Going to the balcony

"Going to the balcony", as described by negotiation expert William Ury, refers to the idea of stepping back from an immediate situation in order to think more clearly and make an objective decision about how to move forward. It's like an observer going to the balcony to watch the events below.

It’s a wise thing to do during a tense negotiation, be it in a professional or a personal context. It's also a good practice to apply more generally.

We all at times get so caught up in our actions that we don't have enough time or energy left to consider if what we're doing is the best thing.

This probably happens to everyone with varying degrees of regularity, myself included. When work gets busy, I often spend so much time going through tasks that, by the time I've crossed enough of them off my list, much of the day has already passed and I'm too tired to objectively analyse how it’s been going.

A break always helps. It gives us time, and, importantly, energy. We need both to do the balcony exercise justice.

For various reasons, I haven’t taken any significant time off this year until just recently (hence my absence from this newsletter in the past few weeks).

Stepping back has enabled me to objectively “observe” that, although busy and at times chaotic, things have generally been going well and progressing in the right directions. This cleared up a lot of the general sense of stress that I had been feeling both consciously and very likely subconsciously.

Sometimes, the best thing we can do in order to arrive at the best outcomes is simply to take a break. That can come in the form of pausing a meeting that is steering off course, putting your phone on airplane mode and going for a walk after work, or, when possible, taking a few days off.

We tend to make better decisions when we are well rested and well disposed and sometimes, postponing a decision can be the best one to make in a tense moment.

The book by William Ury is called Getting Past No and it’s available on Amazon for those interested.

Before wrapping up, here’s a message from this week’s sponsor:

Until next week,

Cata