Training Notes on Management, Leadership, Strategy
13 May 2023
Consultant thinking, analyzing business problems.
1. Readings: Vision: Case Interview Secrets - Victor Cheng
https://www.caseinterview.com/
https://www.craftingcases.com/case-interview-examples/
1. use proxy for estimation
1. match you intuition and find proxy via
1. relevance links
2. history or similar peers
3. population breakdown
2. improving the proxy
1. break the problem into different aspects and find multiple proxies
2. finding different proxies from different layers for the same problem, and cross validate
3. segmenting the proxy to confine the imperfect proxy issue
3. comparing interview estimation problem vs real storage vision
1. interview has limited time, no google, no knowledge background, no calculator. the general questions are general product-sales-revenue
2. but targeting for storage area, we can borrow many knowledge, no time limit and use complex model and simulation, shadow peer works. so a lot questions become easier
2. Consultant Sense
1. Independent Problem Solver
1. Can I drop you off with a division of a Fortune 500 company by yourself, with little to no supervision? Can you handle the client, solve the problems, and in the process make the firm looks good?
2. Doing as Little as Possible vs Boiling the Ocean
1. What is the "key information" to answer client's questions?
How do the as little as possible to finish the quest?
3. The Airplane Test (aka Don't Be an Asshole)
1. Would I want to spend three hours sitting next to you on an airplane?
4. Tooling
1. Hypothesis
1. Always Hypothesis first. Hypothesis dictate what customized Issue Tree you use
2. Issue tree/framework/template
1. Validated by
1. Always have Hypothesis first. Issue tree is dedicated to hypothesis, don't blindly borrow a framework for certain area
2. the MECE test
3. Victor Cheng's conclusiveness test: If all branches are true, you cannot reject the conclusion. To accept/reject the conclusion, you don't need less/more branches
3. Drill-down analysis, goback and re-structure again
1. process of elimination on false branches, until the final one left to point the true conclusion
4. Synthesis: action-oriented, concise, big picture integrated with detailed analysis
3. Issue tree frameworks
1. Profitability framework: Revenue (price/#unit sold), (variable/fixed) cost
2. Business situation framework: Customer, product, company, competition
3. some tips
1. Always do comparison, to historical data, to external competitors
2. Company specific issue, or industry wide issue?
3. Combine both qualitative questions and quantitative questions
4. Segmentation and process-of-elimination
5. Linear thinker, rationalize each decision choice taken, as be thoughtful
6. P173 the live case Frameworks in action. This chapter is very good
4. more captures
1. Record and replay, until you get every wording synthesis right
2. Brainstorm ideas but with structured categories heuristics, MECE mining, combination iteration
3. Presentation slides: each title should give the point (rather than description), the all titles together should tell a complete story - synthesis
Critical thinking, strategic thinking, decision making.
3. Taking Critical Thinking course
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/critical-thinking?u=3322
1. Before rush to the problem at hand
1. think what new problem will be introduced with your solving?
2. are you SOLVING THE ROOT CAUSE OR THE SYMPTOM?
3. Problem Statement
1. define the goal, including what are the communication with Stakeholders, upstream, downstream
1. go to the Stakeholder, and understand what they really care
2. make sure whole team is on same page, rather than doing a lot of code in non-sync goals
3. solve from different angels. find another group of people, explain the issue, and see how others define the problem
4. DO SOLVE THE ROOT CAUSE. not only for code, also for the team and process issues
2. Critical Thinking tools
1. Challenge how business operates
1. Business model blowup: How would you double your top metric? What would you do differently if you startover?
2. Revenue blowup: How would you triple profits in five years? Who is better at creating customer value?
3. Cost blowup: How would you operate with two-thirds fewer people? How would you eliminate your job? What are the wasteful work you do?
2. Five whys - reveals insights
1. Example: Stock price hammered <- We missed our earnings <- We are discounting prices too much <- We want to retain customers <- We want to grow market share <- That's the incentive plan tied to managers and BU presidents, bigger share bigger bounds <- What if we change the incentive plan?
3. The seven so-whats - thinking through consequences of an action
1. Example: We will change incentive and bonus plan -> So what? If we change that, what happens?
-> If we change it, we don't know how to fix it. We don't know how. If we knew how, we've already changed it.
-> So what, what's the implication of that?
-> We need to find someone who does know how to do it? -> So what -> That means we must hire a VP of Compensation
-> So what -> We need to deprioritize other search for other hirings, so we can recruite this VP in
-> So what -> We need to delay hiring a Supply Chain VP -> So what -> That means we must change supply chain goal of this year
2. Ask "So what" for seven times, so we know what's the consequence.
In the example, we start from incentive plan, we end up discover supply chain are impacted
4. 80/20 rule - focus your effort on meaningful
1. 20% input generates 80% results
20% issues drives 80% complains
focus your resource on the critical 20%
5. How to successfully conduct analysis
1. High road - don't boil the ocean, use 20/80 rule to skip if it doesn't worth lower level analysis
1. What am I proving or disproving? Will it be beneficial? Will it have impact? Does the answer support my recommendation?
2. * The "High Road / Low Road" essentially points out how a dev should balance the zoom-in and zoom-out during daily work
2. Low road - only run analysis in the limited scope you need
1. We can easily doing analyzing data for days or weeks, drilling too wide or too low. Don't do that
2. Don't polish the dirt. You shouldn't get the refined the answer, if that refinement isn't going to add value.
3. Focus your attention on the analytical problems that matter. Your time and your team's time are precious
Go back to the high road regularly, and ask the value for you analysis
Define the problem -> Generate recommendations -> Conduct analysis -> Determine if solution worked
3. If problem solved, are there big enough impact to business?
Also consider the connections of problems, which can reveal insight
We are trying to figure out where to take business in the next 10 years? Products? Business? Markets? Acquisitions?
3. Practice Critical Thinking
1. Method 1: Teach your team to practice Critical Thinking.
To blowup the business, to scope the right problem.
To create environment and opportunities for team members to practice Critical Thinking
To coach people to use Critical Thinking
Hold people responsible to use Critical Thinking. Review and send them back if not. Every single day
1. Ask: Why you necessary to do the analysis? How you did the analysis?
I want you to think about this. Come back this afternoon after you rethink
4. Common pitfalls
1. ask your stakeholder why he/she asks you to solve the problem.
don't jump into the problem too quickly until you fully understand the problem
2. unwilling to expand the problem space.
use 5 whys to drill true related issues. filter with 80/20 rules.
drill consequences / knock on effects after the recommendation (e.g. what happens after 6 months)
3. taking the high road. look for reuse.
what are the organization doing? what are our competitors doing?
4. it's a red flag if you / your team answers with "that's how we do the things always"
stop, step back, and apply Critical Thinking here
n. Related materials
1. Case Interview Secrets - Victor Cheng
https://www.caseinterview.com/
https://www.craftingcases.com/case-interview-examples/
1. they are teaching a lot in common
4. Taking Strategic Thinking course
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/strategic-thinking/practicality-get-real-about-your-strategy?autoplay=true&u=3322
1. Beginning
1. Questioning assumptions: why are we doing it that way? Interrogates habits, existing ways.
2. Observing
1. watch other people,
2. macro-trends, big pictures and trends,
1. Bad smell: surprised when something happened, which means you ommitted trends/micro-trends
You should NOT be surprised
3. understanding the past
1. Critical thinking to dig insights. don't stay on shadow surface answers
4. system interactions, usecase scenarios,
5. overlooked and unpopular points.
3. Reflecting: to have a breakthrough idea, it doesn't take time, it takes space
4. Strategic thinking means to think how to WIN THE GAME, not how to do tasks
It begins with considering multiple parties, interact with stakeholder and competitor moves,
rather than shut the door, and lock yourself into your own cares
It's really the mindset that you have the strong will that you define where you goal, you take the actions to win it, and you never let other people lead you
2. key mindsets 1
1. Choose to do something, means NOT doing something else, that's a strategic choice
2. You can be best at your task, but if your boss doesn't care about it, it's like not even happened
Multiply chain: You time -> invested on your task -> your strategy -> difference in the organization
3. Ask yourself: Where do I be in 3 or 5 years? Am I on track now? How can I increase my chances of success?
3. key mindset 2
1. Thinking from the long term down to the short term, from the big picture to the details, how you gonna get it completions
Strategy is about the big picture choices you made, how you decide to go down. And especially, what you NOT going to do.
2. Tactics. The clear and proactive actions. E.g. instead of read a book per week, use spent 10min read book on each morning train
NOT may be I'll have time in another day. Instead, you know it's not gonna happen, Strategic thinking is about taking steps to make it happen.
3. Free your attention
1. Shutdown laptop, phone. Close all noise
Tune out weekly. Sit with your thoughts, let your mind wander.
Ask the big questions. Use blogging
Protect your time. Management #1: You control your time.
Cancel the many meetings. Create a weekly blocker
4. How to create an informed strategy?
1. good strategy doesn't need to be innovative. it's about making decision
2. consider the trends in industry. what can be next breakthrough be?
1. it recalls me about the issue tree in "Case Interview Secrets" - Business situation framework: Customer, product, company, competition
3. make sure to solicit input from diverse sources. including yourself and others.
1. what are people in your orbit won't probably weight in
2. new voices and new perspectives mitigate risks
4. Map out your assets and allies, your relationships, e.g. boss, friends providing help
Map out your constraints, e.g. structural obstacles,
e.g. VP wants to install his/her own guy in Latin America, therefore block you
e.g. You work in a vertical, that's never historical been a path to international career
e.g. Cultural. Your company values experience and longevity. Hardly get your idea heard when you only been their couple of years.
Land them on axis, make strategies and tactics. They key is Realistic and attainable
1. I think this is SWOT typically.
5. How to buy support from boss, colleagues, your employees
1. If you are developing a strategy, don't unveil it at the strategy meeting. The meeting is supposed to be a ratification meeting. Real work takes place beforehand
Systematically briefing key people, addressing any concerns they might have upfront.
Don't give chance on meeting questions are asked that you haven't fought through
2. Prepare to face objections
Setup a brainstorm to collect 80% of what kind of objections that people can throw on you. Never go unprepared
Prepare to face objectors, e.g. market product seizes part of sales people's work
If you are aware that's coming your way, you can make other concessions that would soften the blow or make the arrangement more palatable
1. Remember the negotiation courses, BATNA
3. Create systems for accountability
E.g. emails after meeting to recap action steps and agreements. E.g. to frequently reiterating what your timeline is, what marks are on the path.
Ensure there is no slippage along the way. You need to bring your team onboard
6. Measure the strategy execution progress in a changing circumstances
1. Identify the assumptions. Be quantify what your success should be look like. Verify assumption upfront
Evaluate your progress a regular intervals. Be adaptive to changing. Verify progress against your assumptions. The key is identifying in advance.
