A New York taxi driver once told me to “go with the flow” as he transported me to a downtown hotel from the airport on my first trip to the city. It’s good advice in both the personal and the professional world.
In management or negotiations or business generally having a plan is great but being too rigid in following it may not be. A Prussian field marshall with the grand name of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder once said “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.”
But more than this the flow of events and interaction with others just naturally throws up new opportunities and perhaps a beneficial change of direction that had not even been contemplated. The American author and coach Tony Robbins recommends that you “Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.”
There is even an article, in wikihow, about How to Go With the Flow which suggests that Learning to go with the flow will help you deal with moments when things don’t go the way you planned. A person who knows how to go with the flow can adapt to any situation and still come out successful.
Thinking about it, most businesses benefit from flexibility in decision making as everything ultimately changes. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.Or staying with the classical for the moment All things change, nothing is extinguished. There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature; the ages themselves glide by in constant movement– the Roman poet Ovid.
There is even a book The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World by Michael Wheeler which is cited in this Harvard Blog. The author was interviewed and suggested that Negotiation cannot be scripted. Your goals may change during the course of negotiation, a little or a lot. Unexpected opportunities and obstacles may pop up.It also unexpectedly compares negotiation with music - Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis said, “The real power of jazz—and the innovation of jazz—is that a group of people can come together and create art, improvised art, and can negotiate their agendas with each other. And that negotiation is the art.”
As the Sun Tzu (545BC – 470BC) the Chinese general, military strategist, writer and philosopher advised “Don’t flail against the world, use it. Flexibility is the operative principle in the art of war”.
In management or negotiations or business generally having a plan is great but being too rigid in following it may not be. A Prussian field marshall with the grand name of Helmuth von Moltke the Elder once said “No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.”
But more than this the flow of events and interaction with others just naturally throws up new opportunities and perhaps a beneficial change of direction that had not even been contemplated. The American author and coach Tony Robbins recommends that you “Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach.”
There is even an article, in wikihow, about How to Go With the Flow which suggests that Learning to go with the flow will help you deal with moments when things don’t go the way you planned. A person who knows how to go with the flow can adapt to any situation and still come out successful.
Thinking about it, most businesses benefit from flexibility in decision making as everything ultimately changes. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said Everything flows and nothing abides, everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.Or staying with the classical for the moment All things change, nothing is extinguished. There is nothing in the whole world which is permanent. Everything flows onward; all things are brought into being with a changing nature; the ages themselves glide by in constant movement– the Roman poet Ovid.
There is even a book The Art of Negotiation: How to Improvise Agreement in a Chaotic World by Michael Wheeler which is cited in this Harvard Blog. The author was interviewed and suggested that Negotiation cannot be scripted. Your goals may change during the course of negotiation, a little or a lot. Unexpected opportunities and obstacles may pop up.It also unexpectedly compares negotiation with music - Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis said, “The real power of jazz—and the innovation of jazz—is that a group of people can come together and create art, improvised art, and can negotiate their agendas with each other. And that negotiation is the art.”
As the Sun Tzu (545BC – 470BC) the Chinese general, military strategist, writer and philosopher advised “Don’t flail against the world, use it. Flexibility is the operative principle in the art of war”.
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