from the entire staff as a full-day break was taken before getting ready for the next week's paper. 

Once we got the weekly edition out what we should have done, instead of basking in the victory, is used the less demanding time, the day after, to take urgent action and go places in business we had never been. 

The challenges lie in the challenge to challenge yourself and your team to do something different, to do more. That is the very reason that champions rarely repeat. They are not as hungry as they once were, they don't challenge themselves they way they did in order to win it all the first time. They have the same players and the same coach. What they don't have is that level of desire and commitment that got them to places they had never been. And most, will never return.

You can't quit before the victory and you shouldn't quit after the victory. 

Let Everybody Else

Let everybody else, be like everybody else. You be you.

I have found that a common mistake in life of young and older is to try and be like someone else. Good luck. 

Chances are, that the very person you are trying to be like considers themselves to be one-of-a-kind. They may have, in the past, been highly influenced by others they admire, but now they are who they are because of decisions they made.

You need to be you. Absolutely, you may follow the lead of the right people and choose to make your results a reflection of they who influenced you. But once you start putting your hand to the plow (figuratively speaking) it is your signature on the finished work, not the people you are trying to be like.

You young folks out there have a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunty. Some of the very best people you will meet in your life are teachers. The great majority of these dedicated individuals are sold out in helping you be a better you. They are privileged to spend time with you in your formative years and really want to make a difference. They teach you subject matter that is relevant but I feel that the more important lesson they teach you young people is through an example of a life's work dedicated to others. You will never get this opportunity again. Do not squander it with bad behavior when the right behavior is what is required. 

Even if you are not young and most people reading this are not, be judicious who you choose to pattern your behavior after. Saying; "I want to be like so and so."" is just an excuse to not be like you. 

Do not be afraid to be you. After all, you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

I can't reach

I can't reach.

There are times when things are just too good to not share and this in one of those times. 

The basis of this discourse is a friend telling me, regarding a new endeavor I had just embarked on; "You will make it happen as is or find a way to make it happen." 

Herein lies a pretty simple illustration to a not so simple problem. 

Standing at a distance and watching the glass cleaner person from inside the building shielded the top part of the window from my view. The glass cleaner was diligently applying his trade and his window cleaning stuff. So far so good. 

Because I was interested and paying for the cleaning and mostly because I really like clean windows, I moved in for a closer look. The windows were clean,. almost. The very top perhaps 20% of every window was not being cleaned and from inside you could not see that portion, unless you moved close to the window. 

The ladder the window cleaner was using was good enough to reach most of the window but not good enough to reach all of the window. Which proves that; "Good enough never is." 

What should have happened is that the window cleaning person should have notified whomever was in charge and made them aware of the problem. "My ladder won't reach." 

Instead they moved ahead doing 80% of a job they got paid 100% to complete. 

Don't do a job 80% of the way when you can get what you need and do a job 100% of the way. Doing a job partially without asking for the help you need is unacceptable. Once you get the help, get the job done expeditiously, accurately and completely.

If you can't reach, get a bigger ladder!

I Am Thinking & I Think

Thinking is underutilized. 

My best thinking is done when I walk around the office as if I am in a daze. The wheels are almost always turning so the dazed-look is well deserved and hard-earned. When, during this process, I come to some conclusion, the dazed look will disappear and I am back to digging and doing. 

I really should do more thinking in an environment where people don't view me as milling around. Maybe I am sending the wrong message because I am not in the figurative ditch, feverishly thinking. But the process of thinking is extremely valuable and productive. When I think I can come to reasonable conclusions (hopefully) and make a decision to either draw a line or get help. Either way, the thinking leads me to some meaningful action and discourages the, ready-fire-aim, knee-jerk reaction.

 A good and very successful friend goes in an hour early, every day, just so he can think!

Thinking is underutilized, "I think" is over utilized.

Here, we teach that there is room for opinions in our business discussions, but not much. What you think is not helpful, what you know is invaluable. 

People really don't care what you think and I am high on that list. People care deeply about what you know supported by what you can prove. Sure, people will be nice and considerate when you espouse your opinions, but they have their limits, so don't waste their time or yours. 

"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.
— ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Passion or Performance

Passion will take you to performance. Performance will not take you to passion. Passion is a choice, performance is not. There is a clear difference between passion and performance. A difference that if you don't have passion, you will not notice. Nor will anyone else. If you have passion the difference is breathtaking!

Passion is hot. Set yourself on fire and people will come from miles away to watch you burn.

Performance is dry and cold and without passion. Passion will drive you to take action and increase your levels of activity in order to reach the next milestone. Passion requires love for what you are doing. Passion is not risk averse.

Performance will never be enough to make you stand out and be remembered. Performance is a has-been. Passion is a will-do. 

Passion will get you out of bed in the morning and have you running headstrong into the issues and opportunities you will face during the day. Performance will expect you to get out of bed but will only suggest that you move. Performance will not fan the flames of accomplishment.

Passion will have you demonstrable, to a point of lunacy, when you experience even the smallest victories or learn something new. Performance will plod along stepping boringly through the labyrinth of ho-hum tasks that must be done to get something, anything done.

Passion is absolutely necessary in order to be extraordinary. Performance is ordinary. If you want to be extraordinary, you have to first, stop being ordinary and passion will drive you to that place where you are not like everybody else. Let everybody else be like everybody else.

The common illusion is that to be extraordinary you have to work all the time and fully devote all of your energies to the endeavor. That is not the case. What you have to do is make the most of the time you have when you are working. Don't think of reasons you can't so something, rather think of reasons you can, and passion will lead you to that kind of thinking.