Last week, we talked about rationality and irrationality. I asked you how you might use "irrational" thinking as a leader and still manage and create change and progress towards goals. This week, we talked about different ways of thinking - that cognitive processes are not universal but may also be affected by culture. So, now leaders not only have to deal with appearing irrational, but also have to deal with ways of thought (mind bugs) that may vary by country, ethnicity, religion, etc. This could easily be overwhelming. But, we've sought to make this manageable by describing the principals that underlie cultures (Hofstede's 5 characteristics), and the principals that underlie rationality.
In this post, think back to a time when you have had interactions where you experienced a "(mis)meeting of the minds." Have you had experiences which, in retrospect, didn't go well because you had different assumptions about causality or use of logic than your interaction partner? What is the geography of your thought and can how does it affect you in your interactions with others? What are the elements of your cultural mindset?
Predictably Irrational Politics
Watching the examples given by Dan Ariely of both the table and the colors on the cube make me doubt my own judgement. And now political ads begin to make sense, in that if we can be fooled by perception and judgement maybe the two parties can say opposite things, and both seem to be correct. Seriously, I think that political parties do use concepts Mr. Ariely brought up especially the idea of two many choices bringing confusion, that could be why we have only 2 significant political parties. Also the idea of comparing yourself to someone similar to you, only not as good, so that you look better by comparison.
Mr. Ariely says that many of these predicably irrational behaviors have a logical base from human history, when how you thought and reacted helped your survival. I wonder if negative political ads also have a evolutionary base. Is knowing the negatives about the opponent more important than telling others about your strengths? I guess if those negatives were once analogous to warnings about danger, than that makes some sense. More likely though, as we talked about with Emotional Intelligence, emotions are faster, so will influence future decisions more frequently. If you have a 30 second ad and talk about how you can save the economy, schools and children you will have some success. If your ad claims "the other guy" will wreck the economy, destroy schools and abuse your children the emotional response comes faster, with more intensity and more likely will be remembered through negativity and fear.
In the last Gubernatorial Debate (I love that title, because if you win, you become the "Head Goober") Jerry Brown offered to halt all negative ads if Meg Whitman would do the same. Meg Whitman countered that she would halt all negative "personal" ads, but the ads talking about his previous experience would not be removed. She (or someone on her staff) knows the strong effect of negative ads.
Mr. Ariely says that many of these predicably irrational behaviors have a logical base from human history, when how you thought and reacted helped your survival. I wonder if negative political ads also have a evolutionary base. Is knowing the negatives about the opponent more important than telling others about your strengths? I guess if those negatives were once analogous to warnings about danger, than that makes some sense. More likely though, as we talked about with Emotional Intelligence, emotions are faster, so will influence future decisions more frequently. If you have a 30 second ad and talk about how you can save the economy, schools and children you will have some success. If your ad claims "the other guy" will wreck the economy, destroy schools and abuse your children the emotional response comes faster, with more intensity and more likely will be remembered through negativity and fear.
In the last Gubernatorial Debate (I love that title, because if you win, you become the "Head Goober") Jerry Brown offered to halt all negative ads if Meg Whitman would do the same. Meg Whitman countered that she would halt all negative "personal" ads, but the ads talking about his previous experience would not be removed. She (or someone on her staff) knows the strong effect of negative ads.
Patience... the power of a leader
I am glad I recvd the professor's email on what topics we can blog about. After reading Joi's comments to my blog on human perceptions, I would like to post something that we discussed and found very useful for ourselves in our professional and personal lives.
As a leader, one of the key qualities to success and relationship building is Patience. It is true that we deal with seniors, peers, team members in our everyday lives. We spend 8 hours of everyday at work. The remaining we spend with family and friends. As we can observe, our primary duties on a daily basis involves interaction with people - be it in our personal time or professional time.
For relationship building, patience is a key strength to develop. Patience is a friend of "time". We are given this gift so we can understand our opponent or peer better so the interaction can be a value add instead of a pain for both parties involved. As Joi observed, I do place building relationship as an asset over trying to be defensive of my position in a relationship. Over the last 2 years as a Manager, I have a built a better relationship with my team members and customers due to this quality. I would have failed to do this if I had not been patient through the ups and downs of the relationship building process. As well, noting that people can be perceived wrongly, one has to work really hard at some relationships. One of them for me, we winning the trust of my team members. As Joi also observed, gender played a critical role in my case, when I started leading projects since all my team members were men and I was the first woman to lead a project in my organization. One of the sad things is, one of my projects had to be moved to a male project manager due the gender related issues I was continuously facing with the respective customer dealing with that project.
