ARGUMENTS

Proving that the other side is wrong, stupid, ignorant, ill informed, too emotional, not committed, overly involved, stubborn, obnoxious, or otherwise inadequate is unlikely to be an effective method for finding common ground in a negotiation.

Fund-raising is a particularly difficult negotiation because it is exceptionally one-sided, at least superficially. The person doing the solicitation wants something of value -- money from the person being solicited -- but has very little to give in return. Convincing someone to part with his hard-earned money in exchange for an honor, to keep up with his neighbors, or because giving charity is the right thing to do can be a very difficult “sale.”

For many years, I was the primary fund-raising trainer for the Associated Jewish Federation of Baltimore. While the professional staff provided a wide range of important supports, volunteers on a peer-to-peer basis did the actual solicitation of funds. Many of the volunteers had been doing solicitations for years and needed little training other than a review of the basics. Others were neophytes, and needed considerable training, oversight, and feedback to improve their effectiveness.

The most common error I observed over a period of 10 years was the tendency to contradict the excuses offered by the people being solicited. The greenest solicitors sometimes actually had arguments with the people they were soliciting.

The most obvious problem with contradicting and arguing with the person you are soliciting for a donation is that he might get annoyed or angry. Can you imagine that the person being solicited will respond to your contradictions and arguments by saying, “You know my excuse really was stupid. Here, take my money!” If your goal is to get someone to donate, proving that he is wrong is not the way to accomplish it. Do not contradict and argue with him.

While less obvious, the same is equally true about all negotiations. Proving the other side wrong does not facilitate a successful negotiation. While the facts are important in any negotiation, who is right and who is wrong is a topic that should be completely avoided. Look for common ground. Be prepared to compromise. Leave the character assassination for a different venue or no venue at all.

FRIENDSHIP

Most people confuse acquaintances with friends. Friends are not people you know. Friends are people who are willing to help you out of the pits. Good friends are people who are willing to jump into the pits with you if that is the only way to help you. Very good friends are people who are willing to stay in the pits with you until you are ready and able to get out.

I know we live in a superficial world, but there should be limits to superficiality. Calling someone a “friend” should mean more (a lot more) than “I’ve met this guy before.” Calling someone a “good friend” should mean more (a whole lot more) than “this guy stopped by my house once or twice.” To me, friendship should indicate a significant mutual commitment. A friend is someone I would go out of my way to help and who would go out of his way to help me.

Helping a friend is not something you do when it is convenient. It is something you do when your friend needs it. Helping a friend is not something you do when you are wearing a worn out pair of jeans. It is something you do even if it means ruining your new suit. Helping a friend is not always carefree, cost free, or pain free. True friendship is very rare and valuable. It can be very rewarding, and like other rewarding factors, it can be very expensive.

You must be ready to put into friendship at least as much as you hope to get out of it. If you are willing only to give as much as you get, you are a customer, not a friend.

GETTING

Getting your way is not always a sign of strength. It may be a sign of weakness.

Someone once commented to me, “Jane is so strong. She always gets other people to do what she wants.” The person making the comment was a particularly weak person who spent an inordinate amount of her limited energy on demanding that others do what she wanted them to do. In practice, she frequently was successful.

People did what Jane wanted not because she was so strong, but because she was so weak. People pitied her. Even after she used up all the pity someone had with her excessive demanding, the other person frequently continued to do what Jane demanded just to get her to stop nagging. Jane’s strength, if you can call it that, was in the combination of her weakness and her constant carping.

Even though Jane frequently got others to do what she demanded, this was never enough. Everyone close to Jane inevitably fell short of her demands, and she complained constantly about how badly everyone treated her. Everyone fell short of Jane’s demands because her demands could never give her what she really wanted -- to be at the center of everyone’s attention constantly. Everyone around Jane had many responsibilities that demanded attention. Satisfying Jane’s insatiable appetite for attention was an impossible task that conflicted with their many other responsibilities. Inevitably, people gave up on trying meeting Jane’s demands, and Jane was forced to find another person from whom she could demand attention.

Jane is an extreme example that illustrates an important point. Getting other people to do what you want through constant demands is not an adaptive way to meet your needs.

ME

I do not want to be the best person in the world. I want to be the best me possible.

In theory, there can be one best person in the world at any given time. The probability that it will be me (or anyone else) is so remote that it is essentially nil. Trying to be the best person in the world in an absolute sense is doomed to failure. Encouraging others to attain this standard is counterproductive. In fact, setting this standard would be silly if it were not so destructive.

