👋🏻 Jacob here.
I’m deeply exploring the concept of curiosity in negotiation to share with the executives joining me for a workshop and dinner in Phoenix on February 2nd.
We like to share our latest findings with our past clients and executive advisors who have helped us develop ThinkWarwick over the last decade.
We’ve learned that even if you are the most impressive executive in the room, you still have blindspots that interfere with achieving your ambitions.
How can that be?
If you ask kindergarten children how many can paint, they will all say they can.
If you ask a group of executives, they will probably say they don’t have the talent or the skill to paint.
Executives are often diehard disciples in only a few areas, e.g., leadership and organization, marketing and sales, etc.
We’ve found that many will only accept a learned skill once they can claim mastery.
Furthering your mastery of a given speciality is often highly rewarded vs., swaying from your depth of expertise and increasing your risk and likelihood of failure.
These are merely barriers that you have built.
If you could free yourself from these barriers, you could act more creatively—and negotiate more effectively.
This week consider:
What is the self-image that you have for yourself?
Are you simply an X—or just a Y? What could someone like you possibly know about Z?
Might your limited self-image affect your negotiating ability?
When you approach a difficult situation that warrants mindfulness in negotiation, ask yourself, are you leaning too much on assumptions? Too much on that deep expertise you established over decades to advance your career?
People tend to label everything prematurely, thus seriously limiting their ability to perceive reality. Don’t be one of them.
You must challenge assumptions and be fluid in negotiation—or lose.
Negotiation calls for handling situations with as few self-constructed barriers as possible. Childlike curiosity facilitates open-mindedness, which leads to creative applications. Be curious.
People who open themselves to more experiences will become more creative. Be the executive speaking with different perspectives and networking outside your industry.
There are things we can do to behave creatively, and there are things that can inhibit your creative activity.
People under great stress rarely attempt creative work.
Many executives will fall under “operating under great stress.” Perhaps you, too.
Consider how stress affects your ability to negotiate more favorable outcomes for your future self and your ability to be curious and creative.
Stay fearless, friends.
See you next week.