The lessons learnt in my personal and professional life have taught me that there is no substitute to patience and time. Every reltionship needs time and effort. In a professional setup, we dont have time as projects have deadlines and there is no time for relationship building allocated in the project plan, however this is a process that needs to go on in parallel for future projects with the same team members. I actually had a request after 2 years from a project member last week, if I can take over all the projects he is involved in as he prefers me as his PM. This has been one of the key compliments I have received so far and I believe that one of the contributing factors is my relationship with him as a team mate.
As a leader, one of the key qualities to success and relationship building is Patience. It is true that we deal with seniors, peers, team members in our everyday lives. We spend 8 hours of everyday at work. The remaining we spend with family and friends. As we can observe, our primary duties on a daily basis involves interaction with people - be it in our personal time or professional time.
For relationship building, patience is a key strength to develop. Patience is a friend of "time". We are given this gift so we can understand our opponent or peer better so the interaction can be a value add instead of a pain for both parties involved. As Joi observed, I do place building relationship as an asset over trying to be defensive of my position in a relationship. Over the last 2 years as a Manager, I have a built a better relationship with my team members and customers due to this quality. I would have failed to do this if I had not been patient through the ups and downs of the relationship building process. As well, noting that people can be perceived wrongly, one has to work really hard at some relationships. One of them for me, we winning the trust of my team members. As Joi also observed, gender played a critical role in my case, when I started leading projects since all my team members were men and I was the first woman to lead a project in my organization. One of the sad things is, one of my projects had to be moved to a male project manager due the gender related issues I was continuously facing with the respective customer dealing with that project.
The lessons learnt in my personal and professional life have taught me that there is no substitute to patience and time. Every reltionship needs time and effort. In a professional setup, we dont have time as projects have deadlines and there is no time for relationship building allocated in the project plan, however this is a process that needs to go on in parallel for future projects with the same team members. I actually had a request after 2 years from a project member last week, if I can take over all the projects he is involved in as he prefers me as his PM. This has been one of the key compliments I have received so far and I believe that one of the contributing factors is my relationship with him as a team mate.
Blog Topic: Predictably Irrational
We are continuing our discussion of the human brain with last week's topic of irrationality. These findings suggest that humans are not rational, but are still predictable. This idea has two implications for you as a leader. First, people tend to expect leaders to be rational, to obey certain laws of physics, so to speak, yet, they themselves may act in ways that are not rational. This presents leaders with a conundrum: when you know your actions and decisions make sense, in the predictably irrational sense, but that they do not make sense in the traditionally rational sense, what do you do? How do you explain your decisions? How to defend them?
The second implication has to do with followers and their decision-making strategies. Following on the heels of our discussion of social influence, it seems that you could present information in ways to influence decision-making. Can you think of specific times that this has been done to you, or that, if you had known about it, you'd have changed how you presented information prior to a decision-making situation?
The second implication has to do with followers and their decision-making strategies. Following on the heels of our discussion of social influence, it seems that you could present information in ways to influence decision-making. Can you think of specific times that this has been done to you, or that, if you had known about it, you'd have changed how you presented information prior to a decision-making situation?
Perceptions - True, False, Painful and Harmful
About 14 years ago when I started this MBA program one of my professors said "Perception is reality" and that expression has stuck with me as it is so enlightening towards other people's point of view. How others think the world is, is often how they find it. People who believe that media is too liberal will find liberal media. People who feel the world is prejudiced will find prejudice. People who feel the world is unfair will find unfairness.
A few days ago I was told about an altercation by one of the parties in the dispute whom I needed to represent at a hearing this evening. Tonight I heard the other point of view, and unsurprisingly, they were different. I don't believe either party is consciously lying, just representing different perspectives.
A perception that hit me out of the blue last week dealt with expectations and my weight. I have been overweight since puberty at a fairly steady upward trend. I realized last week that when I was in Middle School and a little overweight I received stares and comments. In High School people were a little less likely to comment and my weight grew more, in College the trend continued. I realized that as an adult the judgement others have about me and about my weight is less likely to gain comment. I had unconscciously taken the silence as approval or that no one noticed how fat I had become, but that perception or denial is absolutely false. It caused harm by allowing me to justify to myself, maybe if no one noticed or commented, it must not be "that" bad.
Perceptions - are they dangerous!!!!
