Developing a growth mindset is not easy. It requires not only knowing our strengths and building on them, but more importantly, understanding our weaknesses, embracing them, and working diligently to improve them. I also learned this lesson the hard way in a scenario involving my oldest daughter. When she was growing up, she struggled with math. At one point, early on in her struggles, I told her that she should not feel bad because I was never great at the
subject, and she'd probably inherited that lack of ability from me. That was a fixed perspective, and it was exactly the wrong thing to say to her. I was trying to make her feel better, but what I really did was debilitate her and make her think that it was normal that she was not good at math, there was nothing she could do about it, and she should just give up. When I learned about the growth mindset, I immediately thought of this example and, candidly, felt a deep sense of remorse.
So, I went back to my daughter and told her that I had given her very bad advice and was wrong to have done so. She was very surprised to hear this from her father, but it was the truth, and I had to own it. Ever since then, with her and my two other daughters, my message has been: "When you work hard, you can do things you never thought you could." Thankfully, they have embraced that message and gone on to overcome many obstacles. When I see them
slipping back toward a fixed mindset, I do my best to push them back toward a growth mindset because I know how destructive the former can be.
Let me give you another example of where this comes up a lot in my teaching, training, coaching, practice, and advising work. The ability to think quickly on one's feet and adapt is a valuable attribute to possess in negotiation, since we are always working with incomplete information. When I bring up the essentiality of this skill to my different audiences, there are invariably people who say something like, "Oh, I'm not good at that. I can't do it. I freeze up and my mind locks. Sorry. What else can I try, since I can't do that?" The answer I offer them, which they generally really don't want to hear, is that there is no substitute for this skill and they have to find a way to learn it. But I don't stop there—I then do two things in collaboration with them. I begin by asking them why they don't think they can learn to think on their feet, and then we work on the specific challenge(s) they face. It could be a lack of confidence, or that their job requires a lot of planning, or that they grew up in a family where everything was carefully planned, and without that process, they feel lost. Once we get to the root of the problem, we work to improve upon it. Next, we practice, practice, then practice some more. Slowly they make progress, to a point where they let go of their fixed mindset, gain confidence through their actions as they witness that they can get better at adapting, and start focusing on how to grow their ability to overcome this challenge.
The next components that we need to become resilient in the realm of negotiation are knowledge and skills. Without knowledge and the necessary skill set, we have little hope of succeeding in negotiation, particularly when things become difficult. While there is some variance in what people in the field view as the core skills of negotiation, from my perspective the following are at the heart of being effective:
* Problem solving
* Assertiveness
* Empathy
* Analysis and preparation
* Having difficult conversations
* Dealing with difficult people
* Emotional intelligence
* Persuasion and influence
There are lots of books, articles, and training courses available on how to master these skills. However, I would argue that this is only one piece of the puzzle—we also must have general knowledge about strategy, key concepts, and critical dynamics that impact the process. Again, there are many courses and degree programs as well as books and podcasts that can help you acquire this knowledge. The bottom line is that negotiation, like other realms, must be studied in depth and be viewed as a process of continual learning and growth.
Confidence in negotiation is another key part of the equation, and it's a quality that can be elusive. Depending on where a discussion progresses in a negotiation, we may have more or less confidence based on our knowledge level. When we're in a realm where we lack knowledge, we often lose confidence and are more vulnerable to making a mistake. When we move back to a realm where we are knowledgeable, we feel our confidence flowing back. This ebb and flow is an important aspect in most negotiations and is something we have to manage, but we can improve our confidence as our knowledge grows and we learn from our failures. I'll come back to this idea later in the book and share more information on how to do this most effectively.
