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

Salespeople know the likelihood of closing a sale is small (less than 5%). Leaders understand the prospect of avoiding resistance during a project is unlikely (a 97% fail rate). Doctors realize the chances of patients following their suggestions are low (95% don’t follow doctor’s orders). Trainers are aware there’s a high probability (80-90%) their audience won’t retain what they’ve been taught.

Rationalizations make sense of the failures: it’s the buyer’s fault for not buying; the stakeholder’s fault for not wanting to change; the patient’s fault for not wanting to be healthy; the student’s fault for not being motivated to learn.

What if none of that were true? What if the models themselves were at fault and the industries merely build in their failure as the price of doing business rather than making a few small changes to achieve excellence?

DOING THE SAME THINGS EXPECTING DIFFERENT RESULTS

Each industry continues doing the same things they’ve always done regardless of the decades-long failure rates (Shouldn’t they be indicators? Isn’t that the definition of insanity?), blaming the Other rather than recognizing the inherent problems.

Globally, in learning institutions, corporations and consulting groups, people teach and apply the same problematic models and ideas that have been accepted through time and adopted as Truth, regardless of their failures.

I was horrified to learn recently that a man I dated decades ago has been teaching my original Facilitative Questions™ to his Harvard MBA students without license or training. I called him.

SD: But I never licensed you! Or taught you how to formulate them! They took me 10 years to invent and take days to learn!

A: I heard you use a couple of them. I figured out the rest myself.

SD: How does your interpretation get to the right neural circuits in the Listener’s brain to help them get to their source criteria for decision making?

A: WHAT? I don’t know anything about that. I just do it my way. They’re just questions.

SD: No, they do not gather information, nor are they based on curiosity. They’re brain-directed tools that make it possible to avoid automatic assumptions so people can quickly make criteria-based decisions.

A: I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal of this.

SD: Well, you’re using my IP, my coined and legally defined term to apply to a conventional practice (questions) that’s so biased there’s no way to capture good data or help anyone make a values-based decision. Not to mention you’re teaching future leaders the wrong thing!

A: They don’t know the difference.

This is how original ideas get quashed and perpetuated: stealing original ideas from the inventors, redefining and misusing them to fit standard thinking, and then propagating them regardless of the cost. And it gets normalized endlessly.

ORIGINAL IDEAS GET IGNORED

As an original thinker I invent, train, and write books on systemic change models that enable Others to discover their own, usually unconscious, answers – which they must do anyway as part of their decision making process.

My models include skills and ideas that run counter to standard thingking: Buyers don’t buy based on solutions (and selling doesn’t cause buying!); leaders overlook first-hand, accurate knowledge before goal setting when they fail to include all stakeholder’s voices, assuring resistance later. When docs forget that patients need a belief change before they modify behaviors, they’re setting up non-compliance. When training models offer content before participant’s brains can accurately translate it, they cannot retain new knowledge.

None of the current models have specific skills that enable Others to discover their own values-based answers and outputs. Rather, they’re rules- and culture-driven and fail to recognize the risks they instigate.

Change, after all, is a risk consideration: unless the risk of change is known and managed, unless the underlying values of the new match the original values, no change will occur: The risk of change must be lower than the risk of staying the same or the status quo prevails.

And standard thinking lacks the tools to guide Others – learners, buyers, clients, patients – to recognize and manage their risks, assuming instead that good information, stories, content, or explanations will provide the ‘proof’ to buy, learn, change.

WHERE STANDARD THINKING GETS IT WRONG

Standard thinking assumes ‘good’ or ‘rational’ information, delivered by someone with ‘credibility’ (a seller, a coach, a leader, a doc, a trainer) will convince and cause change. It doesn’t: information is needed only after a risk gets uncovered and managed, and after the values criteria are engaged. Otherwise there’s no way to know what information is needed.

Not only can there be no evaluation unless the risk is known, brains can’t easily understand content that doesn’t already exist within their historic brain circuitry: Due to the way brains listen, how they receive and translate incoming words/sound vibrations, what we think we hear is unwittingly translated according to what we’ve heard before – all but guaranteeing the status quo continues.

Obviously, this causes all incoming content – pitches, presentations, incentives, stories, and ‘rational’ explanations – to be misinterpreted when it goes against a listener’s history and beliefs.

Sample

CASE STUDIES

A Sales University

I had an unnerving experience in early 2000 that exemplifies how standard thinking prevails regardless of the possibility of adopting new ideas that have a better chance of success.

In the 1990s I keynoted at a sales university. Prior to my talk, I took the opportunity to listen to other speakers and sit in on workshops that taught standard sales models (how to place solutions and counter objections – the Sell Side). I never once heard mentioned the differences between selling and how buyers buy, a separate and unique values-based, risk-avoidance process all folks must go through before being willing to buy.

I must admit I was surprised. My book Selling with Integrity had been on the New York Times Business Bestseller’s list and the reason I was hired for the job. Given the number of copies the book sold I (naively) thought people were at least considering adding tools to first facilitate buying decisions to their selling activities.

Knowing I was fighting an uphill battle to change an industry that had been around since the Serpent convinced Eve to eat the apple, I carefully prepared my talk to at least inspire curiosity. I also spent my own money ($3,000, against my $5,000 pay!) to purchase hardcover books for the audience of 200 that I placed on each chair.

About 10 minutes into my talk, audience members began leaving. Because my ideas went against what they were being taught, and even though Buying Facilitation® would enhance their close rate substantially and instigate trust, they couldn’t even consider my ideas. By the end of my talk there were 9 people left in the audience. And every single one of my books was left on the chairs. Not one – not one – seller-in-training thought my book (free! a NYTimes Bestseller!) worth taking.

Dug in Leadership

Here’s another story:

I once sat next to a well-dressed young man on a flight to Seattle.

SD: You look very professional. I assume you’re going to meet a prospect?

Man: Yes. I’m hoping he likes me well enough to allow me to provide free services for two weeks in hopes they’ll hire me.

SD: So you’re using your body as a prospecting tool. What would you need to believe differently to be able to facilitate your prospect into choosing you without you working for 2 weeks without pay?

Man: You sound just like this book I just read! (My book, of course). She made a lot of sense.

SD: So why aren’t you using her suggestions?

Man: I gave my boss the book and told him I wanted to work with her to learn how to help buyers buy. He read it and told me she was crazy, that sales doesn’t work that way and not to use any of her ideas.

No, sales doesn’t work that way; facilitating buying decisions does. In both case studies, standard thinking prevailed, regardless of the cost.

Sample

WHEN IS IT TIME TO CHANGE?

It’s time we re-examine our assumption that our established models represent Truth.

