L A Costacurta Junqueira

JB Vilhena

CEO of INSTITUTE MVC

costacurta@instituomvc.com.br

            The opening speech represents a very important moment in every event. And here, at the ASTD, it couldn’t be different. We have, in the last years, had the opportunity to be present at several meetings where renowned consultants came to talk about things that very often we already knew or had even experienced in Brazil. But this didn’t happen today, June 4^th with Jim Collins speech.

         Jim introduced himself not in the role of a teacher or consultant, instead he performs  more like the manager of a learning process devoted to study how the big companies grow, achieve better performances e turn up to be exceptional organizations (going from Good to Great companies). One of the remarkable differences he exhibits in relation to the other consultants is that Jim discusses the process used by people in the area of corporate education. The majority of works published in this field seems to be confined to the report of results. However, because Jim is more concerned with the “how” – and not only with the “results” – his speech led the public to ponder over questions such as:

a)     You probably have a log of things demanding to be done, but do you have a log of things that should never be done? The example Jim gave to illustrate this idea was the purchasing of the Pacific Southwest Airways (that had been enduring a critical financial situation) by an unknown air company. This unknown company decided to continue with all the right things that the PSA was doing – the use of one single aircraft, for example. But, at the same time, they decided to stop with all the things typical to be a PSA characteristic, for instance, they cut off on flight meals and only hand baggage was permitted to the passengers. They also drove their preference towards the regional airports in the big cities. Few years later this formerly unknown company became a benchmark to the American market having inclusive inspired our Gol company. Its name? Southwest Airlines.

b)     Organizations go through six clearly distinct stages during their lifetime. In the fifth stage they have in general become great and respected, stemming the envy and admiration of their competing companies. According to Jim’s opinion, this is the most dangerous stage. When we believe we have attained the state-of-art stage probably this is the time when certain changes must be implemented. Chrysler became the third more important company in the American automobile sector. But, in less than six years this company went down several points in the ranking and is today fighting to survive. Does anyone remember Mesbla, or even the old-time Varig when hearing this kind of history?

c)     Jim sustains he learned from one of his mentors that “it’s only interesting the one who is interested”. This is probably a very important lesson for our marketing and sales personnel. Before trying to make the public interested in the things they are offering it’ll be necessary to be interested in knowing what their public understands to be interesting. Let’s see, for instance, the I-pod example. Why was this equipment developed by Apple and not by Sony (the walkman creator)? Sony had a very interesting product, but Apple demonstrated interest in knowing what the market would be willing to use as a portable sound system. Nowadays millions of I-pods are sold yearly and walkman is becoming to appear as a museum curiosity.

d)     One of Collins earnest suggestion is that companies should transform their CEOs into a kind of knowledge multiplier. What good would come from those bearing undisputed managerial competence, or technical and scientific in depth knowledge, if these CEOs are unwilling to share such wisdom with the people they are presently leading? It’s not enough to tell people they ought to share their learning. And it’ll be necessary for the organizations to prepare their CEOs for the role of multipliers, giving support to their initiatives. And when the time comes to evaluate their performance, effective results should be asked from them in terms of how this competence was used.

e)     More important than to say – or even to teach – what should be done is create an appropriate environment where people will always feel inclined to make the best use of their learning opportunities. As an example, Jim mentioned the opportunity he had for a visit to Peter Drucker. As he was leaving, at the moment when their conversation had already finished – and Jim was thanking his host, he couldn’t resist and asked Drucker why he agreed to receive an unknown Stanford teacher. And Drucker replied that he had reasons to believe that, when talking to another person, he always had the occasion to learn something.

There were many messages and teachings given by Collins in the course of the 75 minutes of his speech. It’s worth saying that, during all this time, the lecturer exhibited total mastery not only of the subject but inclusive of its construction. His presentation enthralled the audience. And he has awaken in everyone the wish to know his ideas better and more profoundly and read his book “Empresas feitas para Vencer” (Good to Great).

PS. If you wish visit the site www.jimcollins.com for more information.

Luiz Augusto Costacurta Junqueira

CEO of INSTITUTE MVC

costacurta@instituomvc.com.br

Executives are generally characterized as people who keep asking for results, demanding fast answers and assertive behaviors, in other words, they are always searching for the nearest and urgent definitive “truth”.

And, the real thing is that at the end they finish hearing more lies and half truths, and worse, accepting or considering as acceptable what they had just heard.

The scope of this article is to set down a few of the most usual lies and uncover certain behaviors/suggestions that could reveal whether what was said is closer to the truth than to the hoax.

THE MOST COMMON LIES  

We are light-years ahead of our competitors!!!