10,000 hours fame, deliberate study from where our assumptions were verified wrong
2. Key mindset
1. Upfront, retro verify, execute risk part with more frequency, small probe prototype tests
2. Learn and deliberately practice at where you failed.
3. Questions to audit your strategy
1. Are you failing to meet initial expectations?
2. Has there been a major change in circumstances?
3. Is there a more promising alternative?
5. Decision making strategies
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/decision-making-strategies/accelerate-your-decision-making?autoplay=true&u=3322
1. Decision making is a process, rather than judgement
1. define the objective
1. clear objective, define the timeline, define who will be affected
2. explore alternatives
2. define who to involve, and how to involve (make decision, data providing)
1. decision making style: autocratic style, participatory style, democratic style, consensus based style
1. driven by urgency and impact size of the decision
2. stakeholder management
1. meeting should be for process approval, rather than arguing.
major work should be done before meeting that have already reached consensus with each stakeholder.
2. let stakeholder know what's the benefit to participant in the meeting
know/define the role of each stakeholder
goals: identify risk earlier, get support earlier, find opportunities earlier
4. RACI matrix
1. Responsible - one person to deliver the project and execute
2. Accountable - approves the project. make sure stakeholders are involved properly, get the results as expected
3. Consulted - seek opinions and information. the communication is two way, R needs to provide info first
4. Informed - need to keep update to the progress.
3. reduce ambiguity risk
1. Categories
1. highly predictable
1. How will customer receive the changes
How many to buy
2. distinct Possibilities
1. Parity A or Parity B gets elected, favorable or unfavorable regulation to make
2. Reduce Ambiguity: Market research, replace product to suffer less political issues
1. Build contingency plan, for each possible outcomes
3. spectrum of outcomes
1. gather information from multiple sources to reduce ambiguity
the value of additional information is high and worth investment
4. complete unpredictability
1. gather additional data, construct possible scenarios
2. Phased decision-making, breakdown big decision into smaller ones to reduce risk
3. Reduce ambiguity
1. Run a pilot
2. Conversation with regulators
3. Analyze competitors, reactions in the past
4. review economics forecasts
4. make a choice, make it known to the organization
1. types of decisions made
1. No downside
2. Favorable odds - mostly well, but small possibility to go bad
3. Going for broke - uncertain, bad outcome is unbearable
1. need to reduce risk as much as you can, run pilot, gather information
2. methods to reduce ambiguity
1. involve more people, involve early
2. take more time. a month, or even a year, you'll have more info and support
3. break big decision into smaller ones
4. find the balance of getting more information vs new uncertain injected with time
3. critical questions to ask yourself
1. How big is the decision? Can I break it into smaller ones to reduce risk?
2. How irrevocable is the decision? Is rollback expensive?
3. What's the cost of being wrong? What's the value of being right? Trade off
4. How long do you have to make the decision? What's the real deadline?
5. What's the cost of waiting? What's the value of making now? Trade off
6. What is my personal biases that might be affecting the decision?
7. How do I mitigate the biases to make clearer decisions?
8. Who do I need to involve in decision? How do I involve them?
9. Who needs to know the decision made? How should I inform them? Communication plan
5. evaluate the decision, it's a feedback loop, measure and improve
1. communicating, executing, and measuring
1. Communicate
1. what the decision is, who made the decision, why the decision was made
2. what the goal is, how success will be measured, events that lead to a reversal
2. execution risks
1. passive aggressive behavior
2. new information, new events
3. measure and adjust
1. set clear metrics
2. resolve sources of uncertainty
3. measure and adjust, be willing to say we made an incorrect decision and we need a different path
Management and coaching.
1. Management Foundation by LinkedIn Kevin Eikenberry
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/management-foundations-2019/managing-performance-problems?autoplay=true&u=3322
1. The manager perspective
1. Task focus vs people focus
2. Manage by commitment vs mange by compliance
3. Manager role: guide and directions, answer questions, make decisions, enable and support, ask questions, help the group decide
4. Effective communication: actual messages accepted, getting others engaged, not meeting talking mail
2. Managing the performance
1. Influence to people to change performance.
2. Let people know what happens and why about performance low or high.
3. Provide feedback.
3. Setting the goals
1. Align the goals. Deliver clear goals. Help people set goals rather than set goals for them. Provide purpose for people, help them see the big picture.
2. Provide process.
3. Providing space that let people do it. Create space. Talk less.
4. 1:1 meeting.
1. Basic purpose to get updates on work. More importantly, understand how people feel, why frustrated, what's the challenge.
2. Prepare to answer people's questions for you. Align and refresh the goals, and refresh the goal still matters.
3. Pulse check. Understand how people is feeling and doing.
4. Build relationship with people
5. Be the coach
5. Managing performance problems
1. Are their expectation clear to you.
2. The hesitate to start a conversation.
3. Be specific. Show data or example.
4. Create conversation. Don't only you talk, start by asking questions.
5. Help build a plan.
6. Separate the performance from the person. Remember people are not the problem. Their behavior or results are what to change.
6. Coaching for high performance
1. Keep coaching them. Pay time, pay focus.
2. Reward the performance. Make sure people know they were doing well or bad.
3. Expand the expectations. When people reach expectations, set a new higher one.
7. Accountability basics while managing
1. Personal accountability: willingness and ability not only to take responsibility for what you control, but also to recognize how you can influence situations and outcomes around you.
2. Ownership.
3. Help people see they can influence, more than they think of. Encourage them to do it.
8. DELEGATION
1. Mindset: investment, for their success rather than to free your calendar, trust and allow free to try
2. Avoid micromanagement. Focus on what rather than how. Allow people learn. Clear the expectation. Ask for feedback and give support.
3. Questions to ask before delegate:
1. Why am I delegating it? Make sure the task is meaningful to others. It's to make their success.
2. Are you willing to let it go.
3. Who is the best person to give it?
4. Clear what the task is and clear the expectation. Make sure you give people context, purpose, and expectation, and details.
How will I support them so they can succeed.
4. Actions to delegate:
1. Don't just tell people what they should do. Make sure people know what they do it, and the value.
2. Providing the context. Let people know why you ask him/her to do it.
3. What is a success, definition. Describe the expectation.
4. Slow down. Describing all of them to someone new.
5. Answer questions. But not only to ask what they do ask, but to encourage them to share their minds.
6. Priorities. People already have a list of tasks. Make sure people know how your new task compare to them in the list. Help reprioritize. Help planning.
5. Manager's role in meeting
1. Have a clear desired outcome. What's the expected outcome of the meeting.
2. Have fewer meetings. Talk less and ask more.
3. Facilitator. Focus on the process to reach the outcome, rather than self reach the outcome. Make sure the right person are engaged. Content responsibility vs process responsibility.
6. Build working relationships
1. I know them person better than another one I worked with for three years.
2. Learn about an interest or passion. Why the people do it, why they love it
3. Search for a connection, a shared interest. Continue the connection, enforce it according to time.
4. Ask about their interest and passion. Ask what they enjoy. Smile, the single most effective way.
7. Managing your time as a manager
1. Role model. People learn from your productivity.
2. Don't multi-tasking. Do one thing a time.
3. Keep your big objectives in the front. Focus the priority. Schedule the important work.
4. Do email in batches.
5. Don't call a meeting if you don't know clearly the need and desired outcome.
8. Managing up a a manager
1. Influencing up.
2. Understand their goals and values. Connect your requests and messages to their goals.
3. Ask questions and create conversation, rather than self push the messages.
9. Creating a learning mindset
1. Something your can do everyday to do your better role.
1. First, ask questions. Remain the curiosity.
2. Reflect on your day. Deep think.
3. Ask to give feedback. Regularly.
4. Don't agnoise on mistakes. Keep focus on what you can learn and help.
5. Keep a forward focus. It's OK to not know everything. We can keep doing better everyday.
m. More thinking and captures
1. Setting the bar, and more importantly holding the bar when your team member tries to drift it.
1. Make sure your team member is delivering the same quality results as if you were doing it by yourselves
2. Get results with high quality whenever they are being reviewed by the next level manager.
2. Manager works by investment. IC works by work.
3. The fundamental working style of a manager is parallel multi-threading. This is different from IC developer that desires focused time.
4. Control your time. The manager must take control of its own time. It's unlike IC developer that timeslot is pushed by manager.
5. 坦诚，Scaleout和Replicate，正名，Alignment，拉活和选活，thought leader
2. Project Management Simplified - Chris Croft
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/project-management-simplified-2019/the-importance-of-your-project-s-critical-path
1. What's the key driver of the project? Time, or cost, or quality. The impossible triangle.
2. Task breakdown, task dependency, the critical path, priorities
3. estimating cost of the average case, worst case, and get average. safety margin.
1. Don't bent the estimates to fit the time
4. Speed up the project. Hit one of Time, or cost, or quality, and scope.
1. Don't remove safety buffer time
2. Solution: Increase the money, take out tasks, overlapping tasks
5. Gantt Chart
1. Task (Y-axis), owner, dates (X-axis), critical path. floating task and time boundary.
1. plan, progress, resources, cost
2. Make Gantt Chart in Excel
2. Make my plan visible to everyone
3. Abstraction, unfold and fold - Gantt of Gantt
6. Managing the risk
1. Problem -> Risk factor (1 to 5) * Impact factor (1 to 5)
-> Weight factor = Risk * impact
-> Prevention plan: reduce likelihood, Protection plan -> reduce impact
-> Weight factor after mitigation
7. Monitor the progress - Gantt Chart
8. Monitor the cost - Gantt Chart
1. Over spent, under spent - quality
2. Forecast the cost: average case, worst case, and get average
1. Assuming the same overspending in the second half, like the first half
9. Re-planning: You are not gonna finish the project on date
1. engage communication early. Gantt Chart
2. Six options if behind schedule
1. More resources
2. Reduce quality, Reducing the scope
3. Overlap tasks
4. Let project slip (with agreement with customer)
5. Do nothing and hope (bad)
6. Abandon the project
3. If you've overspent
1. Reduce quality (or scope)
2. Just overspend
10. Review after project done. Retrospection
1. Thanking everyone and celebrating the project is finished
2. Good to repeat?
3. Bad to avoid next time?
4. What can be done different the next time?
3. Project Management: Technical Projects - Bob McGannon
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/project-management-technical-projects-2021/what-is-a-technical-project
1. Functional and Non-functional requirements
2. MVP
4. Project Management Skills for Leaders - Dana Brownlee
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/project-management-skills-for-leaders/why-project-management-skills-are-valuable-for-leaders
1. The first step is Vetting rather than planning. Is it realistic?
2. Risk analysis
1. Gather the experts and stackholders and suppliers for risk communication
2. Risk probability and severity evaluation
3. Realistic time estimations
1. Ask the one who has knowledge about the work involved
2. Rather than ask for an estimation, ask for a best case + worst case + most likely estimates. (Best case + 4 * Most likely + Worst case) / 6
3. Breakdown and proportional to a similar previous work item
4. Effective kickoff meeting
1. Creative introduction. Let team member introduce themselves. Build the connections.
1. Icebreaker, prize winning. Work in smaller groups.
2. Project background. Most importantly, the compelling reason of why the project. Make sure understand and align on the goals.
