Thoughts and Insights by Michael Gregory

What should you look for in a negotiation coach?

All too often we try to do things by ourselves. The old axiom on the American way is that “we should pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps”. Well that may work well with boots, but it takes a village to enhance skills. This is especially true when it comes to soft skills, or what I refer to as the critical skills.

Collaboration is key to a great agreement

This is common sense, but not everyone has the same amount of common sense.  At the end of this article the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School provides additional commentary on this topic.  What is a great agreement?  Is that one when you win as much as you can?  It can be argued that instead, a great agreement is when both parties mutually create a much better agreement than either would have crafted by themselves.  Think about having a larger pie may be the better outcome for you and the other party than simply having a larger piece or even the entire smaller pie. This concept has been proven time and time again to be the best approach to a truly great agreement.

Here are the last four of seven ways to be more persuasive based on neuroscience

The first three ways to be more persuasive base on neuroscience were presented in this blog on November 19, 2018. Given the length of the blog here are the last four for closure. Enjoy! What are the influences that persuade us to change are minds?  Tali Sharot is the author of a new book entitled The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others that offers some great ideas.  She suggests seven key thoughts on this topic that I found very insightful that I thought you may find interesting too.  Here are the last four:

When should you not be transparent when developing trust?

Trust is critical in a negotiation, mediation or collaboration. Trust can be defined as being straightforward, open, accepting and responsible, but when are times when you should not be open? That is the focus of this commentary.

This is how to close the deal in a negotiation

In some negotiations it seems like the deal will never close. This can be a technique used by one side to wear down the participants of the other side, it could be the result of factors beyond the control of participants or something else that you may never know. This commentary addresses such a situation, when you need or want to close the deal and the other side does not. What should you do? This article addresses this question.

This is how to listen better with difficult people

You know how it is. You have been to training and you know that you are supposed to do. You are supposed to listen. You are supposed to be empathetic and develop a relationship. That is great in theory, but what about with a difficult person. 

This is How to Shift Your Thinking for Better Collaboration

In general, when someone comes with a question the typical response is to respond with an answer or what we believe to be a solution. This sets up a supply process for answers, but is this what is really needed? If we want collaboration, because that increases team work, reduces resources, reduces toil, reduces stress and increases productivity and therefore profit, there are three things to consider.

When You Foster Creativity You Can Produce Fantastic Results

Fostering creativity at work can produce some pretty fantastic results. This article focuses on creativity and offers some creative ways to promote this process at work. Last month I had the opportunity to attend a presentation by Araela Kumaraea, an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota at the annual Conflict Resolution Minnesota Conference in St. Paul for mediators. She shared some ideas that we practiced in class. Upon reflection and a little research, I wanted to offer you some ideas too.

This is How Collaboration Can Help Grow Your Business

Over the last four weeks I have focused on why collaboration is important in the workplace, why collaboration is hard, why collaboration doesn’t always work, why collaboration is better than competition, and now I am tying things together with how collaboration can help grow your business.