Establish your worth before negotiating a raise

When negotiating for a raise, it’s pretty standard to begin by listing your achievements to lead up to a big reveal. But this ‘ta-da!’ approach can make you seem childish and needy, and catch your boss off guard. Instead, establish a monthly check-in with your supervisor to update him about what you’re doing and where you’re headed. This shows momentum, and managers will reward that. And when it’s time to negotiate, you won’t need to toot your own horn — your counterpart will already know where you’re coming from and be more inclined to hear you out.

(Source: 6 Tips for Reluctant Negotiators, by Whitney Johnson)

Override your default reactions in a tough conversation

In a difficult conversation, our default reactions can lead to unproductive outcomes. You’ll perform better in those tough moments if you’re conscious of how you want to react. Here’s how:

Know your defaults. Make a list of daily interpersonal situations, like meetings, conversations, negotiations and conflicts. Then identify your default behaviours — interrupting, becoming aggressive, micromanaging or jumping to conclusions.

Plan your overrides. Before these challenging moments arise, envision how you’d ideally like to respond. For instance, if you want to overcome your tendency to interrupt, rehearse being a more active, engaged listener.

Design your days. Self-control varies across a day and a workweek. Why schedule high-conflict conversations before lunch or at the end of the day? If your morning becomes unexpectedly difficult, reshuffle your afternoon to avoid letting a snide comment or criticism slip.

(Source: How to Override Your Default Reactions in Tough Moments, by Lee Newman)

Regroup from a failing project

People tend to obsess over sunk costs (all that time and money we’ve invested in something and can’t get back). When teams commit more resources to a clearly failing project, it’s even more of a problem. The more cohesive the group, the more likely they are to hang in there when it’s best to walk away. To get back on track, your team needs to look at its investments objectively, deciding what to scale back on and what to cut altogether. Make it easier to measure what does and doesn’t work by establishing clear organisational goals — and avoid sweeping, abstract language. Break each goal down into smaller subgoals, and then identify the actions required to reach each one. This will give your team a better sense of what’s achievable, and what’s a lost cause.

(Source: Get Your Team to Do What It Says It’s Going to Do, by Heidi Grant Halvorson)

Schedule a meeting only when appropriate

We are meeting-ed out. So before adding another one to everyone’s calendars, see if there’s a better way to accomplish your goal. You definitely should not schedule a meeting if:

The subject isn’t worth everyone’s time. Say you discover a vendor overcharged your unit on several recent orders. The overcharges are minor, and you can deal with the situation simply by calling the vendor and addressing the errors.

Group members are upset and aren’t ready to talk. When there’s a conflict, people may need time apart before they’re ready to tackle the situation.

The issue is better handled one-on-one. For example, if you’re gathering information about an employee’s poor performance.

You need to get a lot of individual opinions. You’ll likely get more honest feedback if you send out an electronic survey than if you ask attendees to provide feedback in a group setting.

(Source: Running Meetings)

Hire top performers

It goes without saying that a company with more top performers has an edge over its rivals. To increase your proportion of top talent:

Control your pipeline. Do your own recruiting, and stop relying on headhunters.

Have your A players conduct the interviews. B and C players can’t always identify the highest potential people (and if they do, they can feel threatened). Average performers tend to look for congeniality and the ability of a candidate to fit in; they don’t always look for someone who seems likely to raise the bar.

Involve as many line managers in the interviews as possible. This is especially true when hiring for highly technical jobs: Human resources might not be able to judge whether people have the very specific skills required.

(Source: How to Hire More Top Performers, by Michael C. Mankins)

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, July 21st, 2014