Sharon Drew Morgen – What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard?

Direct Route to Communication Part 1 includes Listening, Brains/Change, Assumptions, and Risk.

QUESTIONS

For those who use questions as part of the Helping process, your questions may not be gleaning a full, or accurate, data set.

Many of us use questions to gather complete or accurate data, assuming

we formulate unbiased, targeted questions that will be heard as intended and provide good information;
our questions extract the information necessary for assessment and mutual comprehension or cause introspection;
Helper and client can accurately hear what the other says and means;
we need information to facilitate a client’s change;
clients need us to guide them when they’re stuck;
we’re not causing any risk to the client.

Like everything we say, standard questions are formulated and biased by the needs, goals, and assumptions of the Asker, making the above assumptions flawed:

standard questions are biased by our assumptions and goals and may not be heard as intended;
standard questions may not extract accurate or complete information;
standard questions get to the conscious mind, not to the unconscious, electrochemical neural circuits where values-based criteria are stored and where change/decision making are triggered;
neither Helper nor client can accurately hear/understand each other;
information doesn’t reorient a client’s unconscious;
because the presenting problematic issues come from the unconscious brain, neither client nor Helper know what’s at risk initially.

I’ve invented a wholly new form of question (Facilitative Question™) that alleviates these issues and are formulated in a very specific way to reach the specific neural circuits that hold the elements that will trigger the preferred change. They’re used with a 13 Step Change model that consciously gets to the unconscious for permanent change. I call them ‘brain directional’,

designed to find underlying systems, not gather information;
causing Listeners to get into a witness/meta state;
are posed using specific types of words and phrases in very specific sequences;
require a goal of discovery rather than assessment or understanding.

Here’s a simple comparison between a standard information gathering question:

Why do you wear your hair like that?

and one that leads the Listener to unconscious discovery:

How would you know if it were time to reconsider your hairstyle?

This Facilitative Question™ (FQ) might begin a sequence that leads the Listener to several neural circuits that encapsulate the systemic elements in a change decision. The FQ above captures elements in of the Listener’s system that must be included if they were to, say, have trouble deciding on a new ‘look’ – in this case, time, historic comparators, willingness to change, and a change in mental perspective.

While a simple example, it gives you an appreciation of the difference in skills needed to help clients get to their unconscious triggers: it overrides the conscious biases and gets directly to the unconscious.

My book HOW? has a 100-page chapter on how to formulate the FQs, or you can purchase a Learning Accelerator. Both will teach you how to switch Perceptual Positions, listen in Observer, understand the sequence brains take when generating activity and how to ensure the questions are formulated to match the sequence. They cut through bias and enable the brain to find the right circuits necessary to maintain Systems Congruence and achieve systemic buy-in for a new decision.

Sample

THE OLD AND THE NEW

When clients approach us to help them get unstuck , we assume

1. we must gather information to ’assess’ and understand their current situation. That’s certainly true when diagnosing illness or a car breakdown, or to identify a misunderstanding, for example. But

a. neither Helper nor client accurately hear each other,

b. standard questions can’t extract unbiased or complete information,

c. Information is the last thing needed in decision making,

d. clients don’t need us to understand their specific story details in order to make a change.

Clients have the elements necessary for new solutions stored amidst trillions of neural circuits in their brain and only need help finding them.

e. because we each have unique mental models (subjective) and listen through our brain’s subjectivity, outsiders cannot fully understand what’s going on as we can’t understand each other.

2. we have the tools, mindset, experience, and care to help clients resolve problems once we understand the goals and problems involved. Clients can understand their own issues, make their own assessments, and plan their own strategies when they find the values-based circuits that triggered their situation.

It’s possible to lead clients to the origination points in their brain that triggered the current problems and from which they can generate new values-based solutions.

3. our curiosity, expertise, and assumptions can uncover the issues causing the problem. Our queries and data gathering are directed at the conscious mind where information is stored and don’t get to the neural circuits in the unconscious where decision criteria reside.

All outputs (behaviors, choices) arise from neural circuits in the unconscious where our values-based criteria are stored, and not readily available to respond to direct questions that seek to extract historic information stored in the mind – and may not even be heard as intended.

4. our ultimate job is to facilitate permanent behavior change or congruent decision making in alignment with the client’s beliefs and values. We can’t help clients change their behaviors permanently by merely trying to help them change the outputs. We must help them generate new circuits that trigger new behaviors and contain the systemic elements to maintain Systems Congruence.

Once the origination points are discovered and modified, or new circuits generated, new behaviors emerge automatically.

Using this thinking our job transitions from understanding, assessing, assuming, or guiding to being real facilitators that lead clients to their unconscious circuits where the offending behaviors and choice originate so they can discover and design their own answers from the source.

HELP CLIENTS FIND THEIR ANSWERS

While I passionately believe it’s vital for clients to share thoughts, unwrap feelings and get feedback (Full disclosure: I spent 12 years in talk therapy, 15 years in group therapy, and have three NLP degrees – Practitioner, Master Prac, and Beyond) I now believe the portion of the change process dependent upon unconscious change can be shortened.

I suggest we need new tools: to listen differently (for systems, metamessages, patterns instead of information) to hear/recognize metamessages and the client’s systems, and new bias-free questions that and lead clients directly to their unconscious drivers (rather than remain in their conscious story-lines).

One of the most important elements necessary to facilitate change: choice in Perceptual Positions.

To accurately listen for metamessages and patterns, to avoid bias and restriction, to know where to place and formulate a question, we must move beyond our natural curiosity or assumptions.

A simple way to achieve this is to shift Perceptual Positions (moving between different viewpoints) from listen-for-understanding position to a coach/witness/meta position that offers a neutral, detached, less biased perspective. And I’ll stop here for a moment: I’m aware that different practices define ‘Self’ differently than I do. For this paper, I define Self as being in your natural, automatic, instinctive, unconscious viewpoint (Self), where we reside most of the time.

The Self viewpoint is where we hold our unconscious biases.

Self: subjective, automatic, natural, instinctive, unconscious, restricted, detailed, out-of-choice, (re)action/emotional, mind-based, content.

