Beyond Transactional Management: how and why to convert to Relational Leadership, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

Remember the intake form you were asked to complete at a new doctor’s office? Questions like Do you smoke? How often do you exercise? Transactional queries that gather data but inspire no self-reflection; queries asked of everyone, regardless of needs; indifferent questions devoid of care or concern. Mechanical. Transactional.

But imagine if the first question was:
We are committed to serving you to facilitate you in reaching your optimal health. What would you need to see from us to make sure we provide the type of care you deserve?

This not only tells you you’re going to be taken care of, but causes you consider your goals. You automatically trust this group; you feel safe and cared for even before you meet the healthcare provider. Collaborative. Inclusive. Relational.

I believe a relational approach enables a collaboration in which WE, together, offer ideas that generate outcomes that work for everyone and inspires loyalty and creativity.

While there are arguments to be made for each, I personally find the relational approach more effective, kinder, ethical, successful and more profitable. For those of you who are considering transitioning to a more people-centric style, I’ve got a few ideas. But let me start with personal examples.

HOME DEPOT SUCKS

I recently had to make several home-improvement purchases. Home Depot and Lowe’s are my local choices. Having had negative experiences with Home Depot before, I decided to call them first to see if they might have changed. My first interaction was with the blasted answering ‘voice’ that kept offering me options they wanted me to choose from but I didn’t want. I ended up screaming at ‘him’ as he wasn’t hearing what I needed (Surely, if you’re going to have a machine pick up the phone make it easy for me!). I finally hung up, called back and said ‘Screen Door’ on the 4^th question although ‘he’ kept trying to get a more specific response (I didn’t have one! That’s why I was calling!). Finally the machine said they’d connect me. I was kept on hold for 10 minutes and finally hung up. I had wasted 20 minutes, become frustrated, and never got what I wanted. I guess they didn’t want my business.

When I called Lowe’s, I got a lovely voice message: “How can I help you today?” When I said I wanted information, it said “Sure. Let me find someone to help you!” A difference already: I felt heard (even by a machine!). When the phone didn’t pick up after just a few unanswered rings I got a message that said, “Sorry for the delay. We’re trying to find someone to help you.” I was connected shortly after that. A woman answered (a real person!): “Hi. This is customer service. I’m Susan. How can I help?” then heard my issues and said, “I’m going to put you through to Amanda. She’s my best person and she’ll take good care of you. Otherwise, call me back. I want to make it work for you.” Ah. When I later told my contractor I’d prefer buying from Lowe’s he said: “I was going to ask you if you minded that I use them! They’re great. I hate Home Depot. They don’t care about people.” I wonder how much business Home Depot loses because of their transactional practices.

Home Depot made me into a transaction, a faceless number whose needs had to fit into their assumptions. Lowe’s’ people-centric structure – even their automatic messaging – treated me with respect. So simple to make a customer feel like they matter.

Let’s look at the differences within companies.

TRANSACTIONAL STRUCTURE

Working with a large global client recently we discovered two teams solving the same complex problem separately. One hired a consultant to fix the problem; the other took team members off an important project. I suspect they’ll end up with different outcomes and costs, not to mention put disparate systems into the corporation that other departments would have to manage. What’s the cost of the duplication? And what’s the cost of the differences in solutions over time? Hard to be successful when the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.

Here’s another sad story. A friend of mine was on Google’s leadership team. He returned from his vacation to find his entire team (75 people) had been redeployed, and he was put on a wholly different project. He was furious: what happened to all the work he and his team were creating? Why wasn’t he given notice so he could prepare his folks and tie up loose ends of the long-term project they’d been working on? What was he to do with the calls from old team members, angry and confused as to why the group was disbanded? Transactional. The DOing first at all costs. Literally. Oh. And my friend quit. A smart 10-year veteran who created many of the search apps we all use.

Transactional environments are uncompromising: people quickly learn to make no decisions that go outside the lines, then procrastinate when given a deadline due to leadership’s habit of shifting requirements without warning, oblivious to people’s time or workload.

