Positive Thinking and Perspective

Years ago two salesmen were sent by a shoe manufacturer to Africa to investigate and report back on market potential.The first salesman reported back, "There is no potential here - nobody wears shoes."The second salesman reported back, "There is massive potential here - nobody wears shoes."Always try to see the positive in a situation, maybe by adjusting your perspective.

The Pied Piper

I’ve been thinking and reading about successful negotiation this week, and I was reminded of the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlen, which shows us what happens when negotiations go wrong.  Much of a negotiated win-win deal is the building of a trusting relationship - break the trust and goodness knows what will happen!

In the year 1284 Hameln was besieged by rats. The citizens offered a rich reward to anyone who could rid them of the rats.  One day a man entered the town and accepted the offer. He was wearing a coat of many colored, bright cloth, for which reason he was called the Pied Piper. 

The man then took a small fife from his pocket and began to play a weird sort of tune. Rats and mice immediately came from every house and gathered around him. When he thought that he had them all he led them to the River where he walked into the water. All the rats followed him and drowned. Now that the citizens had been freed of their plague, they regretted having promised so much money, and, using all kinds of excuses, they only offered him a small part of the originally agreed amount. 

Finally he went away, bitter and angry. He returned on Saint John’s and Saint Paul’s Day early in the morning with a dreadful look on his face and wearing a strange red hat. He sounded his fife in the streets, but this time it wasn’t rats that came to him, but children. The swarm followed him, and he led them to a mountain, where he disappeared into a cave with them never to be seen again. Three children couldn’t keep up and didn’t go into the cave.  They were able to relay the story of what had happened to the adults.