Indeed, information is the last thing people need when deciding to make a change (see my 13 steps of change).

What needs to happen for standard thinking to evolve beyond current failed processes? When will sellers and leaders and doctors and trainers realize it’s their own models causing the failures – and maybe it’s time to consider adding new skills?

Is it really worth the cost of failure to continue doing what you’ve always done? Yes, it takes courage to do something different. But what’s the risk if you don’t?

______________________________

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 June 15th, 2026

Posted In: Communication

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During a day we make innumerable decisions. What should I eat for lunch? When should I go to the store? Should I complete this paperwork now? Or wait until after the meeting? We make these simple decisions quickly, effortlessly, using top-of- mind answers. But sometimes we must make consequential decisions that need some pondering.

Whatever we go through to get to our final end point, the process is often fraught with confusion, time delays, and unknown risk. To help you minimize these downsides when making important decisions, here are a few foundational elements:

Perspective: Have you collected the full data set necessary for resolution?
Criteria: What are the norms and values you must consider?
Goal: What is the specific goal you seek to achieve?
Risks: What are the threats to specific choices?
Steps: A replicable route to practical decision making.

I’ll take them one at a time.

PERSPECTIVE

One of the problems with decision making is the way your brain presents you with habituated responses. Like when you decide to go on a diet and unconsciously duplicate the patterns you used in previous (failed) diets, or when you stop at the same point when trying to learn a new hobby – again. So much of how we decide is ruled by our brain’s historic biases and restrictions.

To have as broad a range of options as possible with a minimum of bias and restriction, it’s necessary to consider the problem from different perspectives.

Ordinarily we automatically think our standard, familiar thoughts and unconsciously pose our standard, familiar questions to ourselves. I call this perspective Self. Self is our natural state, a largely unconscious idiosyncratic mix of physical, mental, emotional, unconscious and comfortable reactions and ideas. In Self we are the fish in the water.

From Self your decisions are based on your immediate world view – restricted by your momentary feelings, what’s going on in your life, and your history of managing similar issues.This is perfect for daily living. But for making consequential decisions it’s good to have as broad, and unbiased viewpoint as possible. For this you’ll need an expansive perspective that I call Observer/Witness.

Being in Observer offers more a conscious choice with a broader perspective and far less bias. You already do this, albeit unconsciously: the quick intake of breath telling you to be more alert and consider a new choice; that it’s time to go beyond your natural reaction, your standard thoughts and feelings.

You use Observer when raising children, like when your 2-year-old so creatively crayons the wall and you gently guide her to the coloring book but really want to scream ‘I JUST PAINTED THAT WALL!!!’. It’s when you’re fighting with a partner and take a step back to say, ‘Wait a minute. Let’s chill.’

In Observer, you notice a broader range of choices that weren’t visible from Self. They were always there, but not habituated like the more-used options. My book HOW? teaches how to do this.

Rule #1: Make important decisions from Observer to perceive a broad range of choices.

Sample

CRITERIA

Values and Beliefs – the basis of any decision making criteria – are the primary determinants for making important decisions as they defend and maintain who you are and what you stand for. Indeed, people often delay making a decision because they fear they’ll overlook something significant, because they don’t know the full set of risks involved.

From Observer you can consider the underlying values that must be maintained in the new decision. They’re often personal, although in team decision making the group must collaboratively agree to the values they want to maintain.

Here’s a personal tale of how my switch from Self to Observer converted my criteria to more authentic, less reactive values and a positive outcome.

A mythic row with a dear friend ended our relationship. He betrayed me! He lied! He broke my values-based criteria of honesty, of my ‘right to be respected!’ But as time passed I began to get a different perspective: I must love with ‘Ands’ not ‘Buts’. That meant (to me) I had to find a way to be in relationship. So I shifted my criteria (and Self perspective) from honesty and ‘right to be respected’ to my Observer perspective: ‘How do we love each other AND be respectful and honest?’ With this new criteria our relationship had a way forward.

Rule #2: Know the criteria you want to meet for your decision and write down some thoughts on what it will look like when it’s met.

GOALS

Goals often include specific target actions and a time limit for completion, and require a well-worded goal. So “I want to go on a diet to lose weight” becomes “I will do the research to find the best foods for my body to find and maintain its best weight.”

Goals must include details that can be evaluated or you run the risk of failure. The more specificity, the higher the possibility of success.

Rule #3: Set a goal using very specific words and expected results.

RISKS

All decisions carry some sort of risk. What risk are you willing to take? Are you willing to switch values? Are you willing to let go of people in your life? Relationships? Money?

Before making a final decision it’s important to know the risks involved in the change caused by the final outcome. Ask the people in any way involved in the final decision what the upsides/downsides are for them. Make sure you pose questions from Observer so you instill as little bias as possible. I’ve invented Facilitative Questions™ that lead to unconscious circuits where decision criteria are stored. Again, I teach them in HOW?.

Your final decision may not be able to address all risks but knowing them in advance is valuable for goal setting. Where there’s a chance the risks won’t be fully addressed, do as much advance work as possible to reduce the fallout.

Rule #4: before making a final decision, know the risks involved for the people, policies, values, etc.

STEPS

Often people begin seeking information too soon. I suggest you wait until you’ve determined the goals, risks, and criteria so you’ll have a more accurate foundation. Then:

Assemble all the elements involved: Know the goals, criteria, people and fall-out from each. Include gathering data (from Observer, to minimize bias) from the people who will be touched by your decision. While you might not be able to meet their criteria, you’ll at least have an idea of the risks.
Determine and manage the risks: Fully understand the distance between where you are now and where you will be once the decision is made. Will the same values prevail? Will jobs or situations be changed? How will this affect the status quo? How will you deal with any fallout?
Gather data: Once you know the risks, goals and criteria involved, gather supporting data (both internal and external) that ensures you’ve got the important elements covered and the risks managed best you can.
Weight the options: You’ll now have the information you need to understand the types of choices and risks. Go back to the drawing board. Get into Observer. Write down a hierarchy of criteria to meet and see how/where they match the options. Weight them according to risks and values. Know precisely the fallout.
Carry out the decision: make sure to personally manage any fallout.

And good luck! Should you require some team coaching to facilitate an important decision, please contact me: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

_____________

Sharon Drew Morgen June 1st, 2026

Posted In: Change Management, Communication

Remember when a person would answer a company phone? I found myself shocked recently when a live human answered. “Um, Hello?? Are you a real person?”

When we call a company these days we often get caught in one of those automated loops that lead us from one wrong person to another, from one long hold to another, ultimately landing us where we started, with no resolution, lots of frustration, and rage toward the company. Company websites aren’t any better: no way to connect except via links that either lead nowhere or never get responded to; chat bots that have no idea what you’re talking about and keep repeating perky phrases.

