Presentation Recap: Negotiation and Persuasion: Tactics to Influence and Win
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By Carlene Szostak Recently I had the privilege to present Negotiation and Persuasion: Tactics to Influence and Win at PMI's Virtual Experience Series: PMXPO on 24 March. This global event attracted more than 64,000 attendees. It was a great event with featured speakers, exhibits and networking activities and the dueling pianos took my breath away. Spending time with the participants talking about negotiations was a fantastic experience, and there were so many questions in chat I couldn't get to them all. I am taking this opportunity to respond to many of the questions I couldn't cover.
Question #1 - What if someone is not honorable or doesn't care about the relationship? Great question. Unfortunately, there are some unethical negotiators out there. When I encounter a negotiator who utilizes unethical tactics, I am very cautious. You never know what trick they will try and pull, and any agreement with them may not ultimately be honored, or they may not even be the decision-maker. I would first follow rule number #1, research. Then I am already better prepared to handle both good and not so honorable negotiations. My research would include the person and/or company that I am negotiating. In addition, I would talk to others who have spoken or worked with them. I might get a heads up on what I might be facing. There is so much that research provides; the person, the direction or problem the company is facing, or information gathered that might be misrepresented later. Knowledge is power. So again, research is always my first step. If, in the negotiation, I realize that there may be some relationship issues, I try to adopt a collaborative approach. Finding out how the outcome can create mutual benefits and laser focus on that strategy. Finally, I make sure that I never stoop to their level. Question #2 - What techniques are commonly used to prepare for a negotiation to achieve a win-win? I would use start with being really, really prepared. Then the following six steps should be part of my outline and preparation.
Question #3 - Is it detrimental to the negotiation to come into it with a "battle" mentality? It will depend on your definition of "battle." If I had to define "negotiations," it would be more of a strategic game. Two players, both with an objective that the other might not be aware of, that once information, expectations, and positions are shared, a better outcome can emerge than the separate original plans.
Question #4 - Any good tips on practicing negotiations? Seems difficult to train without another party. Practice early and often. With my clients, I talk about "leaning into discomfort." What I mean by that is everything, including negotiations, becomes easier the more you do it. Practice with your vendors; some might take a cash payment for a discount. Or maybe with your kids on bedtimes and responsibilities. Look around. There are lots of places to "practice."
Question #5 - Is there any nonverbal courses on how to read better a person? I believe that numerous courses are available, including LinkedIn Learning, Udemy, etc. However, I hone my non-verbal skills understanding by practicing observing. I also teach a class on Powerful Storytelling, and one of the exercises we practice is guessing an emotion by reading a nursery rhyme. Find your favorite. I use Mary Had A Little Lamb and then have each participant or friend act out a feeling (confused, angry, shy, aggressive), and everyone guesses. It’s a fun game you can play with friends, family, or even kids.
Question #6 - How do you persuade someone who is confrontational? Confrontational is an interesting word. Are they acting like a bully? Are they just loud? Are they being aggressive? Look at it first from their lens. Is it cultural behavior? Based on what I learned, my actions would be different. But at a high level, I would lower my voice, look them straight in the eyes and say that we should reschedule for a later time.
Question #7 - What do you do when the other person talks talks talks with no break for you to talk? I would ask myself why do I think the other person is talking, talking, talking…are they insecure? Are they not the key stakeholder? Are they nervous? Are they new to negotiations? After I made my guess, I would wait and listen. Remember, silence is power. Eventually, the time will either run out, or they will take a breath. I would then ask what ONE thing they are hoping to get out of this conversation. Then use the 7 seconds and see what happens.
Question #8 - Recommendations for books on how to deal with difficult people? There are a lot of great books out there on negotiations. Some of my favorites are:
I just started to read Black Belt Negotiating (2007), Lee & Tabuchi, so I'll let you know how that goes.
