Sharon Drew Morgen – Page 2 – What? Did You Really Say What I Think I Heard?

I recently got a call from a noted venture capitalist of healthcare apps.

DH: I heard you have a model that facilitates permanent behavior change. I wonder if it would work with any of the 15 healthcare apps I’ve invested in.

SD: I do have a model that does that. And it certainly could be used as a front end to conventional behavior change apps to enable users to develop permanent habits by developing neural circuits. What are you using now to help folks change behaviors permanently?

DH. Behavior Modification, but it doesn’t work. There’s no scientific evidence that it works and our analysis concurs. But there’s nothing else to use. Can you help?

It’s a known fact that Behavior Modification has a 3% success rate over time. Sure, people initially lose weight with a behavior-based plan to eat differently. Certainly people stop smoking or get to the gym for a few weeks. But because these new behaviors haven’t been accepted by, or made permanent in, the brain, they cannot succeed over time. And repeating the new in hopes that THIS time it will stick obviously doesn’t work.

Stay tuned for my new book: HOW? Generating new neural circuits for learning, behavior change, and decision making.

Sample

Permanent change is a very achievable goal. But we’re approaching the problem from the wrong angle. In this essay I will explain what a behavior is, what change is, how our brain governs them both, and introduce the steps needed to form habits. Believe it or not, it’s mechanical.

THE PROBLEM WITH BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION

Lately I’ve heard several Behavioral Scientists on the radio, all offering Behavior Modification techniques to habituate new behaviors by, well, habituating new behaviors. They ‘remove barriers’, suggest ‘momentum’, offer ‘promoting forces/restraining forces’, and propose ‘behavioral interventions’ such as keeping weights at your desk so you can ‘lift’ during Zoom calls. All meant to motivate behavior change – through behavior change. I suspect Einstein might have something to say about that.

The problem is the premise. Behavior Mod’s core assumptions are actually contrary to brain science. It assumes that by merely repeating (and repeating and repeating) new ways to accomplish something that’s been problematic, permanent change will result that can be maintained over time. But it doesn’t. And it can’t.

Certainly we’ve all tried. We’ve learned the hard way that we can’t lose weight permanently by trying to lose weight. Or stop smoking by trying to stop smoking. We promise ourselves we’ll be disciplined ‘this time’. But our discipline isn’t the problem. We have no circuits to translate our wishes into actions automatically. Our brain makes us fail.

DIFFERENT THINKING REQUIRED

The reason we fail is simple: we’re not making the necessary adjustments to the neural pathways that prompt behaviors to begin with.

I’ll start with an analogy. Let’s say you purchase a forward-moving robot, use it for a while, then decide you want it to move backward. You tell it why a ‘backwards’ functionality would enhance it, show it slides and presentations of other robots that move backwards, and attempt to push, cajole, and offer rewards. Nope. It won’t move backward. But if you program it differently, it will.

What about changing a chair into a table. You put red plastic into a machine that is programmed to spit out a red plastic chair. Once the chair is produced, you can’t make it a table. But you can create a table if you program the machine appropriately at the start.

Changing habits by trying to change habits is merely attempting to change the outcome – the output, the habit, the behavior, the robot, the chair – but failing to reprogram the brain with different instructions to create something new.

Sounds obvious. But that’s not what behaviorists do: the Behavior Mod approach suggests we get the robot to move backward by pushing it (and pushing it and pushing it) assuming the repetition will cause permanent change. As you know, it doesn’t work.

WHAT IS A BEHAVIOR?

To understand the full scope of the problem it’s helpful to understand what, exactly, a behavior is. They don’t just arise because we want them to. Behaviors are the output of our brain’s signaling system, the response to input instructions that travel as electrochemical signals down a fixed neural pathway and hook up with a set of circuits that translates the signals into something tangible.

Where do behaviors originate? Behaviors are Beliefs in action, physical representations of our core identity factors. Our politics represent our Beliefs. The way we dress, talk; the professions we choose; where we travel and who we marry. Everything we do represents who we are.

As the foundational factor in what we do and think, Beliefs must be factored in when considering change or forming a new habit. Current Behavior Mod approaches circumvent Beliefs and therein lie the problem.

There is actual science on how behaviors get generated and why we automatically repeat behaviors even when we don’t want to. Here’s a quote from noted Harvard neuroscientist Richard Masland in We Know It When We See It to set the stage:

Our brain has trillions of cell assemblies that fire together automatically. When anything incoming bears even some of the characteristics [of operational circuits], the brain automatically fires the same set of synapses [triggering the same behavior]. (pg 143).

Here’s a simplified version of how to convince the brain to make the changes that lead to new habits. It explains how behaviors occur and where change comes from. For a more complete explanation and tools to actually create new brain circuitry for change, watch for my new book HOW? coming out soon.

NEUROLOGICAL PATHWAY FROM INPUT TO OUTPUT

Generally, each behavior starts off as an input – an idea or command, thought or story – that enters our brain as a meaningless puff of air, an electrochemical vibration (a ‘message’). To keep us congruent, the input gets evaluated against our Mental Models and Beliefs before going further. Is this input a risk? Is it congruent with our values?

If the idea goes against who we are, it gets rejected or resisted. If the vibration is accepted, it gets turned into signals that then seek out (among our 100 trillion synapses) similar-enough circuits that translate them into action or output – a behavior. Specifically, our brains:

1. receive input vibrations (from conversations, thoughts, reading, ideas, internal commands) and
2. compare/test these against foundational Beliefs, norms, and history, after which they
3. get turned into signals that get
4. matched with the closest, ‘similar enough’ neural circuits
5. that translate them into output/action/behavior.

As you can see, whichever neural circuits receive the signals are the translators that determine what we hear, see, know, and do. Simply stated it looks like this:

Input -> Risk check -> Signal creation and Dispatch -> Output

The time it takes a message to go from an input to an output takes 5 one-hundredths of a second. It’s pretty automatic. And obviously, once an output, it can’t be changed. Change begins when initiated from the input.

THE NEED FOR VALUES-BASED CONGRUENCY

The next important piece is why repetition won’t cause new (permanent) habits. When a wholly new input enters, it requires a new relevancy check. Sadly – and the reason new activity fails when Behavior Mod is attempted – if anything tries to change the status quo without being checked for relevance, our brain discards the new input because it may carry risk! The new isn’t sustainable without new circuitry.

When we try to create new habits by merely ‘doing’ new behaviors without sending new and different input instructions we cannot generate permanent change because there are no new circuits to administer it!

The good news is that the brain is always willing to create new circuits for new behaviors. It’s called Neurogenesis.

CREATING NEW PROGRAMMING, NEW SIGNALS, NEW BEHAVIORS

To change behaviors permanently, start with new input messages:

1. - create a new belief-based input/message that
  - generates new signals which
  - create or discover a different arrangement of circuits
  - which translate them into new/different behaviors.

I’ll explain with a story. A friend said, “I’ve been telling myself I’m a Fat Cow recently. That means it’s time for me to go on another diet.” Obviously this input would lead her to the same circuits (and results) that it used for past diets that she failed at. But if she changed her input signal and told herself instead:

‘I am a healthy person who will research best nutrition choices for my body type and lifestyle and have the discipline to eat the best foods for the rest of my life.’

she would end up with a different set of circuits and different output/behaviors.

Our outputs, our behaviors, are merely responses to inputs that our brain has checked out as congruent with who we are. So one way to change a behavior is to change the incoming messaging to one that is Belief-based and takes into account all the elements (Mental Models, history, norms, experience) that might cause risk to the system. Once it’s approved, it will automatically generate new circuits and new, habituated, behaviors.

