Understanding Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a great way to bring your inner voice to the surface. During brainstorming, you let all the ideas flow without editing or judging. You write down or say every idea that pops in your head — no matter how crazy it may be. This creative-thinking technique works because it helps to free you from fixed ideas. The intent is to get every possible idea out on the table. You can try brainstorming on your own — with a notepad and pen — but brainstorming almost always works better with a group because you can build on each other’s ideas.
After the idea fountain has run completely dry, stop. Give everyone a final opportunity to add something to the list. Be sure that everyone has articulated every idea that they could possibly have. Then take a little break to let people shift gears from the free-wheeling creative session to the practical job of narrowing the list to a manageable number of ideas. When you are ready, look through your list of ideas and choose the ones that you believe will best yield results during the negotiation process. This is best done by the same group that came up with the list in the first place. That way everyone is heard. No one has sour grapes later when his or her ideas don’t show up on the final list. And most importantly to the welfare of the group, an idea can be fleshed out and explained if the brief expression of the idea wasn’t clear to everyone. Sometimes a good idea doesn’t seem so good until it carries a bit of an explanation.
Take a look at Oliver Stone’s JFK. The film is one big brainstorming session. The film follows New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison (played by Kevin Costner) and his obsessive investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It’s like a collage of all the books and articles, documentaries and television shows, scholarly debates and conspiracy theories since 1963. We know the events by heart: the grassy knoll, the hobos in dress shoes, the parade route, Lee Harvey Oswald, Clay Shaw, the three shots, the eyewitness testimony, the gunpowder tests, Jack Ruby, the wrong shadows on the photograph, the Zapruder film, and on and on. Garrison and his team attempt to put all the pieces of the puzzle together to build a case against Clay Shaw, a respected businessman who is linked to various conspirators. Brainstorming sessions abound between Garrison and his team. It all builds up to the final courtroom scene. Consider the pivotal scene in which Garrison and his investigators sit in a restaurant, brainstorming facts and opinions for the trial. The scene is intercut with shots of the alleged fabrication of the infamous Time-Life photo of Oswald holding a rifle. The rules of brainstorming are clearly demonstrated in this scene. Everyone contributes; some ideas are shot down, while others are praised. As the group breaks up in frustration, the trajectory of the other sequence lands the photo on the cover of Life magazine. Was the photo fabricated? Who knows?

Quieting your mind

If you want to get in touch with your inner voice, you must quiet your conscious mind. For some people, this involves a mind-relaxing activity such as running, walking, or fishing. Other people must sit quietly for a few minutes. Do whatever works for you in order to let those inner messages surface. Try meditation, which has been scientifically proven to increase mental clarity and thinking ability and integrate left- and right-brain functioning. Meditation also can improve physical, mental, and emotional health. If this is a new idea to you, you may have to practice. You have to work extra-hard to quiet your conscious mind until you get used to accepting the complete messages that come from the subconscious without explanation. As you do, the messages come to you more often and more clearly. Don’t be discouraged as you attempt this process, and remember that listening to your inner voice is a personal process. Your subconscious is your own storehouse of information, unlike anybody else’s. It’s where your entire life is captured. You can enjoy great success if you can use that information by following your inner voice.
The disadvantage of articulating answers and decisions brought to you by your subconscious is that you are unable to discuss the process that occurred or describe the logic that was used. You were not conscious of the process while it was occurring. You cannot explain the entire process to someone in the same way you can explain a conscious, logical path from problem to solution. The logic occurs too quickly and uses too many bits of data to explain rationally.
How many people in your life can question you about how you arrive at your decisions? The longer the list, the less comfortable you are with decisions that you cannot rationally explain. Very successful people have fewer people to answer to, which is one reason they can get away with intuitive problem solving. When the boss says, “I smell a rat!” nobody asks for a detailed analysis. Subordinates accept the intuitive process. “Put it in a memo” is simply not an appropriate response to the boss’s hunch . . . intuitive process . . . inner voice.
For a perfect example of someone getting in touch with her voice and then trusting it, see Little Miss Sunshine. This loopy, dark comedy of a road picture ends with 8-year-old Olive, played by Abigail Breslin, having to decide whether to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. Her father and brother are passionately telling her not to do it. Her mother is telling her to go ahead with it. The camera pulls in tight on Olive’s face. She goes quiet for a moment. You can actually see her mind going quiet as she gets in touch with her inner voice. Then she makes her decision and follows through on it. The scene is a good demonstration of the process of quieting your mind so you can hear your inner voice, and it shows how the inner voice can be used by anyone at any age in any situation.