Sometimes we need a neutral way to listen that provides a offers a broader range of choice and options and makes conscious choice possible. If you’ve ever been with a small child who’s writing on a wall, you’ve made an automatic, unconscious, quick mental switch – from screaming (Self) to a more thoughtful (Observer) choice that would subvert the toddler to paper coloring instead of walls. I call this change of perceptual stance the Observer position. We all do it unconsciously, but I suggest it must be a conscious choice when working with clients. So:

Observer: objective, witness, broad range, rational, brain-based, minimal emotion, conscious choice, voluntary, meta, unbiased, neutral.

Listening from Observer seems to go around normal listening biases, and more accurately hear your client’s intended message. It also provides a broad, neutral view. And no, you won’t hear many details (from Observer you’re not listening for details/content anyway) but you’ll hear patterns, metamessages, underlying beliefs and assumptions where you both can recognize the where current choices were made and the underlying values necessary for proposed change.

I work with all of my clients and students while in the Observer position to avoid bias. Try it.

CONCLUSION

As you can see, our general Helping practices may not facilitate clients through to lasting change due to the way our brains process information:

We can’t understand each other and can only accurately hear a maximum of 35% of what’s said.
Our questions are biased by our own assumptions and goals and can’t extract accurate information.
We seek information from a client’s mind, and their change capability is in their brain.
It’s not possible to change behaviors by trying to change behaviors. For permanent behavior change, it’s necessary to generate new neural circuits in the brain.

While it’s possible our current models may eventually trigger new neural circuits, it’s not a certainty, it’s inefficient and it might be risky for them unconsciously.

For times when you are helping Others reach their best decisions or need help changing patterns, assume they have their own answers that are merely difficult to find amidst 100 trillion neural circuits where they’re currently stored. It’s far more effective to help folks find these circuits rather than conventional helping, or coaching techniques dependent on gathering, assessing, brainstorming information that has a high probability of being misinterpreted.

I teach skill sets for Helpers to lead clients to their offending neural circuits or generate new ones for permanent change. For those who merely want a quick fix, use these questions below – a mix of standard and Facilitative Questions™, as a guide.

Listen for systems, patterns, beliefs.
Listen from Observer.
Ask the following questions, in this specific sequence (although they may iterate):

a.  Where are you now?
b.  What’s stopping you from X?
c.   What would you need to know or believe differently to do X instead of Y?
d.  How would you know when it’s time to X?

Once clients have discovered where their presenting problems came from, they will need you to extract specific information as to what else is needed, brainstorm from the new revelations, deliver additional information and create an action plan. But by then, the client has already discovered their answers.

For those who want more detailed information or learn how to facilitate change from the unconscious triggers in the neural circuits, email me to either get more complete answers or take training. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com. For those of you who want to learn it on your own, get my book HOW? as it teaches how, specifically, to generate new circuits.

Remember: clients already have their own answers stored in difficult to find circuits among the 100 trillion in their brain. Your job is to help your clients find them. What would you need to believe differently to be willing to facilitate/enable an Other to define and discover the criteria they’d need to match to make a good decision?

For those interested in seeing this model in action, I presented a paper at the Columbia University Learning Ideas conference in 2024. Enjoy. https://tinyurl.com/45tsf

Part 1 includes Listening, Brains/Change, Assumptions, and Risk.

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If you’re enjoying these Monday Articles, please subscribe to make sure you get them delivered to your inbox on Monday morning. I use no cookies, they’re free, and I never use the database to market. As an original thinker I offer these to share out-of-the-box ideas as part of my life’s work. And I’m always eager to hear your thoughts and start a conversation: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com. Enjoy.

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Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen September 28th, 2026

Posted In: News

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AI has become integrated into our lives. I’m sure we will continue discussing whether it’s constructive or destructive for quite some time. Certainly it’s been a boon to science and medicine. But does AI squelch creativity? Plagiarize? Important discussions to have. Surely we’ve all benefited.

But to date, AI doesn’t enable a user’s brain to discover and apply their core values for personal decision making.

HOW VALUES-BASED DECISIONS ARE MADE

When people ask AI for advice, they’re largely provided with amalgams of historic information. But this doesn’t enable the neurochemical, very complex, values-based and largely unconscious decision process that would guide users to the:

- core values-criteria in their brain that
- form the unique, unconscious, and subjective outputs (actions, decisions, behaviors) that
- emerge when a mixture of the brain’s limbic system, prefrontal cortex, and dopamine
- cull choice criteria from the decision maker’s personal decision making that includes

o history

o mental models

o personal beliefs

o time comparators

o private assumptions

o norms/culture

- and represent the neural activities
- beyond external sources.

In other words, there’s a whole lotta neural processing that must occur before a personal change decision can be reached. For personal decisions such as

“Should I put my mom into a memory care center now?”

“My girlfriend lives near me so maybe I should choose a college near home, but the college I want to attend is across the country. How do I decide where to go to school?”

information doesn’t help, making generative AI a poor choice to facilitate a user’s subjective decision making.

In this paper I’ll simplistically lay out the explanations and elements needed for someone to make a values-based decision – a complex range of circuits and signals, history and processing, that reside within the unconscious and not dependent on information. This will explain the route AI would need to follow to develop a decision facilitation capability. This will explain the route AI would need to follow to develop a decision facilitation capability.

INFORMATION DOESN’T GENERATE PERSONAL DECISIONS

Simplistically, AI uses question prompts to extract information from LLMs. But information is needed in personal decision making only after the criterial portion of the decision is reached.

Don’t get me wrong. Information is vital once values-based criteria are in place. But providing information (from the conscious mind) before the neural work (in the unconscious brain) has been completed causes resistance – the reason sales pitches, leadership requests, coaching interactions face so much opposition: unless the Other’s beliefs, norms, history, assumptions are included, there’s a high probability the Other will resist change.

Decision making is largely unconscious and uniquely personal – a complex, systemic process that involves much neural organization. Until

the system (the full set of foundational elements – beliefs and mental models – that created and maintain the status quo) understands and agrees to the risk of doing/thinking anything different;
the system understands the full set of foundational elements that have mitigated the status quo and must be shifted;
the system understands its risk of change and knows how to manage it with minimal disruption;
the new is congruent with the core beliefs and values of the system;

no values-based decision will be made regardless of the need or the efficacy of the information. And the time it takes the decision maker to figure all this out is the length of time it takes to “come to a decision”.

To make a personal decision, people must align the presenting facts against their values-based criteria, biases, assumptions, emotions, reasoning approach, future needs, hopes and fears, then understand and manage risks, all before choosing the actions to take. Here’s my book on how to do this for coaching and change management situations.