As a paying support customer, I once waited 13 hours for a promised ‘one-hour’ call-back from Best Buy to resolve an urgent technical problem. I went to sleep with the phone in my hand, waiting. When the call came at 3:00 A.M. (!) the tech started by asking me how I was. “I’m sleeping! It’s 3:00 in the morning and I’ve been waiting since 2:00 in the afternoon! And I still have my technical problem!” And he hung up on me. This was particularly egregious given I’d been forced to listen (for hours!) to Best Buy’s ‘hold’ jingle promoting fabulous customer service.

We’ve all learned to accept these indignities, to be ignored if we have a problem, to spend hours attempting to resolve a crisis caused by our purchase. And it’s getting worse.

CUSTOMERS DON’T SEEM TO MATTER

We’ve grown to hate our providers, and they don’t seem to care. But they should. We provide the income for their profit and salaries, certainly enough to hire employees to answer phones or help solve problems. In so many ways, hiring a human would be cheaper than the cost of the automation.

Gone are the days when customer service mattered, when three rings was the maximum number before phones had to be answered to keep customers from being frustrated. That doesn’t seem to matter anymore.

Companies now use only two criteria to interact with customers: Time and Cost. And because these companies may be sole providers in regional sectors or global behemoths, users have no choice but to remain customers.

Sadly, there’s no regulation on this, no way to reduce our monthly payment by the number of hours we spend on hold, or the number of problems we can’t get resolved. Until we form a Citizen’s Council, or there’s some sort of regulation – neither of which are likely – we’ll just have to suck it up. Nobody cares, no one is responsible, and no one pays for the problem except us.

What happened? How did our companies go from touting stellar customer service as a competitive advantage to computerizing all human interactions? How did companies decide to stop respecting the very people who keep them successful? Why have they been so willing to cause their customers to distrust them?

POSSIBLE CAUSES

We know what companies pay their ‘C’ level people, their profit margins and how much they pay (or not) in taxes. We know they can afford to hire customer support folks. But somewhere along the way customers became secondary. What’s going on? Is greed the only motivation these days? How did it become a ‘thing’ that customers don’t matter – except for their purchases?

Frankly, I have no way to think about this in an unbiased way. I’ve spent my life developing facilitation models that enable win/win and servant leadership, to respect each individual and engender trust. Making it difficult for the very folks you depend on to get the service they require goes against all my beliefs.

It might come from the momentum of ‘cheap’. Everything seems to require a low price tag, and money becomes the main criteria for choice. We don’t consider what happens when goods are reduced to a price tag, for doing ‘whatever it takes’ for price to be the sole choice criteria. We avert our eyes when we learn that companies use children as cheap labor or when they strip the environment to create cheap products.

We seem to want cheap even when price differentials convey value differentials. Someone once asked the price of my Buying Facilitation® training, a unique model I invented that uses mindbrain connections to help buyers generate their buying decisions. When I told him the price (thousands) he told me he could get ‘almost the same’ course at ATT for $49. I told him to take it 😊

Are we all implicated here? Is automated customer service the fallout from the search for cheap? How did we move away from scrupulous business practices, or good customer care as a competitive advantage? Why isn’t it a simple calculation that happy customers provide more revenue?

Somewhere in the past few years automation became the accepted corporate interface regardless of the toll on customers. And I can’t imagine that focus groups would chose automation and no-human-contact as a preference over being cared for by a human.

BEST PRACTICES

I have some ideas that might stop this nonsense. My favorite is that each call is answered by a representative who owns the problem to its conclusion. I suspect that when companies pay their own folks to sit on hold for hours only to get connected to the wrong department, they just might fix the problems. They don’t seem to respect a customer’s wasted time; maybe they might care when it’s their own time.

Here are my ideas:

Human beings will pick up customer service lines; site links will go to real support people who will respond within 12 hours.
The person who picks up the phone will own the problem.
Customer Care will be seen as a competitive advantage.
Companies will pay bonuses to reps who keep customers happy.
A vehicle – a YouTube Channel, for example – specifically for customers’ complaints. Their grievance gets calculated as a cost to the company, with a running tally of how much money the company owes its customers. At the end of a month the company gets sent a Grievance Bill with the proceeds going to charity.
An advertised day a month of “no shopping” in the companies who don’t serve customers adequately.

Sadly, the very people who sell us services have become adversaries. What do we need to do or say to have our needs met, our voices heard, our time respected? What do companies need to know, believe, or do differently to be willing to provide resources to handle incoming calls, or provide websites that offer support? What can any of us do to knock some sense into their heads?

Does anyone have better ideas that might help? God knows, I don’t.

________________________

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 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 May 25th, 2026

Posted In: Communication, Listening

Do you know how you end up doing what you do? How you make those quick, natural, unconscious decisions? Certainly, there’s pondering when you make ‘important’ decisions.

But what about those that don’t demand much thought, that you’ve done so many times and assume are suitable? Do you know how they affect others? The risks involved that remain unspoken but certainly color ongoing activity and relationships?

Unless you know the consequences of your (unconscious) decisions, you can’t know the risks you face.

I’d like to share a story of how unconscious choices have consequences and offer some ideas to have more conscious choice.

CASE STUDY

I mentor a wonderful company in India (Orchvate), led admirably by two visionary women (Panchali Banderjee and Geethanjali Ganapathy) that trains, places, and supervises neurodiverse people into Indian corporations. In a world where diversity, especially neurodiversity, is still not easily accepted in corporate environments, their important work provides both people and companies terrific services and opportunities.

One of my jobs has been to assist Orchvate in building a structure that’s less dependent upon the founders and more organized around growth, supervision, authenticity and servant-leadership.

After a recent monthly team meeting – our second, conceived to ensure all would be involved in cultivating a cohesive culture – I noticed leadership had failed to send out a ‘thanks for attending’ follow up notice.

I wrote Panchali reminding her to send a follow up with a cc to me. What I received was cut and dry – a great effort (to the point, professional, and practical) but lacked the kindness, support, acceptance and inclusion we were trying to engender.

I wondered how she decided to use those words and tone after all our discussions. Here was our conversation.

SD: How did you decide to write the note the way you did?

P: I didn’t decide.

SD: But you did. You chose the words and the tone. Everything we all do involves choosing some things over others.

P: I just wrote it. It was something I needed to do.

SD: Just because your decisions weren’t conscious didn’t mean you didn’t make decisions. You just made them unconsciously.

P: Oh! I never realized I needed different choices!

