team building

The following items are tagged team building.

Team Building, One Player at a Time

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

In late October, the Detroit Tigers were preparing to face off against the San Francisco Giants in Major League Baseball’s World Series. In 2002 and 2003, the Tigers had two of the worst seasons in baseball history, losing a combined 225 games. But through years of calculated decision making and negotiations, team president Dave Dombrowski and his staff rebuilt the team from the ground up, writes Noah Trister of the Associated Press. The Tigers have reached the World Series for the second time in seven seasons and, at the time of this writing, are favored to beat the Giants.

The Importance of Sincerity

Posted by & filed under Conflict Management.

Most of us have had the experience of delivering an apology that fell on deaf ears. When apologies fail to achieve their aims, poor delivery is usually to blame. In particular, if the recipient thinks your apology is less than sincere, she is unlikely to forgive you.

In Team Building, the Importance of Staying on Message

Posted by & filed under Meeting Facilitation.

When a team is preparing for a critical negotiation, members need to appoint a leader, allocate roles and responsibilities, and discuss their at-the-table strategy. Another key objective that teams sometimes fail to discuss is the importance of staying “on message” – that is, making sure that statements by individual members don’t contradict the group’s agreed-upon positions and goals.

Negotiation Skills: Team Building and Your Negotiations

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

During his years as George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of State, one of James A. Baker, III’s, goals was to encourage the free-market reforms that Communist Party of the Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev had launched in the late 1980s. One day during his tenure, a high-level Bush Administration commented in the press that Gorbachev’s efforts were sure to fail. Baker called Bush to complain.

“I said, you can’t have other people pontificating about these major foreign policy matters when this is one of our goals, and it’s totally contrary to our policy,” he said. “So they cut the knees off of this particular individual, and we didn’t hear that anymore.”

Team Building and Your Negotiations

Posted by & filed under Mediation.

During his years as George H.W. Bush’s Secretary of State, one of James A. Baker, III’s, goals was to encourage the free-market reforms that Communist Party of the Soviet Union General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev had launched in the late 1980s. One day during his tenure, a high-level Bush administration official commented in the press that Gorbachev’s efforts were sure to fail. Baker called Bush to complain. “I said, you can’t have other people pontificating about these major foreign policy matters when this is one of our goals, and it’s totally contrary to our policy,” he said. “So they cut the knees off of this particular individual, and we didn’t hear that anymore.”

Baker shared this story on March 29 while receiving the 2012 Great Negotiator Award from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School. In discussion with Harvard faculty at the Great Negotiator event, Baker elaborated on his greatest challenges as Secretary of State and shared negotiation lessons learned over the course of his long, successful career as a lawyer, campaign manager, and diplomat.

Speaking the Same Language

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

Negotiators can find themselves talking past each other for hours, even days. Then suddenly something happens – a breakthrough. The parties begin conversing on a different plane, one that reveals solutions to problems that had seemed intractable.

Being Fair and Getting What You Want

Posted by & filed under Negotiation Skills.

Imagine that you and your business partner agree to sell your company. You get an offer that pleases you both, so now you face the enviable task of splitting up the rewards.

Some background: Your partner put twice as many hours into the firm’s start-up as you did, while you worked fulltime elsewhere to support your family. Your partner, who is independently wealthy, was compensated nominally for her extra time.