Question #9 - What if they pull the 7 seconds of silence on ME? Ha, ha…Leonardo da Vinci said that "Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." If my opponent also appeared to be using the 7 seconds on me, I would act a little crazy and probably laugh at the end of the 7 seconds. Of course, I would ask them, "why the silence?" and wait 7 seconds and see what happens.
I had a great time presenting, and the entire presentation will be available on demand through the end of January 2023. Visit PMI Virtual Experience Series 2022 for more details. I am looking forward to seeing you at another event! |
Upcoming Presentation: Cloudy with a Chance of Agile
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By Renaldi Gondosubroto, CAPM, PMP, Project Lead, GReS Studio A report from Palo Alto Networks in 2021 showed that businesses are moving quickly into the cloud as part of their Covid-19 response. Nearly 70% of organizations now host more than half of their workloads in the cloud, and adoption of the cloud has grown by 25% in the past year. Due to the rapid trend and necessity of shifting workloads towards the cloud, it has become more important than ever for project managers to gain the skills necessary to manage cloud-based projects. As part of this, we need to create appropriate strategies using agile practices, particularly given the rapidly changing business landscape caused by Covid-19. These strategies will be important in quickly adapting to the needs of individual projects. The evolution of project management for the cloud has gone a long way. From having communication and role delegation in multiple places, we now have slowly converged to having such communications happen from one place. This advancement ensures a central hub of communications, effective for quick responses within organizations, keeps track of incidents and costs within the platform. These two factors will certainly face a transformation from the standard way of doing things we are used to. The cloud has also ensured the provision of support from cloud providers to ensure quick responses within the organization. Those new to the cloud should start off planning how to shift workloads towards it. Shifting workloads would go through a four-stage process: discovery, plan, execute and go live. In discovery, allocate time to exploring which cloud platforms are available and what resources the company currently must allocate towards the venture. As part of planning, draft a plan to prepare for creating the first deployments, including budgeting and creating sample architectures in the trial process as part of the execution. In execution, the plans we set into motion can shift towards the cloud, starting from the least-critical services. Finally, if everything goes well and issues are resolved, we can go live and let the services be provided as normal but through the cloud. The stage set for a project manager looking to gain insight and skills for managing projects within the cloud comes with many new important knowledge and challenges that they need to take in and face. It may seem like a lot of new technical knowledge to take in, but exposure to the basic know-how of the cloud already helps a project manager go a long way. One of such is understanding the roles and responsibilities that cloud projects bring. Aside from a project manager for each team, five roles that would be imperative for a project manager to be aware of and find out more about are cloud architects, cloud engineers, software developers, security specialists and compliance specialists. Despite it not being necessary to gain their specific skillsets, it is important to have at least a high-level overview of their roles within the teams to adapt the skills for their project’s context. There are existing and new skills imperative for project managers to know in this environment. Some existing skills include scope management, stakeholder management and change management. Project managers must apply these skills in the cloud project management context. Scope management is important as we need to understand goals, tasks, and deliverables in a cloud context, especially since it can be overwhelming when exploring the possibilities of outcomes when migrating onto the cloud. Stakeholder management is a key skill in migrating or running projects towards or on the cloud; we need to ensure that we get stakeholder approval; be it from clients or executive management. If there is a disconnect between the team and key stakeholders, it will result in issues down the line and unnecessary redundancy in communications as they must be repeated. Change management is imperative as migration certainly brings about changes to how workloads run in the business and key performance indicators (KPIs) and objectives and key results (OKRs), so we need to keep track of the tools and processes that we can use to ensure that change is started and managed well. Essential knowledge that will be important for a project manager to grasp include contextual knowledge to make the case, ethics, and basic knowledge of the cloud. In getting executive management or other relevant parties to get on board with running projects on the cloud, we need to get contextual knowledge on why we are doing so. What is