The Body Language of a Warrior

The Body Language of a Warrior

I’m currently re-reading an old book I have, called The Martial Artist’s Book of Five Rings: The Definitive Interpretation of Miyamoto Musashi’s Classic Book of Strategy, by Stephen F. Kaufman. This was prompted by my recent viewing of The Samurai Trilogy, the 3 movies created a long time ago to tell the life story of Musashi (1584-1645), who was a real samurai or ronin in the olden days of Japan, and wrote his Book of Five Rings to express his feelings, attitudes and strategies of dueling and of being a warrior.

I came across an excerpt that deals with the body language of a warrior, and I thought to myself: “Wow –this is very specific information on how to set yourself up correctly before a duel!” and as I re-read it, it occurred to me that as a coach, I give very specific instructions on body language, stance, breathing etc. when I am helping clients give a better presentation, or make a winning first impression, for example.  The devil is in the details, perhaps, and so the details must be perfected.

Please enjoy this ‘clip’, and then ask yourself if you were going into a big meeting, interview, giving a talk or PowerPoint, what would your body language convey?  Do you think about it beforehand or just ‘go with the flow?’  I think you know that my advice would be to actually ‘plan’ your vibe that you are sending, just like Musashi did, many years ago.  Here it is, found on page 27:

“I always stress form and balance.  If you are lax in your stances and positioning, then you will be unable to perform your technique effectively.  Focus your concentration on only one thing – making the “hit.”  Narrow your eyes slightly and ever so subtly flare your nostrils.  Always fight with your spine erect and unbent.  Keep your shoulders relaxed and lowered.  Tighten your abdominal muscles and root yourself into the ground.  Make yourself bigger in your mind than you are as a manner of intimidating the enemy.  Slowly work your way toward the enemy until you are ready to strike.  Then do so with utmost conviction, quickness, and power.  Keep your weapons ready at all times.  You should practice the proper stances and movements prior to using any fighting technique and in this manner establish your own sense of being through your particular art.  How often have you witnessed so-called experts with no form or balance?”

Learn about Ric Phillips and 3V Communications coaching, including body language. Options for communication coaching/training include interpersonal/professional communication skills, public speaking, presentations, body language, ESL, etc. Helping you communicate clearly and confidently. Please enjoy this short video that highlights key aspects of our communication coaching and training.
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Women in the Media (The Agenda Clip)

Women in the Media (The Agenda Clip)

This is really interesting to me.  I realize men and women often have a different way of processing information and relaying it.  Here is a great anecdote on the subject.   What do you think?

I Like the Kevin Hogan Coffee Newsletter

Some People Have Real Difficulty With Public Speaking but Have No Choice!

Some People Have Real Difficulty With Public Speaking but Have No Choice!

I salute those that are striving to improve their public speaking and presentation skills. It’s not always an easy thing to do, especially if one was born introverted, with a learning challenge of some kind, is not a native speaker of the working language or simply was never used to or trained in how to handle “the spotlight.”

These days advancing your public speaking and presentation skill-set almost isn’t an option.  In business a successful person needs great communication skills, now more than ever.  In the old days there were those that were comfortable speaking, usually from sales and marketing departments for example, that were asked to do most of the public speaking and meeting running.  Technical folks could sit in the back of the room silently, or just keep working away on their computer.  Not so these days.

Many of my clients are technically brilliant people, who have achieved a high measure of success in their own right.  But they have been asked (or told) by upper management or have learned through experience that to be truly successful these days one must attempt to master the soft skills as well as the hard skills.  Job security seems to depend on adaptability and duo skill-set performance now.
These days I’m doing a lot of ‘Podium Power’ coaching.  Clients range from doctors and lawyers to accountants and company C-suite execs.  Some are immigrants with the additional challenge of having English as a second language.  Some have speech impediments, get bad stage fright, or have Asperger’s syndrome/autism.  I strive to teach them the finer points of how to quickly and efficiently improve their 3Vs (verbal, vocal, visual) of public speaking, presentations and PowerPoint, staying within my areas of expertise.