Sample

WHAT IS A DECISION?

To choose a new action, to ensure any decision is congruent with the system and won’t cause disruption, personal and neural elements at the core of all values-based decisions must be managed:

Mind/brain: AI largely focuses on manipulating information for use in the conscious mind. But the brain (the unconscious) is where decision criteria are stored.

Misinterpreting incoming content: Due to the way brains ‘listen’, people only accurately understand 10-35% of the information offered. I wrote a book on this.

Managing the status quo: We are each comprised of several systems administered by our mechanical brain processes. New decisions threaten the status quo and must be approved by the system so it doesn’t feel at risk.

Repositioning/reevaluating belief hierarchy: Making a final decision involves a process of weighting values, history, assumptions, and cultural norms and comparing them against future gains/losses…a process unique to each individual and largely unconscious.

Comparators: All change/values-based decisions require comparing historic activity and the decisions that led to the status quo.

Once these have been addressed, the risk of change is deemed manageable, and the system feels congruent with the change, users are ready to make a decision and information is needed to provide details.

AI doesn’t address this yet.

A NEW FORM OF QUESTION

AI requires prompts to trigger answers. But the questions currently used prompt historic, amalgamated information and most likely don’t get to the unconscious elements in a user’s brain necessary for values-based decision making.

Although generative AI is set up to manipulate LLMs, it certainly could have a function that sequences and simulates neural processing and actually make values-based decisions quick and efficient for coaching, personal decision-making, customer support. AL Would need a rules-based capability that would lead users through their own neural circuitry.

In 1988, I read Roger Schank’s book Tell Me a Story that said the only way to find an answer that was tucked away in the brain was to pose a good question. But he never explained what a ‘good question’ was.

I had already recognized that questions are biased and assumptive and couldn’t understand how it could discover bias-free answers. I became intrigued by the possibility of generating a question that

had no biases, assumptions, or principles that would prejudice the answers;
would get to the specific, unconscious, neural circuits where values-based answers are stored.

As an original thinker, I then spent 10 years figuring out the elements involved to ensure personal decisions could be easily made:

the need for Responders to shift perceptual positions to minimize unconscious bias;
the sequence necessary for the Responder to discover their existing values, patterns, specific reference points;
the route to the specific neural circuits that held the values-based criteria to match a congruent answer;
the specific words, sequences, and sentence structures that would get to the specific neural circuits where values-based choice criteria could be found and managed for congruent, systemic change;
the ability to hear/recognize the next question to formulate to enable the listener’s (user’s) brain to take the next step in the multi-step decision-making sequence;
the specific hierarchy of decision criteria that lead to a values-based decision;

I eventually invented a new form of question (Facilitative Questions™ FQs) that is brain-directional and leads the Other, using specific words in specific sequences, to the specific neural circuits necessary to capture their personal, values-based decision criteria and cause congruent change and values-based decisions.

For AI to facilitate personal decisions, a rules-based FacilitationAI could prompt sequences of self-generated FQs. FacilitationAI can provide new capability for AI in:

sales
life/personal coaching;
personal/team decision making;
customer feedback.

I’m happy to discuss and provide examples in detail and discuss possibilities with interested AI developers. Please contact me to discuss. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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Sharon Drew Morgen September 14th, 2026

Posted In: Communication

With the best will in the world, with great leaders and well-intentioned methods, our projects are beset by time delays, lack of buy-in, and resistance. But it doesn’t have to be that way. With a few modifications, with the understanding that change involves systems management, we can avoid these problems altogether.

Change Management (CM) processes seek to modify something that has worked well-enough for some time and has been habituated into the daily norms. Unfortunately, these processes sometimes fail to incorporate the systems involved:

when change is approached without understanding the risks involved;
when leaders assume they know the problem without involving the voices of the folks with firsthand, in-depth knowledge of the day-to-day activities;
when folks with the closest association to the problems aren’t asked to offer ideas during goal setting;
when new activities are mandated to people who’ve had no voice in generating them;
without including specific implementation practices that incorporate the new into the full set of elements that define the culture;

projects may not proceed as intended. Too often leaders merely try to change behaviors without changing the underlying system that generated them.

CHANGE MUST INCLUDE THE WHOLE SYSTEM

A request for change represents a threat unless it’s accepted and conforms with the norms of the existing system. It’s not as simple as merely doing something different.

Unfortunately CM initiatives focus on altering the problematic behaviors/activity without ensuring the values, beliefs, norms and mental models of the existing system that generated them are addressed. But with a shift in thinking it’s possible to prevent resistance and encourage buy-in and new, creative ideas.

THE RISK OF CHANGE MUST BE IDENTIFIED

Before agreeing to any sort of change, and to ensure buy-in and implementation, it’s important to understand the systemic elements that must be addressed:

How will the new match the existing beliefs, values, norms, rules, routines? Are they compatible? Are the core beliefs/values of the group maintained?

How will daily tasks and working/reporting relationships change?

How are individual ego beliefs and job identity factors managed? Are the folks most affected by the new included in information gathering and goal setting at the beginning so they have input around their own (new) jobs? Do these folks get a voice in generating the goals and outputs for a new solution? In sharing their unique experiences to best understand the problem?

What must be relearned and in what time frame?

Will the new represent the output needed by those most affected? Have their voices been included from the beginning and have a say in the change process to avoid resistance? How will resistance be managed?

Unless there are answers to questions like these; unless the risk of the proposed change is known, understood, and managed; unless the stability, beliefs and norms of the system are agreed-upon and maintained by those with the greatest proximity to the solution, change becomes a threat to the system and folks will resist doing anything different.

THE STEPS OF CHANGE

In my work developing systemic change models for sales, leadership, change management and System Dynamics, I’ve unpacked 13 Steps of decision making and change, some of which must take place before a problem can be accurately diagnosed or the goal defined. Here are the main categories:

1. Where are you? What’s missing?

The voices of everyone who touches the existing problem and will be involved with the new solution must be heard from before the problem is defined or goals are set. Starting a project with partial information and flawed assumptions automatically triggers resistance and failure.