My new book How? Generating new neural pathways for learning, behavior change, and decision making, will teach you several models to formulate the neural circuits you need to help you change habits permanently.

I am passionately interested in enabling people to consciously design new signaling instructions for their brains to output any new habits they seek. My wish is to work with healthcare providers and apps for exercise, healthy eating, meditation and decision making to aid folks seeking to achieve greater health and success.

If you want to collaborate, or have questions, contact me to discuss ways we can engage those seeking permanent change. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

_______________________

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 8th, 2025

Posted In: Change Management, Communication

I’ve trained about 100,000 sales professionals globally. Before we begin, I ask them what training they receive as their sales job begins. They all say ‘Product knowledge.’ When I ask them if they know how their buyers are buying, they don’t even understand the question.

In my 40 years of teaching Buying Facilitation®, I’ve never met a sales person who knows their buyer’s buying decision process. And yet this is where, how, and why buyers eventually buy. By ignoring this, sellers reduce their close rate dramatically.

SALES STARTS TOO SOON

Sales and marketing direct their efforts on placing solutions, offering prospects great content, engaging graphics, and loyal customer reviews. And it works – 5% of the time.

What’s going on the other 95%? Well, those folks don’t need your solution details. Not at first anyway.

Before people self-identify as buyers, they have work to do: they try workarounds, manage their risk of change and get buy-in to do anything differently. Until then they have no interest in the information you offer.

In other words, your pitches, illustrations, and reviews will only be beneficial for people at the very end of their buying decision path. And that’s where you’re starting!

WHEN DO PEOPLE BUY?

People only buy when:

There are no available workarounds;
The risk of change is less than their risk of staying the same;
The folks who will use the new solution agree to the change and have comfort learning how to use the new solution.

Buying is a change management problem before it’s a solution choice issue. Until people understand their risk of change, and until users buy-in to doing anything different, they will not buy regardless of what you’re selling or what they need.

Before people are ready to buy they must have these questions answered: How can they resolve their problem with the least disruption? Can a new solution fit with existing software and minimal training? How can the group generate buy-in so there’s no resistance? Who will supervise the implementation of the new solution over time?

In other words, until they have all their ducks in a row, people cannot self-identify as buyers and will ignore and rebuff your efforts.

I’m sure you know this. Hundreds of articles have been written on the 70% that goes on behind the scenes. So why aren’t you addressing this portion of the buying decision journey?

Even people who theoretically are great prospects can’t consider buying if the risk to their system, their culture, is too high, or if users won’t use it. They certainly cannot define their need until they do so.

I would think the low close rate would tell you there’s a problem with what you’re doing. My goodness, you wouldn’t even go to a hairdresser with a 5% success rate. You certainly wouldn’t get on a plane. Yet you continue to assume your solution will rule the day and base your entire approach on placing your solution. Facts tell you otherwise, and yet you ignore them.

Your solution is the last thing people need. Why not first help them with the backend work they must do anyway? Why not add some new tools and begin with a Change Management, or a Risk Management focus and help them first – and then they’ll already be working with you when they’re ready to buy? To do this, you’ll need to stop selling until they’re ready.

SELLING DOESN’T CAUSE BUYING

The question becomes: would you rather sell or have someone buy? You know the answer – but you’re acting as if the only process you need is selling….which ignores all but 5% of those those folks who will buy but aren’t ready. BTW these folks can easily be made ready! You can help them, decrease your sales cycle by one half, and close 40% from first call. But it requires a wholly different toolkit.

Sales is a Stage 2 model. First, Stage 1: facilitate buying (check out my Buying Facilitation® model). Then Stage 2: sell. To facilitate buying, you must:

change your outreach to seek folks in the process of solving a problem your solution can fix. You’ll need to ask different questions to find folks on their problem-solving journey; listen differently to hear where they are in their journey, then help them through their change process. With a ‘need’ focus you’re merely posing biased questions and listening for an opening to pitch into. How many thousands of names have you thrown away – real prospects! – because they were still in their problem-solving phase and not yet ready?

o Rule: until people have gone through their entire risk- and change management process, they don’t even have a complete understanding of their need!

o Rule: don’t begin by seeking folks with need. Begin by seeking people on route to fixing a problem your solution can resolve and help them manage their change.

put your solution knowledge on the back burner until you’ve helped people figure out their risk and change issues.

o Rule: you need a wholly different skill set to facilitate buying. Currently you’re only listening and posing questions so you can hear an opening to pitch into.

seek people who WILL become prospects/buyers once they’ve got all their ducks in a row. Now you’re merely guessing who is a prospect (i.e. the 5% close rate should make that obvious).

o Rule: People cannot buy until they’ve figured out how to solve a problem with minimal disruption. Help them do this first.

facilitate prospective buyers through their change/risk management before trying to sell. They’re doing it without you as you wait.

o Rule: People are now abusing your time to pull knowledge they can use to solve their own problem without you. Provide product information AFTER they’ve clearly defined their need.

There are 13 steps to any change process. Sales enters at the last 3 steps and seeks that small percentage of people who have completed their change process. This ignores the bulk of the buying decision journey – real prospects who you could quickly facilitate through their decisions to a close – to find those at the end.

Why not put on a Buying Facilitation® hat first, seek folks during their change and risk management processes; facilitate them through their change decisions, buy-in, and risk management; and then you’ll find real prospects on the first call and stop wasting time trying to convince people who just aren’t ready yet.

For those sellers interested in closing more and willing to learn new skills, I’d love to teach you Buying Facilitation®. Contact me: sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com.

________________________

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 1st, 2025

Posted In: Sales

I used to assume that what I hear someone say is an accurate interpretation of what they mean. My assumption was wrong; what I think I hear has a good chance of being inaccurate, regardless of how intently I listen. But it’s not my fault.

During the years I spent reading, thinking, and researching for my book (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?) on closing the gap between what’s said and what’s heard, I was quite surprised to learn how little of what I think I hear is unbiased, or even accurate. Listening, it turns out, is a brain thing and has little to do with words or intent.

Link to Purchase and Sample

HOW BRAIN’S ‘LISTEN’

When we listen to others, we’re not directly hearing their words or intent but an interpretation of a set of meaningless, automatic neurological activities in our brain that have little-to-no relationship with what’s been said.

What we think we hear is wholly determined by our historic life experiences (education, family, values, Beliefs, mental models) that have been stored in our brain and filter all incoming words:what we hear someone say has been translated by what we’ve heard before, creating biases and assumptions that keep us from translating incoming messages accurately.

Generally speaking, our brain determines what we hear. And it’s not objective. Here’s what happens:

- Words are merely puffs of air that emerge from our lungs, formed by our mouth and tongue – meaningless sound vibrations – that enter a Listener’s brain and get made into signals that get sent to ‘similar-enough’, existing brain circuits for translation. In other words, there’s a high probability Listeners can’t accurately understand what’s been said because their brain has translated what’s been said by what they’ve heard before.
- A Listener’s ears

– capture some portion of incoming sound vibrations,

– conducts them through historic filters (Beliefs, mental models, etc.)

– translate the remaining vibrations into signals that get sent to

– match ‘similar-enough’ existing circuits, which

– discard what doesn’t match.

The remainder – with an undetermined relationship to what was intended is – what we think we ‘hear’.

