Leoni McKeon is a world expert in the interpretation and usage of the 36 Strategies (derived from Sun Tzu, ‘The Art of War’). Like many people, when Leonie first read ‘The Art of War’, she questioned the relevance this had in the contemporary business world. While living in the Greater China Region, among the experts in negotiation, she realized that these strategies were the keys to strategic negotiation. Living away from Australia provided her with the awareness that most Western people have little understanding of how to negotiate strategically. Consequently, she has systematically unpicked each ancient strategy and identified modern-day examples to explain how the strategies can be used in the contemporary business world. Leonie shares the rules of ancient Chinese wisdom, which is the knowledge used by the best and most confident negotiators in the world. The 36 Strategies provide a comprehensive framework to enable high-level strategic thinking for negotiating in any business environment.
Leonie shares in this episode:
- Traveled through Israel, Turkey, and Egypt for a year and a half until the money ran out when she was in Hong Kong; where a chance encounter sent her to Taiwan where they could get work teaching English.
- Whilst staying in Taipei, there was no English spoken, so Leonie had to learn Mandarin and she stayed there for 4 years, practicing speaking and writing Mandarin during the day and teaching English at the night.
- After a while, Leonie moved to a more remote region where there was no English at all, which really helped Leonie’s Mandarin skills grow massively, so she was able to start importing clothes from Katmandu and sell them at night markets.
- Leonie started to travel over the whole country and started to understand that there were Mandarin accents, just like in Western cultures.
- How she earned a degree in Anthropology and Mandarin and started her first business to help people deal with China, and this business ran for 15 years and sold it to her senior team.
- How the 36 strategies from ‘The Art Of War’ changed her life, and how it is so fundamental to the Chinese culture.
- Leonie spent time with Chinese experts to really codify the 36 strategies for a modern-day business, and that led to workshops and keynote speaking.
- Leonie helps people understand these strategies through “Idioms” and has written a series of 6 books on the topic. “The Dao Of Negotiation Series”; a way of negotiating that increases collaboration and win/win
- How she has been able to have the books published internationally, including translation into German and Indonesian.
- A great example of how a business can use one of these strategies
- “Make a noise in the east, attack in the west” eg, if you are selling expensive real estate, you can focus on all the benefits, so the price becomes irrelevant.
- “Move from guest to host” – if you are the host, people don’t question what you do; they trust you. How do you move into the position of the host in your business?
- Her life-changing question:
Am I doing what I want to do? It is important to follow intuition more than overthinking things. Making decisions from intuition can create flexibility, and this is what led Leonie to travel, speak a new language and create successful businesses and a series of books. - How removing herself from her own environment allowed her to reflect on her environment and her life – and how that reflection helps Leonie learn new things to share with others.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Leonie@LeonieMcKeon.com
www.leoniemckeon.com
https://www.leoniemckeon.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/
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