This blog topic is extremely interesting for me since I have been mulling over perceptions about me in my family. Mind bugs can be a tricky thing. Human perception is sometimes dangerous especially for people like me who tend to upraise and judge things at face value. However I would like to concentrate on people's perception of me. Ever since I got married, I have noticed that there have been very wrong perceptions of me in my husband's family which I have pondered over, spent time on and have wanted to understand.
I am a very non confrontational person and avoid any sort of controversies like a plague. This is simply because these situations make me very uncomfortable. In my husband's family, everyone is strong and communicate firmly with an edge just to make sure their point comes across as a very important one. They tend to be pushy and not necessarily polite. Since I do not have these qualities, I have noticed that their perception of me is that I am a push over. What they fail to understand is that I am just trying to be polite and respectful but that does not necessarily mean that I do not have opinions of my own and have an identity of my own.
Although I have never confronted any of the family members who do this, I do realize that I have been getting frustrated over the years now.
An incident from my husband's office - my husband's peer team had a new employee and for some reason people did not perceive him to have any other general knowledge other than the subject which was his major (as is the perception of most engineers as far as I have known). In a regular conversation people found out that he has a strong understanding of world history, considerable knowledge bank of philosophers around the world and the evolution of the subject over the years, evolution of art over the years etc. My husband came home to tell me about his new found respect for this employee with his vast areas of interests.
Most of the world, like me, judge things and people at face value. They do believe (as observed in class the other day with 90% of the student) that the 2 tables are different and not the same even after measuring them. It is unfortunate that all of us still see the 2 monsters on the screen in your slide show and get more wary of the mind perceived larger one although both of them were the same in size, some of us still perceive African Americans as people belonging to a more aggressive group and I still go up to Egyptians and ask if the see pyramids all over Egypt when we know the pyramids are in Giza alone.
I am a very non confrontational person and avoid any sort of controversies like a plague. This is simply because these situations make me very uncomfortable. In my husband's family, everyone is strong and communicate firmly with an edge just to make sure their point comes across as a very important one. They tend to be pushy and not necessarily polite. Since I do not have these qualities, I have noticed that their perception of me is that I am a push over. What they fail to understand is that I am just trying to be polite and respectful but that does not necessarily mean that I do not have opinions of my own and have an identity of my own.
Although I have never confronted any of the family members who do this, I do realize that I have been getting frustrated over the years now.
An incident from my husband's office - my husband's peer team had a new employee and for some reason people did not perceive him to have any other general knowledge other than the subject which was his major (as is the perception of most engineers as far as I have known). In a regular conversation people found out that he has a strong understanding of world history, considerable knowledge bank of philosophers around the world and the evolution of the subject over the years, evolution of art over the years etc. My husband came home to tell me about his new found respect for this employee with his vast areas of interests.
Most of the world, like me, judge things and people at face value. They do believe (as observed in class the other day with 90% of the student) that the 2 tables are different and not the same even after measuring them. It is unfortunate that all of us still see the 2 monsters on the screen in your slide show and get more wary of the mind perceived larger one although both of them were the same in size, some of us still perceive African Americans as people belonging to a more aggressive group and I still go up to Egyptians and ask if the see pyramids all over Egypt when we know the pyramids are in Giza alone.
Blog Topic 7: Perceptions
In class we talked about how mind bugs can alter our focus and lead us down the wrong path. We also realized that sometimes we use these mind bugs to our own advantage (such as when crafting our 2 truths and a lie) and sometimes these mind bugs led to errors. Did anything covered in class surprise you? How does these insights into human perceptual processes change your views of your own behavior, past and present? Have there been times in your life when your perceptions have led you astray? Or times when others perceptions of you have been erroneous and perhaps harmful to you? How do you deal with other's misperceptions of you? Do you still think those two tables did not have the same surface area?
Powerful or exercises power at times?
I am not sure if I am really all that powerful, but I feel like I do have some "serious pull" at times. I feel like I need to be passionate about what I am doing to be a leader. I have a hard time trying to get people, or even myself to do really mundane tasks if there is no larger goal, or importance behind the situation. However, on the other hand, when I am interested in the subject, or passionate about something... that is another story.
For some reason, when I get into something, it just invigorates me and when working with a team I want to get everyone on the same page. I feel like I am able to because not only do I care, but I show that I care. I have to agree with the "poses" of power because when I am driven, I use those tactics. This then helps fuel the fire, and everything builds upon itself, but as I stated before, if I don't believe, I just can't get started.