- Listeners have no idea what has been discarded in the process of hearing/translating what’s been said. Statistically, we accurately hear no more than 35% of what’s been said.
- Both Speakers and Listeners have no idea how a Listener’s brain has interpreted or biased what been said or how close to accurate it’s been received. We all assume what we think we hear is accurate, although it rarely is.
- We speak in run-on sentences, not individual words, and a Listener’s brain must make sense of the variations in vibrations of each word.
- People speak for approximately 600 milliseconds; Listeners begin formulating their response in 200 milliseconds. Approximately two thirds of what’s been said is not even heard.

What we think we hear is some version of our history of hearing something similar. With people we’re in regular contact with and already have circuits to translate, it can be pretty accurate. With others not so much.

DIAGRAM OF HOW BRAINS ‘LISTEN’

Herein lie the gap between what’s said and what’s heard: we all make inaccurate assumptions of what we think we hear, causing us to respond and choose actions from a restricted or flawed knowledge base. Of course, it’s not done purposefully, but it sure plays havoc with communication and relationships.

I once lost a business partner because he misinterpreted something he thought I said, even though his wife told him he had misheard. His comment: “I heard it with my own ears! Are you both telling me I’m crazy??” and stormed out, never to speak to me again.

Unfortunately, and different from perceived wisdom, brains don’t allow us to ‘actively listen’ to accurately understand what’s been said. Sure, Active Listening allows us to ‘hear’ the words spoken but doesn’t capture the intent, the underlying meaning. And given our neurological hearing processes are automatic, mechanical, and thoughtless, we’re stuck with what we think we hear. Here’s a simplified diagram of the process of listening:

Incoming sound vibrations as electrochemical signals get distorted and deleted through the brain’s filtering and transmission processes, eventually getting translated by ‘similar-enough’ existing neural circuits causing us to hear some rendition of what we’ve heard historically. There’s little chance any of us can understand a Speaker’s intended meaning accurately.

GUIDELINES TO MAXIMIZE UNDERSTANDING IN DIALOGUE

Given how vital listening is to our lives, for those times we want to make sure we understand and get on the same page with a Communication Partner (CP) to reach consensus, here are some guidelines:

Get agreement for a dialogue: Often, Communication Partners have different life experiences and, potentially different goals – many of which might be unconscious. Begin by agreeing to find common ground.

“I’d like to have a dialogue that might lead to us to a path that meets both of our goals. If you agree, do you have thoughts on where you’d like to begin?”

“I wonder if we can find common goals so we might find agreement to work from. I’m happy to share my goals with you; I’d like to hear yours as well.”

Link to Purchase and Sample

Set the frame for common values: At a global level, we all have similar foundational values, hopes and fears – for family, food, shelter, health. Start by ‘chunking up’ to find areas of agreement.

“I’d like to find a way to communicate that might help us find a common values so we can begin determining if we share areas of agreement. Any thoughts on how you’d like to proceed?”

“It seems we’re in opposite mind-sets. How do you recommend we go about finding if there’s any agreement we can start from?”
Get agreement on the topics in the conversation: One step at a time; make sure CPs agree to each item and skip the ones (for now) where there’s no agreement. (Put them in a Parking Lot for your next conversation.) Work with ‘what is’ instead of ‘what should be.’

Enter without bias: Unintentionally our historic, unconscious beliefs restrict our search for commonality. Replace emotions and blame with a new bias for this conversation: the ‘bias’ of collaboration.

“I’m willing to find common ground and would like to put aside my normal reactions for this hour but it will be a challenge since my feelings are so strong. Do you also have strong feelings that also might bias our communication? I wonder if we could share our most cherished beliefs and then discuss how we can move forward without bias.”

Get into Observer: To help overcome unconscious biases and filters, here are a few mind hacks that will supersede automatic brain processing: in your mind’s eye, see yourself on the ceiling looking down on yourself and your CP. I call this the Observer (witness, coach) position. It will provide a different viewpoint for your brain, replacing the emotional, automatic response with a broader, far less biased, view of your interaction. Another way is to walk around during the conversation, or sit way, way back in a chair. Sitting forward keeps you in your biases. (Chapter 6 in What? teaches how to stay in Observer and reduce bias.). From your Observer place, notice elements of the communication of both you and your CP:

- - Notice body language/words: Similar to how your brain filters incoming words, your CP is speaking/listening from their filters and assumptions, which will be exhibited in their body language and eye contact. From Observer notice how their physical stance matches their words, the level of passion, feelings, and emotion. Now look down and notice how you look and sound in relation to your CP. Just notice. Read Carol Goman’s excellent book on the subject.
  - Notice triggers: Emphasized words hold beliefs and biases. You may also hear absolutes: Always, Never; lots of You’s may be the vocabulary of blame. Silence, folded arms, a stick-straight torso may show distrust. Just notice where/when it happens for you both. If your CPs words trigger you into your own subjective viewpoints, you’ve gotten out of Observer and must get back onto the ceiling where you have choice. But just in case:

“I’m going to try very hard to speak/listen without my historic biases. If you find me getting heated, or feel blame, I apologize as that’s not my intent. If this should happen, please tell me you’re not feeling heard and I’ll do my best to work from a place of compassion and empathy.”

Summarize regularly: Because the odds are bad that you’ll accurately hear what your CP means to convey, summarize what you think you heard after every exchange:

“Sounds to me like you said, “XX”. Is that correct? What would you like me to understand that I didn’t understand or that I misheard?”

“I’ statements: Stay away from ‘You’ if possible. Try to work from the understanding that you’re standing in different shoes and there is no way either of you can see the other’s landscape.

“When I hear you say X it sounds to me like you are telling me that YY. Is that true?”

“When I hear you mention Y, I feel like Z and it makes me want to get up from the table as I feel you really aren’t willing to hear me. How can we handle this so we can move forward together?”

Get buy-in each step of the way: keep checking in, even if it seems obvious that you’re on the same page. It’s really easy to mistranslate what’s been said when the listening filters are different.

“Seems to me like we’re on the same page here. I think we’re both saying X. Is that true? What am I missing?”

“What should I add to my thinking that I’m avoiding or not understanding the same way you are? Is there a way you want me to experience what it looks like from your shoes that I don’t currently know how to experience? Can you help me understand?”

Check your gut: Notice when/if your stomach gets tight, or your throat hurts. These are sure signs that your beliefs are being stepped on and you’re out of Observer. Get back up to the ceiling and then tell your CP:

“I’m experiencing some annoyance/anger/fear/blame. That means something we’re discussing is going against one of my beliefs or values. Can we stop a moment and check in with each other so we don’t go off the rails?”

Get agreement on action items: Simple steps for forward actions will become obvious; make sure you both work on action items together.

Get a time on the calendar for the next meeting: Make sure you discuss who else needs to be brought into the conversation, end up with goals you can all agree on and walk away with an accurate understanding of what’s been said and what’s expected.

COMPASSION, EMPATHY, AND RESPECT

Until or unless we all hold the belief that none of us matter if some of us don’t; until or unless we’re all willing to take the responsibility for each (inadvertent)act of harm; until or unless we’re each willing to put aside our very real grievances to seek a higher good, we’ll never heal.

It’s not easy. But by learning how to hear each other with compassion and empathy, by closing the gap between what’s said and what’s heard, our conversations can begin. We must be willing to start sharing our Truth and our hearts and find a way to join with another’s Truth and heart. By hearing each other accurately, it’s the best start we can make.

______________________

Sharon Drew Morgen August 25th, 2025

Posted In: Listening

As a preamble to a discussion about failing consciously, I’d like to retell a story. Many years ago Xerox was beta testing a then new-type digital printer. The testers sent back complaints: it was hard to figure out how to work the damn thing, and the user guide was confusing. Obviously, User Error, the designers concluded. Yup. More stupid users. So an internal focus group was set up by senior management to test what exactly was happening.