We shouldn’t change what is doing so well, we did a benchmarking and now everything’s going just fine!

I’ll deliver this planning tomorrow!!!

Your participative style is what makes this company grow!!!

You can relax and take your holiday. Don’t worry, this company will keep going on.

I’ll be back in fifteen minutes!

I can’t figure out why it’s not working, everything is going just like last year!!!

In this company we all have the same treatment!!

It’s been many years since the market is working like that!!!

Leaving all lies behind and searching for the truth we have devised a few ways to encourage our staff, mates and clients to exhibit a more reliable behavior.

HOW TO ENCOURAGE THE TRUTH

Even though this theme could lead to a more forthright approach I’ve included here a few styles of behavior that could “help” other people to be more honest in their relationships. Avoiding any sort of dogmatism, I offer here a few suggestions;

Try to identify what there is behind the lies:

Lack of confidence in you or in the company;

Perhaps scarcity of motivation or

Incompetence;

Etc,

Start asking others to do anything that you  could possibly and reasonably do (in terms of time schedule, competence, costs, etc);

Order verbally, but later try to confirm the order in written before the time schedule is over;

Keep in mind to have always a witness by your side when you’re placing an order and the same witness (if possible) when your order is being delivered (in special cases, of course);

Try not to say harsh words to the person who lied to you, use the silence to disconcert him (her) or to make him (her) understand the truth;

Ask this person to” write down” the lie and then to e-mail it to you soon after the interview;

Repeat the lie with your own words giving the excuse that you want to be sure to understand quite well what has been said;

Try to think you’re in a poker game and learn how to identify gestures and behaviors that could reveal your counterpart is not telling the truth;

A lie shouldn’t be spread about, keep it within the four walls and make it revert to the same person who told it (just to make easier its correction);

The person in question should be reminded that we are entitled to say a lie (or a half truth) only once, the problem is in the second, third or …. times;

Discuss everything you’ve been told, it’ll make your counterpart respect you even more.         The ideas we’re describing here are really very simple and there’s no doubt that your experience has already shown you something quite similar (or perhaps, with more details). It may happen that if you can hold a more structured position it’ll help with the management of the problem.

It’ll be important to remember that lies don’t go very far (they’re short legged), they don’t survive and the sooner they are unmasked the slighter will be the inevitable consequences to third parties relationships and to the results for your company.

Finishing, give the example. Always say the truth, even when it’s a bitter one!

 JB Vilhena

Vice-President of the Instituto MVC and

MBA Coordinator in FGV´s Commercial Management

vilhena@institutomvc.com.br

The best agreement is that of the yield-yield

J. B. Vilhena

In management many myths are being blamelessly created, or perhaps they even go unscathed. There are those who truly believe that advertising is the business soul, and there are those who almost swear that the client is always right. In addition there are those who fight tooth and nail that it is better to sell something that the client doesn’t wish or need than leave bare handed the interview. And so on.     In our seminaries, speeches and training courses we have always tried to discuss the harmful results created in the organizations by the belief in many of these myths.

Today we want to discuss with you one of the most frequent of the negotiation myths: the winning myth.

Looking up in any dictionary we’ll find that the word “method” can be rendered as a form or process to do something. Inspired by the myth a few negotiators arrive at the conclusion that it is possible to follow each step of the process “winning” something. Let’s see if this idea makes sense.

If every negotiation arises from a situation of disagreement in terms of means, and of agreement in terms of the end, the only possible method to arrive at a satisfactory harmony for both parties will be the yielding method.

Let’s consider basically a commercial negotiation. Party A wants to sell a product, however this product cannot be delivered before the next 90 days. Party B wants to by the product – and here we find the disagreement in terms of end – but wants it within a maximum of 45 days. Therefore, we have here a disagreement in terms of means. Imagining that the time schedule required by both parties is real, the only way to establish an agreement is to obtain, from each party, some sort of concession, for example to close the deal with a 70 days delivery (both parties had to do some yielding, right?).

If the negotiation has a political feature we can imagine the following situation. Party A wants a minimum wage of R$300,00 while  Party B proposes R$240,00. After endless discussions they arrive at an agreement of R$255,00. They had both to make concessions, to yield.

In union negotiations the “boss” offers an 8% increase while employees are claiming 20%. After many discussions the parties agree with 10%. Can you deny that both parties have yielded a little and they arrived at a satisfactory conclusion?

