Deciding How You Are Going to Achieve Your Vision

Having a vision and knowing your values is great, but you need to know how you’re going to get where you want to go. You have to set a path for yourself so you can eventually live in that picture you have created for yourself. Note how values come into play in the business world. Small and large companies are specific when translating their missions into action. Think of the values (those things that are treated with importance and respect) affirmed by companies like McDonald’s or Blockbuster. Both respect family values. The fast-food chain’s mascot is a cheerful and colorful clown, and the restaurants have play areas. The food chain is fast, clean, and brightly lit. It caters to youngsters. Unlike many other movie-rental stores, Blockbuster doesn’t have an adult-movie section. This feature has made Blockbuster a safe place for parents to send their kids to pick up movies. Both companies demonstrate their commitment to their corporate vision and values through their action plan.
Internet service companies have also incorporated values into their business models. All major Internet services now provide parental control blockers. These devices help parents keep their children safe from Web sites that they consider questionable while their kids surf the Internet.

Upping the stakes

Here’s my definition of commitment:
If you don’t achieve your objective, someone will cut off your hand.
This definition sounds harsh. It is harsh. It draws a gasp at seminars. I never use it unless someone starts blaming others for something when, in fact, the problem would be solved by a little higher commitment from the person doing the complaining.
For instance, one participant insisted she had done all the right things, and the “other guy” was consistently late on a report due to her every Thursday by 5 p.m. The “other guy,” in this case, was a co-worker in another department of her company, and she depended on his information. When asked what she did about the late report, she said, “Well, I call him Friday morning and really chastise him for not turning in the report.” She was someone who prefers to have reasons for not getting a job done rather than doing whatever it takes to get it done. That’s when I stated my definition of commitment and asked her, “What if your hand is cut off at 5:01 on Thursday if you don’t have the report from him?” Her demeanor changed. The good solutions flew fast and furious. “I might tell him that the report was due Wednesday. Not only would I tell him it was due Wednesday, but I would probably be a lot nicer to him. I would probably want to know who was in charge of the material for his report in case he died before 5 on Thursday. I would visit his office, ask about his kids, and make sure that the material for my report is in a fireproof filing cabinet.” If the stakes are high enough, you will change your behavior, even if it means taking extra steps — that’s commitment. Even with the people who seem most impossible, you can get what you want if you are committed to getting results.

Creating Your Vision

Most corporations and businesses have a mission or vision statement. The U.S. Army’s old adage is “Be all that you can be.” Employers often distribute their statement to employees at every level. They post it on their Web sites, display it on prominent bulletin boards, and print it in various company publications. Every employee is expected to know this statement. Ask those same employees whether they have a vision statement for their own lives and careers, and far too often the answer is no.
If you want to have the best personal life and a successful career, you need to think about your goals. The good life, no matter how you define it, doesn’t just happen. You need to set an agenda for both your short- and long-term goals. Think of your life as a negotiation. The better prepared you are, the smoother the negotiation is likely to go. Even a little planning is more than most people do, so making a small effort now puts you far ahead of the pack. The first step in creating a master plan for yourself is to identify your vision. A vision is an image of a desired future. The word vision is from the Latin videre, meaning to see. You should state your vision by describing, in present tense, a picture of the future you see for yourself. Your vision should be as rich in detail and as visual as possible. The description must be clear, understandable, and descriptive. Most important, your vision needs to motivate you. You count on your vision to give your life shape and direction. Here are some vision statements. I know that the first three have worked very well.

• Nordstrom: “To become America’s store of choice through the commitment of each employee to provide customers the very best in quality, value, selection, and service.”
• Microsoft: “Someday we’ll see a computer on every desk and in every home.”
• My law office: “To help my clients realize their dreams.”
• Young businessman: “To climb up the corporate ladder in an honest and professional way.”

In his book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill states that 98 percent of people are in their current jobs because of indecision — they never decided what they wanted to do in their lives in the first place. That failure to form a vision of what the future looks like explains why so many people feel that they may have a life purpose, but they have no idea what that life purpose is. Forget about the money, this is just a very unfortunate way to spend your life. It’s important to go through the process of evaluating your vision statement each year. In the past, I assessed my vision verbally. Today, I make sure to write my vision down. Keeping a written record creates better accountability. Your vision is a long-term, ongoing, open-ended process. When you read your vision statement, it motivates you to passionately seek to achieve your goals.

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.

Negotiation on the phone and via the Internet

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.

International negotiations

International negotiation (or cross-cultural negotiation) is one of many specialized areas in the world of negotiating. The six basic skills are just as critical, if not more critical, in international negotiations as they are when you’re negotiating on home turf. International deals require more preparation because you have to tailor your negotiating approach to the customs of the country you’re negotiating in.
Preparing for cross-cultural negotiating requires more than just understanding how foreigners close a deal. You have to know the differences in communication, their attitude toward conflict, how they complete tasks, their decision-making processes, and how they disclose information. Even the body language in other countries is very different from what we’re accustomed to in the United States. Eye contact, personal space, and touch vary among countries.
Research the country’s traditions before walking into a negotiating room on foreign soil. Watch foreign language films, read travel guides, and learn key phrases in your counterpart’s language during the preparation process. Bridge the communication gap as much as possible. When you start behaving like a native, you’ll earn the respect and confidence of your foreign counterpart.

When negotiations get complicated

In simple negotiations, you can apply the six basic skills at previous posts without too much trouble. But what happens when a negotiation gets complicated? Complex negotiations happen when the negotiation becomes larger in scope, and the amount of work and organization requires more than two people (one on each side of the negotiating table) can handle alone. When the negotiation shifts from a two-person affair to a 20-person affair, the negotiation is complicated. On a personal level, a negotiation becomes complicated when you invest all your emotion and effort into getting the deal closed. For example, a salary negotiation, although simple in theory, carries a lot of emotional weight behind it.
No matter the size and factors involved in the negotiation, the six basic skills serve as your core to making the negotiation a success. Complicated negotiations often involve multiple issues, multiple parties, handling the media, and other fun factors.