It’s a business! It’s just business! – The two most used expressions that justify the action of an employer.

For an employee the company is supposed to be a family, a place in which you feel good, this being the main motivation and not the money. How about we treat this as a business for both sides? It is always about money. If next to money comes a pleasant social interaction and higher purposes … is fine.

When you negotiate your salary, the employer will try to pay you the smallest amount possible. The funny part is that if you tell the interviewer that you are there for the money, they will put you at the end of the list. So you lie and the carousel starts: they will think they tricked you and expect performance, you will be unsatisfied and will do work in … the smallest amount possible.
Everybody loses.

It should be a fair trade. You give your time and your competencies and you ask in return what you need and not what is offered.

Remember: You are part of the negotiation process and not the subject of negotiation. Personal branding should become your favorite jacket. The more you know about yourself, the more conscious you become of your value on the labor market.

Everything that is said about organizational behavior must respect the fair trade principles.

• Transparency and accountability
• Payment of fair price
• Gender equity
• Decent work environment
• Trade relations

We are so used to having freedom of speech but we do not care about our freedom to act. No matter the country, although the employer asks more work and dedication from you every day … he loves you until you ask for a raise.

Long-term relationships are based on solidarity, trust and mutual respect. You as an employee are the customer that buys-in the need for profit of the company every day. The organization should buy in exchange your need: the need for money.

An effective negotiation should be a win-win situation … as long as you understand its complexity. It is mainly a form of conflict management. In a conflict somebody should win. When the parties involved understand that the enemy is the issue, everybody wins. There are many conflict management strategies and we will discuss them in the future.

What is good to know in business is that a sell rep is human. And greed is human too. He will pay more attention to get deals done NOW.  He will offer discounts “just this time” every time.

What is vital to know in business is if this type of sell rep works for you.

Leadership and/vs. Management.

One or other is better. You can not have one without the other. A lot of talk on this subject. I am convinced that we need even more. There is gold in the research data and there are diamonds in the experience of seasoned executives.

Without saying anything new: a leader is the one that influences the actions of others around him in the direction of achieving the goal of an organization.

What seems to get put aside often is the fact that a leader needs followers. We will talk about Leadership but we will have to talk about Followership also.

• How do we grow our revenues?
• How can we manage costs better in the future?
• How can we retain our customers?

Beep!!! Too late! You should have answered this question yesterday!

While your manager uses the words business development strategy even to decide how many rolls of toilet paper will be bought next month, nothing really gets done. He never thinks ahead more than 2 years time. After that period or sooner he will be working for the competition bragging about his contribution to your strategy.

Strategy is not just a buzz word.  The same goes for business intelligence strategy. It is everything you do every minute except when you stay still. As an organization you must invest in people that define, plan, implement and review and let this attitude be your organizational culture.

Do not hire somebody that tells you: “I know where I am going and how to get there.” Find somebody that does it already.

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
Maya Angelou

I have learned in time to treat a company as a living organism that is always sick. Rarely did I see a company that was healthy. And once in a blue moon I got a chance to exchange a few words with it.

Why? Because it was moving so fast!

A healthy business organizational structure accepts only change and business innovation as normality. This acceptance is called organizational development.

Did you know that employees are not mindless robots, a resource that you can dispose of and quantify in a turnover rate statistics?

Of course you knew!

If you are an employer, you will tell it to the world … and do nothing about it.

… while there is nothing wrong with capitalism, there is something definitely mistaken if you do not understand that you lose money when your employees are not treated as your best clients. After all, they buy every day the worst merchandise there is: your desire of getting rich.

If you are an employee, you will tell it to your friends as an externalization of your frustrations at work.

… if you are not just hunting for a warm place to stay and get paid, you better stop complaining and start negotiating. Do not assume that you deserve anything. But be certain that you can negotiate anything.