Whether we rec­og­nize it or not we live in a global mar­ket­place in which mar­kets are local.

In years past it very rarely crossed our minds that we – when I say we I’m talk­ing about us as indi­vid­u­als — would be inter­act­ing with both part­ners and cus­tomers from around the world on a daily basis. We knew the hot but­tons, morays, and cul­ture of our mar­kets because our clan was part of the mar­ket. Today that really isn’t the case. We com­mu­ni­cate with ex-patriots in East­ern Europe, have run­ning dia­logues with Aus­tralians, and have part­nered locally with a friend who matured in the busi­ness envi­ron­ment of China.

We all deal with an amal­ga­ma­tion of local mar­kets to ser­vice our cus­tomers. It thus behooves us to under­stand cul­tural ori­en­ta­tions and how it influ­ences an individual’s perception.

To read to full post visit my blog at DonaldMcMichael.com

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photo via Don­ald McMichael

While I never going into depth about the finds, I do encour­age you check them out if they sound interesting.

When to Gam­ble — and When to Fold? Inno­va­tion Strate­gies for a New Economy

With regards to inno­va­tion it’s not always best to be first. Business his­tory is lit­tered with exam­ples of those who put together the core prin­ci­ples of new busi­nesses only to have the fame and quite often the for­tune go to the sec­ond, third, or fourth mover. As cor­po­rate devel­op­ment types we’re always on a quest to bet­ter under­stand this phe­nom­e­non. In this Whar­ton @Knowledge arti­cle Scott Sny­der, a senior fel­low at the Whar­ton School’s Mack Cen­ter for Tech­no­log­i­cal Inno­va­tion is quoted as stat­ing that “The les­son here is the set of assump­tions we make a long term bet on … are very frag­ile”. Check out the full arti­cle for insights as to why Com­pa­nies that suc­ceed in this area are not nec­es­sar­ily the ones who bring prod­ucts to the mar­ket first.

The other posts are:

• Busi­ness model inno­va­tion starts with chal­leng­ing hid­den assumptions
• 3 Lev­els of Strategy
• What’s The Most Dif­fi­cult CEO Skill? Man­ag­ing Your Own Psychology
• The paid­Con­tent 50: The Most Suc­cess­ful Dig­i­tal Media Com­pa­nies in The U.S.

Check out my main site DonaldMcMichael.com to see the full post.

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“Assess the advan­tages in tak­ing advice, then struc­ture your forces accord­ingly, to sup­ple­ment extra­or­di­nary tac­tics. Forces are to be struc­tured strate­gi­cally, based on what is advan­ta­geous.”
— Sun Tzu

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Today’s tip on nego­ti­at­ing comes directly from a con­ver­sa­tion I had with one of my neigh­bors Marty. It is often said that great neigh­bors are the result of a strong fence. If that’s the case then out­stand­ing neigh­bors are those who have a knack for shar­ing appro­pri­ate knowl­edge & wis­dom. There were def­i­nitely some gems in this exchange.

Ques­tion:
What is the most com­mon rea­son, or two, that nego­ti­a­tions fail/breakdown/stall? What can be done to avoid it?

Answer:
The rea­sons nego­ti­a­tions fail, stall or break­down are actu­ally var­ied. Please note the fol­low­ing is based on obser­va­tions of prac­ti­tion­ers, and as such, it has pre­sented itself enough such that it is very much a reality.

The most com­mon rea­son is that one party chooses not to nego­ti­ate.  They take a stance that is non-negotiable in their mind and they will then just decide not to nego­ti­ate at all. When you don’t engage the other side there is no nego­ti­a­tion, just stand­off. Or worse yet, if they do engage hav­ing a fixed posi­tion it results in an argument.

To see the other rea­sons check­out the post on my main blog DonaldMcMichael.com

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