Leadership Documents

Creating Leadership Documents

In business, documents usually fall into broad types: (1) correspondence (e-mails, memos, and letters) and (2) reports (including proposals, progress reviews performance reports, and chart packs). Leadership documents are correspondence and reports by which managers and executives assert their influence in a wide range of organizational settings.

Selecting the Most effective Communication Medium
As with any effective leadership communication, you need to clarify your purpose, analyze your audience, and develop a communication strategy before you put pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard to create a document.
These followings are written mediums:
- Text Message
- E-Mail
- Memo
- Letter
- Discussion Outline
- Chart Pack or Deck
- Reports
Each of these written mediums has advantages and disadvantages as well.

Creating Individual and Team Documents
Whether you are creating document alone or in collaboration with a team or other group, having some plan will help you be more productive and streamline the document creation process considerably.

Creating Individual Documents
Every person has own approach of creating documents. For example, some people work best from an outline, while others feel more comfortable using the idea mapping or brainstorming techniques. You should find the approach that works for you, but realize that you will be more productive if you follow some sort of step-by-step plan. Following exhibit provides a phased approach you might follow if working alone, from the first step to the final.
Individual Document Creation Process
Phase 1:
Analyzing and Planning
1. Clarify your purpose
2. Develop your 3. Analyze your audience strategy
4. Select your medium
5. Determine your key messages

Phase 2:
Creating and Developing
6. Decide on the best organization
7. Generate ideas
8. Gather data
9. Check for completeness
10. Double check your logic
11. Write a complete draft with headings

Phase 3:
Refining and Proofing
12. Reorganize, if necessary
13. Revise, cutting excess
14. Read the document aloud to check tone and flow
15. Print out and proofread the final version

Creating Team Documents
Leaders must often manage the process of document creation within a team setting. Without a plan, team document creation can involve extra work and result in a lower quality document.
Teams use one of two ways to divide the tasks: (1) on person on the team does all of the writing with others providing the content to the scribe (the single-scribe approach), or (2) the team divides the writing among the team members according to the sections for which they have provided most of the content (the multiple-writer approach).

Organizing the Content Coherently
To “cohere” means to hold together, which is what you want your documents to do. You want the pieces – paragraphs and sections – to conform to a systematic arrangement or plan that is logical and apparent to readers.

Organizing and Content
The logic of entire document, as that of each section, should be obvious to your readers. You want the logic to be so clear and the organization so tight that no one wonders, “Where did that come from?” Although they are useful references, too frequent use of the following expressions in a report may signal that the organization may need to be stronger: “As mentioned or discussed earlier,” “Returning to point A again,” or “In the previous section.”

Opening with Power
In your opening, most of the time you should begin strongly by quickly stating your main message, but let your analysis of your audience guide you.

Developing with Reason
You should aim for the same directness and brevity in the discussion or development section of your document as you do in your introduction.

Closing with Grace
Once you have taken your audience through your decision, you should end as quickly and directly as you began. A conclusion in a letter, memo, or e-mail should call for action, mention contact information or follow-up arrangements, anticipate any problems, and offer a courtesy closing.

The Nature of Negotiation
People negotiate all the time. Negotiation is not a process reserved only for skilled diplomat, top salesperson, or ardent advocate for organized labor; it is something that everyone does, almost everyday. Sometimes people negotiate for major things like a new job, other times for relatively minor things, such as who will wash the dishes. The structure and processes of negotiation are fundamentally the same about the minor things as they are about major things.
Negotiations occur for one of two reasons: (1) to create something new that neither party could do on his or her own, or (2) to resolve a problem or dispute between the parties.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A NEGOTIATION SITUATION
There are several characteristics common to all negotiation situations:
1) There are two or more parties – that is, two or more individuals, groups, or organizations.
2) There is a conflict of interests between parties.
3) Negotiations occur because the parties think they can get better results.
4) There is no system – no fixed or established set of rules or procedures – for resolving the conflict.
5) When we negotiate, we expect give and take. Successful negotiation involves the management of intangibles as well as the resolving of tangibles.

INTERDEPENDENCES
In negotiation, both parties need each other. A buyer cannot buy unless someone else sells, and vice versa. In other words the parties need each other in order to accomplish their goals. This situation of mutual dependency is called interdependence.