Transactional management too often sees people as disposable ‘things’, merely cogs in a wheel. It leads to

• a decrease in creativity and problem ownership
• inefficiency
• increased cost
• lost business
• reduced creativity
• minimal cooperation, collaboration, or company-wide coherence
• decreased customer loyalty
• decreased employee loyalty.

With cost, revenue, and time as the criteria, people are left out. Motivation is by rewards and punishment; management controls output via numbers. People aren’t invited to share their creativity and ideas as they’re not part of a solution except as operatives. Yet these same people are responsible for carrying the burden of the errors made by leadership. Customers end up fighting for services that prove unsuccessful or incomplete; service reps are not available when customers need help; customers end up leaving and buying from the relational competitors. There’s no win here.

Thirty years ago I was doing Buying Facilitation® training at Bethlehem Steel. And I know that was a long time ago and Beth Steel is out of business, but this story is worth telling.

There was obviously something wrong:  the participants were tired, complaining, inattentive. I stopped the class to find out what was going on.  Seems they’d been given two months to move house and family, two months to sell their homes and buy new ones (no Zillow or Google then to do research), get their kids enrolled in new schools, arrange for pets, pack up their lives, and move. With so little time, the Reps moved on their own. They bought houses with no family approval; they traveled back and forth for months to help get their houses sold, pack up and move, see their families. They were angry: lots of sick time, breakdowns, lateness. Few quotas were met. One man actually became physiologically blind. Four months in and many still lived on their own or had left behind teenagers with neighbors to complete their school year.

I finally told my client he had to meet with the team, listen to their needs and anger, and apologize. My client at first resisted: “But I gave them $5,000 to move! What’s their problem!?” Note: he finally apologized and they all – grown men (mostly) – cried together. They needed to hear that someone cared. But it cost Beth Steel time, money, and attrition as long-standing members quit. Not to mention months of unhappiness, upended lives, and reduced profits.

RELATIONAL STRUCTURE

When I was hired to train Buying Facilitation® throughout the global California Closets franchises, I spent my first day sitting in prospects’ closets with different designers. I returned to find my client leaning against the wall waiting for me as I exited the elevator. “How can one little woman cause so much disruption in 5 hours? (Note: I merely asked designers: “How will your prospects choose you over the competition?” and otherwise remained a silent observer.) Let’s go figure this out.” We went into the training room where five members of the leadership team and I posed questions, played with ideas, and eventually came up with some solutions that would potentially diminish the disruption of bringing in a wholly different sales model.

Ultimately the franchises adopted my material and changed their routines. One of our new ideas was to publish an in-house ‘zine as a vehicle to create a franchise-wide WE Space to share new ideas and success stories as the new facilitation model was introduced. It went a long way toward global adoption. Disruption was just a hitch to be managed and used as a reason to create new processes. And their profits rose by 26% annually.

Relational management has different objectives and skill sets. With a focus on people it employs a collaborative approach; ideas get generated from representative groups; all outputs are considered from the human angle and take into account needs, feelings, egos, work-life balance, opportunity. The output represents

• happy employees and customers;
• more sales;
• more efficiency;
• more creativity;
• more trust;
• greater shared understanding/clear communication
• more loyalty,
• easier implementations
• more ownership.

Relational management fosters care and respect for both employees and customers. Goals are met efficiently, with less time wastage, fewer resources, less fall out. When I hear doubters say relational leadership ‘takes more time’ I get curious: with all voices included in planning and decision-making, there are fewer problems, quicker resolutions, less attrition, easy buy-in, more creativity and more accurate data from which to make decisions. Seems to me it ultimately saves time. And makes more money.

DIFFERENCES ON A DAILY BASIS

Transactional businesses believe the DOing is of higher value than the BEing without fully understanding the broad implications of what happens when people become numbers.

When working with a transactional company as a consultant, I’ve been left out of important meetings with critical ramifications; had agendas and dates and team members shifted without discussion causing delays and redos; necessary suggestions get overlooked even when the fallout effects their bottom line. Jobs always take longer as everyone must shift gears due to sudden (unreasonable) changes, or to get everyone on the same page. My frustration and stress level is almost as high as the folks I work with as we all deal with the fallout from seemingly erratic decisions. Time, care and suggestions go unnoticed. And I often end up having to deal with getting paid – checks are late, for the wrong amount, await signatures of people on holiday.