2. What caused and maintains the problem?

The originating system must recognize an incongruence and understand the risk of change or it won’t consider doing anything different, regardless of the need or efficacy of the solution. Since whatever is in place has been working well-enough for some time and a part of the system, it’s necessary to examine:

What is keeping this problem in place? (rules, beliefs, norms, activities, jobs, culture)
What has prevented this problem from being resolved already?
What beliefs/values/norms of the existing activity must be retained?
Is there anything we already have that might solve our problem if used differently?

3. Brainstorming

Brainstorming sessions to discuss ideal outcomes and the risks of each must take place before goal-setting and include the voices (or their representatives) of the folks familiar with the originating problem:

The foundational beliefs/values incorporated into the current activities that must be retained in the new;
Ideas for solutions from each department/working group;
Understanding the elements holding the old in place and what would change if it’s altered;
Understanding the risks to making, or not making, a change. Is the risk of change more/less than maintaining the status quo?
Possible solutions including potential workarounds) must include all voices and potential danger signs brainstormed.

4. Managing risk

The risk of change must be equal to or lower than the risk of staying the same. Change can’t proceed successfully unless the risk of change is understood and approved by all. Problems crop up:

Without a full complement of accurate data: flawed assumptions get made that will affect the long term success; goal-setting might be biased; resistance and time delays may result; unknown risks may cause inadequate buy-in.
unless the core beliefs and values of the company or team are factored in during goal setting.

5. Implementation

Implementation is a ‘how’, not a ‘what/why’:

What/Why are information focused; How is implementation focused.
What/Why are content based; How is systems based.
What/Why resides in the conscious mind; How gets generated from the unconscious brain.
What/Why captures information; How processes and manages risk.
What/Why is tactical; How is strategic.
What/Why requires information gathering and research; How requires buy-in and an understanding of the risk of change.

Too often CM practices focus on the rationale – the What and Why – behind a change and fail to understand the strategic nature (the How) of the change and how closely tied it is with the culture. If a system believes the risk of change is greater than the risk of staying the same, they will do nothing.

Sample

HOW TO VS WHAT/WHY TO

If you’re a leader or outside consultant helping clients through a CM initiative – a seller, consultant, System Dynamics practitioner, coach, OD consultant – remember: Change is strategic, not tactical.

I’ve invented a wholly new form of brain-directional question that works with the Stategic and the How to locate the origination point of the problem; a new form of listening that avoids bias; and a change model that includes 13 steps specifically designed to make it possible to define the proper goal, understand the risks, garner new ideas and buy-in, and implement.

Should you wish to learn the elements involved in systems management or help your team through the implementation process I’d love to support you. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen September 7th, 2026

Posted In: News

When I begin an on-site training program I start by saying:

“Hi everyone. I’m so happy we’re together! I’d like to begin with a warning: I use confusion as a teaching tool. Confusion is merely your brain not finding an existing circuit to accept new information. During the first day I will be keeping you in confusion a lot to make sure there’s a way to retain new knowledge to supplement what you already know. So when you’re confused, I’m SO happy!”

The participants laugh uncomfortably. But then it becomes a sort of gentle contest – who can be the MOST confused. Invariably someone says

“Sharon-Drew, you’ll be SO proud of me! I’m SOOOO confused!”

And everyone laughs together and claps in knowing agreement.

WHY IS CONFUSION DEEMED BAD?

I wonder why confusion is something to be avoided. Why do we all have to ‘know’ everything? Why can’t we delight in the mystery, the jumble, the dark moving spaces that bring that slight bit of discomfort, a touch of fear and dollop of curiosity?

When we think we ‘know’ something, it’s because we’re using circuits that already exist in our brains. Sadly, we assume what we ‘know’ is accurate, even if it ends up being inaccurate or biased; even if it means we dismiss new content that might be more accurate; even if it means we restrict learning anything new.

Old beliefs, previous knowledge, habits and assumptions become concretized over time, and new ideas become suspect because there’s no precedent for them even if the new ideas are more cogent. Our brains just love our status quo. Simple. Stable. Quick. Reality? No such thing.

How do new ideas get into the world when they’re contrary to existing myths and norms? Why isn’t ok to be confused and then curious to research, think, debate new ideas?

Entire fields remain committed to researching within the confines of perceived wisdom, even when they suspect, or when they’re known to be ineffective. How does something new enter if confusion, or the ‘unknown’, isn’t considered?

Remember flat earthers? What about radio waves? Did you know only a few of Cezanne’s paintings were purchased during his life? Or that it took 40 years after the invention of the telephone to begin broad use – using Morse Code instead? Are you aware that initially Bill Gates told his team that he wasn’t convinced the internet had value? Seriously.

LISTENING IS PART OF THE PROBLEM

One of the initiators of our confusion is the way words enter our brains to get translated. You see, when we hear someone speak, our brains don’t accurately translate what the speaker intends to communicate!

In fact, we end up accurately hearing a maximum of 35% of what a speaker intends, causing us to unwittingly revert to what we’ve heard before, making learning and retaining something new quite difficult. When we feel confusion, it’s an indication that our brain is having difficulty translating the incoming content. So confusion is a great indication we’re trying to learn.

Sample

I adore confusion. It means I’m creating new circuits. It means I’m learning!

WE COULD ALL USE A BIT OF CONFUSION

Our brains are the problem. Indeed, because of the way we subjectively interpret new ideas we end up restricting our lives. Indeed, everything, regardless of what science thinks, or what our spouses or bosses want us to believe is true, is a subjective interpretation!

What we read or enjoy; the colors we see and the words we hear; the friends and jobs and neighborhoods we choose; are restricted to the circuits that already exist in our brains – what we agree with and the worlds our brain circuits have created for us – obviously a carefully calibrated world view; obviously restricting a whole lotta world out there we don’t recognize or enjoy or share. We could all use a little confusion now and again.

To reconsider confusion, to learn, change, and be enriched, here are some questions:

What would you need to believe differently to be willing to rid yourself from some of your biases? Do you know which ones you’d be willing to part with? How do you know your answer isn’t biased?
How would you know that any confusion is worth the cost of ‘not knowing’ and being uncomfortable?
What issues come up for you when you face the prospect of being confused in an area you’re expert in?
Are there any areas of your life or work knowledge that you protect, that you prefer not to feel confusion around because you believe you have all the knowledge you need – and it’s accurate? Would you be willing to examine these to see if there is anything new to learn? Any areas for you to rethink?
Think of a topic, an idea that runs counter to your beliefs and spend time with it. No, really. Spend enough time to understand it, and know precisely how it differs from your beliefs. See if you can find any fragment in there that confuses you that you’d be willing to think about for a day or two.