MUTUAL ADJUSTMENT
Interdependent relationships – those in which people are mutually dependent – are complex. Both parties know that they can influence the other’s outcomes and that their outcomes can, in turn, be influenced by other. The mutual adjustment continuous throughout the negotiation as both parties act to influence the other. It is important to recognize that negotiation is a process that transforms over time, and mutual adjustment is one of the key causes of the changes that occur during a negotiation.

APPLYING THE LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION FRAMEWORK

Leadership Communication starts with core communication skills, which are strategy development, effective writing and speaking. From these core communication skills, it moves out to the managerial communication skills, and then expands further to the communication capabilities included at the broader corporate communication ring.
Core Communication Skills
You always need to take a strategic approach to be master of leadership communication. So, you need to be able to structure and write effective simple and complex correspondence and documents, from e-mails and memos to proposals and reports. You need to be able to write and speak in the language expected of business leaders, language that clear, correct, and concise. In addition, you need to be able to create and deliver oral presentations confidently and persuasively, using graphics that contribute to delivering your messages. These are the capabilities at the core of all business communication. Success in managerial and corporate communication depends on mastering these core capabilities.
Managerial Communication Skills
Managerial communications skills build on the core skills. They are the capabilities that more directly involve managing others, from one-on-one contact to interacting with groups and the broader organization. They are the skills needed to interact with individuals and to manage groups. Managerial communication skills begin with emotional intelligence and cultural literacy. Although listening is a core skill in any rhetorical situation, because managing others effectively requires even greater attention to hearing what others say, not simply what we think we hear them say.
Corporate Communication Skills
Corporate communication involves expansion from the managerial skills to those abilities needed to lead an organization and address a broader community.

Introducing What Is Leadership Communication?

Before starting explore leadership communication, we should define “leaders.” Leaders are individuals who guide, direct, motivate, or inspire others. They influence others in an organization or in a community. They command others attention. They persuade others to follow them or pursue goals they define. They control situations. They improve the performance of groups and organizations. They get results. In the accepted sense of the word leaders lead people to achieve certain purposes.
The effective leadership depends on effective communication. Without effective communication, a manager is not an effective leader. In fact, being able to communicate effectively is what allows a manager to move into a leadership position.
Now, to define communication: Communication is the transmission of meaning from one person to another or to many people, whether verbally or nonverbally. Communication from one person to another is often called the “rhetorical situation,” which is commonly depicted as simple triangle consisting of the context, the sender, the message, and the receiver.
The sender would understand the context, and the audience (receiver), select the right medium, and send a clear message. The receiver would receive and understand that message exactly as the sender intended.
The goal of mastering all aspects of leadership communication is to move you as close as possible to the ideal of the rhetorical situation. Leadership communication necessitates anticipating all interruptions and interferences through audience analysis and then developing a communication strategy that controls the rhetorical situation and facilitates the effective transmission of your message. So what is leadership communication?

Leadership communication is the controlled, purposeful transfer of meaning by which leaders influence a single person, a group, an organization, or community. Leadership communication uses the full range of communication skills and resources to create and deliver messages that guide, direct, motivate, or inspire others to action.

BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement)

First of all we should know what negotiation is. Negotiation is the process where interested parties resolve disputes. This is the short definition written in Wikipedia.
To begin with, it is necessary to note, that we negotiate almost everyday of our lives. By negotiation we want to get an agreement which meets our interests and to reach the best results. But every of us has own BATNAs and that makes acceptance of negotiated agreements more difficult.
On the other hand our BATNAs protect us from accepting terms that are unfavorable for ourselves. In other words your BATNA is your insurance for any case. Even if you don’t reach any agreement, you can use your BATNA until negotiated agreement will be reached.
There are many examples which we can give to explain the importance of BATNA, but since I graduated in law, I want to compare negotiation with trial. We know that in a trial the more informed and prepared side wins the trial. So, you have to know the weaknesses of your opponent and improve your BATNA in order to obtain the best Results.
Finally, it is important to consider interests of another side. Because, if you don’t reach any agreement by negotiation, your dispute will might be solved in a trial.
I think a negotiation is the best way to obtain an agreement and the best results, and BATNA is the resource for a negotiation.