SD: Most leaders do the same thing – assume their natural choices are effective – without realizing there may be unintended consequences. Let’s figure out when you must make choices more consciously. Remember when you sat down to write this. What comes up?

P: That I needed to get it done.

SD: So this was a task, a DOing (the quantitative) rather than using it to connect authentically – a BEing (the qualitative)? Did you realize you omitted the way you usually speak from your heart that makes it so easy to connect with you?

P: I never consciously thought of it! It was a task. I realize now I tend to treat certain things as tasks to be done rather than moments of connection.

SD: So your DOing is a task orientation that excludes the BEing! Huh. Hopefully next team email will combine the two, maybe by using ‘kindness, authenticity, connection’ as your goal or task.

P: I could do that!

CONCLUSION

Choice. The essential element necessary to recognize the risks that emerge from unconscious decisions.

For those of you wanting to try generating decisions more consciously, here are some Facilitative Questions™ to help you going forward:

How will I know that something deserves my time to stop and deliberately consider my full range of choices before doing what comes naturally? To include both the DOing and the BEing where it’s appropriate?
How can I trigger myself to consider the unspoken – but real – risks that each communication from me produces, before I send anything out?
What new skills must I learn so my communications match our beliefs, to help the teams and supervisors incorporate them into their work?
What do I need to think of to remember to use qualitative words and include kindheartedness in my messages?

Panchali was initially unaware that her choices represented a risk to the changes we were instituting. But this problem isn’t hers alone. Most leaders respond to their tasks without conscious choice, certainly not realizing the consequences.

How will you know when you need additional choices beyond your automatic decisions to ensure you’re conveying the essential elements that will avoid risks and assure your best outcome?

______________________

Sharon Drew Morgen May 18th, 2026

Posted In: Communication, Listening

I have a bias. I believe that the job of a seller is to first facilitate the risk management stuff people must complete before the sales/solution placement process begins. After all, until people determine their risk of change and get buy-in from all involved, they cannot, will not, self-identify as prospects.

This factor alone is responsible for low close rates: sellers attempt to place solutions with people who haven’t yet determined they can buy, and the sales model doesn’t offer a way to facilitate the non-sales, cultural, change/risk-related buying decision issues.

First let me introduce myself. As an original thinker and inventor of systemic change models, I’ve been on the cutting edge of the sales industry since 1987 when I trained my first Buying Facilitation® course to KLM (Helping Buyers Buy); in 1997 my book Selling with Integrity was on the New York Times Business Bestseller’s list.

If you’re not familiar with my work, I target the Pre-Sales Buy Side, by leading people through the overlooked personal and idiosyncratic issues they must address before they can buy anything and the determinant of the length of the sales cycle. I’ve trained Buying Facilitation® to 100,000 sales folks globally with an average 40% close rate over the control groups that average 5.4%.

I’ve also kept pretty good company over the decades: David Sandler tried to buy me out before he died (He only offered $1million without residuals); Neil Rackham (Author Spin Selling but not the inventor of the SPIN model) kept telling me to direct my model to buyers instead of sellers; I spent an afternoon with P hil Kotler at Kellogg explaining Buying Facilitation®; Tony Alessandra and Zig Zigler were always ready to provide ideas.

These foundational sales thinkers were very aware, and respectful of my focus on facilitating the Buy Side decision issues before trying to sell. But in general, it’s been a long, hard slog getting the sales industry to think beyond placing solutions, seemingly denying its low close rate that could be greatly improved by first helping prospects understand and manage their unique risks involved with bringing something new into their status quo.

I tell you all this to provide the background for my tale. I’ve been adding tools, thinking, and books to the sales industry for decades yet continue to get pushback. So this opportunity offered me hope.

CASE STUDY

I was excited to meet K on LinkedIn, a woman placing clients into TEDEx speaker slots who seemingly wanted to represent me. Yes!

Shortly after our first contact she turned me over to Sara who immediately bought two of my books and began learning the differences between selling and facilitating buying. Or so I thought.

How smart she was! She seemingly understood my concepts quickly. “I find your ideas genuinely refreshing and think you deserve a broader audience. Your brain-change work, the listening without bias work, are ideas that would leave a room different than when it arrived.” Music to my ears. I was hooked, and very thankful. Finally! Someone who easily understood what I was doing without massive resistance. I certainly was a prospect.

Our correspondence went on for weeks. After she purchased Dirty Little Secrets. I suggested where to start reading to get the full flavor of the model, but she demurred. No, I’ll do it my way and start at the beginning, she said. Um…Ok! In retrospect, if she’d followed my suggestion she would have known how to sell to me!

Just a few emails in it became clear she wasn’t hearing me. When I told her I had several questions and needed a zoom call to clear things up, she declined my request. No, she said. I work on email but don’t worry, we’ll have no problem placing you!

Hmmm. Strange for a seller to ignore a prospect’s request, especially when I asked for a meeting. And her response missed the point entirely.

My doubts persisted when her responses continued to ignore me. When I told her I’d need to understand my own risks before hiring them, Sara again told me not to worry, I wasn’t at risk, that they only charged one fee upfront and promised to do whatever it took to get me on a stage, even if it took years.

Years?? And how could SHE understand my personal risks or quell my fears when she didn’t know what they were?

She was so busy pitching and trying to have ‘the answers’ she assumed I needed that she never asked me questions I needed answers to in order to resolve my doubts: What was their record in placing truly out-of-the-box ideas into mainstream markets? What’s their success rate?Which of my inventions would be best to get placed – my sales thinking? My change management models? My listening/bias ideas? Could they pinpoint specific markets – and how and how frequently did they track this to make necessary changes? Questions that would help me determine my risks to hiring them.

But I had no way to discuss any of this; her interpretations of my queries merely led to biased pitches that didn’t help me at all. She just didn’t understand the difference between selling and facilitating my buying decision process.

And worse, since she was reading Dirty Little Secrets that explained the steps involved in buying decisions, why didn’t she at least try to use some of the ideas she was learning rather than use standard sales methods?

Sample

The clincher was when Sara asked me to meet her boss R who would LOVE to meet me and gave me a link to a 30-minute Calendly. What? She wasn’t the salesperson? And 30 minutes was all we’d need to discuss strategy, ask/answer questions, etc.? I told Sara my concerns:

This seems like a typical relationship sale. Why not try to use Buying Facilitation®?
I don’t do 30 minute sessions. R and I couldn’t strategize, answer each other’s questions etc. in 30 minutes. Doesn’t R have to fully understand what I do so he can sell it?
What sales model are you using that takes so long to place a client?

Her responses were breezy, and ignored each of my specific points, again using my concerns as excuses to promote her solution: Don’t worry! You won’t have to explain anything to R! I’ll fill him in! You won’t need more than 30 minutes! You don’t have risks! We’ll do all the work!