1. Draft project charter. Goals, project sponsors, project members and responsibilities, project and objectives, key stakeholders, key constraint and expectation e.g. time scope cost, in/out of scope, key risks, project success criteria, team ground rules, signatures.
2. Project charter helps avoid miscommunication and ensure that everyone is in agreement on the work.
3. Team ground rules, co-working way, communication process. Task tacking.
4. Co-create the tasks and schedule. One small group review the other group's output.
5. Delegating and Status Tracking
1. Status update: recent activity and next step, cost/time/quality variance, potential risk, what the task owner needs
2. Three magic questions for delegating
1. What is your understanding of the task?
1. "Austin, I know I've thrown a lot at your all at once, and I want to be sure I didn't completely confuse you. So could you just kind of repeat back what you heard, so I can be sure we're on the same page?"
2. What will be final deliverable be look like?
1. Word document, spreadsheet, Visio process diagram, table, several pages, etc
3. What will be your fist three steps to begin working?
1. Confirm it's on the right path
3. Build a culture of candor, speak up the voice
1. Cultivating trust and build relationships. Fundamental way is to encouraging connection that will grow into relationships over time.
2. Talk about your desire to build a culture of candor. Be very explicit. Talk about the danger awaiting the project that team members don't pick up.
5. Develop Your Coaching Skills as a Leader or Manager - Coaching and Developing Employees - Lisa Gates
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/coaching-and-developing-employees-5/cornerstones-of-coaching-15230019
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/paths/develop-your-coaching-skills-as-a-leader-or-manager
0. good training. very useful.
1. Coaching overview
1. Coaching is not hand-holding or tell people what to do step by step. It's guiding, questioning, prompting and encouraging people forward movement. Inspire people to take ownership of their work and careers.
2. Establish a coaching relationship
1. People can be desperate trying to do more impact, or disengaged that you need to push to move forward.
2. GROW framework: Goals, Realities (challenges and road blockers), Options (alternatives available to goals), Way forward (choosing the next step, accountability, timing and deadline).
1. Goals: What would you like to achieve? Where would you want to go in the road of your career.
2. Reality: What are the obstacles in the middle of achieving your goal?
3. Options: What are all the possibilities?
4. Way forward: What are your next steps? (Accountability)
3. Step 2: Make coaching over ongoing conversations and agree on basic logistics. Logistics include time your need, how often, and location. Build trust along the way.
4. Others
1. Ask what motivates your employee
1. link the purpose with organization's
2. so, another part of Manager's role is: VISION and MOTIVATING
4. Cornerstones of coaching.
1. CURIOSITY. Cassidy performance is off. Be open to ask the question why Cassidy's performance is off.
1. Rather than pressure the pressure, be curious to ask and learn about how people feel and think, build the trust corner stone
2. CONVERSATION - it means to interactive, let employee talk and lead.
2. Let the employee lead. Ask open questions. Employee often knows exactly the things that go off rails. We don't step in the middle of the way. get out of the way.
3. Coach the whole person.
4. Example conversation
1. "Cassidy, you are the really talented people here. Help me understand, what's really happening here?"
"You are always well-organized, Cassidy. Tell me what changed here?"
Cassidy: "I was preparing my PMP exam. And with all that construction on the bridge, my commute was twice as long."
"I'm so sorry about that, and I totally understand the stress you're under."
"Let me ask you this. What kind of magic wand would solve things for you?"
Cassidy: "I'd like to ask that. I'd like Lindy to share the team responsibility with me."
"Say more about that."
2. Key points:
1. CREATE SPACE FOR CONVERSATION. (avoid -> conversation -> collaboration)
Let Cassidy lead.
Be curious to learn the problem, rather than telling Cassidy to leave the problem at home.
5. Three types of coaching conversations
1. Vision Conversations: Typically happening at the beginning of the coaching arc. To review people's accomplishments, repeat themes, what inspire them, what they want to learn, and how they see their career unfolding.
1. Example - check-in
1. "I'm glad, Cassidy, we're on the same page, you know? I'm impressed."
"Look, one of your biggest goals this year is to excel as a team lead. And then move on to directing a development group, right?"
"So, what strength do you think you already have that you can lean on to accomplish that"
Cassidy: "I think I'm great at translating our bigger organization goals into actionable chunks."
"I can see that. What else?"
Cassidy: "I'm also really good at understanding each of my team member's unique strengths. And how to match those strength to the needs of any give project."
"And that is where you really shine, Cassidy."
"So what trips you up? What do you think you need to learn?"
Cassidy: "I'll be getting a better job for delegating for sure."
"And, what would that look like?"
2. Key points:
1. Stay open.
Keep drilling down your people's answers.
To make sure you are not just skimming the surface, or moving to the goal setting process too quickly.
2. Spend time in this arc, so that the goals your people set are energizing, and connected to both their personal aspirations, and the needs of your company.
3. Power Tips for digging deeper
1. Keep asking open ended questions. "AND WHAT ELSE?"
2. Implementation Conversations: Help people translate self-awareness and visioning into setting goals and accountabilities.
1. Example
1. "What do you need to be delegating with more consistency?"
Cassidy: "If I were to do what you're doing with me now, asking questions and getting deeper knowledge about what people need and want, I think I'd be able to trust myself to let go, and give them more autonomy."
"Cassidy, that's a great insight you know."
"And, what does that look like as a concrete next step?"
Cassidy: "Well, I think having some individual conversations first, and then, at our next team meeting, I'll make sure we are all clear about the next quarter goals, make assignments from there."
"Hey, what if you let everyone make their own assignments?"
Cassidy: "Right, thank you. Actually, that's a great idea."
"Do you think you can handle that in our next meeting?"
Cassidy: "Year, year, I can."
2. Key points
1. specificity, next action steps.
3. Reflection Conversations: Create a pause in the action to anchor learning, growth, and results. You're accessing, acknowledging, and maybe even celebrating.
1. "So, tell me, what made your delegating adventure so successful?"
Cassidy: "It probably sounds crazy, but every time I had the impulse to give direction, I just held my tongue for five seconds."
"And, what is the impact of that great idea?"
Cassidy: "They all have their problems solved on their own. I barely had to say anything. I can't believe it's that simple."
2. Power Tips
1. See Cassidy. "Wait five seconds"
3. Coaching skill building
1. Ask open ended questions which are powerful
2. Become an active listener
3. Challenging your employee for growth
1. You could say all of coaching is about challenge, helping people stretch beyond current capacity
2. key points
1. Get out of your comfortable zone
2. Brainstorm to find the best challenge
3. Make sure your employee ACCEPT the challenge
Example
Cassidy is having delegation issues and feel frustrated
Cassidy: I want to hire Sam ... He has good XX skill.
I'm so sorry, but given our budget, I can't assure you anything.
What if you teach, they got learned (delegation).
Cassidy: I just got my life ordered. You ask me to take on more?
Sounds like you are between a choice of do it your own or just let it go. What's the leadership choice, Cassidy?
Cassidy: I don't know
These workflow changes can make our employee grow immensely. What if you delegate more, so they can teach what they have learned, and get things implemented?
Cassidy: I think I got it. I can ask Lora to lead the project meeting. While I put a workshop together.
And how do you think Lora will feel about it?
Cassidy: She'll love it. She's great at it.
And, what are your learning from all the things Cassidy?
Cassidy: I guess I can skip the whining and go straight to delegating.
4. Taking the next step and build momentum
1. Pre-brainstorming questions
1. What are you frustrated about?
2. What do you want?
3. What are your aspirations?
2. Powerful questions to get employee out of stuck
1. Generators
1. What you have tried already?
2. What part of the problem have you not explored?
3. What needs to be happening and it's not happening now?
4. What would it look like if everything is exactly you envisioned?
5. What are the other option?
6. What else?
2. Deciders
1. What's the smallest and easiest step you can take right now?
2. What action you would like to take to fire the project?
3. What would give you the biggest leap?
4. What is the one action that will trigger all the rest?
5. Managing the accountability
1. What agreement your employee has made to do? When will they do it? How do you know it's done?
2. Failing and miss the deadline is the opportunity to learn and growth
3. Example:
Cassidy: ... Complaining about issues ....
Looking at what they ..., what do you want to do for the issue?
Cassidy: I want to say (instead of complaining to me), what are your solution then?
Moving to delegation ... what if, the team comes to a better plan, than your original proposal?
Sounds like, you are going to delegate this to your team. Therefore, what kind of accountability can we setup?
Accountability: Ask for a deadline and deliverables.
6. Giving future-focused feedback
1. Momentum: make people encouraged, rather than frustrated, get accomplishment, and positive loop
2. Facing disappointment, failures, missed deadlines. Focus on what's possible and improvements.
3. Future-focused Questions
1. Ask what happened. Schedule time for reflection. Drill in and discover. Once discovered items then it's actionable again.
2. Keep the trust level high. Maintain the momentum.
3. Avoid venting, avoid doing criticism, avoid doing judgement.
4. Using Tools, Assessments, and Questionnaires
1. The Discovery Questionnaire - coaching relationship
1. Assessments
1. What do you love about the work?
2. What do you think you could change?
2. Achievements and goals
1. What do yo want to accomplish this year?
2. What do you see yourself in the next five years?
3. Identify work styles
1. How well do you keep your promises to yourself and others
2. How satisfied with your current level of productivity
4. Vision questions
1. If you were the CEO, where would you take this company?
2. If you could change the world, what problems would you solve?
2. Influence interview - Seek out people who really know you and find out how they perceive you
1. Strength questions
1. What are my greatest strengths?
2. What are my skills?
3. Which skill are most helpful?
2. Reality check questions
1. Where do I struggle?
2. How do I get in my own way?
3. What can I do right now to improve?
4. What would you do if you were me?
5. Maintaining the Coaching Style
1. Designing stretch opportunities
1. Find out educational goals and ways to meet them
1. Power Tips
1. Early - Identify what employees want to learn and let them investigate the resources
2. Have employees create a timeline. Protect the timeline. Avoid swallow it by emergencies
2. Mentor
3. Sponsorship
4. Teach others
2. Working through blind spots and resistance
1. People accept coaching in different degree. Not all people are coachable. It's a bad strategy to make coaching mandatory, and it'll backfire.
1. Start coaching with people who are ready
2. Tell them coaching is not remedial. There is nothing they did wrong. Coaching is to help they grow faster than higher.
1. For under-performers. Tell them you want to make sure you're tapping their strengths, and finding ways to help them be successful
2. Don't take it personally. Instead, be curious.
Ask open-ended questions.
Give people time to vent.
Acknowledge, but don't commiserate. Then try to move things forward.