In reality, there never can be one best person in the world. Every four years during the Olympic Games, athletes compete for “best in the world” status at particular athletic events. The gold medal winners may be the best in the world in the events that they win, but are they the best in the world in an absolute sense? Of course they are not. There are many Olympic medalists. Each is “best in the world” in one or more events. At the same time, each is not best in the world at all other events. Given the infinite number of “life events” in which a person may excel, what possible definition can there ever be for “absolutely best in the world?” Even when a religion designates a particular historical figure (e.g., Moses, Jesus, Mohamed, etc.) as the absolutely best, this is based on a divine standard that mortal man cannot possibly grasp. In human terms, there can never be an absolutely best person in the world.

Trying to be the absolutely very best compared to any particular subset of humanity is no more meaningful than trying to be the very best in the world in an absolute sense. Each group of people has innumerable intra-group variables that can be measured. Many different individuals within any group will exceed the achievements of others within the group in one or more of these variables. Which one of these exceptional people is the very best in the group in an absolute sense? There is no standard or combination of standards that can lead to a meaningful answer to this question. Attempting to be the absolutely best person within a group, even a small group, has no real meaning.

What about being the best within a group relative to a particular standard or group of standards? Maybe I should try to be the smartest, strongest, fastest, kindest, loudest, etc., member of my group. It may be possible to assign meaning to each of these and many other relative standards, but what is the significance if we do that? Other than the ego massage that a group member may receive for being the best in the group in a particular way, what is the significance of this achievement? There can be no absolute value to achieving relative superiority over others in a particular area.

The only absolute standard I can measure myself against is: Who I might have been. When I do this, I do not compare my achievements against the achievements of others. I compare my actual achievements with my potential achievements. I know that my actual achievements will always fall below my potential achievements. My goal is to narrow the gap with each day that passes.

DESTINATIONS

If you don’t know where you are going, you are not likely to get there. If you know exactly where you are going, you probably aren’t going anywhere important.

Most adults do not have any specific plans about where they want to go in life. Some do have specific plans, but they are actually too specific.

People without specific plans for where they want to go in life are not likely to go anywhere. Of course, everyone has to be someplace at any given time, but a haphazard “someplace” may be “no place” in terms of personal growth.

People with overly specific plans for where they want to go in life are not likely to go anywhere important. They may or may not accomplish their overly specific goals, but they will overlook opportunities for faster and/or more important personal growth. Moreover, the probability that they will make a quantum leap to a different dimension of growth approaches zero.

Plans are overly specific when they focus exclusively on external achievements. Setting a goal to go to an Ivy League college or to get a job at a prestigious firm is great, but unless you grow because of the experience, attainment of the goal is not likely to mean much. Once you realize this, you should realize that your goal should be to acquire the best possible professional education and training possible. Going to an Ivy League college is one possible way to increase the probability that you will acquire a high-quality professional education. It is not a guarantee. Moreover, there are many other ways to get a high-quality education instead of or in addition to attending an Ivy League college. If you focus on one very obvious way to achieve your goal, you may not notice and take advantage of other ways that can help you achieve your real goal faster and better.

The really important goals involve improving yourself. Achieving external milestones are important primarily because they provide objective criteria against which to evaluate your internal milestones. These objective milestones, however, rarely are the best way to evaluate internal milestones.

Directly evaluating attainment of internal milestones is very subjective and may contain a large amount of error. Nevertheless, answering questions like, “Am I the person I wanted to be?” is much more meaningful than answering questions like, “Am I in the position I wanted to achieve?”

Measure your external goals periodically. Measure your internal goals at least as often.

HELP

I help myself by helping someone else.

I wish I could redefine the word selfish to mean simply “concern for self.” If that is all the word meant, it could be used to connote good self-concern and bad self-concern equally. To me concern for self is neither intrinsically bad nor intrinsically good. Like most other concerns, the value of self-concern is determined by its relationship to other concerns rather than by its mere presence.

I realize that concern for self may be bad. Concern for self that is not balanced with concern for others is too one-sided to be good. This type of excessive concern for self is the commonly used meaning of the word selfish. When used to connote excessive self-concern, the word selfish definitely refers to a negative human trait.

Concern for self, however, can co-exist with concern for others. I believe that concern for self (not over concern with self) is actually a prerequisite for concern for others. To me, concern for others flows naturally from my concern for myself.