We live our lives, work our jobs, vote and go to neighborhood meetings, accustomed to having an automatic answer, knowledge at the ready that has been vetted by our brains, accepted and comfortable. But to gain new knowledge, reconsider old opinions, mature your beliefs and self-asessments, you can create new circuits, and then have a whole new knowledge set.

All you need is some curiosity and the willingness to be confused for a bit of time. You’re worth it, no?
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Sharon Drew Morgen August 31st, 2026

Posted In: News

Before you close a sale, your prospect has work to do: before they self-identify as a buyer, or close a deal, they must figure out their risk of change and get buy-in from their stakeholders.

Unfortunately for sellers, because these tasks are cultural and idiosyncratic, they have nothing to do with selling per se, and aren’t affected in any way by the sales process. Sellers need a different goal and new facilitation tools to find and connect with potential prospects going through their Pre-Sales decisions that are beyond the scope of sales.

Indeed, the Buy Side and Sell Side are wholly different: one manages risk and change; one sells solutions.

Buying is a change/risk management problem (Buy Side) before it’s a solution choice (Sell Side) issue. By overlooking the (Buy Side) Buying Process and narrowing the search for buyers to those who’ll listen to product details or seem to have a ‘need’ (the Sell Side); by ignoring the necessary risks and change management that all potential buyers must address on the Buy Side; the sales industry overlooks the 80% of potential buyers who could use help managing their internal issues during their risk management and buy-in processes.

As a result, sales closes a small fraction of possible buyers, not to mention having a longer-than-necessary sales cycle the sales model overlooks the skills needed to facilitate the Buy Side, leaving as prospects address their internal issues privately.

I believe the field is using the wrong metric and chasing the wrong target (‘Need’). Not to mention missing the unique skills necessary to facilitate change.

Read Sample

LOOKING FOR PROSPECTS IN THE WRONG PLACE

People become buyers when they can’t resolve their own problems AND have buy-in for change AND can tolerate the risk of doing something different (a purchase); if the disruption, the change involved with bringing in something new/different is too high they’ll stay the same regardless of need or the efficacy of your solution..

People don’t want to buy anything, merely resolve a problem at the least risk to the system.

A ‘NEED’ FOCUS CAUSES FAILURE

A major problem for sellers is the criteria used to define a prospect: Need. But need is a flawed indicator. People buy when

stakeholders agree there’s a problem that needs resolving;
they’ve tried to resolve it and nothing worked;
they fully understand the risks – the cost – to the system and find them manageable;
everyone who will touch the final solution buys in.

Not only is it impossible for prospects to understand their full set of needs unless all of the above are completed, people can’t buy unless they understand the risk of change. Buying is not about their problem or the efficacy of your solution. Until or unless they’ve gone through all their change management st eps they are not buyers, regardless of what you think they need.

Remember: Selling doesn’t cause buying.

STEPS TO BUYING ARE CHANGE MANAGEMENT BASED

Until they realize they cannot fix the problem themselves AND everyone recognizes that the cost of the fix is less than the cost of staying the same, people will not buy. And when you don’t hear back, they’re not facing indecision: they’re merely involved in their change management process and not yet buyers.

Sellers can help would-be buyers traverse their Buy Side Buying Process before trying to sell. Otherwise you’re selling to the low hanging fruit, the 5% who have completed their internal process, rather than actively facilitating the 80% who need help managing their Buy Side process.

I’ve invented a Pre-Sales decision facilitation model called Buying Facilitation® that first seeks out folks on route to solving a problem my solution can resolve, facilitates them through assembling stakeholders, understanding risk and getting buy-in, and then uses the sales model to sell my solution. It’s an add-on to sales, and enables a 40% close rate instead of 5%.

Below I’ve included a few articles I’ve written on the subject. Go to www.sharon-drew.com, read the section Helping Buyers Buy, and go to the categories Sales, Buying Facilitation® in my blog section and start reading. Then contact me with questions: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com. I’ll teach you.

‘No Decision’ is not Indecision

What is Buying Facilitation® and What Sales Problem Does it Solve

The Real Buyer’s Journey: the reason selling doesn’t cause buying

How, Why, and When Buyers Buy

A View from the Buy Side

For those teams or individuals wishing to discuss Buying Facilitation® training, contact Sharon-Drew at: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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Sharon Drew Morgen August 24th, 2026

Posted In: News

Neurodiversity is now considered a variation of human experience rather than a disability. Indeed, 20% of the workforce is neurodiverse including 50% of sales and technology professionals. That means there’s a good chance there are neurodivergent (ND) employees working in your company. But you may not know who they are: 75% of ND employees avoid disclosure.

CREATING A SAFE PLACE FOR NEURODIVERSE EMPLOYEES

Historically, diversity, generally confined to as race and gender diversity and included in most hiring practices these days. Recently, standard practice is to specify inclusive hiring practices for neurodiverse people in their job specs and include requests for applicants to state their needs for the interviewing process.

But companies without specific neurodiversity hiring practices may not know the ND employees already working for them, making the problem of self-disclosure and individual support a big one for both the company and the employee: ND folks are often afraid of losing their jobs or facing discrimination if they self-disclose and, because there’s no structure for it, may not get the services they need to be as successful as they otherwise might be.

To find and serve these highly creative, hard-working individuals, to ensure they’re accepted and integrated, your company culture must embody inclusion so they’re accepted and integrated onto teams; given work that matches their unique skills; and get supervised by managers who know how to communicate with them – all areas fraught with obstacles unless there are accepted practices in place.

The question for the HR professional is: are you willing to create an inclusive workplace environment – a culture – that offer unique hiring methods? In which NDs are offered supervision or needed allowances? Can choose to self-disclose? In which communication practices are shared and discussed? Where everyone can learn from each other and thrive?

CULTURE CHANGE

ND people think, understand, act, and communicate differently from their neurotypical (NT) colleagues. And because they are in the minority it’s been left up to them to fit in – challenging since their needs may defy standard practices.

Creating a culture in which neurodiverse employees not only fit in but are active, successful, accepted members of the community takes work. It’s not merely doing a few things differently but having a commitment to an inclusive workplace where everyone thrives, welcomes diversity, and collaborates. It means a culture change.