6. Develop Your Coaching Skills as a Leader or Manager - Coach Your Team to Learn, Stretch, and Grow - Ruth Gotian
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/coaching-and-developing-employees-5/cornerstones-of-coaching-15230019
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/paths/develop-your-coaching-skills-as-a-leader-or-manager
1. Two types of colleagues
1. Just come here for job paycheck. Always find cheaper ways to do the job
2. Active and ambitious people always seeking to improve
2. Growth and development as a retention strategy
1. Do not reward work with more work
2. Make learning opportunities available for those who always seek to learn
3. Workspace learning.
4. Map out the needs, plans, and resources. And accountability
3. Learn
1. Anticipate learning needs before employees
2. Find what is causing the employee to stress
3. Build community of sharing
4. Stretch assessment. Balance support and challenge. Regularly check. Excitement level.
4. Stretch
1. Coach your team to dream bigger. Find unconventional solutions
2. Diverse team and help team think differently, hire people with varied experience
3. If you find your employee overwhelmed on the end goal, guide hand:
1. Slow down and think, breakdown those over complicated parts. Simplify. Put aside unnecessary.
2. Focus on the why, Explaining why and motivating.
5. Grow
1. The power of mentor
2. The role of sponsor
1. Sponsors talk positively about people when they are not in the room so that others will consider them for opportunities.
2. Avoid that "people don't select him/her because people don't know him/her". Propagate knowing and trust
3. The coaching manager
1. GROW - Goal, Reality, Options/Obstacles, Will/Accountability
2. Help identify and articulate the goals
7. Develop Your Coaching Skills as a Leader or Manager - Manager as Coach - Dr Gemma Leigh Roberts
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/manager-as-coach/be-a-great-coach-and-be-a-great-leader
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/paths/develop-your-coaching-skills-as-a-leader-or-manager
1. The coaching manager's toolkit
1. Signature Strength
1. The first step of coaching is to get buy-in. Get agreement, get commitment.
2. Strength-based coaching
3. Regular coaching conversations
4. Agree on a destination, but let your team member choose the destination
5. GROW coaching model: Goal, Reality, Options, Will
6. Get feedback
1. Personal reflection
1. Over the past weeks, what have you done well?
2. In the future, what could you do even better?
3. Right now, what small tweaks could you make to be a little better?
2. Peer feedback
1. What could I do even better?
3. Manger feedback
2. Effective Coaching in Today's workspace
1. First, focus on yourself (Manager) development. You have to be expert first
2. Switch up your perspective. Think as you are them. Don't make assumptions
3. Ask questions. Ask smart questions. Influence
4. Coaching in the virtual world
1. Understand an employee's preference in working at home style
2. Focus on role modelling. Show how you balance your work at home
3. Discuss performance and outcomes
4. Make sure employee feels connected to the team
5. Coaching across cultures
1. Focus on similarities rather than differences
6. Coaching across generations
1. Reverse coaching: Each employee may have the unique perspective to help you learn
7. Coaching purpose-driven workspace
1. Work to understand what motivates them
1. Internal motivators
2. External motivators
2. Link their roles with the organization's purpose
1. Janitor: Helping to send a man to the moon
3. Focus on recognition and contribution
1. So, another Manager's key role is VISION and MOTIVATING
4. Coaching through change
1. Understand how an employee would respond to change
1. Useful questions
1. How that situation is viewed?
2. How do you think people will react in that situation?
2. Ultimately, you want you team member to start challenging their view and thinking, to understand there are more than one way to view the situation
2. Find opportunities
1. Pair team members with people who thrive in times of change. To create a culture of positivity and opportunity
3. Focus on resilience
4. Encourage your employee to lead the coaching session
5. Coaching for creativity and innovation
1. Get comfortable with mistakes. Create space
2. Give honest feedback. Give challenging feedback in a constructive way
1. Instead of saying "This will not work", say "How it works if we add that functionality"
3. Role model a growth mindset.
3. Long-Term Coaching Opportunities as a Manager
1. Develop you listening skills. Listen with the intent of understanding
2. Balancing leading and exploring. Let employee lead the conversion, explore their experiences and perspectives
3. Focusing guiding rather than judgement
4. Learn the art of REFRAMING
1. My questions: Essentially, the skill to coach employee from difficulties and frustrations is REFRAMING
5. Try to use facts and set boundaries when providing constructive feedback
6. Work at building trust
8. Develop Your Coaching Skills as a Leader or Manager -Coaching Your Team to Think and Act Strategically - Nina Bowman
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/coaching-your-team-to-think-and-act-strategically/being-strategic-is-an-essential-skill
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/paths/develop-your-coaching-skills-as-a-leader-or-manager
1. Problem:
1. You team is so absorbed in daily work and lose sight for long-term. "Get it done mindset" (bad)
2. Build strategic skills
1. Create roles and experiences
2. Form a strategic initiative committee
3. Coach your team
2. What is Strategic Competencies, a better definition
1. Being Strategic means to lead in a way that advances goals and creates long-term advantages
2. Strategic skills
1. Understand trends
2. Anticipate problems and opportunities
3. See things differently
4. Prioritize well
5. Communicate simply
6. Bring others along
3. A framework for thinking and acting strategically
1. Connect dots
2. Recognize threads and opportunities
3. Be curious
4. Ask questions
5. Consider various perspectives
6. Behaviors
1. Communicate effectively (not only data, but also what's behind)
2. Manage your time
3. Invite risks and challenges
3. Preparing for Coaching for Strategic Competency
1. New hire can look in strategic thinking in different ways. This is a key contribution
2. Communicate the company visions and strategies. Help your employees know the goals
1. What are the value drivers, trends, opportunities?
2. Encourage share different perspectives
3. Act strategically
4. Coaching for Strategic Thinking
1. Curating the internal signals
1. Data, trend, signals
2. Make trend observation as part of the job.
2. Curating the external signals
1. Competitor, buyers, suppliers, Demographic changes, Technological advances
2. PESTEL framework
1. Political
2. Economic
3. Social
4. Technological
5. Environmental
6. Legal
3. Building inquiry skills
1. Stop ask more questions yourself. Encourage the team to ask more questions
2. Help expand questions by giving categories of the questions. And balance questions are balanced across hard/soft/etc
3. Help them challenge the assumptions. Building curiosity in the team
4. Build skills to take multiple perspectives
1. Help team to think Zoom in/out. Stakeholder. Temporal. Context.
5. Moving from information to insights
1. SCAMPER to brainstorm: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Magnify/modify, Put to other use, Eliminate, Reverse/rearrange
2. Interactions, Frameworks, Scenarios planning
6. Build the behaviors
1. Help the team, create space to think and innovate. Take a break.
2. Discuss ideas in small groups
5. Coach for Strategic Behaviors
1. Help the team manage the time. Balance time for strategic thinking.
1. How much time is generating value? how much time is wasted for repetitives?
2. Create the mindset across the team to value strategic thinking
1. Create space for creative work. Set meeting free days
3. Coach the team how to communicate strategically
1. Strategic Conversation Structure
1. Identify issues
2. Build collective understanding
3. Design strategic choices
4. Make a decision
2. Make communication succinct. Simple but effective.
Framing communication. Adding context or stories to ideas.
6. Coaching to challenge the status quo
1. Speak of possibilities
2. Question the assumptions
9. Develop Your Coaching Skills as a Leader or Manager - Coaching Virtually - Nina Bowman
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/coaching-virtually/coaching-virtually
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/paths/develop-your-coaching-skills-as-a-leader-or-manager
1. Challenges
1. Video delay, Technical connection
2. Distraction
3. Need to schedule
4. Harder to connect and build trust
2. Trust
1. Get to know each employee. Provide support. Connect proactively. And also let employee know you. Be consistent
2. Coaching conversations types
1. Problem-solving
2. Personal development
3. Career growth
3. Tools
1. GROW: OK .. this is really famous. It's the core part of coaching
2. Listening skills
1. Adjust your camera, look directly to the camera, not up or down
2. Mind your facial expression. Practice eye contact.
3. Ask for reflect of what's said. Make sure words are understood, no misunderstanding.
4. Strategies
1. Find informal coachable moments
1. Do you have a few minutes after the meeting?
2. Instead of saying "You don't talk much in the meeting", say "The project you've done is impressive, it can benefit everyone if you share it to team. Do you have a few minutes after the meeting?"
2. Use COIN model to give feedback
1. Start with Context, then Observable facts, then Impact, Next steps
"When we have the project meeting, ... the due date of the report is Wednesday, but I get yours at Friday. It messes up our planning for the next meeting. What do you think you can do to make you catch up to meet the deadline?"
1. OK .. this is practical but very USEFUL when giving constructive feedback.
3. Action plans - Dream -> Goal -> Plan -> Actions.
1. Let employee lead, let's do it together.
5. Challenging virtual coaching situations (and what to do about them)
1. Virtual coach employees who are resistant to your coaching
1. Watch you style, try change the style
2. Discuss their strength, give positivity
2. Ask high performance employees, challenging them to stretch
3. Encourage them to find a mentor
10. Develop Your Coaching Skills as a Leader or Manager - Coaching New Manager - Jenny Blake
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/coaching-new-managers/set-your-new-manager-up-for-success
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/paths/develop-your-coaching-skills-as-a-leader-or-manager
1. Mindsets - Make manager to be the multiplier
1. Manager as a coach. Instead give steps, ask open-ended questions and inspire employee to plan what to do
2. Manager as thought partner. For strategic brainstorming. Challenge assumptions
3. Advocate. Help your manager to actively support their team members. Make sure their accomplishments are recognized by others
4. Mirror. Ask new manager to highlight the strength of each their team member.
5. Manager as teacher. Encourage the manager to share their success and expertise in their career
2. Foster early trust between your new manager and their team
1. I as the new manager
1. To start, I asked the team members if I could shadow them in meetings and presentations
2. I did walk-and-talks with them to understand each person's unique aspirations and current challenges
3. I let them know I'll actively work on their behalf with more senior management to help align their goals and interests with future projects and to do whatever I could to resolve their current challenges
4. The walk-and-talks help establish me as an Advocate
2. 1-on-1 meeting with everyone as informal meeting to build connection and trust
3. During these 1-on-1 conversations, to also encourage your new manager to establish expectations early on
1. What does success look like for their team as a unit?
2. What are their biggest strengths as a team?
3. What strengths and values can your new manager, as a leader, bring to the table?
4. What is most important for them to convey to their new team members?
5. What will help their new team members best communicate and collaborate with them?
6. What you expect from me, as your new manager?
7. What worked and didn't work with your prior manager?
3. Debunk new manager doubts: Help build confidence
1. Imposter Syndrome that the new manger experiences: Individual feeling a vague sense that they don't belong and they succeeded due to luck; persistent internalized fear of being exposed as fraud
1. Self-doubts creeping in for your new manager: on top of navigating company culture, and changing team dynamics.
2. Feeling they new need know every answer. Feeling they need to do the better job than everyone else
2. Help your new manager navigate emotional and cultural dynamics
4. Map success with a Pivot Plan
1. Coach new manger through the Pivot Plan
1. Plant Stage: Strengths, and one year vision
1. OK .. so the key ranking from dev to manager to senior manager can be measured by
1. LENGTH of VISION: Be asked to deliver task, Plan 1 year vision, Plan 3 year to 10 year vision. More Strategic involved.