The relational companies I’ve worked with take their commitment to people seriously. There are opportunities for learning and taking on greater responsibility; more flexible work hours to account for childcare or eldercare; excitement over new ideas, regardless of the job description of the people who offer them; respect for customers is shown through the entire customer lifecycle, from voice messages to quick problem resolution. As a consultant my time is respected and my ideas appreciated; I get included in decision making and problem resolution. They even pay me on time and with exuberant appreciation. And several have given me ‘Thank You’ gifts! Working with a relational company brings out the very best of me.

It’s obvious that relational management is far superior. I have some thoughts on how to bring transactional companies into the 21^st century.

A STAGED APPROACH TO CREATE A RELATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

Let’s say the leadership team, or maybe one group within the organization, seeks to become relational. What’s a good way to go about it to avoid resistance and manage any disruption?

Changing from transactional to relational is an enormous undertaking:

• the identity and beliefs of the entire company or group must shift from power/force/control/action to collaboration/compassion/trust/respect;
• management must change from top-down control, reward and punishment (win/lose), to mutual decision making, collaboration, and inclusion (win/win);
• client outreach must shift from treating them as numbers to servant leadership (from Home Depot to Lowe’s);
• hiring choices go from results-oriented folks to those seeking to serve.

Obviously it’s not possible to change thinking and leadership styles immediately, but it can be done in stages.

The biggest issue is how to get buy-in for the disruption that will ensue. To encourage ownership, loyalty, idea creation and problem solving, start with a core team – representing all levels of responsibility and job titles – to identify areas of disruption, brainstorm possible goals and resource requirements, and address issues the prevailing transactional process has caused. In other words, this initial group will recognize the problems to be solved, generate ideas for consideration, and begin to lay out possible routes forward for the larger group. And no, the usual leadership team cannot do it as they are the purveyors of the problem.

Here are some ideas to get you started:

1. Build a representative team: It’s vital to assemble a core team that represents all levels of responsibility for each business sector – i.e. sales, finance, marketing, tech, etc. If it’s a large organization, start with a representational group for each sector, then eventually create a core team that represents the full company. Make sure to include front-line workers. These folks carry the direct knowledge of the customer and the folks who carry the corporate identity daily.
2. Set the parameters: Decide on rules: how the meeting will be led, who is responsible for what, frequency of meetings, etc. Consider rotating leadership.
3. Define problem to be solved: Including, but not limited to brainstorming new ideas and gathering data to capture people’s experiences and challenges. Make sure every voice gets heard and included. Check if additional people are needed.
4. Manage disruption: Determine the types of disruption most likely to occur: in what areas, what management levels, and potentially how it would show up. potential differences in employee rules and customer outputs; and sales models and customer contact. Start with a very specific set of agreed-upon steps and stages and brainstorm ideas to manage the disruption and encourage buy-in.
5. Research: Prior to the next meeting, do research on different types of relational approaches to discuss.
6. Formulate approach: Using ideas from the research, cobble together ideas and vote to choose the favorites. Take back to your colleagues to discuss. Take this feedback to the next group meeting.
7. Feedback and approach formulation: Consider feedback from constituents and incorporate feedback into a new approach. Begin to choose action items to formulate approach and assign tasks.

These steps will create a representational, dedicated team to take responsibility for beginning a change initiative. I suggest you follow my 13 Steps of Change process that encourages ideas and commitment from all; provides the foundation for buy-in and continuous improvement; and avoids resistance. I’d be happy to discuss this with any groups seeking to change

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

Sharon Drew Morgen February 17th, 2025

Posted In: News

The Importance of Confusion, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

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

“Hi everyone. I’ll begin with a warning: I use confusion as a teaching tool. Confusion is merely your brain attempting to input new information and not finding circuits to translate it. Stuff you already know goes down familiar circuits and it’s comfortable. Your confusion is merely your brain telling you it has no circuits to translate the new data – and you’re learning! And it makes me SO happy!”

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

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

And everyone laughs together and claps in knowing agreement.

WHY IS CONFUSION DEEMED BAD?