Three middle managers were brought in and put into a room with the new printer and user guide. Mayhem ensued. The designers watched from behind a one-way mirror while the managers got confused by the directions, spent hours arguing amongst themselves, pressed the wrong buttons, and finally gave up – never getting it to work.

User Error, they again said. Obviously, went the thinking, the managers weren’t smart or savvy enough to understand simple directions. Except they didn’t know a trick had been played on them: the testers were actually PhD computer scientists. Oops. It wasn’t User Error at all. The designers had failed to develop an intelligible user guide. So while the printer itself might have been a marvel of machinery for its day, it couldn’t be used. It was a failure. Or was it?

WHAT IS FAILURE

I contend that until every ‘failed’ step was taken, and every ‘failed’ assumption made, there was no way to know exactly what problems needed to be fixed or if indeed their printer was a success. The failure was part of the march to success.

We call it failure when we don’t achieve a goal whether it’s starting up a company, reaching a job goal, learning something new, or starting a new diet.

I think that as humans we strive to succeed, to be seen as competent, to be ‘better than’, even if we’re only in competition with ourselves. It’s natural to want our products, our teams, our families, our competitive activities, to reap success. To be The Best. And we plot and envision how to make it happen.

But the road to success isn’t straight; sometimes we face disappointment, shame, and self-judgment. We get annoyed with ourselves when results don’t seem to comply with our mental images, and tell ourselves maybe we didn’t follow the original plan, or didn’t plan well enough, or maybe we’re self-sabotaging. We blame teammates or vendors, spouses or neighbors.

I’m here to tell you that failure is a necessary part of success. It’s built in to learning and succeeding, actually a natural part of the process of change and accomplishment. Before we win we gotta fail. Tiger Woods didn’t wake up the best in the world. Neither did Pavarotti or Steve Jobs.

For anyone to get to the top, to achieve success in any industry, any endeavor, any sport, it’s necessary to fail over and over. How surprising that no one teaches us how to fail consciously. I suggest we develop conscious failing strategies that become built in to our success procedures.

WHAT IS OUR STATUS QUO? AND WHY IS IT SO STUBBORN?

Getting to success is a sequential process that includes trial and error – i.e. winning and losing are both part of the same process, and each adding a piece of the puzzle. Of course there’s no way to know what we don’t know before we start – no way to even be curious, or ask the right questions because we don’t know what we don’t know. And unfortunately, part of the process is internal, unconscious, and systemic.

Change – and all success and failure is really a form of changing our status quo – has a large unconscious component, and when you only try to add new behaviors you miss the automatic, habituated, and unconscious elements that will rear their ugly heads as you move toward hitting your goals: you can’t change a behavior by trying to change a behavior. It just doesn’t work that way.

Let me explain a few things about how your brain works in the area of change. To begin, all change is systemic. Anything new you want to do, anything new that requires, ultimately, new behaviors, or added beliefs or life changes, requires buy-in from what already exists in your make up – your status quo.

Indeed, as the repository of your history, values, and norms, your status quo won’t change a thing without congruency. Indeed it will reject anything new, regardless of how necessary it is, unless the new has been properly vetted by the originating system.

Setting a goal that’s behavior-based without agreement from the system, without incorporating steps for buy in, assures resistance. Sure, we lay out the trajectory, attempt to make one good decision at a time, and use every feeling, hope, data point, guess, to take next steps. But when we don’t take into account the way our brains unconsciously process, it may not turn out like we envision. Lucky there’s a way to manage our activities to take into account what a brain needs for congruent change and a successful outcome.

THE STEPS TO FAILING CONSCIOUSLY

In my work on how brains facilitate change and make decisions to shift what’s already there (my The How of Change program teaches how to generate new neural routes) I offer ways to create new synapses and neural pathways that lead to new behaviors. Take a look at the Change Model chart I developed, with a careful look at The Trial Loop – the steps we each take to learn, to add/trial something new:

The Trial Loop is where the brain learning occurs. It’s here we iterate through several touch points: new data acquisition, buy-in, trial behaviors, and the stop/go/stop action (double-arrowed line between Beliefs (CEN) and red Stop) as each new element is tried and considered before new behaviors are formed.

It’s important to understand that no change will occur until these elements are addressed; merely hearing something new – a directive, an interesting piece of information, an internal decision to change a behavior – doesn’t insure something different will happen. Unless our system buys in, until there’s a specific circuit created for the new, no change will occur. You can’t change a behavior by trying to change a behavior.

So as we try out new stuff, our personal mental models of rules, beliefs, norms, history, etc., go through iterations of trial, acceptance, rejection, confusion, trial, acceptance, rejection, etc. until the new is congruent with the norms of the system, something we cannot know before we go through this process. So let’s call our disappointments part of the iteration process that precedes success. Here is a closer look at my chart:

An initial goal/idea/thought enters (through the CUE),
then gets sorted through an acceptance/rejection process for beliefs and systems congruence (the CEN), which
darts around the brain seeking a match for an existing neural pathway for earlier incidence of achieving this goal.
If no existing pathway is found, a new synapse/neural pathway must be formed.
The brain goes through an iterative process to form a new path to a new action with agreement (buy in) needed at each step (notice the iterative arrows in the chart).
Iterative process includes: gathering data, trialing new activity, getting internal buy in, testing for Systems Congruence (All systems must be in a congruent state. Individually and personally, we’re all a system.)
Process of Stop/New choice-data acquisition-action/Stop etc. as each new thing is tried.
Final success when there’s congruency and new is adopted without resistance as a final Behavior. (And note: the Behavior is the FINAL activity. You cannot change a behavior by trying to change a behavior.)

Now you know the steps to conscious change. Should you want to learn more here’s a one-hour sample of me laying out the foundation of the How of Change course and explaining how change occurs in the brain.

THE STEPS TO CONSCIOUS FAILING

Now let’s plot out the steps to conscious failure to avoid large-scale malfunction.

The Beginning: to start the process toward succeeding at a goal, you need:

Include all (all) stakeholders (including Joe in accounting) and all who will touch the final solution;
Agree upon the wording for the final goal, including specifics of new behavioral elements, rules, politics, outcomes – i.e. what, exactly, will be different;
Write up a ‘guess list’ of problems that might occur (failures) to the status quo as a result: what they might look like, as well as possible workarounds;
An agreement clause from all stakeholders to act when something is going off course. Note: listening without bias is urgently needed here;
Consider possible ways your starting goals may shift the status quo and make sure it’s tenable;
Know how the new outcome will be maintained over time (including the people, rules, norms, changes, that will be involved) and what else has to buy in to maintenance;
State potential, detailed steps toward achievement that are agreeable to all stakeholders;
Agreement to reconsider all previous steps if the problems that show up cause new considerations.

The Middle: to make changes, add new knowledge to trial, get continuous buy in, you need:

Re write the original goals, with delineated outcomes for each;
Notice how the new is disrupting the status quo. Is it necessary to amend the new plans to ensure Systems Congruence? Is the cost of the new lower than the cost of the original? There must be a cost-effective decision made;
Find ways to acquire the right knowledge to learn from;
Check on the ways you’re failing. Were they expected? Do they conform to your goals? Do you need to shift anything?
Agreement to develop new choices where current ones aren’t working as per plan.

The End: making sure the outcome is congruent with the original goal:

Go through the Beginning steps and check they’ve been accomplished;
Compare end result with original goal;
Make sure there is congruent integration with the thinking, beliefs, values of the original;
Make sure the status quo is functioning without disruption and the system ends up congruent with its mental models and belief systems.