Left brain vs. right brain

No, this isn’t a biology textbook, but by understanding how your mind works, you can manage your thoughts and become a better negotiator. Research on brain theory helps explain why some people are good managers but weak leaders. Research indicates that the brain is divided into two halves: the left and right half. These are called hemispheres. Each hemisphere serves a different function, processes different kinds of information, and deals with different kinds of problems. The left hemisphere works with logic and analysis; the right works with emotions and imagination.

The conscious and subconscious mind

The mind constantly processes millions of pieces of data quickly and efficiently. The brain feeds the results into a storage device unmatched by any filing system in the world. The conscious mind uses this data for speech, recognition, and every other human activity. The actual processing of the information, however, is completely outside our conscious experience. We are unaware of the process because it is subconscious. This subconscious realm is the source of your dreams. The meaning of dreams is not always obvious, especially to the layperson. Psychiatrists are so interested in dreams because dreams are like windows to the subconscious mind. When you go to sleep, your conscious mind quiets down. Messages, in the form of dreams, barrage you from your subconscious mind, not because your subconscious mind becomes more active, but because your conscious mind becomes less active.

The phenomenon is much like viewing the stars in the heavens. People say, “The sky is full of stars tonight.” In fact, the number of stars in the sky hasn’t changed. You just can’t see them when the glare of the sun obscures them or when the night’s cloud cover conceals them or when the city lights dim them. Remove those things that blanket them with light or physically obstruct their light and millions of stars are visible to the naked eye. Take a place like Death Valley in California. You can walk by the light of the stars even if the moon isn’t visible. It is amazing. The stars are visible because no buildings or trees or light sources block or wash them out.

When you fall asleep, your conscious mind also takes a rest. The noisy thought processes of your conscious mind no longer block out the activity of your subconscious mind. Your dreams are a product of this activity. Sometimes, your demons come tripping out. The welcome and unwelcome activity of your subconscious mind plays out much more vividly at night than during the day because your conscious mind is not busy blocking it out. The brain scans millions of pieces of data at lightning speed (and maybe even faster). The result is fed to the speech and reasoning centers of the conscious mind. Only then are we aware of the process and only then can the results be put to use.

For example, someone may say to you, “Hi, how are the kids?” By the time your response arrives at the speech center, a great deal of information has been processed, evaluated, and accepted or rejected. This has occurred without interference from the conscious mind. In fact, your speech center may be otherwise engaged even as the recognition process is occurring. Your conscious mind goes on with the talking while your amazing subconscious brain gives you a final answer to the person’s question. Your processing centers have done all the work — without words, without anxious thought. The process is almost instantaneous and highly accurate because no data is overlooked.

This speedy, subconscious processing of massive amounts of data is what really goes on when we resonate with a hunch or an intuitive feeling about something. Many people develop this aspect of their brains, either by accident or by design, to a very high degree. However, everyone’s brain functions in this way.

If you did not have a subconscious that could send such messages, you could not function in the world. You would have to be institutionalized. If you can read this book, you can read your subconscious. Unfortunately, no one teaches you how to read those messages in school. Readin’, writin’, and resonatin’ is not currently the accepted grade school curriculum. Although this discussion of the phenomenon is hardly complete, you may feel more trusting next time your subconscious provides an answer to a complicated problem.

Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire is a wonderful film about negotiating in business and in your personal life. It is also a film about listening to your inner voice. The film opens with Jerry Maguire (played by Tom Cruise) realizing that the cutthroat world of representing professional athletes isn’t all he imagined. Jerry has a beautiful girlfriend, a successful career, and lots of money, but his inner voice tells him that something is missing from his life. So Jerry spontaneously writes a stirring, visionary statement for his sports agency and titles it, The Things We Think And Do Not Say: The Future of Our Business. Not everyone accepts the statement, and he is unceremoniously fired from the agency. Stripped of his job and a good measure of his identity, Jerry embarks on a journey of self-discovery that leads him to greater personal and professional success all because he listened to his inner voice at the start of the film.

Understanding Your Inner Voice

Your inner voice is your subconscious mind talking to you. Call it a hunch, intuition, or a sixth sense, too many people ignore this inner voice. When you seek your inner truth, you are more likely to be honest and ethical in your dealings with others. That’s what Shakespeare was trying to say. Your inner voice tells you when a deal is sour. Your inner voice tells you to go forward with an agreement, although the money may not be right. Listen to that voice. Go to a quiet place and get in touch with what is really going on inside. Talk it out with a trusted adviser if you like, but nothing and no one can give a message as powerfully accurate as your own inner voice can.
One reason that women frequently make such good negotiators is that they tend to have better intuitive skills than men. Some men belittle women’s intuition as less useful than a quantifiable response to the objective data being presented. However, studies show that successful people, be they men or women, rely heavily on intuition. Learn to trust and value what your inner voice says; don’t dismiss it because of self-doubt or the skepticism of others or your own inability to explain logically how you reached your decision.

Don’t Believe Every Body Language You See

Body language augments rather than replaces the spoken word. The meanings of certain actions or gestures can vary depending on the circumstances and the individual. Consider these examples:

· Sitting erect may indicate a stiff bargaining position, or it may indicate a stiff back. Stay alert to the body language, but combine your observations with the spoken words to determine the correct meaning.

· Gestures of anger are used when a person is genuinely angry; however, these actions can also be employed for effect. Some executives (especially in the entertainment industry) are notorious for using such gestures. But keep in mind that some people are just blustery by nature. Evaluate body language cautiously, just as you do all the other information that comes to you during a negotiation.

Different strokes for different folks

No matter how much you know about body language in general, don’t grow overconfident when applying your knowledge to a specific person — especially someone you don’t know very well. Each individual has unique body language. A child can tell when a parent is really angry, even if the body language that parent uses to indicate serious trouble is the opposite of what the general public uses. For example, although silence usually indicates that a person is calm, some parents clam up when they’re angry. In such families, the children soon learn that silence means real trouble is looming.

Consider the context

As you become more sensitive to body language, you become more conscious of the differences in the meanings of gestures. A clenched fist usually represents anger. Held firmly above the head, it can be a symbol of quiet rage. Pumped up and down, especially if the person is also jumping and squealing, a clenched fist can be an expression of extreme joy.

Prepare for the bluff

Most adults have the art of “faking it” pretty well perfected. People are prone to hide their real feelings in a business setting. Negotiators may display all the signs of accepting a deal, although their true reaction is quite the opposite. When you think the other side is accepting your proposal, try to close the deal. That provides a good check on your reading of the other party’s body language. If you can’t close, what you observed was something other than acceptance. Don’t be fooled the next time you see the same reaction from that person — and keep trying to close.

Smiles are almost always an expression of happiness. However, society sometimes requires a smile when the soul is not happy. The mouth drawn tightly and obligingly back reveals a devotion to duty more than merriment. And a half-smile (one corner of the mouth crooked upward) reveals a wry feeling of superiority — like the smile on the face of the bad guy just before he shoots the good guy in an old Western.

Most of the differences between the body language you see and the intended spirit of the communication are accidental. These differences are generally not the result of a sinister plot. The impact on you will be the same if you are misled. This chapter helps keep you from being misled by body language that is different from the message of the spoken word. When you make such an observation, don’t assume that the other person is intentionally trying to mislead you.