No. 6 – 10 July 2024 – Read on DuxNotes.com – Free version
Recent work has had me focused on a few questions. I’ve been doing a lot of negotiation and a bunch of public speaking:
- How to negotiate well? It’s one thing if you’re negotiating for yourself, and another if it’s a large diverse group with a range of desires and constraints.
- Why does investing in space matter? I gave a talk last week on “space as a national mission” at Griffith University, and distilled it down to three points (see below).
- How to build a culture of candour and care. We need to be able to communicate well, tell the truth and take responsibility. A post on that is coming…
From DuxNotes
Beyond desires: understanding constraints in negotiation
Negotiation is about more than getting what you want.
Effective and efficient negotiators focus on finding and removing the things in the way of agreement. Some people love negotiating, while others hate it. Done well, it involves empathy, active listening, persuasion, and self-control. Despite all this, negotiations can still fail to achieve cooperation or desired outcomes, which can be frustrating and painful.
What can you do to negotiate better?
On failure and success
We all read the success stories, but there is more to learn from the tales of failure.
Why? The secret to success isn’t about not making mistakes. It’s about two things:
- Learning – mistakes are opportunities to learn, but learning requires understanding and change.
- Grit – you have to get up again when you fail, keep moving forward, but do things differently.
Experience is what you got when you didn’t get what you wanted. Good times teach only bad lessons: that investing is easy, that you know its secrets, and that you needn’t worry about risk. The most valuable lessons are learned in tough times.
Howard Marks, The Most Important Thing
Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill
Why should Australia invest in Space?
I’m leading the ELO2 Consortium designing a lunar rover for the Australian Space Agency. We’re in the running for a $42million grant from the Commonwealth, and a commonly asked question I get is: “why is Australia spending money on space”?
Here are three good reasons why Australia should invest in space:
- Every dollar spent on space is spent here on Earth, now. It creates new jobs, skills and experience that are the basis for exports and collaboration with international partners.
- Space research and engineering pushes the boundaries and enables new discoveries in almost every field of science, helping to advance Australia’s key industries.
- Space is integral to our economy and way of life today. It supports our standard of living, helps us stay connected to each other, and grows prosperity for future generations of Aussies.
On communication
How to communicate with candour and care. Balancing intellectual honesty and messy human emotions is hard, but Crocker’s Rules can help.
Hopefully you’ll find something useful in DuxNotes. And if you do, please share it.
#LetsLead
Thanks for coming along.
Ben.
PS. Drop me an email if you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear from you. ben.sorensen@gmail.com