working? What can be improved with moving towards the cloud? Would migrating to the cloud make some projects work better or would it instead worsen it? This comes hand in hand with basic cloud knowledge of the cloud platform you are planning to shift the workloads towards. For example, as a project manager managing projects on the cloud, it was encouraged within my organization to study towards and achieve AWS certifications, at least on a basic level. Not only does it validate your knowledge, but it will also help you gain the know-how and be confident in leading projects in the cloud. Finally, it is important to understand the ethics behind the transition, including how chosen cloud platforms handle privacy or meet compliance standards such as PCI-DSS for credit cards. Organizational capacity will also be an important topic to consider when discussing the management of projects within the cloud, as it is imperative to measure how prepared the organization is to handle the proportion of workloads run in it or the migration planned for it. Considering the budgeting required to run such workloads includes thinking about the training costs required (internally or externally) and experimentation costs with finding out what works. We also need to consider whether managing projects on the cloud align with the project’s targets and goals and the company’s values overall and whether they can meet stakeholders’ and compliance needs. It is important to scope out how much existing knowledge is currently prevalent within the company and how it can essentially factor in reducing costs or be an advantage in working on the project, especially if the team has previously not yet worked on projects on the cloud before. Throughout the project planning and the rest of the project phases, it is imperative to have a solid communication plan, particularly one that can sustain the needs of agile practices. Teams can use collaborative tools such as Slack or Jira and use scrum meetings to identify blockers and iteratively build and update on what has been done. This will be imperative, especially when managing your first projects based on the cloud, as things are more likely than not to go wrong when using something you have not used before. To complement this, we could also integrate customer relationship management (CRM) tools such as Salesforce to manage relevant stakeholders’ needs within one platform, if not through the mentioned collaborative tools. Finally, it is important to categorize workloads and track their relevant KPIs to measure performance and iteratively act based on the outcomes. One recommended approach is to categorize the workloads between tier 1 (not mission-critical), tier 2 (low-risk) and tier 3 (mission-critical) workloads. While doing so, it is important to consider factors that would impact the categorizations made, including security, scalability, cost, and accessibility handled by each workload that is to be categorized. Tracking KPIs will help iteratively developing the decisions made, including finding out how it has performed on-premises, how it is performing on the cloud, and whether new configurations need to be made to optimize it. As mentioned, the concept of managing projects on the cloud may seem intimidating at first glance, particularly given the load of technical knowledge and expertise that would need to be understood by the project manager as part of this. Still, it requires a bit more time dedicated to out of the normal project management environments we are used to and dabbles a bit on the cloud side. Gaining basic knowledge of the know-how around cloud projects is not difficult to do and will certainly help ensure you are equipped to better handle such projects. With the shift of more and more workloads from businesses towards the cloud, particularly due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we can be sure that this will be a continuing trend. The question is, as project managers, are we ready to ensure our roles are also prepared for this new, prevalent trend? We certainly can be ready to approach this by planning effectively for it and going agile! Interested in learning more and furthering the dialogue? Join me and the rest of the project management community at PMI’s Virtual Experience Series: PMXPO 24 March and check out my presentation, “Cloudy with a Chance of Agile.” |
Upcoming Presentation: 2022 and Beyond: Benefits of Successfully Navigating Change in a Fast-Paced PM Workplace
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By: Scott Lesnick, Global Leadership Keynote Speaker, Successful Business Solutions LLC In my upcoming presentation at the Virtual Experience Series 2022: PMXPO 24 March, I will share how we can better work through the many facets of change, such as:
The world has changed professionally and personally. Not since 9/11 have we been as challenged to change how we live, work and socialize. None of us are the same now that a pandemic has shown us a new normal. People are exhausted, hopeful and concerned about their jobs. To retain your team and talent, you must understand the effect change has on staff or risk losing them to a competitor. The “Great Resignation” is upon us. Addressing this and other employee concerns openly will increase retention, grow productivity, lower stress and health issues, as well as strengthen communications. We understand that change is a constant and it’s our job as project management leaders to assist staff who are struggling, give them the tools and let them know they’re not alone. In my session, topics covered include workplace innovation and remote technology to increase productivity and sales and a focused and strong workplace culture. We’ll also focus on team development, growing leaders and performance. Change comes in many forms. Sometimes, it’s an organizational change or health concern. Or, it may be uncertainty in your industry, more disruption, or more competition. And it can be the people side including how to cope. Fear and anxiety, new management, new staff and new roles can be an opportunity for growth. Plus, change can provide an opportunity for additional learning, inclusion, higher retention and advancement too. From a workplace perspective, here’s what you need to know. Workers ages 25-75 are leaving their jobs by the millions for various reasons including: Ineffective manager With retention comes compromise. This leads to less turnover, higher project productivity and a focus on business and not scrambling to fill empty positions. This benefits our projects and success! Here’s how to keep that talent and mitigate the great resignation’s hold has on businesses and organizations. 1) Flexibility and health matters - remote and in-office, flexible hours, vaccinated or not, childcare, health and wellness. In 2022, the ability of business owners and leaders to navigate these issues will determine the depth of your employee benchmarking. Do you have a plan in place to keep staff who do not choose to get vaccinated? Can you offer childcare or be flexible with drop-off and pick-up times? Do you have a solid healthcare plan in place with wellness incentives? Can staff work remotely? These key questions matter to a majority of workers. Getting this right will grow retention. 2) My manager is a JERK is a kind way of saying that people are leaving because their manager does not listen, lead or assist well. The last two years have been incredibly difficult and everyone has a unique story of how they’ve navigated the pandemic. Today’s managers and leaders must be trained to be compassionate, listen with purpose and pitch in more when needed. Yes, the world has changed and so has the way we do business. Being nice goes a long way! 3) Millions of people are dipping their feet into self-employment. They’re taking the risk and hoping that working for themselves will give them the flexibility, income and lifestyle that the last two years have shown them that they want. This is a significant number and most are/were employed before going solo. Keeping talent requires listening. Are you noticing a pattern developing? Asking good questions and listening well will uncover a list of concerns that you didn’t know existed. Being proactive and having weekly meetings with staff can shed light on where individuals are and what they’re thinking. The great resignation is here, change is constant and we’re living in unique times. It is costly, time- sucking and difficult to hire new employees to work on our projects. It stands to reason then that if we can be proactive with staff and try to give them enough reasons to stay, then we can slow down the mass exodus of talent that is looking for other opportunities. If those we work with can successfully navigate the intricacies change brings, we’ll continue to grow, increase our productivity and have a distinct advantage in advancing the important project management business services we provide. It’s a leader’s responsibility to help their team navigate change with the least amount of drama, tension and fear. This presentation will give you the tools needed to lead staff and teams though change, grow communications and create a strong workplace culture. I hope you will join me at PMI’s Virtual Experience Series: PMXPO 24 March. |
Upcoming Presentation: PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition – Tailoring Your Approach to Deliver Value
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By: Michael Frenette, PMP, PMO Leader, and Jonathan Lee, PMP, Agile Trainer and Coach, Vitality Chicago Introduction Have you had a look at the Seventh Edition of the PMBOK®? What type of methodologies do you use? Are you rooted in predictive methods, adaptive methods, or something else along the continuum? Have you looked into Disciplined Agile, and how it meshes with the Seventh Edition? Is it necessary to move from Processes, Knowledge Areas and ITTOs (Inputs, Tools, Techniques and Outputs) to Principles and Project Performance Domains? Or can you live comfortably in both worlds simultaneously? Some may be wondering how the Seventh Edition meshes with Disciplined Agile, and where to find process-driven tools and techniques now that they are not in the Seventh Edition. Come along to watch a couple of “Froggies,” good buddies from the Leadership Institute Master Class 2015, hop to it, and jump right into how we manage our teams and deliver training considering these pivotal PMI publications. We’ll have a look at some real PMO and course delivery impacts, along with some insights