ways of relating – Dr. Daniele Trevisani – Formazione Aziendale, Ricerca, Coaching

An Analyst’s Mind

trevisani@studiotrevisani.it — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 15:57:32 +0000

© Article translated from the book “Strategic Selling: Psicologia e Comunicazione per la Vendita Consulenziale e le Negoziazioni Complesse” (Strategic Selling: Psychology and Communication for Consulting Sales and Complex Negotiations) copyright Dr. Daniele Trevisani Intercultural Negotiation Training and Coaching, published with the author’s permission. The Book’s rights are on sale and are available. If you are interested in publishing the book in English, or any other language, or seek Intercultural Negotiation Training, Coaching, Mentoring and Consulting, please feel free to contact the Website on Intercultural Negotiation

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Today’s article is about the importance – for negotiators – of having an analyst’s mind to observe, analyse and understand what happens around them, grasping all meanings behind words and gestures.

The world of sales and marketing is made up of choices.

As Mick notes, “the macro–marketing system is, to a large extent, the function of many micro marketing decisions made every day.”

And, for every micro-decision, our mind must be prepared to carry out quick, sometimes even immediate, analyses.

Complex selling can be considered as the function of many micro and macro behavioural and strategic skills (such as the ability to conduct a conversation, observe non-verbal details, doing scenario analysis, planning and creating projects and reports, etc.).

The analyst’s mind does not stop at deskwork, but can be found in every contact, in every handshake, in every meeting and in every analysis.

Nothing is overlooked.

It also includes macro skills, such as the ability to carry out socio-economic analyses, to design complex plans, to process data, to carry out an entire scenario analysis and to set up a strategy.

No one can expect to conclude deals or create complex projects without having, or developing, a deep analytical attitude or an “analyst’s mind“.

An analyst always asks himself “why”. He notices signs and symptoms, develops hypotheses, looks for more information, researches, wants to understand.

This attitude, called strategic empathy, includes different levels of understanding, a strategic attention to the client:

behavioural empathy (understanding all behaviours of the company/client, with whom we want to work and interact),

cognitive empathy (understanding how other people think),

emotional empathy (understanding other people’s emotional state),

relational empathy (understanding others’ relationships network).

Let’s think about the opposite:

we do not understand others’ behaviours and we cannot grasp their meaning,
we do not understand the reasons of what is happening,
we do not understand what role the other party is playing,
we do not understand how other people think and we believe that they think exactly as we want them to think according to our logic.

Let’s also imagine what it means to carry the burden of emotional insensitivity, the inability to grasp emotional nuances or to understand if the person we are dealing with is sad or happy.

Let’s imagine what it means to be indifferent to how and why the person in front of us reacts to a choice – or to some aspects of the project we are developing – in a certain way, instead of another, without being able to understand what worries him/her, or what interests him/her.

And again, let’s think about the problem of cultural gaffes that can offend a foreign executive, whose position is extremely important for the success of the deal.

Another major issue concerns the insensitivity towards the decision-making framework, the power relationships, the power matrix, the risk of not understanding whether we are dealing with a real decision maker or with a simple emissary, an influencer, or with someone who has no power. Wasting time is not pleasant for anyone.

the lack of an analyst’s mind can lead us to lose sight of people and corporate roles that we should involve in projects, even though we are completely neglecting them, and, even worse, to take inter-relationships for granted, for example we do not understand that there is a gravity centre (key concepts and people) in every purchase, in every decision.

A large part of complex negotiations consists in “attracting” decision-making gravity centres, and in the ability to manage personal meetings and develop human relationships.

In this difficult world, only knowledgeable people and people who have an “analyst’s mind” can penetrate hostile systems, identifying priorities and the “moves sequence” that can help them shift the decision-making balance in their favour.

People who have an analyst’s mind ask the following questions: “Why are you saying this?”, “Why are you saying this now?”, “What lies behind this question?”, “Why is Dr. X… not present at this meeting, while he was present at the other one? “,” For what reasons could they say no to us? “,” What unique products can we offer? “. Obviously, there are many other questions, but they are never stereotyped, never the same.