Is this then real power? I think so, but I don't think it means I am powerful. Maybe it is because I envision true leaders as people who are always leading, no matter what, like a ship's captain staying on a sinking ship. For some reason I couldn't see myself doing that. I don't know if that is because I'm self serving, or if that is just a place I would never position myself in because I know I don't want to be a captain for various reasons.
Overall, I want to become proficient with power for two reasons. One because I like working in groups and I feel like some one who is good with power, and really understands power can also be a great team player. For example, if you are working on a project and you know you need help, you will ask for it. Where as some one who doesn't understand power will just try to brute force through the situation or just ignore it all together. this is an area I feel I am decent at, but would like to improve at because humility is a big part of "truly" being powerful in my eyes.
The second reason why I would like to understand, and be able to use power is so that I can control myself in situations of power. This may be a way of rephrasing the first part. But I really do not want to be power hungry or abuse the power I build up for myself. After having a few bosses on power-trips, I feel that there is nothing more that I dislike than some one who is abusing their power.
Big Question Marks
Probably because Power is the least thing I would consider as priority in my personal - and professional life (Am I on the right course?) it was not a subject that got me excited in class although it brought me different thoughts and no conclusion related to the subject. What motivates people? How power influence ourselves and others? Am I in the right place? Those were the questions I had in mind during the whole class.
Power, for me, is the use of our position, resources and credibility to achieve goals, to impact society or at minimum our community in a positive matter. I am faaaaar behind of being a powerful person: One because I didn't reach much in terms of my career goals, second because I have a very tough time to use the little influence I have to achieve my professional goals; third, as much as I have impacted the communities I am part of, I am far away to change society; and finally because power is not something that drives me.
Nonetheless, I believe I am somewhat influential. I have a little "magic" that put smile on people's face and make the toughest people soften. I am passionate and move mountains for social causes and I am able to get the team engaged and manage any project successfully. I am also good empowering people, a skill that enable a good leader to thrive. I try to identify passions, aspirations and strenghts that my team have and let them do what they do better towards our common goal. Again, internally and dealing with clients or vendor it is all about collaboration reaching common goals.
The second statement followed by a couple of quesions put a big question mark in my mind "... and many of you will be graduating in a couple of months...what kind of power do you feel ready to exert and what kinds of power would you like to cultivate? How are going you to meet these power goals?" Those questions completely diverged me from the topic "power" and put my whole life and career into perspective. I am ready to use the knowledge I have gained from the MBA associated with my persuasion and personality to succeed as a leader but maybe I didn't get this "power" topic, or... it is still not part of my goals. It might come to me as a gradual consequence of my actions and improvements but it is not something I am searching for.
Maybe I am lost in time, maybe I am still part of a "candyland world" or maybe I do not have any power goals. If I am happy or sad with that... I simply don't know.
Power, for me, is the use of our position, resources and credibility to achieve goals, to impact society or at minimum our community in a positive matter. I am faaaaar behind of being a powerful person: One because I didn't reach much in terms of my career goals, second because I have a very tough time to use the little influence I have to achieve my professional goals; third, as much as I have impacted the communities I am part of, I am far away to change society; and finally because power is not something that drives me.
Nonetheless, I believe I am somewhat influential. I have a little "magic" that put smile on people's face and make the toughest people soften. I am passionate and move mountains for social causes and I am able to get the team engaged and manage any project successfully. I am also good empowering people, a skill that enable a good leader to thrive. I try to identify passions, aspirations and strenghts that my team have and let them do what they do better towards our common goal. Again, internally and dealing with clients or vendor it is all about collaboration reaching common goals.
The second statement followed by a couple of quesions put a big question mark in my mind "... and many of you will be graduating in a couple of months...what kind of power do you feel ready to exert and what kinds of power would you like to cultivate? How are going you to meet these power goals?" Those questions completely diverged me from the topic "power" and put my whole life and career into perspective. I am ready to use the knowledge I have gained from the MBA associated with my persuasion and personality to succeed as a leader but maybe I didn't get this "power" topic, or... it is still not part of my goals. It might come to me as a gradual consequence of my actions and improvements but it is not something I am searching for.
Maybe I am lost in time, maybe I am still part of a "candyland world" or maybe I do not have any power goals. If I am happy or sad with that... I simply don't know.
Kinds of Power
Power is an interesting thing, in that it takes leadership and power as an element of leadership to move forward and achieve anything, yet power seems to have a smidge of negativity.