TO DO’S

Here are some specific suggestions if you currently have no dedicated plan (or want to add to what you’re already doing):

Rethink hiring practices. Some neurodiverse people may be overwhelmed during standard interviews. Ask applicants to provide examples of their work on email; ask them how they’d like to communicate with interviewers.
Discover the barriers to inclusion within the company. You can use confidential surveys, questionnaires, suggestion boxes to gather information and suggestions from current ND employees, including what they would need from HR or their managers to have a safer, more comfortable situation so they can succeed. It’s a good idea to use a consultant to assist you with these as they know the best vocabulary and topics to include.

Doing this puts out a clear message to all employees that you’re taking ‘workplace inclusion’ seriously. And don’t forget to publish the findings from this outreach so everyone is working from the same fact pattern.

Inclusive communications. Employee communiques must be written clearly and directly with a visual component if possible. In written communiques there is sometimes a note at the bottom that invites anyone seeking clarification to contact the sender.
Internal campaigns: Begin running internal campaigns targeted to inclusion: stories from leaders about how they learned to be better at providing directions for their ND team members or what they learned from their ND employees; great ways to manage problems that might arise; or stories from disclosed NDs themselves on best practices for collaborating with colleagues. This not only provides stories for other leaders and folks with neurodiversity but plainly affirms the company’s dedication to inclusion.
Questionnaires: Send out questionnaires that request employees share what they need from management to be even more successful. Make sure they’re unmarked and unnamed so undisclosed NDs can respond without fear of discrimination.
Management training: bring in consulting firms (Orchvate https://www.orchvate.com/) that specialize in best practices (integration, sensitization, awareness) on communicating with NDs. These could also be taught by ND employees who have disclosed and are willing to share their personal knowledge. Btw the secondary gain here is that all your employees will communicate – collaborate, ideate, work – more successfully.
Time management training programs for all employees. This will naturally include ND folks but would be useful for all. ND folks have strict time issues – always on time, very organized to get stuff done on time, etc.
Physical issues: Neurodiverse people have a greater sensitivity to their surroundings – overhead lights, noise – than neurotypical folks and may have physical challenges that require flexible work arrangements and accommodations. Provide Quiet Spaces for anyone who needs them.
Advertise inclusive job opportunities in other departments: i.e.’ Seeking folks with strong pattern recognition, or great job for people who enjoy hyper focusing.’
Hold frequent discussions via intranet, bulletins, house organs written by NT staff about their resolved work challenges or great conversations.
Peer coaching: where possible, set up peer coaching relationships between self-disclosed ND folks and those who have not yet self-disclosed, or between managers who have ND employees and want to support and learn from each other, or…
Publish corporate guidelines on inclusion: by clearly stating in all corporate communiques that the company has a culture of inclusion, it becomes obvious to employees and potential hires that all are welcome, regardless of difference.

NDs may be overlooked and burned out – certainly not contributing fully. Doing this lets all employees know they must be more accepting and learn new skills.

These practices will generate trust: trust that the culture has changed; trust for NDs to self-disclose without discrimination; trust that the company values their input; trust that any existing problems will be resolved.

CONCLUSION

Neurodiverse employees offer great advantages. In addition to being loyal, hardworking, relentless, creative, and honest, they bring new points of view otherwise not considered that stimulate creative solutions and outside-the-box thinking,

Create a culture in which they want to work, and once employed, to thrive. Find those in your company and serve them. Generate a culture of inclusion and acceptance. Design hiring and outreach procedures that find people who would not only fit but be an asset.

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Sharon Drew Morgen August 17th, 2026

Posted In: Communication

We often make assumptions during our conversations about the meaning of what’s been said or sharing our best responses. But how accurate are they? I used to think that if I listened carefully I would accurately understand what was being said. I was wrong.

While researching my book What? I discovered that there’s a high probability we aren’t accurately understanding what we think we heard: due to the way ears ‘hear’ (not very well) we only accurately understand less than 35% of what’s been said.

Since our listening is subjective, and there’s a high probability we’ve misunderstood what’s been said, any assumptions we make must be subject to self-doubt.

Sample

Listening is a brain thing. Turns out we don’t have choice over how our brain (mis)translates incoming words:

We only retain words we hear for approximately 3 seconds, and since spoken words have no spaces between them, our brains must also listen for breaks in breath, tone, and rhythm to differentiate words and meaning.
Spoken words, as sound vibrations, go through several rounds of deletions and distortions on route to being translated into meaning in a neural circuit, causing a maximum of 35% accuracy in understanding what was intended.
Spoken words get translated by already-existing circuits for translation ensuring we ‘hear’ what we’ve already heard before, most likely misinterpreting the new content.

A simple example of this just happened today when I was introduced to someone:

Joe: Hey V. I’d like you to meet my friend Sharon-Drew.

V: Hi Sharon.

SDM: Actually, my first name is Sharon-Drew and I always use both names.

V: Oh. I don’t know anyone who calls themselves by their first name AND last name.

SDM: Neither do I.

V: But you just told me that’s how you refer to yourself!

Because she had no existing circuits for my double first name, her brain used an existing pathway and misinterpreted my name. Her assumptions overrode both Joe’s introduction and my correction.

This type of thing happens daily. We believe what our brain tells us, make follow-on assumptions then act on them, and never doubt ourselves. Unfortunately, because what we think we’ve heard may not be the Speaker’s intended message and our interpretation is inaccurate, we often assume we’re ‘right’ and end up being wrong.

ASSUMPTIONS RESTRICT AUTHENTIC COMMUNICATION

Brains are set up to routinize and habituate most of what we do and hear. It makes the flow of our daily activities and relationships easy.

But there is a downside: because our brain is mechanical, electrical, meaningless, unconscious and automatic, it doesn’t consider ‘meaning’ during the electrochemical process between a Speaker’s words and a Listener’s understanding and we end up making faulty assumptions.

Years ago, when I asked a magazine editor to correct the name Charlotte Morgan that appeared under my photo instead of my actual name, he replied (and I can’t make this stuff up!): “I didn’t get it wrong. You must have sent it to me wrong.” True story: he’d rather assume he got it right and I sent him an incorrect name instead of my actual name!