2. DELIVER INPUT: Take input to deliver task, Need few input but Output more input for others
2. Scan Stage:
1. Three manager levers: People, Process, Purpose
1. Questions for "People" part
1. Can you coach this person to their max strength?
2. Can you match the person's strength to the biggest problems that the team needs?
3. Can you hire and attract great talent?
4. Can you help manage performance?
5. Can see if someone is creating a toxic environment for others? And then manage that appropriately
2. Process
1. Help documents, "A Manager Manual" that make every process in the company transparent
3. Purpose
1. "A Manager Manual" provides insights to company purpose. Reasoning about how I think at the high level
3. Pilot: Set small experiments to help new manager acclimate
1. Shadowing another manager.
2. You and the new manager share responsibility e.g. performance reviews
4. Launch: Wrap new manager coaching
1. Big L launch: Go all in one direction, after running a series of small experiments or pilots
1. It means the new manager has fully transitioned into the new role. The Zero to One moment in one's career
2. Small L launch: A coaching conversation for these four questions
1. What is one insight from this conversation?
2. What is one small step you can take in the next week?
3. What one next step would make the biggest impact?
4. What will you do by when, and how will I know?
5. Coaching is the new Managing
1. Managing: Vision, Strategy, Collaborative team effort (E.g. OKR)
Coaching: Deep listening, powerful questions, No set agenda
1. Each time you asked question that no one heard or thought about before, it's creating value
2. Coach your new manager to coach, not problem solve.
Coach your new manager to pause before answering
Coach your new manager to take notes after 1-on-1 meeting
3. Avoid new manager to become the bottleneck of their team
1. Teach the business to run itself.
2. Identify what is you and only you can do. How can you drop or delegate the rest?
How can you encourage your team to step up, and proactively suggest solutions?
3. Delegate each of: Tiny, Tedious, Time-consuming, Terrible at, Teachable
What's left - the most strategic tasks: $10 tasks, $100, $1000, and $10000 tasks
4. Stay connected beyond the new manager's transition
1. 1-on-1 meeting.
2. Reflect together at 1-year period
11. Develop Your Coaching Skills as a Leader or Manager - Coaching New Hires - Jenny Blake
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/coaching-new-hires/welcome-hires-with-curiosity-coaching-and-encouragement
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/paths/develop-your-coaching-skills-as-a-leader-or-manager
1. Welcome hires with curiosity, coaching, and encouragement
1. Glass door policy
2. Onboarding for success
1. Onboarding new hire checklist
1. Company value, process, technology - Orientation session
2. Core team - team culture, technology
3. Interpersonal - coffee talk, establish connection
4. Individual goals - what inspire them to take the job, align
5. Interview the new hire: what will be helpful in the next 90 days?
2. Create a context for coaching
1. Check in weekly. Set expectation and thought outputs. Ask exploratory questions. Reflect together what's going well or need help
3. Quick wins: Empower your new hire to make an impact
1. Set a few small win tasks for the new hire. After 90 days, should be able to set vision for 1 year
2. Connect and engage with a Pivot Plan
1. Plant Stage: Strength, one year vision.
1. Strength: What they were thankful on and succeeded on? What were their go-to-person on their previous team?
2. Vision: 90 days, 1 year.
2. Scan Stage: People, Skills, Projects
1. Assign your new hire a buddy.
2. What are the skills need to bootstrap in the 90 days, or 1 year?
3. Small, medium, or large projects. Quick wins for the new hire.
3. Pilot Stage: Small experiments for your new hire to tackle while onboarding
1. Small projects that have space to grow
2. 3Es for a successful pilot: Do you enjoy it? Can you become expert on it? Does it have room to expand?
4. Launch Stage: Powerful questions to wrap new hire onboarding
1. Big L: Going on in end of the new hire period. Ready for full capacity. No more hands on. Noogler Orientation
2. Little L: Per conversion. What's insight of the conversation. What the next actions, and how do I know.
3. Checking in: Keeping an Open Line of Communication
1. Not problem solving. Instead, use open questions to guide career conversations
1. "Tell me more", "What's exciting about that", "What else", "What's important in that", "What would success look like in that"
2. Less you talk, more output. Keep unveil their strengths and aspirations.
2. Encourage transparency, encourage talking about failings, and what is learned. Encourage what's going wrong
1. Celebrate mistakes. Physiological safety
3. Avoid three common coaching mistakes
1. Mistake: Providing too many answers
1. Before answer the new hire's question.
Ask "What do you propose here", "What you see Pros and Cons in this approach"
2. Mistake: Missing opportunities to follow up
1. Consider the tone and energy level of the new hire.
"When you say that, I saw your whole face light up", "Your tone of voice changed completely", "What's exciting about that"
"What your gut say"
3. Mistake: Too much intellectualizing
1. Having them get lost in "shoulds" and or what I call the beehive of the brain
2. As a Manager, you can bring team members out of their head and into their whole-body intelligence systems
12. Develop Your Coaching Skills as a Leader or Manager - Coaching for Results - Lisa Gates
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/coaching-for-results/strategies-to-improve-coaching-results
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/paths/develop-your-coaching-skills-as-a-leader-or-manager
1. Laying the Foundation
1. Five starting questions to avoid the pitfalls that people are taking their goals and accountabilities seriously
1. Coachability
1. Is your employee coachable? Spend your time with coachable people
2. Relevance
1. How your coaching is relevant to the coachee's aspirations? Purposeful and compelling to keep them engaged
3. Simplicity
1. Keep it simple, use one tool (Discovery questionnaires, GROW, etc) at a time. Let it bake
4. Challenge
1. People may find coaching is a big yawn, this is bad. Your challenge is to find their challenge. Everyone's challenge is unique.
5. Structure
1. Align the coaching structure with who you are coaching with.
E.g. high performer needs frequent quick check-ins, low performer needs booked time per day to maintain momentum and keep accountability high
2. Notice what works and what doesn't. Do switch things when you need to.
2. How to access coachability
1. Attributes of Coachable People
1. Commitment to growth. Love in learning
2. Receptivity. Handle criticism without over defensing. Self-awareness that allows them to reflect on their behavior
3. Openness. Willing to reveal where they're stuck, and get real about the core of a problem
4. Perspective taking. Explore new ideas and alternatives, and integrate them into new possibilities and new actions
2. Use the "Discovery Questionnaire"
3. Create a coaching contract
1. Coaching objectives
1. Coaching partnership
2. Coaching milestones
3. Measure of success
4. Expectations/consequences
5. In more details
1. Get specific with goals
2. Set challenging goals
3. Align goals with the organization
2. Coaching role: Your role, Coachee's role. What you provide?
3. Logistics: When, where, how long, frequency, who is responsible for initiating
4. Identify stakeholders: Staff, Customer, HR
2. Coaching Strategies: Upping Your Coaching Game
1. Three types of coachees
1. Careerist
2. Low performers
3. High performers
2. Different coaching styles: find the balance
1. Supportive coaching
1. Let your employee lead
2. Build rapport and respect
3. Ask powerful questions
2. Challenging coaching
1. Push your employee
2. Confront issues head-on
3. Accomplish aspirational goals
3. Example conversations - useful, see video
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/coaching-for-results/overview-of-support-and-challenge-coaching-16131045?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&contextUrn=urn%3Ali%3AlyndaLearningPath%3A5c926f1c498e2e8c8a2050ad&resume=false&u=3322
1. Low support, Low challenge - apathy
1. Conflict style - Avoid conflict. Bad
3. Low support, High challenge - stressing
1. Conflict style - Compete. I win, you lose. Bad
3. High support, Low challenge - cozy club
1. Conflict style: Accommodate. I lose, you win. Bad. Don't accommodate to bad behaviors
4. High support, High challenge - Loving boot of high performance - recommended
1. CJ acknowledges Sam's challenges, CJ challenges Sam to go deeper to the issue, CJ doesn't solve the problem for Sam.
Over the time, you want your employee to decrease the dependency on you
2. Conflict style - Collaborate. I win, you win.
3. Give meaningful feedback
1. Step 1: State the facts
2. Step 2: Describe the impact
3. Step 3: Do a reality check
4. Step 4: Take a pause
5. Step 5: Agree on next steps
4. Raise the stakes on accountability
1. Accountability To personal, to Coacher/Coachee, to Organization.
5. How to listen for personal and organizational growth
1. Global listening - Three levels of listening
1. Level 1: Self-oriented
2. Level 2: Focused on what is said
3. Level 3: Intuitive
1. Hear what's being said and not being said. Cues.
2. How all it relates to your organization. You are listening for you boss, your customers, your constituents, the whole system you're part of
2. Example - CJ and Sam. Useful
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/coaching-for-results/how-to-listen-for-personal-and-organizational-growth-16132041?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&contextUrn=urn%3Ali%3AlyndaLearningPath%3A5c926f1c498e2e8c8a2050ad&resume=false&u=3322
1. blurting and intuition. "My gut feeling is ..."
3. Coaching the Careerist
1. Co-create a career plan and timeline
1. Pinpoint short-and long-term goals
2. Access accomplishments to date
3. Identify skills to build and strengthen
4. Strategize ways to build influence
2. Rather than as a coach, help Careerist find team members, experts, resources
3. Looking Back to Move Forward
1. Coachees need to communicate how they meet the expectations of the new role
How their strengths, skills, accomplishments, map to the expectations of the new role
Exercise. Create the story that sell it. Being able to communicate their superpowers with succinct story
4. Psychometric assessments
5. "Seven Questions" From The Coaching Habit
1. The questions
1. The Kickstart Question: What's on your mind?
2. The AWE Question: And what else?
3. The Focus Question: What's the real challenge here for you?
4. The Foundation Question: What do you want?
5. The Lazy Question: How can I help?
6. The Strategic Question: If you're saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?
7. The Learning Question: What was most useful for you
2. Example - CJ & Ben, useful
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/coaching-for-results/how-to-coach-a-careerist-16132040?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&contextUrn=urn%3Ali%3AlyndaLearningPath%3A5c926f1c498e2e8c8a2050ad&resume=false&u=3322
1. Dip is expected in coaching, as coachee is being challenged. Help people move from dip to actions
4. Coaching Low Performers
1. Guidelines
1. Everyone will have performance challenges during their career including you.
2. Poor performance is your responsibility. Is it me or is it them? The answer is usually both
2. Common performance issues
1. Poor-quality work
2. Lack of time management and productivity
3. Absenteeism
4. Poor communication
5. Harassment and bullying
6. Stakeholder and customer complaints
3. Prepare for a performances conversations
1. Recognize well performance publicly, and address criticism privately.
When you see a performance issue, don't let it slip
2. What are the facts?
What is the impact?
What changes must be made?