Am I powerful person? I don't like to apply that word to myself because of the negative tinge. I would say that I am a person with many responsibilities. If responsibility is the internal view of what is externally seen as power, then I have some. I manage my office, I manage the local Property Managers group, I have some influence the student groups with whom I work.
I hope to become better as a person who empowers others. I try to delegate, to teach, to assign work in digestible, understandable steps, so that others can learn. In our textbook the steps toward empowerment I found very applicable and it has changed some of the ways I teach.
We discussed how to cultivate power, I would like the power and influence from a good reputation, or a reputation for intelligence or the ability to get the job done. Sometimes I give good advice, but don't have the personal power or charisma to convince people, so I have to do more work to demonstrate my position, which wastes time. I think the way to cultivate that power is to be intelligent, and be ready for new experiences when they come my way.
One way that maybe seems a little silly is Caller-ID. We have a relatively new phone system at work, there were many improvements, but we lost caller ID and the labor and material costs to re-install it is about $1000.00. I think our office should spend this money because knowing who is calling when you pick up the phone makes you more knowlegeable when you answer the phone, the two seconds of forewarning of the callers identity is the difference between sounding like "huh?" and "of course I know who you are, and what you are calling about." It's important.
Am I powerful person? I don't like to apply that word to myself because of the negative tinge. I would say that I am a person with many responsibilities. If responsibility is the internal view of what is externally seen as power, then I have some. I manage my office, I manage the local Property Managers group, I have some influence the student groups with whom I work.
I hope to become better as a person who empowers others. I try to delegate, to teach, to assign work in digestible, understandable steps, so that others can learn. In our textbook the steps toward empowerment I found very applicable and it has changed some of the ways I teach.
We discussed how to cultivate power, I would like the power and influence from a good reputation, or a reputation for intelligence or the ability to get the job done. Sometimes I give good advice, but don't have the personal power or charisma to convince people, so I have to do more work to demonstrate my position, which wastes time. I think the way to cultivate that power is to be intelligent, and be ready for new experiences when they come my way.
One way that maybe seems a little silly is Caller-ID. We have a relatively new phone system at work, there were many improvements, but we lost caller ID and the labor and material costs to re-install it is about $1000.00. I think our office should spend this money because knowing who is calling when you pick up the phone makes you more knowlegeable when you answer the phone, the two seconds of forewarning of the callers identity is the difference between sounding like "huh?" and "of course I know who you are, and what you are calling about." It's important.
Power
Although I missed the lecture session discussing this topic, I would like to chime in with a few words. I do not consider myself as with power. This goes for all facets of my life starting from personal to professional. Power need not necessarily mean being the CEO of an organization but being an influence when it comes to decision making in any walk of life. I would like to be influential in my professional organization. I have known to make the right decisions when required and have been appreciated for it at work however I am not sure I am influential or powerful. I do believe the key lies in my verbal communication. My verbal communication does not reflect the power I want to instill and this I would like to better with the help of my MBA program.
Silicon Valley has seen a varied range of CEOs of successful companies and it takes a powerful person with the right decision making sense to keep the success rate going for an organization. Although I did mention above that power does not necessarily mean being a CEO, they are the easiest examples to learn from when tracking an organizations success path.
Apple Inc has had a good track record for being successful and have been doing the last quarter with the stock prices hitting sky high. Steve Jobs is one person I would like to learn from. One of the easiest examples is his influence on the consumer market and the customers falling prey to the Apple products. This shows the power of Steve Jobs and Apple to influence millions of people across the world.
SJSU MBA program not only offers courses that apply directly to the working professionals of the Valley but also helps us network with the professionals of the valley and the above skills are seen in some of the MBA students which is an added bonus in the learning process.
Silicon Valley has seen a varied range of CEOs of successful companies and it takes a powerful person with the right decision making sense to keep the success rate going for an organization. Although I did mention above that power does not necessarily mean being a CEO, they are the easiest examples to learn from when tracking an organizations success path.
Apple Inc has had a good track record for being successful and have been doing the last quarter with the stock prices hitting sky high. Steve Jobs is one person I would like to learn from. One of the easiest examples is his influence on the consumer market and the customers falling prey to the Apple products. This shows the power of Steve Jobs and Apple to influence millions of people across the world.
SJSU MBA program not only offers courses that apply directly to the working professionals of the Valley but also helps us network with the professionals of the valley and the above skills are seen in some of the MBA students which is an added bonus in the learning process.