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

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

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

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

Entire fields remain committed to researching within the confines of perceived wisdom, even when they suspect, or know, it’s not working. How does something new enter if confusion, or the ‘unknown’, isn’t considered?

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

LISTENING IS PART OF THE PROBLEM

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

Sound – in this case, words – enter as vibrations, get turned into signals after being filtered by our beliefs, then get dispatched to ‘similar-enough’ existing circuits that were formed from similar – but not the same – words. And any meaning, any vibrations, that don’t match our existing (and comfortable, accepted) circuits, get discarded or resisted.

When I learned this (see my book on the subject – What?), I created a ‘curiosity’ trigger as an override in my brain when I experience resistance or disbelief, and now go straight to confusion instead so I can potentially learn something new.

Sample

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

WE COULD ALL USE A BIT OF CONFUSION

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

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

To allow ourselves to be confused, we’d have to ignore, override or at least hide from view, some of our biases. So rather than guess what your biases are, I’ll pose some questions of you, because I’m sure confused why you’d rather keep doing what you’re doing rather than face confusion and learn, change, and be enriched:

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

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

All you need is some curiosity and the willingness to be confused for a bit of time. You’re worth it, no?

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Sharon-Drew Morgen 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 February 3rd, 2025

Posted In: News

Are Helpers Really Helping? Why clients resist us, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

If you are a therapist or coach, manager or consultant, you’ve been schooled to be a guide, a mentor, to help people find solutions they couldn’t find on their own.

During a recent conversation with a coach who prides himself on Always Being Right! (Clients who don’t heed him are told to go elsewhere.) and wondering who would choose him as their coach, I began thinking about how Helpers go about helping, and why clients often ignore their suggestions.

I believe there’s an ‘accepted practice’ problem here: Helping professionals use questions and ‘active listening’ to ‘understand’ the identified problem. But sometimes standard questions and listening practices can’t trigger the best outcomes.

In my work developing systemic brain change models I’ve discovered that behavior change must originate in the brain. The question is how to get there to instigate the change.

In this article, I’ll provide a much-simplified explanation of how brains cause our choices, explain where conventional skills fall short, and introduce you to new skills that can facilitate permanent change without resistance.

BEYOND THE BRAIN

Currently we rely on questions to help us understand a problem and then assume our clients accurately hear what we’re trying to tell them. Unfortunately, this is where the problems begin:

• the way our brains ‘listen’ is biased by our history, regardless of what’s been said. In fact, through no fault of our own, it’s quite possible neither client or Helper hear each other accurately.
• conventional questions themselves are biased by the goals, verbiage, intent, of the Helper and may not uncover accurate data, causing Clients to sometimes offer unhelpful answers.

I’ll begin with the ‘big picture’ and explain how our brains cause us to do what we do.

Simply, our brain is an enormous motherboard that captures and mechanically organizes the data from our lives, stores it in circuits, and uses our mental models and history as the foundation from which to act.

Each of us operates from historic, unconscious, and unique neural configurations, stored as memory in 86 billion brain neurons that hold our history, our ideas, our values and from which our decisions and behaviors arise.

Obviously, we each think and act uniquely. Obviously, no one else has access to our brain circuitry; no one else has our life story or history; no one else can ‘get in there’.

Technically, change occurs when brain components get reconfigured or new ones get formed. Behavior change is a brain issue and part of a system. It’s not a stand-alone process, but the final element of a string of connections triggered by our brain. When we attempt to merely change the final element, there’s no process to maintain it.

HOW BRAINS STORE INFORMATION

I’ve spent decades unpacking how brains are organized and have developed several facilitation models that enable real choice (See How?), models that make it possible for Helpers to enable clients locate the neural circuits that initiated their problem and, by triggering and generating new synapses, reconfigure them.

Sample

And herein lie the problem Helpers face now: standard questions and usual listening practices steer the Other to where the Helper, using their own unconscious assumptions and curiosity thinks the answers should be and possibly miss where actual answers reside.

Once I realized this I began researching how brains prompt our actions and eventually, after decades of study and research, developed questioning and listening models that make it possible to get directly into the neural circuits and use brain change as their foundation. I also discarded my role as a Helper and became a Decision Facilitator, to facilitate Others to their own circuits easily develop new behaviors with no resistance.

