The Hindu Business Line : We get what we negotiate

Negotiation is the game of life, something you play all the time, says Carl Lyons in I Win You Win ( www.penguin.com). “We often don’t get what we think we deserve in life; we get wh at we negotiate,” he declares. “The fact that people negotiate in many areas of their lives does not mean that it is done well.”

The author prescribes a set of principles to help apply ‘a level of integrity to everything that you negotiate’. But why integrity, you may wonder? Not because of some moral obligation to do what is right, but simply because it works, Lyons explains. “If you pressurise, manipulate or force an outcome, often it will come back to you in some damaging way in the future.” Reputation and image – built on ethical behaviour, trust, quality and lasting relationships – are what ultimately win ‘in a culture of infinite choice and fierce competition’, he reasons. Therefore, negotiate from values and interests, not positions, advises Lyons. “When we state a position, and we don’t achieve it, it may look and feel like failure or loss of face,” argues this first principle. “In this way our ego can often get entangled with positions and the process then becomes a battle of wills where more for you means less for me.”

Recommended read for wannabe winners.

Keep your promise

Integrated Branding
F. Joseph LePla and Lynn M. Parker

Your company’s most powerful weapon is the brand within, say F. Joseph LePla and Lynn M. Parker in Integrated Branding ( www.vivagroupindia.com). They define ‘integrated brand ing’ as an organisational strategy for driving company and product direction in such a way that “all actions and messages are based on the value the company brings to its line of business."

Brand is the intersection between core company strengths and what customers value, explain the authors. “Company strengths are what the company does well. What customers value include the benefits of a product’s or service’s features, as well as what customers see as the ongoing worth of a relationship with the company.” Integrated branding is the promise that you keep, reads a crisp statement in the book. And the promise is carried out by people at all levels of the company, from the CEO to the line worker, “so that integrated branding is much more than a communications strategy or set of messages.”

Potent messages.

Better time management

Eat That Frog!
Brian Tracy

How do some people do things better than others? Because they do things differently and they do the right things right, answers Brian Tracy in Eat That Frog! ( www.tatamcgrawhill.com). In essence, “successful, happy, prosperous people use their time far, far better than the average person.” The book offers 21 ‘most powerful principles on personal effectiveness’ to help you stop procrastinating and get more done in less time. Tracy uses the ‘frog’ metaphor to refer to the hardest or the most important task in front of you. “It is also the one task that can have the greatest positive impact on your life and results at the moment.”

Ready takeaways!

D. Murali

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com