Whale Hunting Women

Women's Top Ten Talents for Doing Big Deals 

1. Listen. The more you listen the wiser you will become. Pay attention to what others have to say about their experience. Ask great questions and you will acquire priceless information.
2. Learn. Seek out expert advice, including advice from your kids and their peers, your parents and their peers, your competitors, your favorite gurus. Incessant new information requires that we take active steps to keep a pulse on what's new.
3. Teach. Offer your wisdom to younger and newer team members and to others who ask. We used to worry that sharing knowledge would make us replaceable--these days it makes us indispensable. Technology information alone doubles every two years, and we're educating people for jobs that don't exist yet.
4. Give. Kevin Kelly offered one of his new rules: "follow the free." What you give of value multiplies its outcomes in reputation, brand, and big deal success. Help your employees, customers, and supply chain partners achieve their goals.
5. Guide. There's no room for a "sink or swim" orientation for your team. Be a mentor. Strive to surround yourself with people better at what they do than you are. Celebrate their successes.
6. Negotiate. Keep the peace in your own village and seek peace outside. Yael Itzhaki of Tel Aviv University recently published a study in which she found that women were better negotiators than men--more compassionate and cooperative. Are we? I think we're socialized to that, so let's put it to the busines test.
7. Align. Great opportunities lurk in those spaces where your interests align with the interests of an associate, a competitor, a customer, a role model. Actively seek out those spaces and watch your succeess increase; the value chain in today's economy is priceless.
8. Empathize. Strive to understand how things look from the perspective of people who are very different from you. Hairstyles, body piercings and tatoos are fads-but social networking has "new world" written all over it.
9. Collaborate. Women are typically good collaborators. But we have to hone the skill to become both collaborative and nimble. Collaborations are important within your enterprise as well as outside. Many of your very biggest deals can only be accomplished through structured collaboration.
10. Embrace. In the U.S. we fight over issues like immigration, free trade, and outsourcing jobs to other countries. Yet we have a history of innovation that was built on all of those components. When you embrace the variety of talents and contrbutions that today's economy enables, you will be a very successful leader and deal maker.