THE COST OF ASSUMING

Assumptions are a natural part of how we think. But especially in leadership situations, they can cause harm:

Sellers assume prospects are buyers when they ‘hear’ a ‘need’ based on their biased questions and end up wasting a huge amount of time chasing prospects who will never buy;
Consultants assume they know what a client needs from discussions with only a few top decision makers causing resistance to change when they implemented to people not included.
Decision scientists assume they gather accurate data from the people that hired them and discount important data held by employees lower down the management chain, inadvertently skewering the results and making implementation difficult;
Doctors, lawyers, dentists sometimes make flawed assumptions when they hear issues similar to other patients they’ve had potentially causing harm – especially when these assumptions keep them from finding out the real problems. They also offer important advice that clients/patients don’t heed when the patients themselves hear inaccurately;
Coaches assume clients mean something they are not really saying or skewering the focus of the conversation, ending up biasing the outcome by leading clients away from the real issues that never get resolved;
Influencers and leaders offer their solutions then blame the Other for resisting, ignoring, or sabotaging, when the assumed solution procures resistance.

To have more personal choice around when, how, if you make assumptions, ask yourself:

How do I know if my assumptions are accurate? And if they’re inaccurate, how will I know?
What would I need to believe differently to ‘assume’ I might not be correct, and be willing to ask clarifying questions to elicit accurate data?
What is making inaccurate assumptions costing me or those I’m speaking with?

Assumptions are costly when they’re inaccurate. How will you know the difference between accurate ones and faulty ones?

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Sharon Drew Morgen August 10th, 2026

Posted In: Listening

I live on a floating home on the Columbia River in North Portland, OR in the Columbia River Gorge. I get to be part of, and feel, the water on still days and experience the wind when it rocks my house during storms that blow through the Gorge. I actually live in nature. So different from living on a street!

On Sunday mornings in summer I sit on my deck with my coffee, a few feet from the river, watching the sun come up and listening to the dozens of different birds singing. Glorious.

This week I was given a special treat: after a flurry of splashy activity, I watched a family of five river otters emerge from under my house and jump onto my nextdoor neighbor’s deck. What fun they had playing, fighting, squealing and rolling around each other! In my 10 summers here, I’ve never actually seen them, although I’ve seen their footprints around my deck. Apparently there’s been a family of them under my house for years!

Minutes later a mother duck swam by with her 11 half-grown ducklings! Eleven! That means there were probably 13 in the original brood! And an hour later, I noticed a heron on the neighbor’s roof cleaning its wings.

Living here is always filled with surprises; I live in the middle of a ‘river walk’ of things that fly and swim: the fat beaver, sitting calmly munching a tree bark on the levee, fattening itself up for the winter. (I’ve wondered if it’s the same beaver that’s been munching the logs that hold up the dock near my deck!) Regular readers may remember Gwendolyn, the duck that came annually for 8 years to lay her eggs in one of my planters. Once I came home (I have a bad habit of leaving all my doors open in the summer) to find two geese enthroned comfortably on my two couches on the goose-down cushions (irony??). It took two neighbors to help me get them outside again as we chased them around the house. And for those of you who think geese are cute, think again: they hiss and spew and try to bite. But that was easier than getting out the swallows that made filthy nests in my eaves and threw their sick nestlings onto my deck for me to throw into the river to die. Or shutting up the goose that arrives at my neighbor’s door daily at 1:00 PM honking for a treat (so loud!). And I can fish for dinner (crawfish, perch, salmon, and sturgeon we must throw back) from my deck. I can tell when they’re running when I see the cormorants diving. Sea lions swim by in the spring, sometimes in pairs playing.

My fun isn’t only in the summer. This past winter I had weekly visits from Henry, a white/brown spotted mouse who I thought was cute until I realized Henrietta and the kids undoubtedly lived nearby. I then caught him in a living trap and brought it to a different part of the river so he could delight others. I must admit feeling guilty for leaving his family behind.

AUSTIN TEXAS AND TAOS N.M.

I’ve lived with nature in other cities as well. In Austin I had an off-grid weekend retreat about 20 miles from my downtown loft, relaxing except for the nasty armadillo whose sole job seemed to be to dig up my lawn. I wasn’t afraid of it, but I never knew what to do when I was confronted by the thick brown snake near my back door. With its raise head ready to pounce, we had many standoffs. He always won: not knowing if it was poisonous, I had to wait until he slithered away to get into the house. He was so much bigger than the water snake in my pond. And talk about my pond! I tried keeping it stocked with goldfish – but they were obviously providing dinner for somebody (The heron? The snake?). Thankfully, the adorable cottontail rabbit who lived under the gazebo didn’t dig up anything!

My biggest and scariest surprise was when I lived on a small ranch in Taos, N.M. (I even had a coy dog – half coyote! And was she smart!!!). One winter morning I opened my door and there, on my porch and six inches from my face, was a fully adult – HUGE!!! – bull!!! We looked at each other for a moment, and I quickly slammed the door and called my neighbor. ‘I think I have something that belongs to you’. “Oh dear,” he said. “I wondered where he went!”

I’ve lived in cities – London, New York, Austin, Boulder – and of course they were exciting and fun. But living with animals and trees, flowers and water, kayaking before work and hiking after work gives me the calm heart to do my writing and thinking. I’ve provided homes for otters, mice, snakes, ducks, swallows, river rats (!) and woodpeckers. They’ve enriched my life – and it’s all been a blessing.

__________________

Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including her new book HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change and decision making, the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell). Sharon-Drew coaches and consults with companies seeking out of the box remedies for congruent, servant-leader-based change in leadership, healthcare, and sales. Her award-winning blog carries original articles with new thinking, weekly. www.sharon-drew.com She can be reached at sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

Sharon Drew Morgen August 3rd, 2026

Posted In: News

In my 40 years of training and coaching sellers, coaches, doctors, leaders, and System Dynamics practitioners, I have never met anyone considering what’s happening on the other side.

Sellers offer content details as their primary tool but overlook the decision process and risk management issues buyers must navigate before buying;
Healthcare providers spout viewpoints and directions but overlook the internal belief change processes necessary for patients to make permanent changes;
Leaders lead from their ideas and assumptions but overlook the need to include and facilitate stakeholders to buy-in to values-based change to avoid risk and resistance;
Coaches pose questions from their own assumptions that fail to uncover the client’s unconscious values-based criteria necessary for change;
Trainers offer great content, but don’t address how learners hear or retain what’s been said;
Questioners formulate questions from guesses, needs and assumptions without understanding or considering the responder’s needs or reality.
Companies and retail stores only think about their bottom line and forget to account for customers.