What? Again I felt unheard and insulted. How could I buy from a group I don’t trust? This approach would work only if I’d been fantasizing that a magical vendor would show up with a guaranteed success rate (in a specific time frame), the precise skills, integrity and instantaneous knowledge of my work to represent/place my unique innovations into precise markets, and all I’d have to do was pay them. But none of that, of course, was the case.

I began thinking Sara was either an old-timey relationship salesperson who couldn’t tell the difference between what she wanted to sell and how I needed to buy (For goodness sakes she couldn’t even respond directly to my buying concerns!) or she was a bot.

I’m going with bot.

But it doesn’t matter: whoever I was speaking with demonstrated they weren’t the partner I needed.

It’s sad on two counts:

The sales industry STILL overlooks the need to facilitate Pre-Sales decision issues, those very issues that cause their low close rates and delayed sales cycles.
I liked Sara!

I was a buyer. I really needed this solution. But unfortunately, their sales techniques made it impossible for me to buy. I think I’ll give up trying to advocate for more effective models for the industry and let the Sara and bots of this world take over sales.

____________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen May 11th, 2026

Posted In: Communication

Image generated using Canva on: April 29, 2026.

Change is one of those business practices that remain problematic: Can resistance be avoided? Is it possible to acquire buy-in to achieve an easy rollout? Is there a scalable approach for Change Management that works for all industries and initiatives? Can the risks of change be known at the start of a project? Can implementation be trouble-free and sustainable?

Yes, to all. But current approaches begin with “Identify the problem” and overlook the essential earlier steps. Unless all relevant information is gathered from those most familiar with it, it’s not possible to accurately identify a problem. Unless or until

everyone with firsthand knowledge/regular experience of the problem shares their experiences and offers thoughts on possible solutions;
everyone understands and discerns ways to overcome any risks of change;
those who will use the new solution have a say in defining the goals/objectives

implementation, buy-in, resistance and risk problems may endanger success. Indeed, without including the relevant systems, a project might fail.

In this article I’ll lay out why systems are so vital in project/change work and why problems emerge when they’re overlooked. Let’s begin with a definition of systems.

CHANGE MUST BE SYSTEMIC

Since everything exists within a system, they’re the foundational factor in all change.

AI defines systems as a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent parts that function together as a whole to achieve a common purpose or goal, defined by its boundaries, structure, and the relationships between its components. [Italics mine]
I define a system as a group of ‘things’ that include the same rules and norms that have been agreed to.

As ubiquitous components, systems characterize cultures and countries, religions and choices. By defining what we believe, notice, act on, choose and how we behave, they regulate our lives. Families, relationships, egos, clothing and professional choices, how we choose our mates and hobbies – even the way we think and make assumptions – are all dictated by our personal system of beliefs, history, and experience.

An essential component of systems is their need for balance (Systems Congruence). Without stability, a system will be at risk and resist any change. And this is where standard change management and decision-making models fail.

With a focus on changing behaviors and without managing the underlying, normative systems involved, projects face time delays, unknown risks, resistance, and lack of buy-in. Let’s now take a look at how systems show up in companies.

SYSTEMS SEEK STABILITY

Each workplace is a unique representation of its underlying systems that designate

cultural norms and implicit rules,
hiring and management practices,
brand expression,
behavioral and communication standards
policy, expectations, dress codes, environment, and implicit norms.

Each company, each group, each person comprises unique systems, leading to great variety in behaviors, norms, and activities. Here’s an example from my own work history. In the 1980s, after working for years at Merrill Lynch – a staid, conservative international brokerage house – I took a job at a progressive brokerage house on Wall Street (run by the renegade Ray Dirks ) without dress codes. It advertised ‘penny stocks’ globally, taking orders 24/7 in all time zones. Whoever was in the office when a call came in (and LOTS of calls came in!) got the order. The company motto was posted everywhere: “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise”. I once showed up at 2:30 a.m. in my pajamas, SO different from the suits I wore at Merrill. Other brokers had figured out the system and were also there in the middle of the night dressed in various outfits (even a bathing suit once). And we all made a ton of money.

Obviously, the foundational systems define who gets hired, what gets done, and how people behave. And when these are ignored, any change or required implementation will be at risk.

Here’s a video of me teaching a group of System Dynamics folks the importance of helping clients understand and manage their systemic elements as part of an implementation:

WHAT PUTS CHANGE AT RISK?

To fix a problem successfully, to prompt change in a way it’s retained and accepted, it’s necessary to involve the entire system. Too often, leaders seek to gather information about, and focus the change only what they consider to be the problematic behaviors (reorganize, add departments, etc.) causing imbalance and disruption, putting the system at risk.

Indeed, what appears problematic was initially built into the system as a feature and has become habituated. Any attempt to change a problem without including, and getting agreement from the elements in the originating system that triggered it will cause an imbalance – or risk.

Addressing the systemic risk factors in any change initiative or decision is a vital component of success: A system will fight to maintain the status quo rather than face disruption, regardless of the need or the efficacy of the new solution. And the time it takes to manage and determine potential risks in any new decision is the length of time it takes to be successfully implemented.

I’m familiar with a troubled mid-sized media support company that’s closing 50% less than normal from their sales leads. Instead of assembling the sales force to hear their thoughts, problems and needs, the new CEO reorganized sales – new initiatives, payouts, departments, leadership – without including the very salespeople who were experiencing, and had knowledge of, the problem. Obviously, the sales folks rebelled and refused to comply (surprise!) with their new job titles, new reporting structure, new territories. As of this writing, several top producers have quit while most of the rest are seeking new jobs.

ELEMENTS IN SUCCESSFUL CHANGE

I’ve spent much of my working life inventing systemic change models that begin by including everyone’s voice to

share their (often first-hand) knowledge,
offer creative ideas to problem resolution that fit their specific needs,
highlight and brainstorm strategies to avoid risks,
discuss and set possible goals and outcomes

to ensure balance, buy-in, group-wide inclusion, creativity, and implementation.

I’ve developed a Change Facilitation model that uses 13 steps of change and quite different from standard change models, attaining successful results by including all systems elements upfront, assuring a risk-free change, buy-in, and no resistance.

Sample

Here are the main topics of the steps that must occur before goal setting. They must be used in this order, although they may be iterated: [Note: I’m happy to coach you through this on a group coaching call: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

Where are you?

People: without including ALL people who touch the current system/problem and are involved with the new, it’s impossible to

gather an accurate fact pattern or front-line/real-time knowledge,
define the current beliefs, norms, assumptions at the root of the problem,
recognize potential risks,
enlist buy-in,
avoid resistance.