I don’t pretend to deny that parties very often ask for more than what they really think it would be the minimum acceptable. The strategy here is to pretend that you are making concessions in order to obtain compensations from the other (in other words, what we say that is the maximum we can concede, is really the minimum). Sometimes, we stand our ground in terms of a certain request when, in fact, what we really want is quite different (we call it our hidden agenda). In this case, the strategy is to make our counterpart to concede certain things supposing that they aren’t our main goal (for instance, when the client is insisting in a price reduction when what he really wants is a more convenient time schedule for the payment. But this is the game of the win-lose, isn’t it?

There are many techniques which, however leading to the win-lose, are widely used aiming to compel the other party to make concessions above what could be possibly considered as reasonable:

Blanket: consists in mentioning everything we want to find out later what we really could be disposing of (the analogy is, shall leave the head or the feet uncovered?)

Brackets: consists in segregate what the other party is more interested in aiming to make it look for a defensive position.

Surprise: consists in a unexpected change of the purpose of the negotiation, leaving the other party uncertain and unprepared to negotiate.

Intimidation: consist in threatening the other party – suggesting to put an immediate end to the negotiation, for example.

Silence: consists in avoiding to give any opinion or criticism about what is being proposed with the purpose of disorienting the other party.

Dribble: consists in make believe that we want something in special when we are really interested in another thing quite different.

Limited authority: consists in create a superior agency that has to be consulted before we are in condition to give a final answer to any proposition received.

Good boy/bad boy: negotiators working together. One plays the role of a good boy, while the other is the bad boy.

We could include here a very long list that comprises a few tricks, strategies and frauds. When talking to participants of our events a significant number of them confessed that this expedient has been largely used when they want to arrive at certain agreements. According to their opinion they are acting in consonance with the rules proposed by books and manuals (unhappily many of them really propose these things) and, consequently, this people have no idea that they are behaving against any ethic or moral limits.

Here, at MVC, we have a different way of thinking. Since Luiz Augusto Costacurta Junqueira has been actively working as adviser in seminars our company was always convinced that “it is better to lose a negotiation than make a bad bargain”

We have sustaiened – long time before Daniel Goleman wrote his book Intelligence Emotional – that the crucial element in a negotiation is behavioral. We have always encouraged people to examine carefully the process in order to identify the positive aspects of the offer that is being made to the other party, so that the compulsory concessions could be rewarded with advantages – financial, emotional and strategic – offered by the other. We encourage empathy as one of the best strategies to be able to “think as the other thinks”.

Our firm belief is that a win-win attitude really exists, but not in the process. It can be reached at the end of each negotiation when the parties sums up all concessions made, compares with all results attained and arrive at the conclusion that it was really worth while.

Material from the ADVANCED NEGOTIATION PROGRAM

Luiz Augusto Costacurta Junqueira

CEO of INSTITUTE MVC

costacurta@instituomvc.com.br

A significant portion of professionals and executives fall into basic mistakes when negotiating or trying to persuade the “Corporate Gods”, or better, those who presently are filling top positions in their organizations.

Among these mistakes we can point out the emphasis given to quality in detriment of quantity, the inability to summarize and disclose their ideas, or to carry on an argumentation where the customizing process has not been taken in account, or has not been founded on the peculiar characteristics of those whom they have previously made business which.

Our monthly text offers today a few suggestions to negotiate and persuade those persons who occupy top positions in the organizational hierarchy (or heavenly positions).

To begin with it is always useful to remember that “Gods” have usually a result oriented mind, willfully tangible and quantified. Firstly, try to begin any contact mentioning the expected results and to explain, only then, the procedures that more likely will be used for this achievement.

Considering that the “Gods” language is based on “numbers”, you must strive to insert quantified information in your reasoning process; numbers constitute a worldwide (or heavenly) language, equally understood by earthly or celestial beings.

“Gods” are usually very sensitive to facts, to the competitors experiences, (the devils, certainly), to benchmarking examples, requests or statements from clients, suppliers or official authorities (all them as earthly as ourselves); try to introduce such information as if they were a “filling” to your assertions.       

Never begin a interview or a meeting without the traditional questions, “how much time do I have?” or “When do you expect it will be finished?”. Try also to keep yourself within the previously established limits, let him be the own“God” if anyone oversteps such limits.

First of all, don’t forget to keep in mind your “God’s” behavior characteristics and make use of them in you presentation:

Is he more inclined to see our hear your ideas?

From the Bible or the Koran?

To already proved and safe ideas or is he more inclined to run the risks?

Is he likely to prefer relationships or results?

Perhaps an informal presentation, or is he in love with a Power-point with detailed texts?

Prefers that those heavenly differences from competitors are mentioned?

We previously mentioned that facts are essential, but now we wish to remind you that opinions are dangerous, especially when they are given