into how we manage in our respective organizations. We will cover tailoring, ways of working, ways of thinking and the new timeless and inarguable Principles and Project Performance Domains. The Details PMI recently released the Seventh Edition of the PMBOK®. Many of you may have undoubtedly read it and noticed some substantial changes. For one, the Guide has shrunk to about one-third of its original size. For another, there are these new things called Principles and Project Performance Domains. So, what do you do now? Toss everything you knew in the past out the window and start again? Throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say? Unlearn (is that a word?) everything you once knew to be true and take a Monty Python posture? And NOW for something completely different! Well, you will be happy to hear that the answer to those questions is a resounding “No”! As with all changes in methodologies, processes, and tools, we must always retain the good and adopt and adapt to what is new and useful given your context. We must always do what is best for our portfolios of programs and projects. If that means retaining something we know and love from the past, then that is what we will do. If it means taking a day or two to read up on a new principle that is really not so new, just perhaps unstated, then we will do that! If it means becoming knowledgeable and maybe even certified in Disciplined Agile, then maybe we will do that! But that said, if you and your organization want to potentially see great results by moving toward more agile/adaptive ways of working, you will likely need to unlearn some of your project management skills and embrace agile. This could be challenging for some dyed-in-the-wool traditional project managers as it involves mindset and practice changes that affect how you interact with your team and stakeholders and serve as a leader. The options are many, and depending on the approach you select, given your context, you and your teams will need to make appropriate adjustments. Remember that old saying, “There is no silver bullet.” Well, at least, we have never seen one. Ask yourself, “What’s right for my project?” That’s where you want to be! Interested in learning more and furthering the dialogue? Join our session PMBOK® Guide Seventh Edition – Tailoring Your Approach to Deliver Value at PMXPO 24 March at 11:30 a.m. ET, the first event in the PMI Virtual Experience Series 2022. |
INSPIRE — Rising Leaders Shaping the World: A Secret Formula for Project Managers
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By: Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez “This is the World being left to Us by Adults, we are the ones who will have to clean up the mess you Adults have made.” These recent words from Greta Thunberg to the New York Times touched me deeply. I’d like to share an “aha-moment” that happened a few years ago. Besides having an impactful and fulling job managing projects, most of us want to have an influence to make a better world. Almost everyone tries to influence senior leaders who hold power today; yet, with regret, it is difficult to make any improvements, and, on the contrary, the world continues to fall apart. During a call with some colleagues, one of them mentioned the work they were doing with teenagers, which was not to teach them how to do things but to empower them to let them make their dreams a reality. That made me reflect on one of the most significant movements in the past decade made by a 16-year-old from Sweden, Greta Thunberg. Our world will become a better place thanks to the dreams and projects carried out by younger generations, not the current leaders; let’s learn from them, let’s work with them. I spent months researching and found amazing projects carried out by young people to solve their local issues and others to address major global challenges. In my session at PMXPO, I will share several examples. Here is just one example:
INSPIRE: A Framework from These Rising Leaders’ Projects Stories like these show the impact that the younger generation can have through projects to transform their world and how we can all learn from them. All these impactful projects have the following elements in common, which we should consider when undertaking our projects:
In my session, I will be examining each of these elements more closely and explain how they impact a project. Some Organizations Are Already Doing Great Work Over the past years, I have collaborated with several organizations working on new methods to empower the younger generation. Here is a brief list: Feel free to reach out to them to find out more or even collaborate. Moving Forward This INSPIRE approach might take a bit longer to address some of the major challenges we face, but from my research and the arguments exposed, it seems to be one of the best approaches to have an impact and create a better world through well-implemented projects.
If you are inspired by how the younger generation is trying to have an impact and making our world better and would like to hear useful tips that can impact your own projects, please join me at my session INSPIRE — Rising Leaders Shaping the World: A Secret Formula for Project Managers at PMI’s Virtual Experience Series: PMXPO on 24 March. |