Here are more specifics to help you integrate the necessary failure, and avoid guesswork and reactions to what might seem inconsistent with your goals:

Lay out specifics for each step you’re considering to your goal. Include timelines, parameters, and consequences of results, specific elements of what success for that step should look like, and what possible failure might look like. Of course, you can’t truly know the answers until they occur, but make your best guess. It’s important to notice something new happening when it’s happening.
If something unplanned or feared occurs (i.e. failure), annotate the details. What exactly is happening? What elements worked and what didn’t, and how did they work or not work – what/who was involved, how did the result differ from the expectations? What does the failure tell you – what IS succeeding instead of what you wish for? How does the remedy for the problem influence the next step? How long should you allot for each occurrence before determining whether it’s failure, or just part of the success trajectory you weren’t aware of?
Are all stakeholders involved and shared their input? Do you need to bring in more stakeholders?
Notice the consequences of the outcomes for each: employees, clients, hiring, firing, quitting, vendors, competition, state of the industry and your place in it. What comes into play with these factors when considering if you want to continue down one trajectory rather than designing a new one? What will it look like to decide to change course? How will your decisions effect your vision of an outcome? How are the stakeholders affected by each choice?
How much failure are you willing to risk before you determine that either your outcome is untenable, or you need to make structural changes? What part does ego and denial play? Does everyone agree what constitutes failure? Success?
What will you notice when your trajectory to success is negatively effecting your baseline givens? What are you willing to change, or accept, to reach your goal?
What will it look like, specifically, when you’ve concluded your efforts? Will parts of the failure be factored in as success? Do all stakeholders buy in to the end result? If not, what remains unresolved? And how will you bring this forward?

Of course there’s no way to know before you start what any specific stage will look like. But using the steps, the thinking, above, you’ll be able to get a handle on it. And by including the failure, you’ll have a far better chance of succeeding.

For some reason, as leaders or individuals, companies or small businesses, we shame ourselves when we don’t achieve what we set out to achieve during our change processes. I contend we must think of each step as an integral part of the process of getting where we want to be. As they say in NLP, there’s no failure, only feedback.

________________________________________

Sharon Drew Morgen August 18th, 2025

Posted In: Change Management, Communication

With untold millions of sales professionals in the world, sellers play a role in any economy. As the intermediary between clients and providers, sales can be a spiritual practice, with sellers becoming true facilitators and Servant Leaders (and close more sales).

The current sales model, directed at placing solutions and seeking folks with ‘need’, closes 5% – only those ready to buy at point of contact. Sadly, this ignores the possibility of facilitating and serving the 80% of folks on route to becoming buyers and not yet ready.

Until people have tried, and failed, to fix their problem themselves, understood and managed the risk and disruption that a new solution might cause their environment, they aren’t buyers. It’s only when they:

know how to manage the risk of bringing in something new,
can’t fix the problem themselves,
get buy-in from whomever will touch the final solution,
understand that the cost of bringing in something new is lower than the cost of maintaining the status quo,

will they self-identify as buyers and be ready to buy.

Indeed: buying is a risk/change management problem before it’s a solution choice issue, regardless of the need or the efficacy of the solution. All potential buyers must go through this process anyway – and the sales model doesn’t help.

WHY PEOPLE BUY

People don’t start off wanting to buy anything; they merely seek to resolve a problem at the least ‘cost’ (risk) to their system. Even if folks eventually need a seller’s solution, until they understand how to manage the change a new solution would generate, they won’t heed our outreach, regardless of their need or the efficacy of the solution. As a result, sellers with worthwhile solutions end up wasting a helluva lot of time being ignored and rejected.

Selling doesn’t cause buying. Sales focuses on only the final steps of a buying decision and overlooks the high percentage of would-be prospects who WILL become buyers once they’ve addressed their possible risk issues. After all, until they’ve recognized that the risk of the new is less than the risk of staying the same they won’t do anything different.

It’s not the solution being sold that’s the problem, it’s the process of pushing solutions before first helping those who will become buyers facilitate their necessary change process. Instead of a transactional process, sales can be an expansive, collaborative experience between seller and buyer.

Sample

As a result, sellers end up seeking and closing only those ready to buy at the point of contact – unwittingly ignoring others who aren’t ready yet, may need our solutions, and just need to get their ducks in a row before they’re prepared to make a decision.

Imagine having a product-needs discussion about moving an iceberg and discussing only the tip. That’s sales; it doesn’t facilitate the entire range of hidden, unique change issues buyers must consider – having nothing to do with solutions – before they could buy anything. Failure is built in.

But when sellers redirect their focus from seeking folks with ‘need’ to those considering change and lead them through their change management process before selling, they can facilitate them through the issues they must resolve (politics, relationships, resource, budget, time), help them assemble the right stakeholders from the start, and help them figure out how to address the disruption of bringing in a new solution. Then sellers become true servant leaders, inspire trust, and close more sales.

WHY SALES FAILS

Seller’s restricted focus on placing solutions, and listening for needs (which cannot be fully known until the change management process is complete) all but insures a one-sided communication based on the needs of the seller:

Prospecting/cold calling – sellers pose biased questions as an excuse to offer solution details omitting those who will buy – real buyers! – once they’re ready. Wholly seller-centric.
Content marketing – driven by the seller to push the ‘right’ data but really only a push into the unknown and a hope for action. Wholly seller-centric.
Deals, cold-call pushes, negotiation, objection-handling, closing techniques, getting to ‘the’ decision maker, price-reductions – all assuming buyers would buy if they understood their need/the solution/their problem, all overlooking the real connection and service capability of addressing the person’s most pressing change issues. Wholly seller-centric.

To become a spiritual practice, sellers must use their expertise to become true facilitators that become necessary components in all buying decisions. Indeed, the job of ‘sales’ as merely a solution-placement vehicle is short-sighted.

Buyers can find products online. They don’t need sellers to understand the features and benefits.
Choosing a solution isn’t the problem. It’s the time it takes to manage the risk. – it’s the buyer’s behind-the-scenes timing, buy-in from those who will touch the solution, and change management process that gums up the works.
The lion’s share of the buying decision (9 out of a 13 step decision path) involves buyers traversing internal change with no thoughts of buying. They don’t even self-identify as buyers until they understand their risk of change.

Since the 1980s, I’ve been an author, seller, trainer, consultant, and sales coach of the Buying Facilitation® model. And though I’ve trained 100,000 sales professionals, and wrote the NYTimes Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity, sales continues to be solution-placement driven. By ignoring a large population of potential buyers who merely aren’t ready, sales unwittingly ignores the real problem: it’s in the buying, not the selling.

SERVE PROSPECTS, CLOSE MORE SALES

It’s possible to truly serve clients AND close more sales.

Aspiring to a win-win

Win-win means both sides get what they need. Sellers believe that placing product that resolves a problem offers an automatic win-win. But that’s not wholly accurate. Buying isn’t as simple as choosing a solution. The very last thing people want is to buy anything, regardless of their apparent need.

As outsiders sellers can’t know the tangles of people and policies that hold a problem/need in place. The time it takes them to design a congruent solution that includes buy-in and change management is the length of their sales cycle. Buyers need to do this anyway; it’s the length of the sales cycle.

If sellers begin by finding those on route to buying and help them efficiently traverse their internal struggles, sellers can help them get to the ‘need/purchase’ decision more quickly and be part of the solution – win-win. No more chasing those who will never close; no more turning off those who will eventually seek our solution; no more gathering incomplete data from one person with partial answers.

Sellers can find and enable those who can/should buy to buy in half the time and sell more product – and very quickly know the difference between them and those who can never buy.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

There are several pieces to the puzzle here.