I just wanted to say that I really appreciate and applaud those that are struggling to learn a new way of communication that is out of their comfort zone, or that pushes them past their old, comfortable one.  It takes courage, dedication and maybe even a little kick in the butt to take up the task of improving public speaking communication skills, but I believe it is good to challenge oneself and I also believe it will pay off handsomely in today’s business world, as well as with our social communications.  Let’s be honest, they need some work these days too, right?  Everyone is constantly staring at their smart phones and tablets, rarely looking up as they mumble?  But that’s a topic for another day! 

Take care,
Coach Ric
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Dealing With Narcissists In The Workplace | Career Thought Leaders

Dealing With Narcissists In The Workplace | Career Thought Leaders

Sooner or later in your career, you will run into someone whose personality is so difficult, you will despair about ever finding a way to work with that person in any productive way. One of these types of difficult people is the narcissistic personality. Narcissistic personality is characterized by an unrealistic or inflated sense of self-importance, an inability to see the viewpoint of others, and hypersensitivity to criticism.

The mental health community has made strides recently in learning how to effectively treat narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic features. In less severe cases, executive coaches with training in working with narcissistic personality structure can minimize the workplace damage done by people exhibiting destructive narcissism. Consulting psychologists can help organizational leaders to make better hiring decisions or to contain situations where one person’s bad behavior is putting the entire organization or team at risk.

But this blog post is about situations where the narcissistic person is not interested in change and the organization is not actively working on damage control. In an entrepreneurial environment, there are times when you don’t have the choice to simply walk away. The narcissist may be your boss, your co-worker, your venture capitalist/investor, or someone on your board of advisors. In these situations, you need some skill in dealing with a narcissistic personality.

In the short-term and when everything is going their way, narcissists are often charming, charismatic, compelling, and persuasive. In fact, a little narcissism may provide surface advantages to succeeding as an entrepreneur. The problems arise when the narcissist feels challenged or threatened. If the flow of admiration from others starts to slow down or stop, if funding fails to materialize, if the marketplace doesn’t behave as the narcissist hopes, narcissists are prone to angry outbursts and attempts to retaliate. Narcissists specialize in making everyone else’s life miserable, so how can you avoid having your career trashed by one?

Here is expert career advice for dealing with narcissists at work:

• Be genuinely helpful. Because narcissists are preoccupied with looking good and with getting what they want, aligning yourself with their goals will buy you some time before conflict heats up. If you can make the narcissist’s life easier, work can proceed smoothly, at least for awhile.

• Appeal to the narcissistic person’s self interest. Dr. Vicki Vandaveer of The Vandaveer Group, advises, “A leader – even a narcissistic one – is keenly interested in his/her ability to get results or have an impact. We can help polish the image…help them find more effective ways to achieve goals.

• Accept that you will probably not receive credit for your accomplishments. Dr. Rob Kaiser of Kaplan DeVries Inc. observes, “You can get anything done, if you don’t mind who gets the credit. (It’s always the narcissist’s idea, no matter where he picked it up).”

• Don’t take anything personally. The narcissist doesn’t view you as a human with wants and needs but as a source of self-esteem for herself. “It is never about you,” says Dr. Kaiser.

• Lower your expections. For example, you aren’t going to get consistent care and support from a narcissistic boss. Dr. Ben Dattner of Dattner Consulting comments, “Gordon Gecko articulated the narcissistic boss’s worldview when he advised Bud Fox in Wall Street: ‘If you want a friend, get a dog.’”

• Avoid making yourself a target. Criticizing a narcissist can result in “narcissistic rage,” where a narcissist wards off shame by retaliating against the person who caused the narcissistic injury. These reactions are extreme and out of proportion to the trigger event. Dr. John Deleray of Deleray & Associates advises, “Don’t talk about their one big flaw unless they bring it up first.” Dr. Carl Robinson of Advanced Leadership Consulting adds, “The best way to deliver advice is with a neutral voice stating the facts as your perception and interpretation of things, not as a truth. This gives the individual wiggle room, room for face saving.”

• Line up emotional support. It is draining to clash with narcissists and interacting with a narcissistic person can leave you feeling like you did something wrong or make you question your own competence or judgment. Often this is because of an unconscious process where a narcissistic person manages to transfer their own bad feelings onto you. To stay psychologically centered, you’ll need help to reality test and to process negative emotion.

