My Nugget a Day

In today's negotiation class, we were reminded that creating value and claiming value during negotiations are "opposed forces." The challenge is how to manage the natural tension between these two forces, each step of the way.

Source: Dunning, D., Griffin, D. W., Milojkovic, J. D., and Ross, L. The Overconfidence Effect in Social Prediction.

In the face of ambiguity, our tendency is to hold on to our "defaults." As such, ambiguous situations normally surface our biases, which may in turn affect our behavior. It is therefore incumbent upon us to be extra mindful and self-aware, before taking any action or exhibiting any behavior, in the face of uncertainty.

Point of reflection from my first JFK Forum: Obtaining legitimacy to do tough things is part of what makes tough things tough.

One challenge in the development field is the dissonance between those that design strategy and those that are expected to implement strategy. Because oftentimes those that design strategy - the so-called "experts" - are different from those who are expected to implement the strategy, the context within which implementers must act are not always accurately and comprehensively taken into consideration. The result are development strategies that are good in paper, but are not implementable on the ground.

Dissecting cases in class is still a removed, almost sanitized, way of confronting a problem. Since it is removed, confronting a real-world problem through a case does not capture some of the aspects that make solving problems tough in the real-world - such as emotional obstacles, which come with being immersed in a problem, that surround problem-solving.

The work of adaptive leadership is a challenging and oftentimes painful process. Practicing adaptive leadership, in the interest of producing something new, means parting with the old - the old which involved actors hold dear, esteem or benefit from.

Creating public value entails considering the needs of and working with a broader set of stakeholders. In easy situations, there are commonalities among the needs of the stakeholders. In tougher cases, needs are conflicting.

Harnessing power is as important a responsibility as questioning power. (at John F. Kennedy Memorial Park)