I am concerned with myself because I believe that the Almighty purposefully created me as an imperfect being. The purpose of my imperfection is to afford me an opportunity to improve my self. I improve myself by evaluating my deficiencies, setting goals to improve these deficiencies, and then working hard to meet these goals. All of those actions involve very real, very intimate concern for myself.

Some of my deficiencies involve who I am as a stand-alone individual. These deficiencies can and should be improved by working directly on me. For example, if my deficiencies involve lack of knowledge or skill of a particular type, I need to do what I can to learn the knowledge or skill. Frequently, I can accomplish this task on my own. Concern for others may not be a condition for addressing these deficiencies.

Many of my deficiencies involve my relationships with others. These deficiencies cannot be addressed by considering me alone. They can only be addressed by considering me in relationship with others. I must be concerned with those others as an integral part of addressing my deficiencies. Simply said, “I am concerned with others because I am concerned with me.”

A specific example where my concern for myself leads me to be concerned for others involves helping people who are in need. My religion, like all other religions with which I am familiar, has taught me that the Almighty is concerned with people in need and that He prioritizes helping these people. My religion, like all other religions with which I am familiar, has also taught me that emulating the Almighty is a primary method for improving myself. Since the Almighty is concerned with people in need and since He prioritizes helping them, I, too, should do so. Thus, helping people in need is a prime method for helping me become a better person. My self-concern leads me directly to concern for others.

POWER

If the people who work for me choose to do what I want when I am around, I am powerful. If the people who work with me choose to do the right thing, they do it even when I am not around, and I am more powerful. My job is to motivate the people who work with me to choose to do the right thing.

I do not want people who work for me to do what is right because they are afraid that I will punish them if they do not. If people do what is right because they are afraid of me, they will only do so when I am around or when someone may observe them and report back to me. Much of the time, there is no more than a slight probability that this will happen.

I do not want people who work for me to do what is right because they are loyal to me or they see me as a father figure who they want to please or because they think I am a nice guy. As soon as something happens that changes their attitude toward me, their commitment to doing what is right will decrease.

I want people to do what is right because they are committed to excellence. People who are committed to excellence will do what is right simply because it is right unless the system in which they function prevents them from doing so.

First, I must hire people who have an overwhelming desire to achieve excellence. These people are not as rare as is commonly thought. Many people do not achieve excellence in their employment despite possessing this overwhelming desire. This is because many work environments stifle and even punish excellence in any number of ways, not because the employees who work there are disinterested in achieving excellence.

Once I have hired people who have an overwhelming desire to achieve excellence, I must ensure that the environments within which they work support and reinforce striving for excellence. I do this by pushing authority down within our organization to the extent possible and ensuring that each person’s responsibilities are in balance with the person’s authority.
Finally, I must clearly communicate our organizational values (particularly our commitment to excellence) and our organizational vision, mission and goals. Then I must get out of the way so that everyone else has the opportunity to indulge their overwhelming desire to be excellent.

DECISIONS

When faced with a complex situation, what you decide to do is usually less important than the efforts you expend to make your decision work.

A timely decision that is less than optimal can almost always be made right with hard work. An untimely decision, no matter how good, is much more difficult to make right.

Some decisions are relatively simple to make. One of the alternatives appears to be so much better than the others that there really is not much of a question about which alternative to choose. When faced with this type of situation, most of us decide very quickly.

Deciding quickly seems to be much harder when there is no alternative that is obviously better than the others. There are advantages and disadvantages to each alternative. Which one has the best balance between the advantages and the disadvantages is not clear. In this type of situation, prudent behavior generally involves waiting to determine whether additional information can be gathered about each of the alternatives that will enable us to make the best choice.

At some point, we run out of time. We must make a decision, yet the best decision among all the alternatives may not be clear. How do we choose when several mutually exclusive alternative decisions all appear to have the same relative probability of being the best choice, at least as far as we know?

Many people find making a decision in this type of situation very difficult. I do not. If the situation demands a decision and there is no obviously best decision, I simply pick one of the alternatives. I then work very hard to make sure that the decision “works.”

I make this decision easily based on a simple analysis. There are four possible future outcomes when I am forced to decide before I know which of the alternatives is best:

1. Based on subsequent information, I determine that I picked the best choice or a choice very close to the best choice. This scenario clearly is no problem.


2. Based on subsequent information, I determine that I did not pick the best choice or a choice close to the best choice. Nevertheless, through hard work, I am able to make my decision “work.” This scenario is not much of a problem; hard work is no problem for me.


