What They Dont Teach You at Harvard Business School

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What They Dont Teach You at Harvard Business
School

• Mark H. McCormack

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Reading People

• Dont take notions for an answer
• Use your insight
• Listen Observe aggressively
• Useful impressions

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Reading People

• Take advantage of the venue
• Observe fringe times

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Golf Course Insight

• The Gimme Putt
• What did you shoot?
• Whats your handicap?
• Winter Rules
• The Rules of Golf

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Watching People Reading People

• Listen aggressively
• Observe aggressively
• Talk less
• Take a second look at first impressions

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Watching People Reading People

• Take time to use what youve learned
• Be discreet
• Be detached

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Creating Impressions

• Play off preconceptions
• Letters as emissaries
• Youre known by the office company you keep
• Dress as though you mean business

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Creating Impressions

• Split some seconds
• Dont be a time thief
• Your own turf
• Mean what you say

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Making a Notable Gesture

• Do something for the kids
• Let people off the hook
• Drive a soft bargain
• Flatter legitimately

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Making a Notable Gesture

• Make friends
• Make mentors Make confidants
• Be discreet

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Most Important Personal Asset

• Common sense
• Being yourself
• Emotion management
• You dont have to be perfect

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Taking the Edge

• Know the particulars
• Know the players
• Size of the situation
• Thinking on your feet

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How to Get Lucky

• Turn crises into opportunities
• Learn to wait
• Discipline yourself

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Getting Ahead

• Know the Rules
• Survival of the fittest
• Your peers are your natural allies
• There is always a system

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Getting Ahead

• Making impressions in the long term
• The Love-Me-for-Myself Syndrome
• Get some new tricks

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Three Hard-to-Say Phrases

• I dont know.
• I need help.
• I was wrong.

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Criteria Were Judged By

• Commitment
• Attention to detail
• Immediate follow-up

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The Problems of Selling

• Selling doesnt seem important enough
• Selling is an intrusion
• Fear

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The Secret Life of a Deal

• Listen to your common sense
• Listen to your buyer
• Follow the script

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Silence

• Make the other guy talk
• Get information by not asking for it
• Bite your tongue
• The pregnant pause
• Once youve sold, shut up

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Marketability

• Know your product
• Believe in your product
• Sell with enthusiasm

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Positioning

• Is it a Ford of a Mercedes?
• Weighing the facts
• Doing it with mirrors
• Imaging

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Correspondence Tools

• Open copies to the Boss
• Blind copies to the Boss
• Dictated but not read

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Negotiating

• Deal in psychological currencies
• Avoid showdowns
• Negotiate backwards
• Trade places

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Negotiating

• Deflect with a question
• Question positions but dont ignore them
• Sweeten with his self-interest
• Keep your time frame to yourself

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Using Emotion

• Perceive any business dispute as the beginning of
  a negotiation
• Step back and relax
• See emotional outbursts as opportunities
• Act in anger, but never react in anger
• Get them charged up about side issues

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Building a Business

• Commit (early on) to quality
• Be smart enough to know when you are lucky
• Grow slowly
• Diversify your expertise talent

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Building a Business

• Charge for your expertise
• Hire the best to teach you what you dont know
• Take a second look at timing
• Short-term can be terminal

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Staying in Business

• Think small
• Dont let structures run the operation
• Think flexibility
• Reserve the right to be arbitrary
• Hire people smarter than yourself

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Staying in Business

• Dont let policies stifle the operation
• Manage unconventionally
• Manage with confidence
• Delegate what you can, not what you want to

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Dealing with Employees

• Pay them what they are worth
• Make them feel that they are important yet
  motivate positively negatively
• Make them think for themselves
• Separate office life from social life

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Getting Things Done

• Time Management
• An organization system
• Stick to your schedule
• Allocate personalities

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How to Handle Phone Calls

• Pause to anticipate
• Get to the point
• Shorten the long maybe
• Avoid phone tag

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How to Handle Phone Calls

• Making people take your call
• Silence means consent
• Who gets on first?

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Internal Meetings

• Who are these people what are they doing in my
  meeting?
• Fold in meetings
• Run a successful meeting
• Meet in hallways

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External Meetings

• Where its best to go slow
• Restaurant meetings

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Knowing Your Own Work Habits

• Learn to say no even when it hurts
• Decision making
• Office communication
• To write or not write
• Streamline your office space