Thursday, January 24, 2008

Goal and preparation

We’re riding on the information superhighway and never looking back. The landscape of communication has changed dramatically, thanks to the telephone and the Internet. These forms of telecommunication have made communication faster and sometimes simpler. More importantly, they’ve created a new mode of negotiating. You can now negotiate from the comfort of your own home, in a car while driving to your office, or from a different part of the world.
Negotiating via the telephone and Internet requires the same preparation and etiquette as a face-to-face negotiation. The only difference is that the negotiation happens at the lift of a headset or the push of a button. Although simpler, using the telephone or Internet to negotiate is not as good as negotiating in person. You miss the human interaction, the body language, and the gestures that are so important in gauging others when negotiating in a room.
Several steps, large and small, can help you take charge of all the negotiations you face in your life. Even if you currently think that you could never take control of certain areas of your life, challenge yourself to entertain the possibility. Consider actors, who do a great deal of waiting. Think of some employees who regard their roles as reactive and not proactive, whose job descriptions entail responding to someone else’s needs. The fact that your dreams or your paycheck seem to hinge on forces beyond your control shouldn’t stop you from creating a master plan for your life. Create a vision statement and an action plan.
After you have the big picture well in hand, you need to prepare physically and mentally for specific negotiations.

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