Standard models assume that whatever Influencers share will be

– heard as intended,

– appropriate for the situation,

– accepted as fact,

– executed as specified.

But none of that is true: these one-way models generally:

fail to address the core choices and feelings, understanding and beliefs, management of personal and cultural risks and reactions that need to be addressed for real change;
don’t get heard accurately: due to the way incoming words are translated by the brain, people can’t accurately hear what was said. Filled with distortions and deletions, the brain’s ‘listening’ process causes people to accurately hear less than 35% of the intended message;
make it difficult to assess mutual understanding or acceptance;
are driven by the needs and assumptions of the Influencer and don’t get buy-in because all stakeholders aren’t represented.

Sample

RESPONDERS MUST BE INCLUDED

We forget the importance of giving Others their own agency. When new sellers are hired they’re taught details of their product – and overlook how buyers buy (the Buy Side addresses Pre-Sales, non-solution oriented change management issues). Coaches are taught to ‘actively listen’, and pose ‘powerful’ questions – but ignore their client’s sometimes unconscious risks of change (a separate calculation from the problem to be solved).

Trainers are taught instructional design and engagement methods – and don’t include how learners learn (a separate activity than acquiring new content). Doctors instruct patients on what they must do differently – and fail to account for a patient’s internal calculations for habit change (without which the instructions won’t be executed). Leaders form their goals from their own assumptions and fail to include the stakeholders (who then resist because they’ve been ignored).

Most influencers don’t even consider the ‘other side’. And when they fail, they blame the buyer, the client, the student, the patient forgetting that real communication is not one-sided but circular.

Indeed, when there’s only a Sender, there’s no way to know how or even if the Responder has understood, is confused, or is willing to make a change. When both Sender and Receiver are involved, problems, needs, resistances, areas of confusion, beliefs, fears, or understanding can emerge.

WE EACH LIVE IN DIFFERENT REALITIES

As outsiders we’ll never understand another’s unconscious, internal triggers – but we can help them find their own to make changes appropriate to their own beliefs.

I believe our job as Influencers is to guide Others through their own discovery and change process without perscriptives. Ultimately the end result will meet the Influencer’s objectives, but not necessarily conform with the Influencer’s suggestions.

Below is a great example of how it’s possible to enable Others to discover their own best values-based criteria to solve a problem where Influencers believe a change is needed – and how the doc’s directions actually kept his patient from discovering her own choice criteria and achieving her goals.

And note: this Change Facilitation process can be used in any profession, but it requires a different goal (facilitate Others to their own answers) and different skills (i.e. listening without bias, Facilitative Questions™ that get to specific internal triggers, etc.).

A PATIENT-LED CASE STUDY

Maria came to my house crying. Her doctor had told her she was borderline diabetic and needed to eat differently. He gave her a printed list of foods to eat and foods to avoid and sent her on her way. She tried to follow the list for months, lost some weight, but finally gave up and went back to her normal eating habits and gained back the weight. But she was fearful of dying from diabetes like her mother did. Apparently something beyond the fear of death was holding her back from changing her eating habits. She asked if I could help. Here was our exchange.

SDM: What has stopped you from following the doctor’s food choices?

Maria: I want to keep my family’s love. (Seems it was a highly valued criteria that surpassed death.)

SDM: I hear you’ve combined food and love.

Maria: Of course (A very strong belief that needed to be included for any change to occur.)

SDM: How are you currently using food in a way that causes love, and how does that affect your weight gain?

Maria: I make 150 tortillas each morning and hand them out to all my children and grandchildren who come by on their way to work and school in the morning. Then Joe and I eat the rest. My family loves my tortillas. I know they’re bad for me with all the lard in them, even though I eat them. But I get to see my whole family every day! When the doctor told me I can’t eat them anymore, it felt like he asked me to not love my family.

SDM: So I hear that handing out tortillas has kept you connected with your family. Since they’re unhealthy for you, is there any other way you can be connected through food without putting your health at risk?

Maria: Hmmmm… I could make them frittatas, but they’d take a lot longer. But I’ve got an idea…

Maria invited her entire family for dinner and told them she couldn’t make tortillas any more due to health reasons. She presented her daughter Sonia – the new Tortilla Tia – with her tortilla press outfitted with a big red bow, saying Sonia would be making their morning tortillas Monday through Thursday BUT to come by her house on Friday’s and she’d have frittatas for them.

This simple switch incorporated her idiosyncratic, and very real, need to link food and love, and begin a healthy eating plan AND meet her criterria to connect family love with food. It also inspired her to research food substitutions she could easily make to avoid a chronic illness. Eventually, she lost 40 pounds and had a food plan more closely aligned with what her doc suggested. And of course, she could still make her family happy with her food and meet her beliefs.

A DIFFERENT HAT

As you can see, entering the problem with a goal to enable Others to figure out their own route to change instead of trying to drive it with personal assumptions and instructions, and using a different curiosity and a different questioning system, it’s quite possible to guide people to discover their own best choices that are congruent with who they are.

Trusting Others have their own answer is core. But that means Influencers must be willing to forego their need to be right, give up their top down control, and trust Others have their own idiosyncratic and belief-based criteria for making a change.

We must be willing to go beyond our own side of the equation. With the high fail rate in each industry, I would think there’s a realization of the necessity to include Others in the calculation. After all, if buyers don’t buy, patients or clients don’t change, and resistance impedes success, we’ve failed at our job.

Seems to me we should be considering doing something different. If you’re interested in learning the Change Facilitation model and new questioning system, please contact me. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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Sharon Drew Morgen July 27th, 2026

Posted In: News

A Direct Route to Facilitating Permanent Change: a new approach to helping clients find their answers – Part Two, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

A Direct Route to Facilitating Permanent Change – Part One, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

AI’s Missing Piece: personal decision making is beyond information, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Project Management: How to reduce resistance, optimize buy-in, and ensure risk-free change, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

The Importance of Confusion, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

The Two Buying Processes: the Buy Side and the Sell Side, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Are you supporting the Neurodiverse Employees in Your Workplace? by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Assumptions: Why being right may be wrong, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Living in Nature

Selling, Coaching, Leadership, Training, and Healthcare Models Overlook Buyers, Clients, Stakeholders, Learners, and Patients, by Sharon-Drew Morgen