3. Guidelines
1. Set a meeting
2. Share your observations. Facts, and numbers
3. Ask for input for your observations.
4. Ask for reflection on behavior. How it impact the career or team
5. Tell them what behavior is expected. Clarity
6. Ask open-minded questions to find solutions
7. Agree on a course of action, and write it down
8. Identify the stakeholders, boss, HR
9. Define consequences. Be clear and specific
10. Create a follow-up structure
4. How to coach a low performer
1. Example: CJ & Sam - useful. It tells how to use the above steps
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/coaching-for-results/how-to-coach-a-low-performer-16133827?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&contextUrn=urn%3Ali%3AlyndaLearningPath%3A5c926f1c498e2e8c8a2050ad&resume=false&u=3322
1. Rather than saying you have bad performance, say the numbers - BEGIN THE PROBLEM BY FACTS AND NUMBERS, rather than vague criticisms
2. Setup context and expectation about this meeting
3. Before go on, CONFIRM WITH COACHEE how he/she thinks about the numbers
1. This is another key point of what CONVERSATION means - rather than you talk, let the partner ACCEPT what you deliver
4. So here is the problem .. coach try summarize reflect to make sure understanding
Then, ask "what else", the powerful question
5. Where come your frustration?
6. What takes you to deal with that frustration around?
7. Drilling down the problem. Ask the employee to lead. It really revealed the true problem underlyingly inside the team.
OK .. the team is throwing all bad angry cases to Sam. Documentation is garbage.
8. Ask what the employee think about how to fix the problem.
9. Coach reply: OK .. I'll commit to research and investigating, your ideas and your concerns to find a solution
In the meantime, what strategies can we come up to help you deal with customers more positively and effectively?
Coach: What's in your mind? Encourage the employee to say
1. Sam: I'll rewrite the documentation and script. I want to train people. I'd be good at it.
2. Coach: I'm so pleased. So let's get more specific on how you can own it in your current role first.
10. Coach: What adjectives you want to supervise calls to hear? - Let the coachee say the expectation of a good case
11. Coach: Recap the goal of the conversation here. What action would you take to get up your numbers by the end of the month?
1. Coach: What action else do you need to take? ...
2. Mentoring train .. Sam: I'm afraid people don't like me much. Coach: That's right the reason you should try a shot
11. Setup the logistics. Coach: I'll setup the next meeting. In the meantime, we should meet weekly. Get coaching and follow up conversations.
Coaching is not for mis-behaved children. It's for talented adults who aspire to something.
12. Coach: So .. why don't you send me an email to recap everything we agreed to?
n. good .. if you compare this example with the other "CJ & Sam" examples before. This is very good learning example.
5. Challenges to coaching high performers
1. Traits of high performers
1. Positive ones
1. Confident.
2. Self-directed.
3. Crave autonomy
4. loathe failure
5. Constantly trying to improve the game
2. Negative
1. Aggressive
2. Arrogant
3. Selfish
4. Inflated sense of skills
2. Stay in peer relation, equal position.
Make real challenging goals.
Review frequently and adapt the strategies.
Focus on relationships as much as goals
Help them build positive influence in peers
Help them find the people to coach. Grow their leadership skills, and the coaching culture in organization.
Stay in the high-support, high-challenge zone.
Praise them. Don't skim just because they are high performer.
Get out of them way. Don't micromanaging.
3. Example CJ & Maren, a senior sales manager with several reports
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/coaching-for-results/how-to-coach-a-high-performer-15024932?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&contextUrn=urn%3Ali%3AlyndaLearningPath%3A5c926f1c498e2e8c8a2050ad&resume=false&u=3322
1. CJ: So can I share what I noticed? When you are problem solving for others, you are queued up to the big picture, and you are clear and directed. When you are solving problems for yourself, you get small and tend to point fingers. So how you can map problem solving for yourself to the big picture?
2. CJ was persistent, and didn't get detoured by Maren's frustration and emotion. And CJ didn't take sides with her and demonize Charlie.
3. Coaching with difficult relationships. Remember you are not coaching the persons that's not in the room, even that person is 100% at fault, you always want to focus on your coachee
5. Practice your coaching skill in day-to-day conversations, rather than just 1-on-1 conversation.
13. Avoiding New Manager Mistakes - Pete Mockaitis
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/avoiding-new-manager-mistakes/executing-well-and-managing-well-are-different-skills-15870997
1. Most Managers are prompted because they are good at doing what they do, rather than leading the people. Good.
2. Traits of great leaders:
1. They are really good at MOTIVATING people
1. What are the action that lead to motivation?
1. That's act of listening with intention and attention
2. To ask for powerful questions you actually first time heard to
to evaluate when you first time heard the questions
2. They are are good at evaluating the situation, they can determine who to plug in, where and what to go
3. They communicate directly
1. To communicate directly, you need to setup the psychological safety, and give clarity
1. PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY is another key point in CREATING CONVERSATION (4 quadrant: avoid - compete - conversation - collaboration)
4. They realize that in order to lead, you have to serve others, in order to get the most out of people
1. A serving mindset helps you listen
3. To be good listeners, it needs intentional practice. What's the last time you practiced the skill of listening?
1. When do you have your conversation recorded and analyzed?
2. Listening blind spot: Unaware .. You have to first be aware then to fix it
3. We think at ~3000 words/min, we listen at ~300 words/min, we speak at ~200 words/min.
People talk more when they feel being heard. Shut up an listen in a sale conversation
4. Listen and think what's your connection to the other person, the connection to the purpose, and the world
"Bring the truth", "Show what's integrity", "Unlock your potential"
"What are the most proud moments in your life", "What are the most significant experiences", "What are the things that piss you off the most"
4. Ask Powerful Questions
1. Braining has a lot of bias. Confirm your assumptions before move. Children/New Hires can ask Powerful Questions because they don't yet have these assumptions
2. Instead of asking Why, ask What or How. "Why" tends to make people defensive. Ask open questions.
5. Create physiological safety
1. Create expectation, how each member in team should work
2. Feedback is a gift (whether they see it now, or after 10 years). If you don't give feedback, you are not serving them.
n. My questions
1. So, A core part of Manager is SKILLED LISTENTING.
That's why we need to attend every meeting, listen and give impactful feedback.
That explains why I was suggested to attend the meeting with full attention and listen carefully.
Conflict and negotiation.
14. Conflict Resolution Foundation - Lisa Gates
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/conflict-resolution-foundations-4/recognizing-contentious-tactics
1. Goal: From conflict to collaboration
2. Anatomy of Conflict
1. When conflict erupts
1. When believed to be deprived of something
1. Name - Blame - Claim cycle
1. Name: What is being deprived of
2. Blame: Who is doing depriving
3. Claim: What social norm is it breaking
2. Conflict against social norm
2. Thomas-Kilman Conflict Model - Conflicting styles
1. 4 Quadrant: Avoid - Compete - Collaborate - Accommodate - Compromise (Conflicting Styles)
1. I win or lose, you win or lose. -> double win
2. Some choose to argue to exhaustion. Some choose to wait out of the storm
2. Contentious Tactics
1. sweet talk, promises, mutual gain, persuasive argumentation, shaming, threats, physical forces
2. start listening for Contentious Tactics, pause, and drill deeper
3. Why is a logical argument often contentious? - The premises may not be acceptable to all parties.
3. Unwinding cognitive bias
1. Hindsight bias: "I know it all along"
2. Fundamental attribution error: get to conclusion before knowing the facts
3. Confirmation bias: look to interpret information to match our bias
4. Belief bias: believing more is better, then any favor in quality over quantity is rejected
3. Conflict resolving framework - The Resolution Roadmap
1. Identify issues and needs
1. Think of a situation and ask: Relational? Substantive (About content or process)? Perceptual?
1. Investigate my own needs and behaviors
1. What do my actions and behaviors demonstrate about what I want?
2. How would I behave if I was really committed to what I want?
2. Investigate others needs and behaviors
2. Distinguishing fact from fiction
1. Blame cycle: Something happened -> Feeling -> Stories -> Action -> Argument
2. Investigate your "stories" and find what else can be true
3. Opening the conflict conversation - Move from avoidance to conversation
1. A successful opening
1. State the facts as you see them
2. Tell your story and own it as story
3. Ask your conflict partner for their perspectives
2. Example Gina & William
1. Don't let the conflict partner's emotion to trigger you
2. Acknowledge the emotion but drill down
4. Gaining alignment and brainstorming
1. Ask the big deal questions - What are we committed to? Or what goal are we all try to accomplish?
1. The idea is find the common stand ground for both sides
2. Example Gina & William
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/conflict-resolution-foundations-4/gaining-alignment-and-brainstorming?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&resume=false&u=3322
1. By finding the shared ground, alignment, the conflict partner is instead offering help. New solutions are found
5. Getting to agreement
2. Example Gina & William
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/conflict-resolution-foundations-4/getting-to-agreement?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&resume=false&u=3322
1. Work out the accountability
2. Acknowledge the achievement of the conflict partner
4. Deepening Conflict Resolution Skills
1. Increasing your conflict capacity
1. What's your trigger? How triggered or upset were you? What's the feeling level?
Conflict Resolution is a self discipline. It's never about the other person, even it is.
2. Partner training
2. Asking DIAGNOSTIC QUESTIONS
1. Wrong: Do you want to talk about the meeting?
Diagnostic: What are your thoughts about how the meeting went?
2. Example Gina & William
1. What does alignment mean to you?
3. Tactic Listening Skills
1. Three levels of listening
1. See before
2. Example Gina & William
1. body language
2. get eye contact
3. reflect what you hear
1. "What I'm hearing is", "It sounds like"
3. Tactical Listening Skills
1. Labeling
1. Example Gina & William
1. "And it seems you are worried about .. and .."
3. Labeling means to reframe the conversation that allow them to noodle on possible conversations
2. Mirroring
1. Useful when you feel confused or triggered. Use Mirroring to defuse conflict
2. To repeat the last a few words or critical words of your conflict partner's language
1. Fighting words
3. Example Gina & William
1. "Well, here's the issue I see them. For the last nine month ..."
2. "I, you, we, whatever"
3. Silence
1. Used when you have no idea what to say, or the conflict partner said something so out of bound that you need to take the temperature down
2. Example Gina & William
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/conflict-resolution-foundations-4/labeling-mirroring-and-silence?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&resume=false&u=3322
1. "I'm irritable and I'm in a hurry. Is there anything else"
"Yes. Your full attention. Or we will have a full mutiny"
4. Reframing
1. Asking questions helps you understand your conflict partner's interests and goals.
Paraphrasing helps you double-check your understanding.
Mirroring helps you signal to your conflict partner that what they've said is potentially disruptive and subtly invites them to explain themselves or move from competition to collaboration.
And labeling helps you build tactical empathy by reframing the feeling or need of the other person.