WHAT IS CHANGE? NO, REALLY?

Change is systemic, not as simple as merely doing something different. Since behaviors are outputs from instructions sent by existing circuits, new behaviors need new neural circuits to send out new instructions for new outputs. Too often, Helpers merely try to change behaviors without changing where in the brain the new instructions will come from.

You see, any change request represents a difference, a threat to the existing system and as such, will cause resistance unless it’s been accepted first. This is the problem with noted change management models – they merely attempt behavior change without generating new neural circuits for the change, or without ensuring the values, beliefs, and mental models of the existing system align with the new and put the system at risk.

It’s like trying to get a backward moving robot to move forward by explaining, questioning, and showing videos; the robot must be reprogrammed. Without taking this into account, by trying to change a behavior by trying to change a behavior without changing the neural circuits, people will resist, or not maintain, the change.

QUESTIONS AND LISTENING

Here are the reasons people have difficulty finding internal answers and making decisions.

Brains: The time it takes to figure out all the criteria needed to make a decision is the time it takes to act on it. No, they’re not dragging their feet; they’re trying to change congruently.

See, the brain’s 86 billion neurons are stored and labeled in ways that may be difficult to consciously access. In fact, words or ideas even enter brains as meaningless sound vibrations (Neuroscience actually calls words ‘puffs of air.’) which ultimately get turned into the signals that then get translated into meaning.

Let me explain the brain stuff that goes on. Hang in with me as it explains why we mishear and misunderstand.

To begin with, our brain doesn’t accept spoken words accurately, as intended. It takes the sound vibrations, turns them into signals, and then finds existing ‘similar enough’ (historic, biased) circuits to translate the signals into meaning – a very inexact process.

To make the process fast (It takes five one hundredths of a second for the entire process.) our brain chooses the quickest route to translation circuits, almost always an oft-used superhighway that may only have a tangential connection to the original meaning and intent. In other words: all incoming words get translated without any regard to accuracy!

Most of us aren’t aware that our thoughts, realizations, understandings, are merely versions of what our brains have already translated for us.

Unfortunately, questions meant to ‘gather data’, are restricted by the Helper’s assumptions. Sometimes Others uncover the exact data we need in order to help them. But sometimes our questions direct the client’s brain to an unhelpful answer, and something more valuable remains unretrieved.

To help Others find precisely where the necessary data is stored, Helpers must have NO assumptions, NO biases, and NO belief that we have anyone’s answers. All we need is to send Others to the right circuits where their answers are stored. And for this, conventional skills don’t work. If you want to better understand exactly what goes on, read my new book How?

Listening: Given we all have a ‘brain circuit translation’ problem making it near impossible for anyone to listen without bias regardless of how well they ‘listen’.

To avoid biases and misinterpretations, to help Others discover where their answers are stored, Helpers must listen differently and don’t assume they ‘understand’ what’s been said. I actually developed a process called Listening for Systems, which bypasses our assumptions and hears what’s intended.

If you’d like to learn more I wrote a book on the subject: What? Did you really say what I think I heard?.

Sample

Questions: This one is the most uncomfortable for Helpers. Conventional questions are formulated to elicit data as per the needs, intent, languaging, curiosity of the Asker.

To this end, I spent 10 years inventing a new form of question (Facilitative Question) that foregoes data gathering per se and instead leads Others to the brain circuits and memory channels to precisely where the appropriate data is stored. If you go to my site I explain how I invented them and provide descriptions and articles.

By posing unbiased, systemic questions that lead brains to appropriate circuits, by listening without assumptions, by trusting everyone has their own answers, we can truly serve Others beyond any natural biases we might have.

The new job of Helpers is to begin with the assumption that clients may actually have perfectly good answers stored in some place where their brain isn’t looking.

HELPERS AREN’T HELPING

Unfortunately, these skills are not taught in coaching schools or MBA programs which continue to teach to ‘be aware’, be ‘open minded’, take a ‘different perspective’, do ‘active listening’, ask ‘probing’ questions to ‘give the Helper the information’ they need to ‘help’. But as you now know, neither standard questions or conventional listening will always collect accurate information.