• Prepare for the worst. You may lose a power struggle with a narcissist, so you should be prepared to find another job if a situation escalates and you find yourself fired. While still employed at a workplace made toxic by a narcissist with power, quietly network and build your professional community so that you will have job-related connections if you need them.

• Try to muster some empathy. Even though narcissists are terrific at appearing as if they are on top of the world and as happy as they can be, it feels awful to be a narcissist because they need constant affirmation of how good they are. “You get to go home at the end of each day, but they have to live with themselves all the time,” notes Dr. Lynn Friedman.

(Original Post:  http://www.careerthoughtleaders.com/blog/dealing-with-narcissists-in-the-workplace/)

Effective Communication Skills, Small Talk Ebook

Effective Communication Skills, Small Talk Ebook

Learn the techniques and strategies to make you a master communicator! Understand the communication process, and how your brain interprets information so you can connect with people. Build rapport quickly with anyone, anytime, anywhere. Increase your charisma and confidence. Be able to read body language and people’s eyes. Give feedback without accidentally insulting someone!
This is the Effective Communication Skills Course!

PDF version on Lulu.com

ePub version on Apple iTunes/iBookstore

ePub version on Barnes & Noble NOOK

How to Deal With Classic Chinese Negotiating Tactics | chinafilmbiz 中国电影业务

How to Deal With Classic Chinese Negotiating Tactics | chinafilmbiz 中国电影业务
By Robert Cain for China Film Biz
September 3, 2012
While preparing recently for negotiations with a Chinese distributor that wants to acquire a film I’m producing, I found myself nodding in agreement with advice offered by attorney Steve Dickinson in an article he wrote for the Harris Moure law firm’s ChinaLawBlog. Dickinson describes several business negotiating tactics that are often used by Chinese businesses to win major concessions from their foreign counterparts, and he sets forth a few rules foreign companies can follow to counter those tactics.
With permission from Dan Harris of Harris Moure, I have summarized several key points from Dickinson’s article below.

In negotiating with Chinese companies, we often see the following tactics from the Chinese side:

• The most common tactic is for the Chinese company to seek to wear the foreign side down. This approach has two variants. In the first variant, the Chinese side relentlessly introduces new issues as quickly as old ones are resolved, resulting in an endless negotiation. The second variant is for the Chinese side to make wildly unreasonable demands and then increasingly resist the objections and counter-proposals of the foreign company. Both variants are designed to wear down the foreign side in a war of attrition until they become exhausted and finally capitulate to the Chinese side’s demands. Successful use of this strategy relies on the foreign negotiators’ disadvantages with regard to time and expense. The foreigners are typically busy people with too much to do and who rely on costly attorneys to do much of their bidding, while the negotiators on the Chinese side are relatively low-paid functionaries who have no other job but to instigate and manage such endless negotiations.

• Another effective tactic is the artificial deadline. Under this approach, at the very beginning of the negotiating process the Chinese side sets a fixed date for a public signing ceremony, at which high-level officers from both sides will participate amidst much pomp and circumstance. The date is set far enough in advance to ensure that parties negotiating in good faith would reasonably expect to reach an agreement. But then the Chinese side ensures that no agreement is reached,  either by engaging in re-negotiations and other delay tactics, or by refusing to concede on key points. Then, just a day or two before the signing ceremony, the Chinese side announces that the contract must be revised on one or more key issues in a way that entirely benefits the Chinese side, often because of some eleventh hour “emergency” in the form of a demand from a “government regulator” or an outside source such as a bank or insurance company. The Chinese side explains by saying, “we don’t want to go back on our word, but these other folks have forced us to do this.” Again, the plan is that the combination of the pressure of the impending signing ceremony and the general fatigue of the negotiators will result in a crucial concession favoring the Chinese side.