If it’s a large company, there are certainly ways to get everyone’s voices represented.

Collaborative leadership: a top-down, leader-led, behavior-change-focused project excludes identifying the foundational beliefs, values, norms that have maintained balance and generated the problems to be solved, leading to resistance and risk.

Information gathering: with all voices included, it’s possible to gather the full fact pattern and engage ideas directly from the source. Otherwise, leaders use partial knowledge and assumptions to set goals without knowing the minefields they’ll find, often causing incongruence and risk.

Recognizing risk: with all data in hand and discussed, risks to the system (jobs, people, relationships etc.) become apparent and can be avoided and supervised beforehand.

What’s missing and why hasn’t it been fixed already?

Joint discussions, brainstorming, idea sharing, decision-making: unless all decent ideas are heard and discussed; unless all voices that touch the problem and are included in gathering, sharing, and developing ideas; until the problematic elements within the system have been identified there’s no way to understand the scope of the solution.

An essential start to any project must include recognizing how it got instigated so the underlying beliefs, policies, activities and assumptions can be reconsidered and reoriented. Example: If the rule is that customer service reps can spend no more than 4 minutes on a call, it’s difficult to reconsider customer services solutions.

What resources do we have to fix this?

Best fixes (workarounds) to avoid disruption: to ensure proposed fixes match the identified systemic factors, available resources must be considered first. It’s only when it’s determined by all that a problem can’t be fixed internally that an external solution (i.e. a purchase, a consultant) will be considered.

What are the risks of change to avoid too much disruption?

Understand and manage the risks of change: All voices of those who will be a part of a new solution must collaborate to understand and agree to the risks of change, understand how much disruption they’ll cause, and know how to mitigate them. Without knowing this in advance the project is likely face delays, garner resistance, and not enlist buy-in.

Problem identification/Goal setting

With everyone’s voices, ideas, information; with risks known and managed; with workarounds tried and rejected; it’s time to set goals (i.e. step 4, rather than step 1).

From here, standard change models can be used.

CONCLUSION

Change is far more complex than merely changing behaviors. After all, behaviors emerge from systems that have defined, approved, and maintained them and must be included for successful change without resistance.

I have invented a Change Facilitation model to ensure systemic buy-in and risk-avoidance. This will ensure projects will be on time and implemented throughout the group/company, with no resistance.

For groups wishing team coaching through the beginning of a project, or need help defining goals or getting buy-in once resistance has set in, let me help. Sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

________________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen May 4th, 2026

Posted In: News

I live on a floating home on the Columbia River, north Portland, OR, with an intimate connection to the river. I have three decks – one on the river side and two on the ‘lagoon’ side – from which I launch my kayak, welcome friends with boats, share a beer or two with visitors, sit and meditate in the early morning, swim.

My house has twenty 5’ tall windows that admit the light reflecting off the water year-round, so regardless of the season (the weather being unpredictable here in the Pacific Northwest), I have light all around me.

The weather is certainly a factor in our daily lives. Temperatures generally range from 40-80, with drizzle and rain much of December through March and occasional explosions of sunny days so we remember. Spring is variable, and mythically glorious in summer and fall.

It’s the end of April now and particularly warm for this time of year. Last week I sat with a book on the sparkly river as an occasional duck or goose swam by, some looking up to see if I had food. Feeding them means they’ll not only return for years but tell their kids and grandkids that I’m a mark. My neighbor Bob used to feed them daily. The day he missed, one spoiled goose went right up to his door, honking, honking, steadily honking, honking for an hour. I had to call Bob to come home and feed him to keep me from going crazy. Yesterday a sea lion swam by. Huge.

I assume the sun is considering returning full time. But not today; it’s raining again, for a change. And if I don’t look outside to see the wet decks and gray skies, I can remind myself that yes, really, it’s spring.

FLOWERS EMERGING

On my daily walks these days I see new flowers appearing. The floating homes have garden pots now budding with tulips and daffodils. The town houses across the street have carefully tended, creative, colorful, postage-size gardens: some wild, some manicured, some small Zen-scapes with stones and water features. Pretty.

Daphne and jasmine scent the air. The pink and magenta magnolia petals open wider daily to show off their different hues. And that purple ground cover – no idea what it is…maybe a type of lobelia? – is all over. Rose buds. Hyacinths. Pinks, purples, yellows, lavenders. Sweet explosions of color and smell. Spring is emerging.

People outside walking, leading leashed dogs that would much prefer to run free. Everyone smiling. Boats returning: Small boats, some with couples, families, dogs; party boats with music blaring, sometimes the bebop of Ella or Billie, sometimes (unfortunately for my ears) the thump of techno.

Paddle boards with young folks, small dogs on the front; kayakers floating in pods of friends. I do an early morning paddle before the river gets busy and let the downstream current carry me along as I listen to the birds and the silence. Feels like I’m in the arms of something Bigger. A moment out of life. A joy.

Yes, we’re on route to being sunny and warm and sparkly and vibrant for the next 6 months, emerging from our wet hibernation. And I’m delighted.

______________________________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen April 27th, 2026

Posted In: News

As managers, professors, speakers, and instructors you’re committed to getting your big ideas across, facilitating decision making, collaborating with students, inspiring creativity and sparking original ideas. But is your audience hearing what you intend to convey?

When I heard two highly intelligent people having a conversation in which neither were directly responding to each other (”Which door at the meeting hall should my friends pick me up?” “There’s parking near the bottom of the hill.”) I became curious. Were they hearing different things that caused disparate responses?

I spent the next 3 years studying how brains listen and writing a book on it (WHAT? Did you really say what I think I heard?). I ended up learning far more than I ever wanted to: like most people, I had assumed that when I carefully listened I could accurately hear someone’s intended message. I was wrong.

Sample

HOW BRAINS LISTEN

Turns out there’s no absolute correlation between what a Speaker says and what a Listener hears – a very unsatisfactory reality when our professions may be based on offering content that is meant to be understood and retained.

Sadly there’s a probability that your Listeners are not taking away what you’re saying. Recent studies have proven that Listeners only accurately hear no more than 35% of what’s been said. And it’s their brain’s fault.

Here’s my definition of listening:

Listening is an automatic, electrochemical, biological, mechanical, and physiological process during which spoken words, as meaningless puffs of air, eventually get translated into meaning by our existing neural circuitry, leaving us to understand some unknown fraction of what’s been said – and even this is biased by our existing knowledge.

In other words, listening is an automatic and mechanical process devoid of meaning – merely a transactional process. We can have no idea how a Listener’s brain has translated our content.