When Helpers try to have answers for Others, our track record is spotty: clients use some of our suggestions and ignore others because they may not have gotten to the core (and unconscious) factors that caused the problem to begin with.

And because our advice ultimately brings Others up against their own inabilities, they push the Helper away regardless of the length or success of the relationship. Inadvertently, because no other way has been developed to professionally help Others, we infantilize our clients.

I know that most coaches, leaders, managers, and Helpers truly want to serve Others. Please consider shifting your goal and learn new tools. I’m happy to help. I’ve developed new skills for Helpers (coaches, sellers, managers, healthcare providers, therapists) to enable folks to discover and create their own answers while reducing the power imbalance and bias, as well as learning tools to teach you how to listen without bias and pose Facilitative Questions. Please contact me in case you’re interested in learning how to do this, and we can all Help as true Servant Leaders. sharondrew@sharondrewmorgen.com

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Sharon-Drew Morgen is a breakthrough innovator and original thinker, having developed new paradigms in sales (inventor Buying Facilitation®, listening/communication (What? Did you really say what I think I heard?), change management (The How of Change™), coaching, and leadership. She is the author of several books, including 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 January 24th, 2025

Posted In: News

Change Facilitation™, by Sharon-Drew Morgen

The CEO of a midsized company recently called me after reading my article on avoiding resistance during a change initiative. He said ‘resistance management’ was built into all their projects due to its prevalence. Curious, I asked him to send me a typical project flow chart. The problem was obvious: ‘people implementation’ was #6.

Resistance management has become standard in change management initiatives. Indeed resistance is so common that hundreds, if not thousands, of books, articles and programs (including a department in Harvard) are dedicated to managing it.

But resistance is only triggered when two necessary elements are overlooked:

People: Too often change management processes are led, designed, and organized by a few ‘leaders’ who tend to overlook some of the folks further down the food chain. It’s necessary to put people #1 to include their voices, unique and vital information, ideas, needs, and early buy-in of everyone who is either part of the problem or who will be part of the solution.

Systems: Any change must include not only behavior changes, but amendments to the underlying system – the rules, beliefs, assumptions, practices, expectations, and norms that have held the status quo in place.

By overlooking people and systems, and with a focus limited to changing behaviors, resistance is a typical output as the cost, the risk, of change is unknown. With a shift in thinking it’s possible to prevent resistance entirely. In this essay I’ll provide thinking on how to accomplish this.

WHAT IS CHANGE?

Theoretically, we’re delighted to change, to realize our best selves, solve a problem, find better solutions and learn new things. But unless the risk of the proposed change is known, understood, and managed; unless the stability, beliefs and norms of the system are maintained, the system will resist change.

Change is an alteration to a system (defined as a set of beliefs and rules that are agreed to by people (or things) included) and entails modifying an existing structure that has been working well-enough for some time, accepted by all, and habituated into the daily norms.

Current change management models focus on changing the problematic behaviors/activity but ignore addressing the norms and beliefs that have created and maintain the system. Without simultaneously managing or shifting the hidden systems issues that have been keeping the defined problem in place, the system faces an unknown risk and will resist.

Before agreeing to change, the system must know:

• 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 from the customer side?
• What must be relearned and in what time frame?
• What if the new doesn’t represent the output needed by those most affected?

Without answers to questions like these, change becomes a threat and folks will resist doing anything different. Below I discuss a route to determining risk and generating buy-in.

THE STEPS OF CHANGE

There are actually 13 steps that all change takes, most of which occur before a problem can be accurately diagnosed or the goal defined. By enlisting these in your change management processes, you’ll have a good chance to avoid resistance.

Sample

Note: While seemingly a book on helping buyers buy, Dirty Little Secrets is about the 13 steps of change/decision making.

Here are the main categories involved:

1.   Where are you? What’s missing?
The full problem set can be understood only when everyone who touches the existing problem and will be involved with the new solution are assembled to share their thoughts. How did the problem occur? How has it been maintained over time? What systems, rules, relationships, job descriptions are maintained per the existing circumstances? How would they change as a result of doing things differently? What might the fallout be?

