High Performing Business – Negotiations – Enthusiasm
Michelle LaBrosse, CCPM, PMP, PMI-ACP, RYT
The reason so many of us love puppies even with all the things they can get into, is their unbridled enthusiasm for life. It’s good to remember this when working with others – enthusiasm attracts even more enthusiasm and can make the difficult possible, even fun.
I noticed years ago the more enthusiastic I am about a plan, the better it seems I can enroll others in my ideas. When I am working with Cheetah Learning’s certified teachers, every once in a while I’ll here the hardest students to work with are the ones who think the problem with their performance is outside of themselves. These are the students who say their poor performance is due to the teacher, or the curriculum doesn’t work for them, or something or other not related to them. In the 90’s as part of my early research into accelerated learning, I was introduced to Richard Bandler’s work on Neurolinquistic Programming. Bandler says that when you run into people resistant to making changes within themselves (like these students who feel their performance issues are outside themselves), it’s our job as teachers and change agents to inspire them to make the changes required. Using the excuse that they are not willing to change is like taking your car to a mechanic and the mechanic says – I’m not capable of fixing this car until it’s ready to change.
The key for the Cheetah team with inspiring people to adopt the required practices to succeed in Cheetah courses (and then later in their lives) is our enthusiasm in our programs’ effectiveness. But it’s not that we have all drank blue koolaid and are brainwashed by our own rosey delusions. It’s hard to knock success. We’ve had over 60,000 students go through Cheetah Learning programs and almost daily receive their glowing endorsements. What is even more telling, most of our business is from word of mouth. While we do share our free assessments and tools in a variety of social media contexts, we do no formal advertising. And every year we have 5000 or so people enroll in Cheetah Learning courses. Enthusiasm is contagious.
So when you’re faced with a negotiation, find the elements of it that make you the most enthusiastic and lead from there. When you enroll in the program to become a Cheetah Certified Project Manager you master how to communicate your enthusiasm for your ideas in ways that other people can hear you – based on what makes them more enthusiastic too. Enthusiastic people attract other enthusiastic people and it’s this energy that can in fact move mountains.