The buyer and the environment the prospect lives in, including people, policies, job titles, egos, relationships, politics, layers of management, rules, etc. that no one on the outside will ever understand. It’s never as simple as just changing out the problem for a new product; they will buy only when they’re certain they can’t fix their own problem.
Resolving the problem needs full internal buy-in before being willing to change (i.e. buy) regardless of the efficacy of the fix. A purchase is not necessarily their best solution even if it looks like a fit to a seller.
The ability of the buyer to manage the disruption that a new purchase would incur on the system, people, and policies. A fix, or purchase, might be worse than the problem.
The seller and the seller’s product may/may not fit in the buyer’s environment due to idiosyncratic, political, or rules-based issues, regardless of the need.
The purchase and implementation and follow up that includes buy-in from all who will experience a potentially disruptive change if a new solution enters and shifts their job routines.

There is no right answer

Sellers often believe that buyers are idiots for not making speedy decisions, or for not buying an ‘obvious’ solution. But sales offers no skills to enter earlier with a different skill set to facilitate change or manage risk.

Once buyers figure out their congruent route to change, they won’t have objections, will close themselves, and there’s no competition: sellers facilitate change management first and then sell once everything is in place. No call backs and follow up and ignored calls. And trust is immediate: a seller becomes a necessary partner to the buying decision process.

No one has anyone else’s answer

By adding Buying Facilitation®, collaborative decisions get made that will serve everyone.

Let’s change the focus: instead relegating sales to merely a product/solution placement endeavor, let’s add the job of facilitation to first find people en route to becoming buyers, lead them through to their internal change process first, and then using the sales model when they’ve become buyers.

We can help people self-identify as buyers quickly, with fewer tire-kickers, better differentiation, no competition, and sales close in half the time.

BUYING FACILITATION®

As a seller and an entrepreneur (I founded a tech company in London, Hamburg, and Stuttgart in 1983), I realized that sales ignored the buying decision problem and developed Buying Facilitation® to add to sales as a Pre-Sales tool.

Buyers get to their answers eventually; the time this takes is the length of the sales cycle, and selling doesn’t cause buying. Once I developed this model for my sellers to use, we made their process far more efficient with an 8x increase in sales – a number consistently reproduced against control groups with my global training clients over the following decades.

Buying Facilitation® adds a new capability and level of expertise and becomes a part of the decision process from the first call. Make money and make nice.

Sellers no longer need to lose prospects because they’re not ready, or cognizant of their need. They can become intermediaries between their clients and their companies; use their positions to efficiently help buyers manage internal change congruently, without manipulation; use their time to serve those who WILL buy – and know this on the first contact – and stop wasting time on those who will never buy. It’s time for sellers to use their knowledge and care to serve buyers and their companies in a win-win. Let’s make sales a spiritual practice.

____________

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 11th, 2025

Posted In: Communication, Listening, Sales

Do you enter conversations to listen for what will confirm your assumptions? Do you assume the responses to your questions provide an accurate representation of the full fact pattern from which to base follow-on questions? Do you assume your history of similar topics topics gives you a more elevated understanding of what your Communication Partners (CPs) mean?

If any of the above are true, you’re biasing your conversation. By entering conversations with assumptions and personal goals, and listening through your historic, unconscious filters, you unwittingly direct conversations to what you expect to hear and may miss a more optimal outcome. But it’s not your fault.

OUR BRAINS BIAS WHAT WE HEAR

The most surprising takeaway from my year of research for my book (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?) on closing the gap between what’s said and what’s heard was learning how little of what we think we hear is unbiased, or even accurate. Indeed, it’s pretty rare for us to hear precisely what another intends us to hear: our brains don’t allow us to.

Sample

Our brains listen through our existing neural circuitry, reducing our ability to accurately translate what’s been said to what we already know, leaving us unaware there might be a misunderstanding regardless of how carefully we listen.

Here’s a simplified explanation of how brains listen. Sound actually enters our ears as meaningless sound vibrations which become electrochemical signals that are dispatched to a similar-enough synapse. Unfortunately, whatever doesn’t match exactly gets deleted. We’re left assuming that what we think we’ve ‘heard’ is accurate even though there’s a good chance it’s not.

So your CP might say ABC and your brain tells you they said ABL without even mentioning it omitted D, E, F, etc. I once lost a business partner because he ‘heard’ me say X when three of us confirmed I said Y. “I was right here! Why are you all lying to me! I KNOW she said that!” And he walked out in a self-generated rage. This makes it tough for any communication where mutual understanding is so important.

Indeed, as outsiders – as sellers, leaders, or influencers of any kind – with different beliefs/values, backgrounds, etc., and entering conversations with our own goals and unconscious biases, we end up unintentionally misunderstanding, mistranslating, or mishearing, but believe what we think we’ve heard is true. In other words, our natural inability to hear accurately causes us miscommunication and flawed understanding. Not to mention lost business and lost relationships.

Net net, we unwittingly base our conversation, questions, and intuitive responses on an assumption of what we think has been said, and succeed only with those whose biases match our own. [Note: for those who want to manage this problem, I’ve developed a work-around in Chapter 6 of What?)

ENTERING CONVERSATIONS WITHOUT BIAS

I want to go back to the problems incurred by entering conversations with personal biases:

by biasing the framework of the conversation to the goals we wish to achieve, we overlook alternative, congruent outcomes. Sellers, coaches, leaders, and managers often enter conversations with personal expectations and goals rather than collaboratively setting a viable frame and together discovering possibility.
by listening only for what we’re (consciously or unconsciously) focused on hearing, we overlook a broader range of possible outcomes. Sellers, negotiators, leaders, help desk professionals, and coaches often miss real opportunities to promote agreement and discovery.

Here are some ideas to help you create conversations that avoid restriction:

As an influencer, shift your goal from information gathering (for you) to facilitating the route to change (for them).
Enter each conversation with a willingness to serve the greater good within the bounds of what you have to offer, rather than meet a specific outcome. Any expectations or goals limit outcomes.
Enter with a blank brain, as a neutral navigator, servant leader, change facilitator.
Trust that your CP has her own answers. Your job is to help her find them, as they are often unconscious. This is particularly hard for influencers who believe they have ‘the answers’. (And yes, all influencers, sellers, leaders, negotiators, and coaches are guilty of this.) I’ve written an article to specifically address this.
Your biased questions will only extract biased answers. Use questions that make their journey to discovery more efficient, like “What has stopped you from making the change before now?”. [Note: I’ve developed Facilitative Questions that lead folks through their unconscious thinking patterns.]
Enable Others to discover their own route to Excellence rather than attempt to influence a specific behavior you might deem important.
Get rid of your ego, your need to be right or smart or have the answers. Until your CP finds a way to recognize their own unconscious issues, and design congruent change that matches their idiosyncratic ‘givens’, you aren’t helpful regardless of how much you know.

By listening with an ear that hears avenues to serve, to understand what’s been said without unconscious bias, you can truly serve your Communication Partner.

____________

Sharon Drew Morgen August 4th, 2025

Posted In: Listening

I just read a discussion stream on LinkedIn debating why you’re told ‘Send me an email.’ when prospecting. It’s simple: you’re being rejected. People want to remove themselves from your push. It’s a problem created by the sales model itself.

I want to begin with a question that has plagued me since I ran a How Buyers Buy training program for KLM in 1987 when teaching them how to integrate the Buy Side into sales: Would you rather sell, or have someone buy?