Without knowing this, it’s impossible to get an accurate understanding of the full data set involved or set an precise goal. When leaders and senior managers propose goals for a project without including input from these folks or without recognizing the possible risks the change might trigger, it’s a certainty that time delays, inadequate results, lack of buy-in and resistance are sure to follow.

Too often leadership develops a change project without appropriate input, working only from their unique perspective. Unfortunately, I hear the same thing repeatedly: “Leadership knows the full problem set. They don’t need to call in front-line workers. They’re smart enough to figure it out for themselves.” This assumption is responsible for a cascading array of follow-on problems.
2. How can the system fix the problem with available resources?

Change doesn’t happen unless the system itself recognizes an incongruence. And unless available resources are disqualified, anything new will be questioned. The questions to be answered are:

• • • • What has prevented this problem from being resolved already?
      • What is keeping this problem in place? (rules, jobs, outputs)
      • Is there anything we already have that might solve our problem if used differently? Any known consultants? Apps?

3.   Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a great way to discover everything and include everyone. For large companies it’s possible to assign representative work teams that bring back the ideas to a main (and representative!) team. Note: it’s vital that everyone’s ideas get included as each job role will have different needs and ideas. Generally, leaders don’t have day-to-day contact with customers and cannot know the full set of issues that must be included in any change initiative.

Brainstorming should include:

• • • • The foundational beliefs/values to work from
      • Random ideas for solutions from each department/working group
      • Managing the elements holding the old in place and what would change if it’s altered
      • What are the risks to making a change? To not making a change? Is the risk of change more/less than maintaining the status quo?
      • Possible solutions (to include workarounds)
        • The risks of each
        • The danger signs that indicate upcoming problems

 4.   Managing risk
The risk of change must be equal to or lower than the risk of status quo.

Change can’t proceed successfully unless the risk of change is understood and approved by all. During brainstorming, it’s vital that possible risks get discussed, and the signs of possible failure be understood and managed beforehand.

There are several types of risks involved in change projects:

• • • When folks are left out, there’s incomplete data to work from and goal-setting might be flawed and folks who touch customers might not buy-in. Obviously this is a risk to the company, the customers, and revenue.
    • The risks each group face from a change must be understood and accounted for before the project goals are set.
    • When the core beliefs and values of the company or team are omitted from the identified outcome, people will resist and feel at risk.

It’s only when

a.  everyone who is involved with the problem and will touch the solution,
b.  the core beliefs and values are agreed-upon by all involved at the start as the foundation of the change,
c.   the risks are understood and steps are in place to manage them,
d.  the Group chooses the specific goals to be met and what specifically an outcome must include

that it’s possible to avoid resistance.

I suggest it’s possible to manage change in a way that encourages buy-in and avoids resistance, garners the full data set with which to set goals and expectations, conclude with a new behavior/belief outcome that can be maintained through time.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Change is a multi-faceted endeavor that needs to include both behavior, belief, and systems changes:

• • • To lead folks think to think and act differently takes belief change and buy-in.
    • To clarify the intent of a change requires unbiased questions (I’ve invented a wholly new form of question called Facilitative Questions™ that avoids bias entirely).
    • To engage people to feel safe enough to act in new ways takes inclusion and being heard.
    • To collaborate, organize, build new teams, set goals, and manage takes new leadership skills that involve ‘soft’ skills.
    • To align stakeholders and design solutions takes collaboration.

While many models claim to do the above, our current tools don’t teach how to accomplish it. My book HOW? not only lays out the steps but teaches Faciltative Questions that facilitate core decision making with no bias; a new form of listening that hears accurately; and the full compliment of the steps of change.

• Sample

As a good starting point, I suggest the following be the core framework:

Our goal is to have/do _______ to alleviate/fix _______ and will include ______ group/departments to help us define the problem and generate a solution design. We understand that any change must include these underlying beliefs, norms, and rules: ________. We understand that the risks of not including these are _______; the danger signs we’ll experience if we’ve left anything important out include _______ that we will address by _______.

If you would like to develop a change management process for your team, or get help with an initiative triggering resistance, call me to discuss: 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 January 13th, 2025

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