WIN-WIN OR NO DEAL

In successful negotiation, both parties should be fully satisfied with the result and feel that they have each "won" or no deal should be made at all. Consistent with your determination to enter into agreements that preserve long-term relations between the parties, you should always seek an outcome that satisfies both. Remember, you always reap what you sow. Any settlement or agreement that leaves one party dissatisfied will come back to hurt you later, sometimes in ways that you cannot predict.
Tough Negotiating
A very tough negotiator told me proudly about a hard deal he had wrung out of a national organization for the distribution of his company's products. He had demanded and threatened and negotiated an agreement that paid him considerably more, both in up-front payments and in percentages of sales, than any of the other clients for which his company distributed.
Win-Lose
The businessman had negotiated a deal that was a "win-lose," with him winning and the other losing. But those on the losing side had no incentive to fulfill the implied commitment to market the products. They had no real incentive to go forward with this person again, you should be clear in advance that you are committed to reach a solution that is satisfactory to both. If it does no entail a win for both parties, you should simply refuse to make any deal at all.
Win-Win
When you are determined to achieve a win-win solution to a negotiation, and you are open, receptive, and flexible in your discussions, you will often discover a third alternative that neither party had considered initially but that is superior to what either of you might have thought of on your own.
Make Yourself Clear
Once you have decided that you are only going to agree to a settlement that is satisfactory to both parties, this doesn't mean that you have to accept any arrangement that you consider best. With your values and your intentions clear, you are now in a position to utilize every strategy and tactic available to you to get the very best deal for both of you—one that assures that you both end up happy with the arrangement.
Action Exercise
Think win-win in all your interactions with others, at work and at home. Actively seek a middle way that satisfies the most pressing desires of both parties. Be creative in suggesting alternatives that get both you and the other person more of what you want.

FLYING INTO HEADWINDS

When you set off toward a new destination or goal, like taking off in an airplane, you will have an idea of both your departure time and your arrival time. You will set a schedule for yourself and expect to arrive pretty much on schedule. But as soon as you take off, you will experience what pilots call “unexpected headwinds.” The situation in your life is similar. As soon as you embark on a new journey, you will experience headwinds as well: everything will cost twice as much and take three times longer than you anticipated. You should estimate how long you will take to achieve certain milestones and then triple that time to get the actual time period required.
Types of Headwinds
Headwinds in your business and personal life will come from several sources. Your primary source of headwinds will be other people. They will disappoint you, cheat you, betray you, and fail to live up to your expectations, and turn out to be incompetent or indifferent. Your customers will be a major source of headwinds. When you start a new venture, you will be amazed at how difficult it is to get customers to buy your product or service for the first time. Your customers will disappoint you in that they will buy less than you expected, take longer to buy than you expected, pay slower than you expected, and complain more than expected. Remember that the customer is always right. It is not what you produce but what people buy that counts.

Financial Headwinds
Another form of headwinds that you will face has to do with money. Some people will tell you that it is easy to make all the money you want just by thinking positively and visualizing yourself as wealthy. Everyone wants to believe that this is true, and many people embrace the idea of effortless wealth with their whole hearts. But that doesn't include those people who have actually achieved financial success. People who have made a lot of money have learned through bitter experience that the only thing easy about money is losing it. As the Japanese proverb says, “Making money is like digging with a pin; losing money is like pouring water on the sand.”
Personal Headwinds
You will experience headwinds personally in that you will discover, much to your surprise that you lack specific talents, skills, and knowledge that you need to succeed. You may find that you are a poor time manager or that you lack self-discipline. You cannot seem to focus, concentrate, and apply yourself single-mindedly to your most important tasks. You waste time and feel overwhelmed with too much to do and too little time in which to do it. You may lack financial, analytic, marketing, or selling skills. You may not know how to plan and organize your business, advertise effectively and attract customers, or persuade your prospects to buy from you. Fortunately these are all learnable skills. But the starting point of mastering these essential skills is for you to admit that you need them. After that, the education can begin.
Action Exercise
Because of your incredible mind, you can learn any skill you need to learn to achieve any goal you can set for yourself. You must never allow yourself to be held back because you lack a particular skill. Figure out what skill you need to increase the quality of your life, and then set out to learn it.