You’ll say you’d prefer that someone buy. But your continued focus on the Sell Side largely ignores the Buy Side, causing you to struggle unnecessarily getting call-backs, closing, making appointments. Or equally ineffective, you assume your solution, your knowledge, your personality will facilitate buying. It doesn’t.

Surely you’ve realized that the Sell Side is quite different from the Buy Side. Two different activities and mind sets, both involved in a purchase, yet only one of them is addressed in your sales process.

SELLING VS BUYING

Buying is a How, a strategic change problem. Selling is a What and Why, a tactical solution placement problem. Buying involves cultural change and risk to the jobs, resources, and norms of the buyer. Selling involves finding people to give you money for your solution. Two different things requiring wholly different skills, goals, and intentions.

Selling doesn’t cause buying; buying is a change/risk management issue before it’s a solution choice. The very act of selling and your approach to each contact; the very questions you pose and assumptions you make; the content you share causes resistance with all but those 5% ready to buy.

Before people self-identify as buyers they have work to do…work not related to need or purchase, and certainly not involved with what you’re selling: until people manage and get buy-in for their risk of internal change and have tested workarounds – How, rather than What and Why – they cannot risk bringing in something new. In fact, a new solution is the last thing they need. Literally. And the sales model does not address this majority element of a buying decision.

SALES PLACES SOLUTIONS

The goal of sales is to place solutions: Find people who need what you’re selling, ask questions to confirm, then pitch. It assumes:

you’re asking the right questions at the right time in their change/decision cycle and you can listen without bias;
the prospect knows specifically what an external solution must include to be incorporated into their system congruently;
the prospect has completed their 13 steps of change, tested workarounds, and gotten necessary buy-in;
the person you’re speaking with speaks for the buying decision team, and knows all their criteria for change and risk;
the risk of bringing in your solution has been managed.

Folks who haven’t yet completed their necessary change/risk management process ignore sellers: they’re still trying to solve their problem internally and haven’t considered going ‘outside’ for a fix. These are the folks who agree to meetings just to take your information. Or the folks who won’t take a call, even though they might later (once they’ve got all their ducks in a row) discover they need you.

By starting with a different goal (i.e. NOT need, but Change Facilitation) and skill set (Listening for Systems, Facilitative Questions™, 13 Steps of Change, etc.), these folks can be easily found and quickly facilitated through their steps of change with their stakeholders included. Once this is done, they buy quickly. With no rejection.

Sample

All people must figure this stuff out before they self-identify as buyers, with you or without you. Because of the rigid focus of the Sell Side, they do this without you, leaving you selling to the low hanging fruit – a 5% close rate.

WHY SALES FAILS

The sales model turns a seller into a hammer looking for a nail. It ignores three quarters of the real buyer’s decision journey.

Back in the day when Dale Carnegie told you to sell to need the buying process was much simpler. By maintaining that model, sales has become a stigmatized process that pushes content per the needs of the seller – the reason sales closes such a small percentage, and the reason sellers are told to ‘send me an email’.

Buyers have one criteria:to fix their problem with the least disruption to their system or they will maintain their status quo! The risk of the change must be equal to, or less than, the risk of staying the same. The time it takes them to figure all this out is the length of the sales cycle.

A buying decision is a risk management problem before it’s a solution choice. And the sales model – the Sell Side – doesn’t include facilitating change and risk – the Buy Side – which must be completed before people self-identify as buyers.

So long as you use the sales model as your only tool to facilitate a buying decision, you will have difficulty closing. That’s just not how buyers buy.

FACILITATE BUYING FIRST; SALES SECOND

What if you begin selling by

using a Change Facilitation model to first search for people solving a problem your solution can resolve,
then facilitate them through their risk and change,
help them get buy-in from all who will touch the new solution,
sell when they’re ready to buy.

It would require new skills but you’d find real prospects on the first call and close in half the time. Are you willing to learn a new skill to facilitate buying?

I’ve invented Buying Facilitation® (Stage 1, Buy Side) process to first find folks during their problem-solving phase and help them through their change/risk management and buy-in. Then sales (Stage 2, Sell Side) places the solution.

You need both. Call me if you want to learn Buying Facilitation® and increase your sales to 40% close. Do you want to sell? Or have someone buy?

__________________

Sharon Drew Morgen July 28th, 2025

Posted In: News

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 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 don’t get the chance to offer ideas or explanations 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.

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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.

Let me take a moment to explain the skills necessary for the ‘How-To’. To gather accurate information, to assemble the right people, to recognize and incorporate the foundational elements of the system (the norms, rules, beliefs, values, mental models), to manage risk, requires different skills than the ones currently used in standard CM practices.

Behavior change can occur only after the originating neural circuits that instigated the problem get revisited. and possibly reconfigured. That causes a problem: when change is approached tactically (Why/What), the neural circuits where new instructions for new behaviors must emerge can’t be discovered.

Standard questions include too much bias to gather accurate data, and the way brains ‘listen’ (not very well) is filled with so many distortions and deletions that we only hear 10-35% of what a speaker intends.

So using biased questions, speaking to each other without fully understanding, focusing on reasons for change rather than fixing the underlying system that caused the problem causes lack of buy-in and resistance. And without the culture understanding the risk of change (certainly an affront to Systems Congruence), it’s pretty hard to get cultural change accepted.

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 July 21st, 2025

Posted In: News

I recently received three instances of AI generated content that were personal: a ‘photo’ of me, a ‘recap’ of one of my articles, and an ‘explanation’ of a decision facilitation model I spent decades inventing.

Photo? My photo (see graphic) is a near likeness. Obviously me – long curly white hair is one of my ‘features’ – but about 15% ‘off’: forehead a bit higher, hair just a bit curlier, eyelashes not as long. But so close that people who don’t know me would assume it was real. A friend said it was missing my ‘sparkle’.

Article? The article recap https://bit.ly/4lf6vfD surprised me. Two lovely people – colleagues maybe? – seem to be having a charming conversation about my tour de force essay on how sales became what it is now (95% fail-to-close rate; focus on the Sell Side with no Buy Side assistance that restricts the target audience rather than a broader group currently managing their buying decision journey.). The original essay –Let’s Make Sales Relevant Again – is filled with nifty insights on the makeup of the decision teams at the core of the buying process: the AI version misses the nuance and doesn’t quite understand the differences between how buyers by vs how sellers sell. It’s ‘almost’.

People unfamiliar with my work or haven’t read the original article wouldn’t fully understand the history of how buying decisions have changed since Dale Carnegie invented the current solution-focused sales model, and why it’s necessary to add new thinking to correspond with today’s environment.

Definition? The third instance, the ‘definition’ of Buying Facilitation ®’, is the most disturbing. Someone sent me ChatGPT’s interpretation (different from Perplexity’s version that’s a bit more accurate) of Buying Facilitation® that’s just plain wrong, although it does mention me as the inventor. But that’s where the accuracy ends.

Using an amalgam of the most used terms and standard assumptions in sales, there’s no precedent for my work for AI to cull from except for my own articles and books …obviously a drop in the ocean of available information on ‘sales’.

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The current information available on ChatGPT makes Buying Facilitation® into just another ‘sales’ model transposing my original ideas to the opposite meaning and intent (the Sell Side).

If a reader is unfamiliar with my work or the model, they would mistakenly assume ChatGPTs version is correct, and my work, my decades of inventing, training, and writing hundreds of articles and books (including one New York Times Business Bestseller Selling with Integrity) to provide sellers tools to actually help buyers buy and my focus on sellers becoming true Servant Leaders, would be lost forever. This one disturbs and depresses me greatly.