• A third technique is for the Chinese side to revisit the key issues after the contract has been signed. In this strategy, after much negotiating the Chinese side signs a contract, conceding on the key issues. With the negotiation now behind them, the foreign side’s key negotiators, advisors and lawyers move on to work on other projects. After the agreed project has been started, and the foreign side has committed its people, funding, and other resources, the Chinese side then announces that certain key provisions of the contract must be changed, again, usually claiming this change is mandated by law, government regulators or banks and insurance companies. The only foreign personnel left at this point are the ones responsible for the project’s success, who have a strong incentive to allow for the change so the project can proceed. Often, these people do not fully understand the implications of the change the Chinese side is now demanding. They typically present the change to busy upper management as a minor technical revision and it gets signed. Everyone remembers how the initial negotiation was so troublesome and nobody wants to bring in “legal” to start the process over again.

Though crude and obvious, the three tactics work wonderfully well, so Chinese companies can be counted on to employ them. There is one simple antidote for each tactic:

1. If the Chinese side uses the “wear ‘em down” technique, the foreign side should simply refuse to participate. The foreign side should firmly state its position and not bend unless and until the Chinese side agrees or at least moves closer to the foreign side’s position.
2. Never agree to a fixed signing date. Make it clear that the signing ceremony will be scheduled only after the contract has completed final negotiations. Never allow the Chinese side to use a deadline as a tool. This seems like obvious advice, but we see the rule constantly violated. Chinese companies love signing ceremonies and foreigners fall into the trap because they do not want to cause offense at the start. The Chinese have contempt for a sucker, so refusing to go along on this obvious technique will not cause offense: it will instead earn the respect of the Chinese side.
3. Make it clear that there will be no changes to the contract after signing and any attempt by the Chinese side to change the contract will be treated as a material breach, leading to termination and a lawsuit for damages. Chinese companies are well known for using the signing of a contract as the start of a new negotiating process, not the termination. If the foreign party is willing to accept this approach, then a clear procedure must be instituted on the foreign side that brings back in the legal and China advisory team. The neutral players on the foreign side must make the decisions. The decisions should not be made by the foreign side players who have already become committed to the project.

When faced with the difficulties of language and cultural barriers, we sometimes forget ourselves and allow for tactics and behavior that we would never tolerate in our home territory. Bearing these simple rules in mind can help to reduce the frustration of a prolonged, seemingly unfair negotiation.
Remember too that your Chinese counterpart may have very different motivations than yours and a different context for the negotiation. I have sometimes found myself seeking a harmonious, “win-win” resolution only to learn that the Chinese side was operating under a “winner takes all” strategy.
As Henry Kissinger wrote in his superb book “On China,” Chinese statesmen have a long and successful history of dealing with foreigners, one that is informed by the writings and teachings of such brilliant strategists as Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War:

To Sun Tzu… the successful [negotiator] waits before charging headlong into battle. He shies away from an enemy’s strength; he spends his time observing and cultivating changes in the strategic landscape. He studies the enemy’s preparations and his morale, husbands resources and defines them carefully, and plays on his opponent’s psychological weaknesses—until at last he perceives the opportune moment to strike the enemy at his weakest point. He then deploys his resources swiftly and suddenly, rushing along the path of least resistance, in an assertion of superiority that careful timing and preparation have rendered a fait accompli. The Art of War articulates a doctrine less of territorial conquest than of psychological dominance.

I’m not suggesting that every Chinese negotiation should be viewed as a battle of life and death. But neither should a foreign negotiator assume that their Chinese counterpart shares similar motivations, values, or business ethics. Anyone can and should benefit from Sun Tzu’s sage advice, that foreknowledge and preparation are crucial to a successful outcome.
Robert Cain is a producer and entertainment industry consultant who has been doing business in China since 1987. He can be reached at rob@pacificbridgepics.com and at www.pacificbridgepics.com

Beware of Your Body Language in International Business

Beware of Your Body Language in International Business
“Beware of Your Body Language in International Business”  – Business without Borders, Globe & Mail, July 31st, 2012 – Communication Coach & Body Language Expert Ric Phillips is interviewed to discuss body language and gestures for Westerners to be aware of while doing business overseas.  We specifically looked at China, Japan, Thailand and Russia, areas I have travelled to and/or worked in.  There is an article as well as a 2 minute video here:  http://www.bwob.ca/topics/administration/beware-of-your-body-language-in-international-business/
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