THE PARTHENON PRINCIPLE

During the Persian War, the building on the Acropolis of Athens was burned by the invading Persian forces. Following the war, which ended in 479 b.c., the Athenians began rebuilding their city, which culminated in the construction of the Parthenon, the greatest of all Greek temples of the Classical Age. Dedicated to Athena, goddess of wisdom and patron deity of the city of Athens, the Parthenon stood more or less intact for some 2,000 years until the middle of the seventeenth century, when it was partly destroyed in a war between the Turks and the Venetians.
The Metaphor
The career or business you are building is as important to you as was the Parthenon to the Greeks. It took many years of painstaking planning and excruciatingly hard work to affect this magnificent temple. The same is true of your own business. A level of commitment that was quite extraordinary was essential to the ultimate success of the Athenians' undertaking. No less is required of you. Like the Parthenon, your career or business is also supported by pillars, each of which is central to its integrity and its survival. The Parthenon was "built to last." So too, your career or business must be based on rock-solid principles.
The Principle
Imagine the result of a small increase in the strength of each of the supporting pillars of the Parthenon. As each is strengthened, it will affect the robustness—the durability—of the structure. Clearly, a small change in each pillar will give rise to a large change in the overall structure. The same is true of your career or business. This gives rise to what we call the Parthenon Principle.
Incremental Changes
Consider the human body. It has several systems—pillars, if you will—each of which supports the body. Improve one and the overall health of the person improves. Improve them all by just a small amount and the individual will experience a significant increase in health, energy, and vitality. Similarly, your business or organization consists of several foundational systems, all of which are interrelated. In our coaching program, we consider seven core systems or pillars: sales, services, pricing, promotion, referrals, productivity, and profitability (i.e. cost controls). As with the human body, an improvement in any of these systems will lead to an improvement in the overall health of the organization or your business.
Action Exercise
What improvements could you make in your products to make them more attractive and salable? How could you alter or improve your sales, marketing strategies, and processes to increase your sales? How could you improve your customer service operations to make your business more client-friendly?

GETTING OVER TODAY'S SUCCESS - John Maxwell

In my office, I have a sign that says, "Yesterday ended last night." It's a great sign because it helps me keep our company's success in perspective. When I want to celebrate because the previous day was a good day, I look at the sign and say, "Okay John, that was yesterday. The party's over. Go home, go to bed and get ready for another day."

Life is not a snapshot. It would be wonderful if, at the pinnacle of your success, you could take a picture of it and assume nothing will ever change. But it will change, and if you don't change with it, what got you there yesterday won't keep you there in the future. Yesterday ended last night, remember? And--even more importantly--today's success won't sustain you tomorrow.

This can be tough to digest because when your business or job is going really well, the tendency is to sit back and say, "This is it. We've found the recipe for success--this is how it's going to be from here on out." Unfortunately, that kind of attitude doesn't lead to growth; it only fosters stagnation.

As tempting as it is to rest on your laurels, you have to keep reinventing yourself and you have to keep reinventing your organization. Ninety percent of INJOY's profit margin today comes from work we were not doing six years ago. And when we look at our game plan for the next five years and the growth that we're planning to have in our company, nothing in the next five years is determined on what we're doing right now.

Let me put it this way: If what you did five years ago still satisfies you, you're not doing anything worthwhile today. I look at material I produced five years ago and I want to apologize for it. You see, a sign of growth in your life is when what you did yesterday no longer thrills you; not because you're bored, but because you're growing.

In light of that, here are five ways to make sure today's success doesn't impede future accomplishment in your life.

1. Keep growing personally.

   Growth equals change. When you grow, you change. Notice that Idid not say change equals growth. You can change without growing, but you cannot grow without changing.

2. Continually ask, "Is there a better way?"

   When someone asks this question, the answer is always yes. There's always a better way, a more efficient method, a more effective approach. You're in deep trouble if you think you have the best way because there's no such thing. There's always a better way; and your search to be a little bit better or a little bit different will keep you in a continual growth spurt.

3. Pay for outside consulting.

   I learned a long time ago that if you really want to grow, you need to have a fresh set of eyes examining your business from time to time. So hire an outside consultant who knows your business well to check out your organization and see what you're too close to see.

4. Don't protect the past.

   We all have a tendency to protect our past--the decisions we've made and the people we've hired. It's easy to look at an employee who's not performing well and think, "I really believe they're about to get on track," when in reality, they haven't improved in seven years. The real effort comes when you have to say, "I made a bad decision in hiring them, and it's time for them to go."

5. Build on your success--don't sit on it.

   When your company applauds you, take a tape recorder and record it. Every now and then when you're alone, turn it on and say, There was a time..." Then turn the tape off and start growing. Start improving. Start disciplining yourself to get better. And keep people around you who are not impressed with you. The worst thing that happens with leaders is that they surround themselves with fans instead of building productive teams. You don't need people to admire you. You need people to say, "I don't think that was a good idea; we should have done this." Those are the kind of people who will push you to grow. They won't just let you sit there basking in the warmth of today's success."

Once you've gotten into the habit of doing these five things go ahead and celebrate the success you had today. Feel good about it. Enjoy it. But when tomorrow comes, get over it. Let it go. Don't let today's achievements stand in the way of future growth.