THE DOWNSIDES OF AI

Obviously there are great upsides to AI in medicine and science. When used correctly it can be used as a teaching tool to help students learn, as does Kahn Academy, or as an idea generator. But when used for research, it has real flaws:

When we assume the information AI offers us is accurate and we use this as the basis for research, decisions or actions, we miss the full fact pattern, nuance, or range of ideas and knowledge available.
It reduces the time we spend creating or thinking up new ideas.

But the problem is much broader: AI not only proliferates misleading and inaccurate information but reduces natural discussions and debates on the edges where change emerges. It reduces new idea generation.

THE SADNESS OF AN ORIGINAL THINKER

AI negates – by definition! – original thinking.

As an original thinker, I’ve spent my life unpacking the route between the conscious and the unconscious to make it possible to facilitate permanent change: decision making, behavior change, cultural change, from the origination point in the neural circuits in the brain; 10 years inventing a wholly new form of question (Facilitative Questions® are brain directional, not information-gathering) that lead Others, without bias, to where their decisions arise so accurate, congruent decisions can be made quickly; a way to listen without bias; a change management model that includes risk management, etc.).

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AI provides composites of conventional, tired thinking: Questions biased by the verbiage, goals, and intent of the Asker; ‘behaviors’ seem to arise from the sea like Venus with no attachment to the neural circuits they arise from; decisions made by weighing options instead of weighing the belief-based criteria from where they arise.

Is this the accepted norm when it’s possible to think differently and assure different results – results that trust that Others have their own answers, with no bias from an influencer?

Since the customary approach to change is behavioral (it’s not possible to permanently change behaviors by trying to change behaviors without getting to the source that generated them) my work, and that of other original thinkers whose work challenges the status quo, faces extinction if AI merely uses mainstream words and ideas to interpret it.

I’m not the only one who is afraid. How do we address this?

How do we insure that original ideas and models get shielded from being smooshed into existing ideas and models, and the new, the original, the very developments that bring the world forward, get maintained?

How?

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Sharon Drew Morgen July 14th, 2025

Posted In: Change Management

I recently did a workshop for a group of System Dynamics practitioners who do a mighty job of figuring out the elements involved in large scale problem-solving to help clients make informed change decisions. But too often, the clients fail to implement their findings.

This is a problem in most industries: well-meaning and highly skilled professionals listen for, and collect, the What and Why of a problem and assume the client will know what to do with it. But they don’t.

The assumption here is that the information, the What and the Why, should drive implementation. But What/Why and How are wholly different activities that require wholly different skills.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WHAT, WHY, AND HOW

What and Why are different from How:

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.

We assume that having good information should cause behavior change. But behaviors are merely expressions – outputs – of the underlying system that generated them and will not change permanently unless the system itself changes.

Trying to change a behavior by merely trying to change a behavior by providing good, relevant information will only cause resistance and incurs a very high fail rate.

Here’s why What and Why are ineffective at generating change:

Information vs Implementation: Information, in and of itself, does not cause anyone to change their mind or adopt something new regardless of its accuracy or efficacy. It’s a little understood fact that we rarely hear or interpret new information accurately.

Due to the way brains ‘listen’ (Not very well. Mechanical, electricochemical, and involves distortions and deletions. See my book WHAT?) all incoming content is translated by the Listener’s existing neural circuits, ensuring that what is heard is some rendition of what they already know. In fact, there’s a 65-90% chance that Listeners will misunderstand the incoming information. Not great odds when providing information and expecting clients to implement with it.

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Content vs Systems: I define a system as a group of elements that agree to the same rules, and change is systemic. When people attempt to use content as the means to justify modification before the system agrees, it will be resisted. You cannot change one element of a system without it self-destructing, regardless how compelling the information.

To implement, to cause change and make different decisions to acquire new/different behaviors, it’s compulsory to change the beliefs, rules and norms of the originating system. Like the computer, it must be reprogrammed.

Conscious vs Unconscious: Our conscious choices arise from the unconscious systems that define our lives and prompt our behaviors. Permanent change must be initiated in the originating unconscious systems that caused the problem to be resolved. To accomplish this is the How. What and Why provides information to the conscious.

Information vs Risk: information consists of facts which may inspire change once the system is prepared and set up with accompanying beliefs, norms, and rules to integrate it. But when used to inspire core change it represents a risk to the system and has a good chance of being ignored, rejected, or resisted.

Tactical vs Strategic: Implementation requires a strategy: how to congruently change the underlying system that prompted the current problem to end up with permanent change and follow-on without resistance. This requires getting to the unconscious, trialing new choices, getting buy-in, understanding risk, and assigning tasks with follow up.

When we try to use standard skills to implement, it’s hard to lead clients to their unconscious. Sadly, well-meaning practitioners offer tactical support (the What and Why) that isn’t helpful when seeking fundamental change.

Information gathering vs Buy-in and Risk Management: What and Why are involved with research, information gathering, content. Implementation requires systemic change. Professionals seeking to enable implementation or change must employ a different skill set: listening without bias; posing questions that lead to unconscious origination points; enabling clients to assemble the stakeholders and understand their risk.

The biggest hurdle for most practiioners is to trust that Others have their own answers. Too often professionals assume THEY have the ‘right’ answer because their information is ‘good’ and necessary. But outsiders can never understand the set up of the Other’s culture or system. It’s unconscious even to them…but we can facilitate them in their own discovery so they can implement using their own norms and rules that conform to their systems.

HOW-TO

To implement small- or large-scale change, several elements must be involved:

Professionals as Servant Leaders must enter understanding their job to facilitate Others to discover their own systems, their own answers, their own implementation strategies. Most leaders and practitioners understand this; they just don’t have the skills (the How) to implement it.

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(Representatives of) the people and policies that underlie the present state must be assembled and become part of the change process from the beginning. They are a vital part of the underlying system.
It’s necessary to acquire buy in from the elements that operate in the current system and will be part of the new solution. Without this, the What and Why will be suspect, interpreted by the existing assumptions that have generated the existing problem and most likely ignored or resisted.
For new outputs/behaviors to be triggered that will align with the new needs, it’s vital that the system with the problem understand the core beliefs that define their originating system.
The risk of change must be understood by all and strategies put in place to mitigate any possible fallout before implementation will be considered without resistance.

How requires different skills: ways to pose unbiased questions; ways to listen without bias; knowing the 13 steps all change takes. But first it’s necessary for practitioners, sellers, healthcare professionals, and coaches truly take on board the belief that Others – the client, the patient, the buyer – have their own answers.

Right now, the assumption is that the influencer is the one who has the solutions (the What and Why) and it’s their job to tell clients how to implement. But without How skills, clients stumble. Professionals need a different skill set to help them.

I’ve spent 50 years designing models to facilitate congruent change and implementation. If you are interested in learning how to help clients implement, or help clients and prospects make decisions efficiently, please contact me. And if you’re interested in being part of an Implementation consulting group I’m forming, let me know. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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Sharon Drew Morgen July 7th, 2025

Posted In: Communication

« Previous Page — Next Page »

You Can’t Change a Behavior by Trying to Change a Behavior, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Don’t Start Selling with Sales: facilitate back-end buying decisions first for a higher close rate, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Bridging the Gap between What’s Said and What’s Heard, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Conscious Failing, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Sales as a Spiritual Practice

Unconscious Listening Biases: how influencers unwittingly restrict possibilities, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

‘Send me an email’ indicates rejection, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Reduce Resistance and Optimize Buy-in: Systems Management can ensure risk-free cultural change, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

It’s the Same Only Different: the risks of AI generated content, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Implementation is a How: the Why and What of Sales, System Dynamics, OD, and healthcare don’t help clients execute, by Sharon-Drew Morgen