2. To let them know you understand them, and help them move to a more movable role
16. Negotiation Foundations - Lisa Gates (Project and Management)
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/negotiation-foundations/negotiate-with-better-results?autoplay=true&u=3322
1. Negotiation with better results
2. The basics of Negotiation
1. Mindset
1. Interested-base negotiation: Discovery of both parties for needs and preferences
2. First it's conversation, next reach agreement, requires curiosity and creativity
2. Three core negotiation practices
1. Needs to be slow and relational, instead of fast and transactional
2. Check in your conservation partner to make sure full attention, and fully connected
3. Ask DIAGNOSTIC QUESTIONS: open questions to discover interests
4. No is the beginning of negotiation
3. Anchoring and framing for mutual benefit
1. Anchoring: Landing your request and preferences
Framing: View the problem in new perspectives
4. Tactical Listening
1. Labeling - reframe the true needs of the conservation partner
2. Mirroring - a subtle challenge
3. Silence
5. Trading things of value
1. Prepare options
-> Small talks and opening -> Ensure attention
-> Diagnostic Questions to discover boss's thinking
-> Anchor
-> Frame
-> Labeling/Mirroring/Silence
-> Trading things of value
-> Agreement
6. The wrong and right way to negotiate
1. Example: Joe & Adriana
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/negotiation-foundations/the-wrong-and-right-way-to-negotiate-18022249?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&resume=false&u=3322
1. Useful. Comparing the good and bad example
2. Session 1: Joe's Mistakes
1. Speeding through his proposal, even Adriana is clearly occupied
2. Defending his idea, rather than be curious about Adriana's concern
3. Session 2: Joe's correct doings
1. Engage with small talks. Check if time is right. Ensure full attention
2. Slow down the proposal. Make sure message received
3. Asking a Diagnostic Question to allow Adriana to voice her concern, after Joe has framed his proposal
4. Labeling - "So, sounds like revenue is a big concern"
5. Incorporate Adriana's concern into a new possibility - "So with revenue in mind, I interviewed a few conference directors that have been super successful with this format and they said sponsors are knocking down the doors to participate. - I'd love to see that happen. - Well, listen, if you don't think it's in the cards for this year, we can point to next year for sure. But right now I just wanted to get you excited about what's possible. Now what I'd like to do is go over some of the research with you and I can show you the revised draft I came up with so you can make an informed decision. What are your thoughts on that?"
1. Joe let Adriana has a control of timing and make changes.
Joe reframed the request from "you got to do this now" to "Let's just take a look at how it might work"
Joe finished with a question to make Adriana engaged and in problem solving mode
2. Change your approach FROM TRANSACTIONAL TO RELATIONAL. Slow things down, get connected.
Make space for objection and pushback
3. Getting ready for a Negotiation
1. Researching and preparing
1. Define what you want.
2. Research. Find market or stakeholder expectations.
3. Write an open statement
4. List potential pushbacks
2. Identifying priorities and designing options
1. What are your priorities?
2. What is the benefit to your conversation partner?
3. What is the cost or impact for your request?
4. Engaging you allies
1. Understanding how influence works
1. Six Principles of Influence
1. Reciprocity: Responding to a positive action with a positive action
2. Consistency: Do what you said you are going to do
3. Confirming to custom or group behavior
4. Liking: Being influenced by who are similar to us
5. Authority: Obeying or believing people in position or power
6. Scarcity: Having a limited supply will create demand
2. Creating your influence plan
1. How can you stay happen/engaged in your career in the next 3 years?
What are your top three goals?
What's the learning resources do you need to accomplish your goal?
What relationship do you need on your radar?
2. Take time to continuously foster your relationships
5. Getting through and past no
1. Understanding conflict styles
1. 4 Quadrant: Avoid - Compete - Collaborate - Accommodate - Compromise (Conflicting Styles)
2. Labeling, Mirroring, Silence
3. Consider maintaining Relationship
2. A template for getting past no
1. So "no" begins negotiation -> Diagnostic Questions -> Anchoring the reason -> Labels and Mirrors -> Reframes
2. Example: Joe & Adriana
1. Diagnostic Questions, Label the concerns, Align and collaborate
2. SAYING/HEARING NO IS THE BEGINNING OF NEGOTIATION
3. A template for saying no (Chris Voss' "Never Split the Difference)
1. 8 Ways to say NO
1. The curious no - "How am I supposed to do that?"
2. The helpful no - "I love that you thought of me and I'm unable to participate. I'd be glad to help you find someone else."
3. The appreciate no - "I think your idea is fabulous, and I'm not able to participate at this time."
4. The no with a possible future yes - "Yeah, I'd love to participate, but at a later date. Can you ask me again in January?"
5. The no with a specific future yes - "I'd love to help you with your project and I'm on deadline until Tuesday. Can we talk on Wednesday?"
6. The no when you don't know - "It sounds interesting, but I need to sleep on that.", "I need to check with my boss or partner."
7. The no with values - "If I take on another task right now, I wouldn't be honoring my productivity commitment to my current project team."
8. The positive no - "Yeah, I'd love to participate and I'm going to have to decline."
6. Essential negotiation tips and strategies
1. Dealing with contentious tactics
1. Identifying Contentious Tactics
1. Ingratiation - "Hey, you're so skilled and fast with spreadsheets, and I'd love your help setting one up for me."
2. Promises - "If you run the meeting again for me today, I'll cover for you anytime you want to take a day off."
3. Shaming - "Your work is pretty subpar so far, and it really doesn't represent company standards."
4. Persuasive - "All the data shows that people aren't buying trucks, and I'd like to get your ideas about why that's happening."
5. Threats - "If you can't keep up and meet deadlines, your days are numbered."
2. Identify Contentious Tactics so you can disengage/attack-back and lead the conversation toward collaboration
1. Labeling, Mirroring, Silence
2. Diagnostic Questions
3. Move from competition to Collaboration
2. Negotiation hacks
1. Setting the tone and schedule the best time for negotiation. Avoid end of day hurry or distraction
2. Find a neutral place. Help shifting the power balance
3. Bring warmth, e.g. food, drink
4. Express your disappointment. Ouch, Flinch
1. Diagnostic Questions: "What is about my experience, strengths and accomplishments that isn't worth $90,000?"
1. So, besides using TRADABLES in negotiation, another way to stop the attack or throw it back is to use DIAGNOSTIC QUESTIONS. It also forces the opponent to reveal its opening offer.
5. Anchor with a specific number of give a range
7. Negotiating at a distance
1. Telephone and video conference negotiation
1. Make up for the loss of visual cues
1. Print out your open statement
2. Plan an agenda
3. Minimize any potential distraction
4. Have a well phone connection quality
5. Extra effort on clarifying and summarizing
6. Take notes during the conversation
7. Camera and and eye contact.
Be mindful of lighting.
Camera level and distance
2. Email and text negotiation
1. Set stage and bring feeling into the conversation. Express empathy. Be deferential. Stress the confidence to find a solution. Close with appreciation.
2. F2F is still better anyway. Then phone.
15. Negotiation Skills - Chris Croft (For Sales and Buyers)
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/negotiation-skills/everyone-needs-to-negotiate?autoplay=true&u=3322
1. Everyone needs to negotiate. Good lecture.
2. Decide to Negotiate
1. Identify your reasons for avoiding negotiation
1. Cultural. Embarrassing. Acting bad.
1. You can be negotiating and still be liked
2. Seem unstructured: You don't know what the other person will do
3. Everything is negotiable, even "Do I have time today?" Even the course here.
2. Overcome embarrassment and pride to negotiate
1. "My father has to pay the full price of the car, because his pride avoided negotiation"
1. Instead, even we win only half of the deal, we still save price
1. Save $1000 in 15min from the car
2. How to deal with the humiliation?
1. Detach from it, and think it as a game
2. When the money is large, you are playing a chess game for your organization
2. Negotiate without lying
1. You shouldn't lie
1. Don't lie about numbers or facts. You don't know how much they know. You may find it out afterward.
Body language may also give you away. More, it becomes more difficult to maneuver
2. Fine to not telling the other person truth or everything
1. It's fine and essential to learn to be good at being evasive
2. Especially when they position themselves as your friend, or joint problem solving partner
"let's share all our information, and work out the best deal for both of us"
Be careful
3. To be polity evasive
1. Use feelings - "I'm just not happy to pay that much"
2. "I don't know" - "I don't have the cost information. We don't break it down that way"
3. "I'm not allowed to say" - "It's not our policy to reveal costs"
4. "You don't think I'm going to tell you that, do you?"
5. "It depends ..." -
"It depends how many you want to buy. Do you have a quantity in mind?"
"We have find out ... many complications .. that's expensive .. off we go"
1. bounce the question back to them, ask info first
3. Stop your fear of losing the deal
1. Reasons to try negotiating
1. You may get a better deal
2. You won't lose the starting offer
2. You walk away and wishing they call you back
1. If they don't - "Great news, I just talked to our boss/bank, and I can afford your price."
3. Losing it by them walking away and throw you out?
1. This won't happen, if you always make sure you are nice
1. Key is: Blame it on yourself
Instead of saying "your price is high", say "This is more than I can afford"
or "You boss will be really unhappy if I spend that much"
2. Reel them back in if necessary
1. "Well .. I'm sure we can find a deal somehow"
"We've got this far, we've nearly reached an agreement. Maybe, we can think it in a different way"
2. Be ready to be crumbling
4. Instead of yes or no, negotiate
1. Yes -> Negotiate <- No. There is a distance in between
2. Instead of saying No, there is price of not doing. Use that in negotiation
5. Spot seven signs that you should negotiate
1. "How about offer you 10% off?" - This is a strong sign of negotiate. You can say "I'll buy it if 20% off"
2. The item is on sale
3. The manager is present
4. You're not enthusiastic
5. You have other options
6. You're the seller and the customer wants something more
7. You have a compliant
3. Planning Your Negotiation
1. Set your walk-away number and never exceed it - The hard reject policy
1. The source power of negotiation is able to walk away
1. This is why walk-away number is so important
2. Don't sell/buy something if it's less worthy to you
3. Walk away and you'll find the next better one.
2. Determine your opening offer
1. Opening offer: Your lowest price offered to the seller that you'll buy. It should be beyond your best but still possible.
1. Walk-away limit is internal based. Opening offer is external based, that the seller has chance to accept
2. Opening offer needs market research. The going rate is from "a few people will pay, but most will reject it".
3. Prepare your tradables
1. Tradables: Things other than the price that can be exchanged in the negotiation.
1. For example: packaging, time, extra info, support
1. Everything except money has a different value to both parties
2. "I can give you a training worth of $1000, rather than actual 1000 dollar cash"
3. Also, to justify your reduction of price
4. Make a list, prepare
1. What I want, what they want?
2. What I can offer, what they can offer?
4. Prepare their weakness
1. E.g. buying a house from a seller: The house has problem, the house owner is pressing hard, the seller may lose job
2. Avoid yourself sink into the weakness thought. and, bet they have. "I bet they are in such a time pressure to sell it".
Focus the weaknesses the other person possesses
4. Opening Offers
1. Don't open first
1. Just ask a lot of questions and listen. this is when to learn their weakness
2. What if you were asked about opening price first? Push it back it back
1. "Well .. it depends .." then ask the question to them "Do you have a budget in mind?"
2. Calculate your opening offer
1. If you think the seller's lowest offer is 420, you need to ask for 405.
The opening offer is a probe to find the opponent's walk-away number.
And a strike to rock the opponent's foundation.