Blogging Topic 6: Power
Do you think about yourself as a powerful person? Do you think of yourself as someone who empowers others? We talked about how to be powerful, how to look powerful, and how to exercise power over the past few weeks...and many of you will be graduating in a couple of months...what kind of power do you feel ready to exert and what kinds of power would you like to cultivate? How are going you to meet these power goals?
The lowest score out of the class
Normally, I feel like I am a half decent negotiator because it is part of my job. I have been in sales for some time now and have done well for myself, until I tried to negotiate with Anish.
It came down to an issue of not being able to read his gestures well enough. He made every thing I asked sound like an over bearing demand and that I was doing an extreme disservice to him. From this, it put me in a fight or flight mode and I was just trying to control the damage that was already done.
I learned that hiring negotiations are not like sales and require a different set of tactics. The biggest mistake I made was I made the first demands. If I had let him start I may have been able to give up less by letting him feel more in control and work towards mutual agreements. Not really a give and take, but more of a peer to peer process that would end up in a win-win situation.
This proved that I really need to work on my listening yet again and that the hard sell approach isn't always the best. Listening better will allow me to know what tools to use because I could get a better read on the situation.
How I was a failure at negotiaition
I initially felt I had done reasonably well on the negotiation, and was quite surprised when we tallied our scores and Shawn had done much better on points than me. I tried to trade concessions for several smaller point issues for gains in some of the larger point issues, but apparently not so successfully.
Shawn's position was that he was moving from Italy, so needed larger moving credit and more vacation, as that was what he expected. I tried to get to better than middle ground for all issues, but was not always successful. I suggested starting with the most important issue, salary. But Shawn suggested starting at the top of the list, and I acquiesed to that suggestion. I did not have a relationship with Shawn, so our conversation was not influenced by preconceived notions.
I feel that the style and results of the negotiation were similar to the way I deal with conflicts in my personal life, in that I will yield and be agreeable even when I feel otherwise on an issue or conflict. I choose my battles in what I choose to fight over, and I find most issues not worth arguing with someone. Last night, for example, I had dinner with a friend whose political views are different than mine. He described a candidate that I generally agree with as "evil." I didn't choose to debate with him in that I knew he was not going to change my mind, and I felt it was unlikely that I would change his, so why fight about it? There's no victory possible if you damage a friendship over a minor issue.
However my approach at work, is diametrically opposed to my personal way of dealing with negotiation and conflict. At work I am polite, but firm. I have to say "no" or "you can't have everything you want" several times a day. So I react much for firmly at work.
I was initially satisfied with my position, in that it felt like I had done well, so I was very surprised by the point results.
From this I can learn that when I negotiate I need to pay attention to the items that are most important, like in this case salary. Not all issues have the same weight to all parties within a negotiation and it's important to find out which issues are most important to you and the other party. In examples like the Location, there may be some issues that you are not in conflict, you may both want the same thing. Without discussion and concentrated listening, you may not be aware of the position of the other party.
Shawn's position was that he was moving from Italy, so needed larger moving credit and more vacation, as that was what he expected. I tried to get to better than middle ground for all issues, but was not always successful. I suggested starting with the most important issue, salary. But Shawn suggested starting at the top of the list, and I acquiesed to that suggestion. I did not have a relationship with Shawn, so our conversation was not influenced by preconceived notions.
I feel that the style and results of the negotiation were similar to the way I deal with conflicts in my personal life, in that I will yield and be agreeable even when I feel otherwise on an issue or conflict. I choose my battles in what I choose to fight over, and I find most issues not worth arguing with someone. Last night, for example, I had dinner with a friend whose political views are different than mine. He described a candidate that I generally agree with as "evil." I didn't choose to debate with him in that I knew he was not going to change my mind, and I felt it was unlikely that I would change his, so why fight about it? There's no victory possible if you damage a friendship over a minor issue.
However my approach at work, is diametrically opposed to my personal way of dealing with negotiation and conflict. At work I am polite, but firm. I have to say "no" or "you can't have everything you want" several times a day. So I react much for firmly at work.
I was initially satisfied with my position, in that it felt like I had done well, so I was very surprised by the point results.
From this I can learn that when I negotiate I need to pay attention to the items that are most important, like in this case salary. Not all issues have the same weight to all parties within a negotiation and it's important to find out which issues are most important to you and the other party. In examples like the Location, there may be some issues that you are not in conflict, you may both want the same thing. Without discussion and concentrated listening, you may not be aware of the position of the other party.
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