ELEMENTS OF HOW BRAINS ‘HEAR’

In case you want to understand the process, here are the steps brains perform when hearing spoken words.

A message (words, as puffs of air, initially without meaning) gets spoken and received as sound vibrations.
Dopamine, where our beliefs and values are stored, immediately processes incoming sound vibrations, deleting and filtering out some of them according to relevance to the Listener’s mental models.
What’s left gets sent to a CUE which turns the remaining vibrations into electrochemical signals.
The signals then get sent to the Central Executive Network (CEN) where they are dispatched to a ‘similar-enough’ neural circuit (among 100+ billion) for translation into meaning. Note: The preferred neural circuits that receive the signals are those most often used by the Listener, regardless of their precise relevance to what was said.
Upon arrival at these ‘similar-enough’ circuits, the brain discards any overage between the existing circuit and the incoming signals and fills in any perceived holes with ‘other’ signals from neighboring circuits.

What our brain tell us was said, i.e. what we ‘hear’, is a translation of whatever remains. So: several deletions, a few additions, and translation into meaning by circuits that already exist.

In other words, what we think we hear, what our brain tells us was said, is some rendition of what a Speaker intends to convey that gets biased by our own history – what we already know and believe – obviously restricting incoming content to what’s familiar.

The problem shows up in all our conversations but becomes even more challenging when imparting knowledge: neither the Speaker nor the Listener knows the distance between what was said and what was heard. Certainly both assume they’ve heard and been heard accurately.

I lost a business partner who believed I said something I would never have said. He not only didn’t believe me when I told him what I’d actually said, but he didn’t believe his wife who was standing with us at the time (“John. Sharon-Drew’s right! She never said that! I was right next to you!”). “You’re both lying to me! I heard it with my own ears!” and he stomped out of the room, never to speak to me again.

HOW TO CONFIRM OUR AUDIENCE HEARS US

What does that mean for those of us paid to provide information? It means we have no idea if some/all/few of the Listeners hear precisely what we are trying to convey. They might hear something similar or something vastly different. They may hear something quite comfortable or something that offends them. They may misinterpret a homework assignment or a project initiative. It means they may not retain what we’re offering.

To make sure your audience understands what you intend to share, you must take an extra step. Instead of merely assuming your good content or asking inspirational questions are heard as intended, you must assume you don’t know what they’ve heard, regardless of how carefully you’ve worded our message.

To realize what’s been heard and counter any errors I suggest you ask:

Can you each tell me what you heard me say?

You’ll be amazed at what the audience hears! Of course then you’ll be able to correct the errors.

LEARNING FACILITATION™

For those times you seek to impart permanent learning – say, in a training environment – and it’s important that your audience accurately understands and/or learns what you’re saying, I’ve developed a wholly new type of training model.

Learning Facilitation™ works with the brain first to bypass the historic circuits and generate new ones to accurately retrieve and maintain the new data.

It’s great for classroom training and can be amended for management groups and lecture halls.

Call me if you’re interested in learning how to design Learning Facilitation™ programs. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

_____________________

Sharon Drew Morgen April 20th, 2026

Posted In: Communication, Listening

As an original thinker, I think in systems or, as some systems thinkers say, ‘thinking in circles’. The main difference between systems thinkers and serial thinkers is the scope of what we notice.

Standard thinking is sequential. One idea follows the next and appears logical as per the person’s knowledge of the situation and similar experiences. It 1. restricts possible choices to the person’s assumptions, history and beliefs; 2. notices what’s deemed relevant; 3. may overlook factors that might enhance understanding or outcomes. Sequential thinkers have a relatively straight path to their outcomes and may not recognize the need to bring in additional data.

Many leaders are sequential (transactional) thinkers. When resolving a problem they may speak only to other leaders; consider actions based on intuition and available information; invite other leaders to create and deploy a solution they’ve developed amongst themselves.

Systems thinking is circular. Systems thinkers hear, think, notice a broad range of factors on many levels – data points, connections, relationships, juxtapositions, patterns, repetitions, gaps – simultaneously, making it possible to compile an expansive data set from a broad array of elements. With more good data to weigh, with more components available, there’s a high probably of more creativity, more choice, less risk, less resistance, more collaboration, more efficiency and a greater possibility of attaining excellence.

A systems thinking (relational) leader seeks out a broad scope of ideas and people to ensure inclusion and maximum understanding and creativity. To assure there’s collaboration, agreement, and acceptance, and to gather the full fact pattern, they assemble (representatives of) all job descriptions touching the problem and the solution; trial several workarounds; lead the group to discern if the risk of change is manageable; promote group buy-in to integrate the new solution.

I’ve developed a 13 Step model that facilitates systemic change and captures the full set of elements necessary for resistance free, easy to implement change.

WHAT SYSTEMS THINKERS DO

People at top of their fields, such as historic geniuses Steve Jobs, Nikola Tesla, Cezanne, incorporate the ‘whole’ – the entire system – within their choices. In modern sports, Roger Federer, Tiger Woods, and LeBron James are systems thinkers as well, employing the same comprehensive practices: They become one with the ball, their implement (racket, club), the court/course, their hands, their legs, their grip, etc. and continually (re)adjust their position according to their opponents. It’s all one system.

When Federer, Woods, James are not ‘one’ with all, they miss the shot. My son, a medaled Olympian at 3 Olympics (Nagano, Salt Lake, and Vancouver), says he excels when he’s ‘one’ with his system: his skis, the snow, the poles, his knees and boots, his arms, the gates, the run, the turns. Without all operating as one, he falls.

Here’s a breakdown of the systems artists think in while making a painting. They simultaneously:

see the paint, the canvas, the brush, the stroke, the color, the mental vision of what they’re painting, the emerging patterns and a shifting minds-eye visual as the picture emerges.
feel the emergence of the vision from their mental picture, the brush, the hardness of softness of how the brush meets the canvas, their hand/arm as they apply color to the canvas.
hear the whisk of the brush on the canvas, the creak of the floor or chair as they move toward and away from the canvas.

I believe that adding systems thinking to transactional activities will make results more efficient and their outcomes more successful, collaborative, and creative without resistance.

HOW DO BRAINS THINK?

Everyone naturally thinks in both systems and sequences at different times and for different reasons. Here’s a simplistic explanation of how we end up doing and thinking as we do.

We’re all restricted by how our brain stores our history. Everything we see, hear, feel is a translation from our existing neural circuitry and, by nature, subjective. In other words, what we understand, act on, notice, and even hear is something we’ve understood, acted on, and heard before. We do what we’ve always done, triggered by our automatic, mechanistic, meaningless, electrochemical brain. [Note: learning has a specific modality to generate wholly new neural circuits with new triggers. I’ve invented a Learning Facilitation™ model that generates new circuits.]