For complex projects, an overview ability is needed to understand all relationship systems.

grasping the meaning of a macro-project, understanding when it’s time to have a meeting, identifying what critical information are needed (Info-Gap) and examining negotiation’s micro-details are all part of the overview skills.

Micro-analysis skills are equally essential (e.g. understanding how a phone call, a meeting, a handshake, a glance or a gesture is managed). After that, we can focus again on macro-details and, when needed, rethink an entire strategy.

In other words, business successes depend not only on great strategies, but also on the ability to achieve results in every single sale and become proficient in every single conversation that is part of the sales line.

The sales’ action line, as well as the action line of negotiations, require specific sensitivity: we must be sensitive to “holistic” communication, where every action, behaviour, or non-action has a meaning.

We must develop and improve this sensitivity through daily practice, contact after contact, negotiations after negotiations, meeting after meeting, phone call after phone call, etc.

This ability is useful in any situation and can help us understand the place where we must park near the client company, if we must open the door to someone or not, if we must offer a coffee or a gift, etc.

Strategic sales and complex negotiation professionals have a way of working that is also a way of being.

Corporate titans and small businesses must continuously face “moments of truth” in their Business-to-Business negotiations with distributors, suppliers, sales networks, corporate buyers, such as face-to-face meetings, discussions, emails, presentations, answers to questions, etc.

For each of them taking care of their relationship skills and of their personal skills of analysis and communication is essential and can help them develop large projects and important sales.

__________

For further information see:

TAGS:

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What are the 5 stages of negotiation?
What is effective intercultural negotiation?
What is intercultural negotiation?
winning relationships
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working on skills
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World’s most famous expert in intercultural negotiation
self-knowledge
knowledge of others
ways of relating
an analyst’s mind
micro and macro behavioural and strategic skills
strategic empathy
strategic attention to the client
behavioural empathy
cognitive empathy
emotional empathy
relational empathy
power matrix
decision-making gravity centres
identifying critical information
sales’ action line

L'articolo An Analyst’s Mind proviene da Dr. Daniele Trevisani - Formazione Aziendale, Ricerca, Coaching.

The Get-Ready Mindset: The Mental Approach of Professionals

trevisani@studiotrevisani.it — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 17:02:02 +0000

__________

In the following article I would like to introduce the concept of the “Get-Ready Mindset”, explaining the importance of an adequate preparation both on self-analysis and on the analysis of other people’s way of thinking and behaviours.

It is not easy explaining in a few words what the Get-Ready Mindset is, but I will try to do so by using a metaphor: it is the preparation work that boxers, karateka, or kickboxers do before facing an important match.

This preparation consists of studying the opponent’s moves, analysing the videos of his/her fights and any possible material concerning him/her, such as what fighting styles he/she may know, his/her masters, his/her preferences, his/her previous defeats , who defeated him/her and how, what are his/her winning strokes, with whom he/she trains, etc.. It includes studying his/her resume, his/her history and the way he/she moves, searching for his/her strengths and weaknesses.

After having analysed the “other”, it’s time to analyse ourselves:

what are my strengths?
What can I do to improve myself?
Is improving a certain aspect of myself useful or useless?
On what specific development should I focus for that meeting? And how do I convert all this into a training plan?

We then proceed with building specific combat strategies and techniques. We create a road map, test the progresses made and the state of preparation on the ring with sparring partners.

This training is related both to fundamental skills (strength, endurance, speed) and to specific techniques. No detail must be overlooked.

This preparation combines strategy with hard daily gym training, made up of sweat and fatigue, so as to automate the techniques that are going to be used in the match. The best schools do not disregard athletes’ mental training, but they work on focusing and relaxation techniques and on the search for the most profitable mental state, which keeps away the “background mental noises” allowing athletes to be at their best.

In fact, in every meeting, as I have been able to highlight in the intercultural negotiation field, it is important to know how to keep the background mental noises out of the arena, the retro-thoughts that can weaken us, making us lose tactical clarity of mind and situational awareness (Mental Noise Theory).

In companies, as well as in sports, one must not rely on destiny or on the hope of being lucky, but on preparation, because that is the only way to strengthen ourselves, to rise to the challenge and to be able to face it.