3. Based on subsequent information, I determine that I picked one of the worst choices. I am thus forced to work very hard and the outcome is much less successful than it would have been had I picked a better choice. This scenario is still not much of a problem. I try to achieve excellence in everything that I do, but I know that I cannot always succeed.


4. Based on subsequent information, I determine that I picked one of the worst choices. Despite my hard work, I fail to achieve an acceptable outcome. This scenario is a problem. I do not accept failure easily. But did I do the wrong thing when I made the choice based on the information available at the time? Not really. Management is about making decisions in a timely manner in the absence of complete information. Management is about working hard to maximize the probability that management decisions will succeed. Management is not about having a crystal ball and always being right. Failure is disappointing. It is also part of the human condition. If I made a reasonable decision in a timely manner based upon the information available at the time and I worked hard to lead my team to success, my decision may have been excellent even if it turns out to have been wrong.

Why do I accept the possibility of failure so easily? Because I know that a good management decision made past an optimal point is almost always harder to make right than a bad management decision made in a timely manner. This is the underlying factor that differentiates management decisions from clerking decisions. It is also the underlying factor that makes management so difficult yet so important.

Clerking decisions are decisions that can wait to be made until all relevant information is available. Because they can wait for all relevant information, clerks must wait for all relevant information. Making a clerking decision before all relevant information is available significantly increases the probability that the decision will be wrong. Since the decision can wait, there is no reason to make it until its correctness is fully known. A clerking decision made at the right time rarely results in difficulties as long as the clerk waited for all the relevant information to be collected and applied the rules accurately.

Management decisions are limited to those decisions that must be made in the absence of adequate information. Making decisions in the absence of adequate information precludes applying clear rules. Management decisions are based on rules of thumb that are developed over many years of experience, but these rules of thumb are far from infallible. Because these decisions must be made in the absence of adequate information, they are much more likely to result in difficulties than clerking decisions. Hard work and team leadership will enable most, but not all, of these decisions, to “work.” Waiting past the optimal time for the decision dramatically increases the probability that hard work will not result in an acceptable outcome. Thus, waiting for more information past the optimal decision time leads to more problems than taking a chance on deciding in the absence of all relevant information but in the optimal time.

PERFECTION

The only way to be perfect is to set and accomplish trivial goals. When we set and try to accomplish important goals, we cannot be perfect.

Being great and being perfect are not the same. Actually, they are totally incompatible. Great people never are perfect, and they frequently have very glaring deficiencies. People who set a goal of being perfect may believe they are trying to be great. They aren’t. They are attempting to avoid the messiness that comes with being human. Human beings are messy, and messiness is an unavoidable attribute of the human condition.

Perfection is the one divine attribute that we cannot emulate. We can try to emulate the Almighty’s attributes of kindness, truthfulness, fairness, powerfulness, awesomeness, and other ’nesses. When expressed by the Almighty, these attributes are expressed in an absolute manner. When emulated by man, they are expressed in a relative manner. One human can be more kind, truthful, fair, powerful, etc., than another. When we attempt to emulate divine attributes, we do so relative to the attempts of other humans who are more or less committed or successful than we are. Alternatively, we do so relative to our potential for emulating divine attributes.

Perfection, by definition, can only exist in the absolute sense. Nothing can be relatively perfect. Great art like Michelangelo’s statue of David may be characterized as divine by some of its admirers, and it is extraordinarily beautiful. It is not perfect. (I, for one, find it amusing that Michelangelo portrayed the greatest Jewish king with a statue of an uncircumcised adult male.)

While it may be possible to perform a trivial action (e.g., sorting a limited number of documents in alphabetical order) without error, this too is not perfect. The absence of error cannot be meaningfully equated to perfection, and performing a trivial task without error is hardly a form of emulating the Almighty.

VISION

Vision is not solely a function of my eyes. What I see is also a function of my mind and my heart.

I frequently see things that other people do not see. Do not take this the wrong way. What I see is really there. Most other people just do not notice certain things.

Sometimes the things that I see are small things. Other people miss them because they equate small things with insignificant things. Of course, some small things are insignificant, and I ignore them the same as most other people. Other small things are very significant. I work hard not to confuse size with value, and I look for small things that are significant.

Some of the things that I see are large or even enormous. Other people do not miss them because of their size. They miss them because they only see what they expect to see. I know that unexpected things happen all the time and that some of these unexpected things are very important. I look for the unexpected so that I can evaluate its importance.

I see things that other people do not see because I keep my mind and heart open. My eyesight is no better than average. Only my vision is.