We actually know – and sense, and understand, and intuit – a lot more than we use due to the way our brain stores stuff.

Fun fact: our brains collect millions of bits of information PER HOUR and sends them whizzing around our 100 billion synapses as we make decisions, write reports, and turn on the dishwasher before going to bed!

Our conscious thoughts are a fraction of the full data set we’ve got stored in our unconscious. Sequential thinkers will likely access more of the automatic, habituated superhighways that carry our historic (biased, subjective) expressions. Systems thinkers make decisions from a broader fact pattern from the data stored in several parts of their brain and not automatically accessible, providing more elements and less bias in each decision.

Here’s the problem when we need to make a choice: due to our brain’s laziness, our standard thinking automatically triggers what we already know and what have become our assumptions and biases clearly restricting our choices.

Obviously we’d prefer the broadest range of data for decisions making. How, then, do we access our unconscious to retrieve more of what we’ve got stored? This is the question that has led me to my life’s work: developing models that employ systems as the foundational framing factor.

Using my systems-thinking brain, and with decades of research and study on where/how brains store our knowledge, thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and assumptions, I’ve developed decision facilitation models for Sales (Buying Facilitation®), Learning, Change, Leadership, and Coaching that enable Others to get to their trigger points (neural circuits) where their decisions emanate from and from where change must be triggered.

I’ve written a book on how I employ systems in my inventions:

Sample

HOW I THINK

For those interested in how my brain thinks in systems, here’s how I access data beyond my brain’s automatic choices. Maybe you do some of this naturally?

During conversations or when helping someone resolve a problem, several layers of data show up simultaneously as I listen:

I am detached (in Observer/witness/coach) from any outcome, making it possible to notice more and gather a broader scope of data with a minimally-biased brain.
I detect the underlying intent. A speaker initially offers a simplified version of a goal or problem, often unaware of the complete fact pattern. The ultimate goal is often unspoken, unknown, and unconscious until it’s fully uncovered. Too often sequential thinkers assume the initial disclosure is accurate; it’s where I begin accessing patterns.
I hear the underlying message which I call a metamessage. Again, this is largely unspoken – a belief, or bias that isn’t specifically mentioned but rules the entire interaction.
I can detect disparities, incongruences, between the metamessage and the stated (but often incomplete and possibly incongruent) intent. Too often, sequential thinkers only notice incongruences after they’ve become a problem.
I notice patterns, what occurs repeatedly. So if I see someone regularly taking action on a subset of data before uncovering the full data set (i.e. FIRE, excluding the ‘Ready, Aim…’), I assume that’s a typical behavior.
I can hear the underlying systems and assumptions that influence the goal. How did X become the ‘logical’ conclusion? Why is Y the response to Z?
The person’s tone, tempo, pitch, and affect point me to congruence or incongruence in their goal.
I notice word choices. How the chosen words correlate with the stated goals and problems lead me to underlying assumptions and where something’s missing.
I only attend to what’s relevant to understand the system. Neither details nor story line are relevant at the beginning.
I notice if a problem can be fixed from previous successful fixes. Note: among a brain’s 100 trillion synapses there are often existing neural circuits that were used successfully before. I always ask: ‘Have you successfully resolved this before? If so, what’s stopping you from using the same methods now?’ Otherwise I help them generate new neural circuits for a new solution.

Thinking in circles, I hear/notice all this simultaneously. When one of the factors doesn’t match the goal or intent, it lights up in my head telling me there’s an unresolved issue, or a systems problem.

Unfortunately, sequential thinkers often resolve problems in ‘logical’ steps and are surprised when they later discover the goal, as stated, is wrong, or they’ve gathered an incomplete set of problem factors, or not included all necessary stakeholders, or missed vital factors that conclude with failure or resistance.

I believe that anyone can add systems thinking to their standard thinking.

USE YOUR SYSTEMS THINKING

Thinking in systems provides a broader scope with which to think and plan. Beneficial for inspiration, resourcefulness, accuracy, unbiased responses, and creativity, for writers, artists, musicians, inventors and original thinkers to name a few. I also believe that corporate management, healthcare providers, coaches and trainers would benefit from an unbiased, broad, inclusive understanding of the entire scope of a situation. Of course listening without bias and posing non-biased questions are skill sets everyone needs.

For those times you need a bit of inspiration or seek a more complete outcome, it’s possible to add some systems thinking practices. Here’s an exercise to express your systems-thinking brain.

EXERCISE

Remember a time you considered making/creating something. Painting, knitting, whittling, woodworking. Let’s see if you can capture what you did in creation mode to see if any of your actions are worth adding to your current way of thinking. And grab a sheet of paper to write down your answers to the questions below.

To begin your project, you might have had pictures in your mind’s eye as you played with ideas. Maybe you made some sketches. Or just trialed different things knowing you’d fail a few times. You probably sat quietly to think and let your mind explore possibilities from all sides. Is this the right angle? What will adding this color do?

Notice how you’re thinking, how the ideas are emerging. Are they similar to things you’ve done before? Wholly new? Do they have sound? Colors? Can you feel any of them? How many different versions are showing up? How do you know which ideas are ‘good’ or relevant, which won’t work? How many different things did you come up with? How many of these did you try? How did you choose which ones were ‘good’ and which were ‘bad’? How did you notice what you needed to alter – did you feel it? See it? When did you decide you needed some additional research? How did you know you were finished? Did you complete? Why? Why not?

Now, what’s different about the way you thought of those things vs the way you go about resolving a problem? Is there anything you can add to your daily choices that would expand what you notice? What you consider? What you do?

I believe that all of us could benefit from systems thinking for activities that demand we show up with minimal bias. Listening to strangers, or people not in our general life path (i.e. unhoused people; elderly people; disabled people) without bias or judgment. Recognizing a problem that needs resolution. Making life decisions that affect others.

Try it. You’ll expand your world.

____________________

Sharon Drew Morgen April 13th, 2026

Posted In: News

Inconvenient Truths: how culture, assumptions, and standardization thwart change and new ideas, by Sharon-Drew Morgenby

I Learned About Systems as a Cocktail Waitress, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Making Important Decisions, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

The Cost of Automating Customer Care, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Are Your Unconscious Decisions Risking Excellence? by Sharon-Drew Morgen

I Wanted to Buy but the Seller Couldn’t Sell Me – or Was it a Bot?

Generating Successful Group Change Projects using Systems Thinking

It’s Spring on the River! by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Is Your Audience Hearing You Accurately? by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Thinking in Systems: the difference between sequential thinking and systems thinking, by Sharon-Drew Morgen