3. Watch of the flinch
1. The body language of flinch
1. Intake of breath
2. Looking unhappy
3. Turning away
4. Words of disappointment
5. Putting the pen down
2. Always flinch once the other party delivers their opening offer
1. even you are delighted
2. Don't say nothing. Saying nothing is a signal of happy. People have no point to hide unhappy, but may hide happy.
3. When you open, you want the other party to flinch
1. If they don't flinch, it means they are happy with your opening offer. Then it means you gave a bad opening offer.
2. Watch if their flinch is real, watch the body language
4. Don't use round numbers
1. Round numbers look more like faked
2. Given a $500,000 house, instead of offering $450,000, offer $442,000
3. Move by small steps. Round number is against it.
5. Tactics
1. Try the vice techniques
1. Offer price -> "Can you reduce it a little bit more?" "It's still too much, ..."
2. respond against vice -> "But how much exactly"
"Well, if you gave me cash up front and a recommendation to your group of companies, then I could do it for $285"
"What price do you think it's reasonable then" -> This is asking for opening offer
1. yet respond -> "Well, a lot less than $300. That's for sure." -> "How much exactly?"
2. Try the knocking the production
1. "It's not bright enough. I'm not sure." "It's a bit rusty .."
2. Respond: "That's already reflected in the price." "That's why the price is so reasonable".
1. When someone knocks the product, they are still investigating it
3. Try the reluctant buyer technique
1. Claim: You are not ready. You boss / your wife. You don't want to buy it, but you keep receiving pressure.
2. Respond: Realize it's just a tactic. Don't be influenced. Tell yourself, they are probably desperate to sell
4. Try hiding the value of tradables
1. If it's something you want, claim you don't. If it's something you don't want, claim you do
Save your main requirement until later in the negotiation. Then mention it casually as a tradable
For the thing you don't want, but pretend do, trade it for other prices
5. Try the Salami Tactic
1. Asking for slices, gradually shave concessions off of the other person - 切香肠战术
2. Example: Lily and me
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/negotiation-skills/try-the-salami-technique?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&resume=false&u=3322
3. Combat the Salami Tactic
1. Trade one thing for another. "If you want the packaging, the special delivery needs to be pushed off"
2. Counterattack on a complete different front. "We can do the packaging and the weekend delivery, but it'll cost your more" Or "You have to order 100 boxes"
3. Say the deal no longer works for you
6. Try time pressure
1. Type of time pressure
1. How much time do they have? Booked flight? Someone just want to get the deal and get out? Watch the body language
2. Do they receive strong push from the boss? Budget must spent at the end of year.
3. Package has freshness requirement? Price may change in a few days?
4. The deal must be done before Christmas?
2. Look for clues to others' weakness. Don't tell your own.
6. Trading
1. Get to win-win with tradables
1. E.g. book course further ahead, you gain price, the author gain income secure
2. TRADABLES other than PRICE are why WIN-WIN is POSSIBLE
2. Use trading to get a better deal
1. Start your negotiation with room to maneuver
2. Trading is far better than Conceding. Trading: "If you can cut the price by 10%, I can pay you up front"
1. Conceding also makes the opponent thinks the gap is empty, it's a lie, it's and an INSULT
2. DO TRADING INSTEAD OF CONCEDING. It's also a matter of respect
3. Example: Lily and me
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/negotiation-skills/use-trading-to-get-a-better-deal?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&resume=false&u=3322
3. Use small steps
1. Instead of giving from $4800 to $4000, give a smaller step like $200.
1. It's also a signal that the price is empty
2. Only move small steps. And, start from your opening offer. "I can offer X, but if you give me <tradable>, I can increase it by a little bit"
4. Learn from an example of poor negotiation
1. https://www.linkedin.com/learning/negotiation-skills/learn-from-an-example-of-poor-negotiation?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&resume=false&u=3322
2. Negotiation Errors
1. Go straight from opening offer to his limit. It sends a confusing signal to the opponent.
2. Not persisting
3. Not being polite
4. There are so many tradables to negotiation about the price, but he didn't try and directly hang up
5. Don't use round numbers, it leads against "move small steps", and make tradable negotiation harder
5. Identify weak spots in negotiation
1. Example: Lily and me
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/negotiation-skills/identify-weak-spots-in-negotiation?autoSkip=true&autoplay=true&resume=false&u=3322
1. Useful, as it compares the good and bad case
2. Should do
1. Move by small step. Don't use round numbers
2. Don't do conceding. It would question the credit. Be sure to trade.
7. Closing
1. Avoid final offer
1. Never say "That's my final offer". It's not true. If it's true, it means you are dealing at walk-away number, which is bad.
1. instead say, "I can't go lower/higher than that, really not."
2. Don't ask "Is that your final offer?". This will pin the opponent at the price, they cannot give you lower.
3. Tradables are your way out
2. Avoid splitting the difference
1. Buyer $800, Seller $850. "How about split the difference, say $825?"
2. Split the difference is a signal that you're ready to pay their figure.
1. Don't concede. Trade
2. Respond: "I really can't go beyond $800. My husband/wife/boss .."
3. If the sale is broken, you can reel them back, saying "It's a shame if we give up at so close .. how about in the middle, $813"
1. Splitting the splitting of difference
3. Watch out for the nibble technique
1. The Nibble - The opponent asks for something at the end of a negotiation.
1. You must reject it. Don't show weakness. The opponent now knows you want to buy it
2. Or, ask for Trade, rather than concession
3. About halfway through the negotiation, ask whether there are any extras you need to know about.
4. Learn to manage the quivering pen technique
1. Quivering Pen - The opponent asks for something extra at the end *right before* you make your agreement
1. Don't concede, stay strong.
2. If deal is off, reel them back.
5. Know when to walk away from a deal
1. When it looks like a deal won't happen
1. Try again to find tradable that works
2. Otherwise, you have to pay up, or walk away. Know your walk-away point
6. Practice with low-risk negotiation
1. Practice Negotiating
1. Where negotiating is expected
2. When you don't want the item
3. If you know it's cheaper elsewhere
4. When you can't afford the item
6. When you don't have time pressure
7. Developing Your Emotional Intelligence - Dr Gemma Leigh Roberts
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/developing-your-emotional-intelligence/what-are-the-benefits-of-emotional-intelligence
1. Understanding emotional intelligence
1. Measuring EQ: Being aware of emotion, express emotion, controlling emotion, relationship management
2. Areas of EQ: Self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship development
3. Take control: accept emotion, slow down reaction
2. Being self-aware
1. It's not what happened that triggered your reaction, it's how you feel and think about the event.
2. Personal reflection tool
3. Cognitive hijacker: irrational react on sudden emotion
4. Find your flow (心流), add more to it, help your emotional control
3. Managing yourself
1. Conflict event A,B,C,D,E: activating event, belief, consequences, disrupting thoughts, effect
2. Think like an objective bystander
3. Slowing down reactions: identify the emotion reaction, remove yourself from the situation, give yourself time to recover, challenge your thoughts, choose how you respond
4. Shifting perspectives, make it your behavior
5. Tips to broaden your perspectives: Seek out different point of views, ask more questions, Spend time with new people, read books on a variety of topics
4. Social awareness
1. First, master inward management - self-awareness. Then, shifting outward - social interactions.
1. Use your senses to actively gather information. What you see, feel, hear. Learning to pay attention to details of your surroundings. Facial expression, body language, tons in voices
2. Piece info together. Seek to understand other's thoughts and relationship dynamics.
3. Are you picking up social cues?
2. Empathy: Ability to sense other people's feelings, thoughts, emotions. And image how one may think or feel.
1. Ask questions to find out more
2. Use tentative and exploratory language like could, possibly, maybe. Avoid the exact language that may make the other person feel intrusive.
3. Offer support and understanding without assuming you know the answers better than the person itself.
4. E.g. say "I can see how that could be really discouraging"
3. Unconscious communication. It's driven by thoughts, feelings, moods. Like tons and body language.
1. Listen to uncover common grounds. Do you listen intently? What can you do to become a better listener?
5. Managing relationships
1. Common skills
1. Communicating clearly
2. Listen closely
3. Ensure people feel comfortable
4. Picking up ground dynamics
5. Making authentic (真诚的) connections. Build trust.
2. Collect feedback - Review, refine, repeat
1. How others perceive you?
2. Try to get a range or opinions rather than hang up in one person's opinion.
3. Refine you approach to relationship, a step each time.
4. Repeat the process, you strengths.
5. Enhance your strength rather creating a new style. It helps trust and authentic.
3. It's more important how people receive your message than what you have exactly talked
1. Focus on the key messages
2. Focusing on intent. Connect the intent rather than exact message.
3. Think about the other persons perspective.
4. What do you want the other people to take away?
More updates from 20231010. Leadership skills. // TODO
1. Leadership Foundations (2019) - Dr. Shirley Davis (HR executives)
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/leadership-foundations-2019/leading-yourself?autoplay=true&u=3322
1. What is Leadership
1. Execute company vision. Live out of values
2. Influence and impact others to reach their highest potential and goals
2. The fundamental of effective leadership
1. Workforce 2030: millennials, age, color, women, remote, gig economy (hired with limited engagement, e.g. freelancer, Uber)
2. Effective leadership starts from leading yourself. You have to be role model
3. Be clear who you are, and why you exist.
1. What's your vision?
1. Describe what you'll look like in the future?
2. Sets direction for planning and execution
3. Thought leader
2. What are your values?
1. E.g. integrity, trustworthy, authenticity, faith, determination
4. Leading others: trust and confidence
1. Build trust: open and honest, seek first to understand, trust in others, assume positive intent,
2. Communicate transparently: actively listen and convey understanding, share what you know openly and honestly
3. Coaching and feedback
5. Leadership styles: effectively use a variety of styles
1. Directing: tell what need to do, how, why, and when. For those who still need guidance
2. Supporting: for followers competent to the job, but inconsistent in performance
3. Delegating: for followers fully empowered and strong performance
4. Be adaptive and open, evolve
3. Leadership skills and competencies
1. Critical competencies for leaders
1. Developing a strategy
2. Drive the results
3. Leading a diverse workforce
4. Communicating effectively
5. Trust and integrity
6. Strategic thinking
2. Cultivating inclusion, belonging, and engagement
// TODO
2. Leader vs manager difference - Inspirational Leadership Skills: Practical Motivational Leadership - Alisa Cohn
https://www.linkedin.com/learning/inspirational-leadership-skills-practical-motivational-leadership/leader-vs-manager-differences
1. Leadership: About vision, communication and motivation
Management: About organization, planning and control
2. This course covers mainly motivation and communication with a brief look at vision
// TODO
3. My own notes for management and leading the team
1. The biggest frown of a dev is, I (dev) wrote the code (spent a lot of time) but you (manager) changed the requirement
The biggest fear of a manager is, I (manager) asked you (dev) the build something but you came back with not what I asked
1. THE TWO ARE THE SAME PROBLEM. Communication with clarity and early engagement is so important.
All eventually lead to whether the leader are effectively building the capital to effectively MOTIVATE people
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