Using perspective taking
When you break it down, almost every aspect of business involves an element of negotiation.
By honing your perspective taking skills, you are much more likely to come up with solutions that are acceptable to all parties.
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It’s the ability to take on someone else’s point of view when thinking.
By taking yourself out of the equation, the motivations of your opponent becomes clearer. And by understanding the other side’s true motivations, you’re in a better position to anticipate their responses and offer them an acceptable compromise.
- Put aside your feelings so that you can concentrate only on the other person’s perspective.
- Use open ended questions that can help you draw out the interests and motivation that the person may not be verbalizing.
- Be clear about your own position and the weaknesses it has.
- Remove any personal intentions you may have, so as not to project them on to the other person.
- Using what you know about the person, their background, their mood, their intentions and expectations, imagine how they are seeing the current situation.
- Validate their position by paraphrasing back to them what you think their position is.
RELATED IDEAS
Researchers described four types of humor:
- Affiliative humor: this is the humor designed to enhance social bonds.
- Self-enhancing humor: this is similar to having a humorous, playful view of life in general.
- Aggressive humor: it happens when we are mocking others.
- Self-defeating humor: this happens when we favor jokes that are self-deprecating.
Set regular goals, break big goals down into smaller milestones.
Ask yourself at the end of each day, “What did I do well today?” and, “How can I improve on this tomorrow?”
When you react to it, that's when it transforms into suffering.
You can learn to experience pain neutrally is through meditation: it teaches you to accept pain, sit with it and then move on, instead of reacting to it with stress.