And again, a lot of sparring, simulation and training activities must be combined with the indispensable courage that facing challenges that can be lost takes.

Sales and negotiation in complex environments require specific trainable skills: strategic analysis and communication psychology. In other words, high-level skills. Nothing that can be stereotyped or memorized.

Just as the fighter prepares himself/herself in the gym, the negotiator can prepare himself/herself through role-playing and simulations. Just as the fighter analyses his/her opponent, mapping his/her strengths and weaknesses, companies can do the same to be ready for strategic meetings.

We will explore each of these topics in detail. Effective preparation for strategic sales and complex negotiations concerns some very important points:

The inner will to adopt a consultative approach, with all its consequences: consultancy behaviours, an analytic attitude and a strong psychological and communicational training that can support one’s methods and actions;

the self-knowledge: the knowledge of one’s strengths and weaknesses, combined with the full awareness of the value mix that a person, or a company, can create for customers or stakeholders, with whom they must deal;

the knowledge of “others”: their vulnerabilities, their decision-making mechanisms, their balances and imbalances, their dissonances, the problems that can create a state of need or necessity in them, the drives and tensions capable of triggering them to purchase, while bringing us to the positive closing of a negotiation;

the spaces, options and ways of relating that lead to success, the traps that can cause our failure, the pitfalls, the lines of action and the sense of the “journey”, that must be undertaken to reach the goal by building the right path, step by step.

__________

For further information see:

TAGS:

ALM business method
act like professionals
active training
achieving results
awareness of one’s role in negotiation
Best coach in intercultural communication in the world
Best coach in intercultural facilitation in the world
Best coach in intercultural negotiation in the world
Best world consultant in intercultural communication
Best world consultant in intercultural negotiation
Best world expert in intercultural communication
Best world expert in intercultural negotiation
Best world trainer in intercultural communication
Best world trainer in intercultural negotiation
book on intercultural communication
book on intercultural negotiation
book on strategic selling
breaking the barriers of incommunicability
communication difficulties
communication skills
communication skills acquisition
Communication techniques intercultural communication
Communication techniques intercultural negotiation
communication training
conversational skills
creative strategies
cross-cultural communication
cross-cultural misunderstandings
cross-cultural adaptation
cultural systems
dialogue between companies
different cultural approach
different cultural context
direct line of communication
disagreements
Effective intercultural negotiation techniques
face-to-face communication
fighting spirit
front-line communication
Get-Ready Mind Set
helping relationships
high-context cultures
How cultural differences affect negotiations?
How does culture influence negotiation?
Human Potential
intercultural communication
intercultural communication book
Intercultural communication books
Intercultural Communication Coaching
intercultural communication pdf
Intercultural Communication Trainers
Intercultural Communication Training
Intercultural conversation management techniques
Intercultural Negotiation
Intercultural negotiation books
Intercultural Negotiation Coach
Intercultural Negotiation Coaching
Intercultural Negotiation Communication
Intercultural Negotiation Consultant
Intercultural Negotiation Consulting
Intercultural Negotiation Counselling
intercultural negotiation definition
Intercultural negotiation exercises
Intercultural Negotiation in International Business
Intercultural Negotiation Mentoring
intercultural negotiation PDF
Intercultural Negotiation Process
Intercultural Negotiation Strategies
Intercultural Negotiation Timing
intercultural negotiation training
intercultural training
Intercultural Training Consultants
know-how
leadership
low-context cultures
negotiating rules
negotiation preparation
negotiator’s emotional awareness
negotiator’s growth
open communication
physical and mental energies
Strategic Selling
strategic spirit
strategic negotiations
think like professionals
transparent communication
What are the 5 stages of negotiation?
What is effective intercultural negotiation?
What is intercultural negotiation?
winning relationships
working on attitudes
working on skills
World’s most famous expert in intercultural communication
World’s most famous expert in intercultural negotiation
inner will
self-knowledge
knowledge of others
ways of relating

L'articolo The Get-Ready Mindset: The Mental Approach of Professionals proviene da Dr. Daniele Trevisani - Formazione Aziendale, Ricerca, Coaching.